Automate: Bombard

[Maimonides]

Does anyone use the Automate: Bombard action for artillery units? If so, when do you use it?

I've never used it & can't figure out what good it would do.

 

[vmxa]

I used it a few times. One was a choke town and the nation that wanted to get to me had sent hundreds of infantry to attack. I blocked them with armies and used stacks of artillery to auto bombard them.

I used a similar tactic in few other times where lots of units were blocked trying to get to a town and I had some artillery (10-20) and just let them work on the stacks. I would have to adjust from time to time as stacks of units moved or were killed.

I would use units in the town or in the blockers to kill some, once they were all red in a given stack.

Not that many times, when you consider all the games played.

 

[Theryman]

I did once, because I had the artillery by the city I wanted to take, but the main army had not yet arrived. However, after a couple turns the artillery had redlined all the defenders and started to destroy the citizens and improvements. I wanted those citizens! So I never used it again.

 

[Maimonides]

I used it a few times. One was a choke town and the nation that wanted to get to me had sent hundreds of infantry to attack. I blocked them with armies and used stacks of artillery to auto bombard them.

I used a similar tactic in few other times where lots of units were blocked trying to get to a town and I had some artillery (10-20) and just let them work on the stacks. I would have to adjust from time to time as stacks of units moved or were killed.

I would use units in the town or in the blockers to kill some, once they were all red in a given stack.

Not that many times, when you consider all the games played.

That makes sense. I hadn't thought of it. So it's useful when you have an enemy SOD trapped in the open-saves time hitting "B" & clicking on the target. The only problem I see there is that terrain improvements will be destroyed when the enemy is all red-lined.

I certainly wouldn't use it when besieging a city as Theryman points out:

I did once, because I had the artillery by the city I wanted to take, but the main army had not yet arrived. However, after a couple turns the artillery had redlined all the defenders and started to destroy the citizens and improvements. I wanted those citizens! So I never used it again.

So is there ANY reason to use this unit action other than on enemy SODs trapped in the open?

 

[Theryman]

Well, if you are going to raze the city anyways and already have plenty of slaves, it will surely delay carpal tunnel by another year or two, depending on how many artillery you have.

 

[vmxa]

Yes you would not do it to a town, if you want it. That is seldom a consideration for me as I will not be able to hold town in most of my games. Most of the time I will stop the auto bombardment, before they blow up the tile improvements.

 

[Turner]

I use it in RnR, for bombers at least, because when you have two movement points for a bomber you get two bombings per plane when automated. A bug I'm sure.

And if there's a lot of defenders, then I'll sometimes automate a stack of arty. Depends on my mood.

 

[Maimonides]

Thanks for the answers, folks!

Based on the answers so far, I doubt I'll ever use this unit action.

To recap, the Automate: Bombard unit action is used to:

1. Save time using artillery or bombers on enemy SODs trapped in the open IF you don't mind that the terrain improvements may be destroyed.

2. Save time using artillery or bombers on the defenders of an enemy city IF you intend to raze it because Improvements & population may be destroyed.

3. Get multiple bombing runs per bomber per turn in a mod that has bombers with multiple movement points.

Anything else?

 

[ChaosArbiter]

I've used it in AoI when I know I don't have enough Artillery to redline every unit in the city (for example, attacking enemy capitals when they have the Military Academy) while using high Attack or Corps units to 'snipe' one or two units per round. Usually only goes for 2-3 turns, but it depends on the Artillery you use. Also, considering the number of Culture-generating improvements in the AI cities, if you don't keep it up too long you're pretty likely to hit a building that would be destroyed anyway.

 

[Donny Brook]

Let's not forget that as of C3C, you can destroy wonders via bombardment which may be a catastrophe. That was never a consideration in vanilla or PTW as it wasn't possible.

 

[vmxa]

Actually it is not part of C3C either, it is only a bug that is tied to the Great Wall.