Bombardment issue

[dominox]

Bombardment sucks bigtime, but I'm surprised that so many use air bombardment.
Seriously, bombers must be the worst investment ever.
1: They are expensive
2: They are weak. Rarely do the damage you want them to.
3: You need LOTS of them or LONG bombardment to really make any significant damage to a city.
4: They die EASY.

If you have 6 bombers bombing a city with 1-2 fighters in the vincinity, I wont be surprised if you loose all your bombers before they are able to inflict the intended damage. You will allso have lost several turns which you could have used not only to take out this city, but several other cities aswell.. Thats if you have decent offensive firepower offcourse. But who goes to war without it

 

[Gen]

Originally posted by Corkmaster
Maybe i'm missing something but any bombardment seems too random in its effectiveness. At least tanks etc rarely fail to inflict any damage at all.
...

There is no more randomness involved in bombardment than in normal attack, bombard strength is just used instead of attack strength and if used against troops, attack is repeated Rate Of Fire times. Bombarding cities is much more difficult indeed, due to various defensive bonuses, high defense of civilians/buildings and the fact that you never know what you hit. But in open field, especially in defensive, softening enemy stacks and pillage, bombardment rules. I also like to cut AI's roads, seriously slowing their reinforcements in key front areas.
Now what I really want to know, how high is exact probability of destroying terrain improvements with artillery? Does it depend on terrain?

 

[dominox]

Originally posted by Gen

There is no more randomness involved in bombardment than in normal attack

Oh yes, bombardment is way more random than normal attack.
Atleast when bombarding cities. Not because the bombardment itselves is more random, but because it is random what you target.. Population, units, improvements, etc.

 

[Shabbaman]

May I point you all to this excellent article by moonsinger?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25078

'Nuff said. Artillery rules.

 

[Gen]

dominox: well, that's what I already said, when attacking cities you just need more artillery beacause you don't know what you hit. Things get much easier both for continuous artillery fire and land based attack when after some bombardment population drops below 13 or 7 (metropolis/city).
I thought that randomness term meant for you only hit/miss probabilities. Apparently I was mistaken.

Shabbaman: I know this strategy, I just don't have the heart to abandon all those temporary outposts, I'm too benevolent ruler

 

[RobOz]

I think I will probably learn a lot once PTW comes out too. Perhaps I'm wrong and there's no way I am going to win against a human without a strong bombardment force, but perhaps it will be the other way around. I know this is more of a what if statement. I just haven't found it very effective against AI. Then again I don't find maintaining a huge navy very effective against the AI either, but it probably will be important against a human player.

 

[The Last Conformist]

In my experience, the AI usually don't have that many Fighters. I didn't lose single Bomber during my latest game involving modern war. Used in combo with BBs, they shrank those Egyptian metropolises nicely ...

 

[wohmongarinf00l]

shabbaman: i use moonsinger's method too. artillery is useless if u are going to build just a few because the outcome of a strike is quite random. in a metro defended by 4-5 mech inf u need about 70 arty to reduce each to a single hp because there are usually more failures than successes. so effective use of artillery requires at least 100 pieces.
i only use aerial bombardment in very specific situations. for example, at the start of a war in which i am heavily outnumbered (consider 200 mech inf+70 tanks against my 100 tanks+30 infantry) i will strategically place about 5 aircraft carriers near a city with rubber/oil/aluminium and disconnect the resource. on the frontier i try to destroy interrior RRs leading upto me to slow them down. otherwise bombers are too expensive and die too easily to be used with abandon.

 

[lincon]

i am not the bigest person on bonbardment but i use it only at the begining to weekin the oponet's shore defences

 

[Aeneas of Troy]

I like land (In large numbers - Artillary is not too terriblly expensive.) and air. If I am desperate, I will use a nuke. This can helpfull to shatter a city's defences. Lately I've been going for UN victory, Spaceship, and Cultural though.

 

[zenga]

I voted for both land and air too. In great enough numbers both can do enormous damage without too much risk to your ground troops. Later in the game I'd definitely go for bombers simply because of their extended range and easier rebasing, and as wohmongarinf00l said, with carriers waiting in position it is easier to take out enemy resources that are deep into their territory.

As for bombers being shot down, well mine seem to shoot down their share of fighters, maybe 1 in 2, and get promoted!

 

[lincon]

i also love to use nukes i use them alot they have a great efict on the world

 

[cgannon64]

Land and air. Land, because it is the most powerful kind, excluding cruise missiles (which are crappy) and air, because it has the longest range and, even though they are weak, is pretty good. I never liked ships that much because they can only reach coastal cities.

CG

 

[Silverflame]

I find a really hard time using cruise missles. theyre slow, have a really small range, and dont come back despite being lethal. ive heard that you can launch them from transports, but ive never tried that. Cruise missles should be able to be rebased to carriers and have a much farther range just like the cruise missles that were being used in Afghanistan

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

I set one city to build artillery from the time it is available and usually have a mighty stack. I answered land because I notice artillery tends to do the most damage.

Of course the bombers are best for flexible strategy but it takes a tonne of bombers to do the damage that just five or six artillery can do.

I never bother with cruise missiles- imagine taking the time to build a whole unit and expending it to take away one hit point...

 

[Bose]

Artillery's the go as it seems to have the most success. The only time i build bombers is if i'm watching football the same time as i'm playing Civ, and forget to change it over to artillery... or if Brook Burke is on TV, hmmmm Brook. But i digress, land is definately the go. The slow speed is made up for in defence and hit percentage.

 

[Bose]

There were only two ironclads ever made, and i think it should stay that way...

 

[Silverflame]

Bose, what do you mean by only two ironclads? There were a lot more used in the Civil War than just the Monitor and the Merimack. Of course, ironclads really do suck, unless there is no oil.

 

[lincon]

they realy do i cant work with them they cant do much

 

[Tassadar]

Originally posted by dominox
Bombardment sucks bigtime, but I'm surprised that so many use air bombardment.
Seriously, bombers must be the worst investment ever.
1: They are expensive
2: They are weak. Rarely do the damage you want them to.
3: You need LOTS of them or LONG bombardment to really make any significant damage to a city.
4: They die EASY.

If you have 6 bombers bombing a city with 1-2 fighters in the vincinity, I wont be surprised if you loose all your bombers before they are able to inflict the intended damage. You will allso have lost several turns which you could have used not only to take out this city, but several other cities aswell.. Thats if you have decent offensive firepower offcourse. But who goes to war without it

You know why it is like that ?

Because a Firaxian took the decision to increase defense bonus agaisnt bombing from 4 to 16 ( this defense bonus is for citizen and building in a city). That was the worst change through patch and i dont understand why they did that.

Defense bonus agaisnt bombing according to patch.

Original version = 4

1.16 patch = 8

1.17- 1.29 = 16

Bomber got only 8 on attack so why an undefended city ( no fighter, no sam) got 16 on defense? it make no sens.

So what i did is i mod it back from 16 to 4 and now my bomber succeed their mission most of the time, if you let this value at 16, you get the eternal display bombing run failed, bombing run failed, bombing run failed, bombing run failed....ect ...ect

I was realy piss off when they did that so call" improvement" with patch. What is the point to include bomber in a game but giving them such lower accuracy, dumb programer.