blitz/bombard bug in editor/game logic?

[fingerbiter]

Hi all!

I think I found a bug in the editor / game logic (I hope this is the right forum to report this and that it hasn't already been reported).

I wanted modern naval combat to be more realistic, so I modified the movement, attack, defense, bombard, and [bombard] rate of fire for all of the modern units. I also turned on lethal bombardment (sea and/or land) and the blitz flag. My theory was that modern warships should be able to attack multiple times per turn (either directly or via bombardment) and move significant distances.

Here's the changes I made to the Battleship (some may not be changes, I don't have the original values handy).

# Movement: 8
# Attack: 18
# Defense: 12
# Bombard: 20
# Bombard range: 2
# Rate of fire: 2

#Blitz enabled
#Lethal sea bombard enabled
#Lethal land bombard enabled
#Zone of control enabled

While testing my changes out I found that a battleship could bombard for every movement point that it had remaining (instead of being limited to 2 like I wanted). In addition, since I had Magellan's Expedition the unit actually has 9 bombard actions.

Does this mean that the Blitz flag overrides the Rate of Fire flag (which is supposed to control the number of times a unit can bombard)?

I really think its fairly realistic that modern warships should be able to attack and bombard multiple times per turn (performing both attack and bombard in the same turn), but I want to limit the bombardment rate so that a battleship (or any other unit) doesn't become a super weapon.

Obviously, the changes I've made make the unit very unbalancing (in my test game 6 battleships were able to completely eliminate the German infantry stacks defending 4 12 pop cities in 1 turn - roughly 20 units). Of course, one could argue that the Germans could do the same to be, except that I was the only one in the game with the tech to build battleships (I play "easy" games because, while I've played Civ/SMAC style games since Civ I came out, I still suck at the game and I've never even come close to winning on Reagent).

My bic file is attached. I can also provide my current save game if anyone wants to test this out.

 

[etj4Eagle]

Nope there is no bug here, just a misunderstanding of how things work.

As you noticed, the blitz ability allows a unit to attack for every movement point that it has remaining.

The ROF refers not to the number of times a unit is allowed to bombard, but to how many "die rolls" it gets each time it does bombard. With a ROF of 2, when the battleship bombards its rolls the "dice" twice. This means that against another combat unit it can take off 0,1,2 hit points depending on the results of the die rolls.

If you plan on turning on the blitz ability, it would probably be a good idea to set the ROF to 1.

 

[sumthinelse]

Go to the unit page, bring up the HELP menu and put the cursor over Blitz. It is defined as "may attack once per movement point." Attacks are something you control. For example, you attack once with a tank, and then move it again to attack again. You can attack 2 different targets.

Rate of Fire is different. The definition of Rate of Fire in the help screen is misleading. It's not "the number of times a unit can attack." It should say something like, "every time it attacks it really shoots this many times", so a rate of fire of 2 should make the attack 2X stronger, and if there are multiple units on the square you are bombarding it should bombard 2 of them. But if something has a Rate of Fire of 2 you can't attack one target and then switch to a different one on a different square....

 

[fingerbiter]

Thanks for clearing that up! I obviously misunderstood the Rate of Fire setting.

So, is there a known way to limit the number of bombard attacks?

If not, maybe Firaxis could add that setting in either the new editor or the expansion pack (this would allow ships to have many moves but a more limited number of attacks/bombards).

 

[alpha wolf 64]

I got around this issue by giving all modern ships the "all terrain as roads" flag. My roads are worth 1/4 so a ship with movement of 2 can move 8 tiles but can only attack/bombard a max of twice.

 

[damunzy]

Good adjustment alpha wolf 64.

 

[Grey Fox]

I agree with PH.