Artillery Units in Civ 4.

[Angmar]

I just picked up Civ4 Over this weekend and have been chewing through my first game. I am doing fairly well in my current game, but my first major war that I waged did not turn out anywhere near as well I had hoped.

In Civ3, I was a huge fan of the Indirect Fire weapons and the bombard ability. In this most recent game, I was gearing up for war as I discovered the ability to make catapults. Stocking up on Catapults, Swordsmen and a few Spearmen I went across the border into Chinese territory. I got the my stack next to his first city, I hit bombard and I then realized things had changed. My catapults flattened his defenses but did not seem to do any damage to the units. During the war I found myself actually attacking with my catapults and losing a great number of them vs the archers in the cities. My catapults were hurting other defenders when they were attacking but I only really found them to be effective units when I was going after his last city where he had a large number of units collected.

How has indirect fire changed in Civ4? Do I really have to send my Catapults into attack to do damage to units? How about in the future do Artillery units really have to walk up and get involve in a melee battle? I remember sitting these guys up on a hill two tiles away and flattening Capitals in Civ3.

Any hints or tricks on how to use these guys would be greatly appreciated .. those Persians are going to have have a few cities pruned shortly

 

[Mon Mauler]

It sounds like you used artillery fairly effectively.

Civ4 is definitely different than Civ3 in terms of artillery. I should warn you that I really like the new system. I think it is much more balanced than the previous versions of Civ.

Basically, to use artillery, you want to use the bombard function (Crosshairs in the action list) to lower the city defence bonus to 0% (or close to 0%). The city defence bonus is listed near the city. Bombard can only be done if the bombarding unit is in a tile adjacent to the city.

After bombarding the city down to 0% defence bonus, you will want to use the artillery units to actually attack the units in the city. When artillery units attack units in a stack, all of the units in the stack can be damaged. Civ4 refers to this as collateral damage. You WILL lose artillery units when they attack. Just make sure to keep producing them and sending them up to your invasion force. They are relatively cheap to offset the high number of losses they incur. I should also mention that you will not always lose artillery units if you attack with them. It is possible for artillery units to win an engagement. Furthermore, even without promotions, artillery units have either a 10% or 25% (I can't remember which) chance to withdraw from combat if they are losing.

Also, remember that sea units such as Frigate, Destroyer, Battleship can also bombard coastal cities, but cannot attack the units in the city.

All in all, I love the artillery system in Civ4.

 

[Fanatic Demon]

It apprear the engine no longer supports any Bombardment range and Bombardent attack value we got used to in Civ3. It's a real sham I think since it effectivly kills stratagy. Bombardment is currently only effective desroying City wall, which is realistic bit a bit limited. I guess the designers dicided not to implement unit bombardent to make life for the AI easier. That's because bombarded is a quate complex concept, which was never well implemented. I guess we have to wait till Civ5 comes out in 2010

 

[Mon Mauler]

To attack a heavily fortified city (defence bonus > 60%) I prefer to bring at least 3 artillery units. Even then it will take about 3 turns to bombard the city down to 0% defence. The more you bring the better.

Also remember to escort your artillery units with stronger units.

 

[kurdi]

I used to love Artillery in Civ3 too, and was surprised to see that it had changed. Although I like combat in Civ4 I must admit that I was a little disappointed.

You can no longer capture enemy artillery, and although you could use Artillery in Civ3 to bombard ships from the coast, that is no longer the case in Civ4. For that you need planes or other ships.

At least the change in how artillery/cannons/catapults behave in Civ4 has made planes more relevant.

 

[Mon Mauler]

As I said before, I really like how artillery has been done in Civ4. In Civ3, artillery was very overpowered. Most of my games, I just created a Horse/Catapult stack at the beginning of the game and used it to take out a neighboring civ. If that Civ had some cats, I could reasonably bring my initial outlay of 6-9 cats up to 9-12 cats with no problem. Then, from that initial set, I could simply upgrade and capture through modern times, and I finished plenty of games with about 50 artillery units, virtually all of them captured. There was basically no reason to ever create new artillery units.

Also, it made battle less interesting. It was the same process every time. Use huge artillery stack to bombard units in city down redline, attack, capture city, move on, repeat.

This system involves significantly more strategy in that it forces you to make the decision whether to assault with your artillery and risk losing it, or attack with your other units before the defenders are completely softened up.

 

[Gufnork]

You will actually receive a civ 3 version of artillery when you discover Flight. Bombers can cause collateral damage on enemy units without taking damage themselves. There is a chance that any enemy Fighters or SAM infantry intercepts and damages or destroys your bomber, but if the enemy doesn't have those yet they're toast.

I actually prefer the new system as well, this way you get more strategy. In civ 3 you just brought tons of artillery and bombed any opponents until they were weak enough to capture. Now you have to consider the cost of doing it.

 

[fxer]

It apprear the engine no longer supports any Bombardment range and Bombardent attack value we got used to in Civ3.

Bombardment attack value has become Collateral damage

Now you can either bombard a city with artillery, or attack with the artillery and cause collateral damage (with the proper promotions), but not both. It seems Firaxis has simply stopped artillery from getting 2 attacks for the price of 1 as in Civ3 (fortification damage from bombard, and collateral unit damage at the same time).

 

[vyapti]

Civ3 cats were fersome. In addition to the things sited above, they would decimate a navy. With a few artillery, you can redline a battleship and his transports and mop up with subs. An inexpensive navy could keep naval bombardments to a minimum and make war across the sea nearly impossible.

Although I loved civ3 artillery, it had to be changed. They were a permanent, indestructible weapon that the AI couldn't use effectively.

 

[automator]

Bombardment is currently only effective desroying City wall, which is realistic bit a bit limited

Not quite. Bombardment can take away defense bonuses for city wall as well as "cultural" bonus. I've seen a city with an 80% defense bonus brought down to a 0% bonus. That can make a HUGE difference in an attack. Think about a 15 power attacker v. a 10 power defender; if the defender is well fortified they already have a 25% bonus. Ignoring an promotions or innate bonuses, if the city was giving an additional 80% bonus, you'd lose a LOT of units in the attack, because they'd effectively be more powerful than your unit. Bombard down to a 0% city defense and you've got them over-powered.

I haven't attacked with bombardment units yet, since I don't know how they deal.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The "suicide" aspect of artillery units may seem a bit surreal, but if it makes you feel better, think of the need to replace them as producing new ammo for them. When you think of it, the Civ3 system was bizarre; once built, an artillery unit could spew death for centuries without requiring any extra resources.