Artillery, uh, is there a hidden button?

[JOHNMAN]

I really need some help, I can't figure out how to make Artillery?

Does anyone know if it's possible to even make artillery?

I obviously should be, the civ-encyclopedia lists both cannons and then artillery, cannons should upgrade to artillery, I have a town with the needed buildings but no button or option to make or upgrade to artillery?

I looked through the forum and can't see if anyone has posted a similiar topic...

Thanks in advance...
(I registered to day to ask this question but I have been coming to civfanatics for years...great site.)

Johnman

 

[Lord Shadow]

You can't build Artillery, Man o' Wars nor Regulars, since they're the King's unit types.

Cannons, Ships of the Line, Soldiers and Veteran Soldiers are the colonial counterparts.

 

[TFVanguard]

You can't build Artillery, Man o' Wars nor Regulars, since they're the King's unit types.

Cannons, Ships of the Line, Soldiers and Veteran Soldiers are the colonial counterparts.

The confusion here is that the Colopedia and the tutorials all say you can build artillery with the Arsenal.. but you currently can't. (You can build cannon). I'm not sure if artillery would help the players (since it's largely an offensive thing), but I'm looking at how to add it 'back' tonight, since it was in Col1.

 

[Lord Shadow]

Yeah, the Civilopedia's pretty confusing, with all the mess between the Units and Professions categories (among other things). You'll notice Artillery's a unique unit of the Dutch/English/French/Spanish Empires, which are the kings, not their respective colonies.

Artillery existed in the original Col, yes, but remember that it was the same for both sides. It was the only unit you and the King had in common.

 

[Onionsoilder]

You can't get Artillery. Cannons are the best you can get. You don't really need Artillery(Or Regulars) since, the only advantage they have over your units is an additional 50% city attack, and you shouldn't be fighting in cities anyway.

Man-O-Wars, however, are VASTLY superior to any unit you can make. It is pointless to make any warships at all, because they are nigh useless in the WoI.

 

[JOHNMAN]

Thanks, it was my assumption that you couldn't but THERE IS NOTHING to be said of this in the pedia docs (and even the docs for arsenal, armoury etc.)

I mean if you at the description for these buildings it says

<> Required to train Cannon, Artillery

???

Why would they put that on all three buildings... and also for cannon it states it upgrades to artillery. If you look at artillery it states it is an upgrade for the cannon.

Can we more likley assume that they should upgrade and be made and this was a mistake?

 

[Lord Shadow]

Man-O-Wars, however, are VASTLY superior to any unit you can make. It is pointless to make any warships at all, because they are nigh useless in the WoI.

Are they? With full rebel sentiment bonuses (+50%), Ships of the Line are equal to Man o' Wars, at 12 vs. 12. And if you're playing below Explorer level (which I guess is Col's Noble), you'll have an extra bonus, which will actually make your SOLs superior to the King's warships.

And if you're using Bolívar, besides difficulty bonuses, your Ships of the Line should be clearly superior to MoWs, at 16 strength, thanks to the +100% rebel sentiment bonus.

 

[TFVanguard]

And if you're using Bolívar, besides difficulty bonuses, your Ships of the Line should be clearly superior to MoWs, at 16 strength, thanks to the +100% rebel sentiment bonus.

But even if you do manage to get all of that together (which is NOT easy, by any stretch of the imagination), you'll likely have about 6, at most, SoLs to play with.. and the REF could be anywhere between 4 (assuming he never builds another, which is currently possible) and about 100... so...

 

[JOHNMAN]

You can't get Artillery. Cannons are the best you can get. You don't really need Artillery(Or Regulars) since, the only advantage they have over your units is an additional 50% city attack, and you shouldn't be fighting in cities anyway.

Man-O-Wars, however, are VASTLY superior to any unit you can make. It is pointless to make any warships at all, because they are nigh useless in the WoI.

I have to disagree, I'm alt-tabbing right now from in-game and reading every in the pedia files and everything points toward the idea that you CAN build artillery.

Additionally, there is a good reason to upgrade or build them, I currently have 9 cannons....if I could upgrade them to artillery they would be 25% more effective. If money was the issue I have enough to upgrade.

Reason I'm pushing this is I'm just about to go to was with ol' Kind Eddy and I could use some more OOOMMPH!

Johnman

 

[Blackadar]

I have to disagree, I'm alt-tabbing right now from in-game and reading every in the pedia files and everything points toward the idea that you CAN build artillery.

Additionally, there is a good reason to upgrade or build them, I currently have 9 cannons....if I could upgrade them to artillery they would be 25% more effective. If money was the issue I have enough to upgrade.

Reason I'm pushing this is I'm just about to go to was with ol' Kind Eddy and I could use some more OOOMMPH!

Johnman

Chalk it up as another broken game mechanic...one that will probably be patched eventually.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I withdraw my previous comment. Apparently rebel sentiment bonuses only apply when defending your settlements. Also, it'd seem low difficulties don't give bonuses in combat at all, unlike in Civ4.

And Johnman, really, you can't build Artillery. You're not meant to. It's not a bug nor broken feature. The unit's stronger because the King's troops are supposed to be better trained than most of yours.

TFV, they come in waves, if I remember correctly, so even if you can't destroy them all (which you definitely won't if you go overboard with liberty bells and bloat the REF like that), you should be able to destroy enough to considerably undermine the land forces.

 

[Blackadar]

And Johnman, really, you can't build Artillery. You're not meant to. It's not a bug nor broken feature. .

Well, the tooltip says you can, so it's a broken feature...either the tooltip or the build queue is busted. It's not game-changing and it pretty minor in the scheme of things. But it threw me off too in my first game...

 

[TFVanguard]

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a QUICK way to get both artillery and cannon for a colonial power, since they both fill the same 'military' slot. No idea how to get around this one without creating a whole new slot, and redoing most of the game scripts.

 

[Lord Shadow]

If you're trying to make Artillery available to colonial powers, it has nothing to do with balance nor anything. You're not fixing stuff because it's not broken in that regard. It's working as designed.

And Blackadar, the tooltip's probably what's incorrect: it shouldn't have requirements on it, given it'd confuse people, like it in fact did.

 

[Blackadar]

If you're trying to make Artillery available to colonial powers, it has nothing to do with balance nor anything. You're not fixing stuff because it's not broken in that regard. It's working as designed.

And Blackadar, the tooltip's probably what's incorrect: it shouldn't have requirements on it, given it'd confuse people, like it in fact did.

Yep. Again, it's not a big deal, just confusing for the new user.

 

[TFVanguard]

If you're trying to make Artillery available to colonial powers, it has nothing to do with balance nor anything. You're not fixing stuff because it's not broken in that regard. It's working as designed.

Well, yes and no. I think the original design was that they were an 'upgradable unit', if you had the Arsenal, but this was scrapped. I wasn't approaching it from a 'balance' standpoint, but merely as "Well, it was in Col1, so let's see if it works."

 

[Lord Shadow]

More than 'original design', I think the lazy programmer in charge just copy-pasted the Cannon entry and altered a couple of values (strength and bonus against settlements) to create the Artillery unit.

 

[JOHNMAN]

I withdraw my previous comment. Apparently rebel sentiment bonuses only apply when defending your settlements. Also, it'd seem low difficulties don't give bonuses in combat at all, unlike in Civ4.

And Johnman, really, you can't build Artillery. You're not meant to. It's not a bug nor broken feature. The unit's stronger because the King's troops are supposed to be better trained than most of yours.

TFV, they come in waves, if I remember correctly, so even if you can't destroy them all (which you definitely won't if you go overboard with liberty bells and bloat the REF like that), you should be able to destroy enough to considerably undermine the land forces.

Hey I'm not trying to argue, I'm just stating that the pedia files say you can, so it's not an ISSUE of confusion. Whether it's broken, or not possible to even do is trilvial in my opinion to the lack of communication that must have happened between the design team and the spaceman doing the pedia files. It doesn't mention that you can make the cannons once it lists it numerous numerous times, not just the pedia file but also descriptions of the mosueover for the buildings and etc.

I don't know you Lord Shadow, maybe you were a tester and you have more insight than I know. I played the first Colonization too but don't remember it well, it's really redundant what was in the original and what is in this new Colonization though.

It's my thoughts that the person who did the pedia file was on crack or they messed up and might add the ability for us to upgrade to artillery later with a patch.

Thanks all the same for answering, maybe there will be amod with artillery also.

Johnman

 

[Lord Shadow]

I'm no tester, I didn't mean to imply I was. Here are my reasons to strongly believe the Artillery unit was never meant to be in colonial hands:

- It's coded as part of the King's forces and solidly integrated to the REF and related screens by default.
- It's stronger than the Cannon in the same way Regulars are stronger than both normal and veteran colonial soldiers, reflecting the concept that the King's forces are supposedly better trained than yours.
- The game doesn't have a Civ4-like concept of upgrading units except maybe in the ships' case, but even then every vessel has its individual purpose. On land, better variants of normal units are handled by professions.
- It costs exactly the same as the Cannon, which puts in evidence the fact half the tooltip's a big mistake. If it were supposed to be buildable by the player, it'd be more expensive.
- Both the unit's icon and model show a royal regular manning the gun, instead of the veteran soldier seen in the Cannon's graphics. This is perhaps the strongest indication of the Artillery's nature.

 

[TFVanguard]

Doesn't really matter. The point is that the tooltips and colopedia each say that you CAN build artillery - and you could also build it in Col1 and ColWin. It's not unreasonable for someone to assume that they can in Civ4Col as well, given that everything in the game TELLS them they can, except that there's just no option to do so.