Bring back the old artillery!

[Lucky4s]

I miss the old artillery.

If you build up a decent stack of arty units, they are close to useless once the city you're attacking reaches 0% defense. I don't care for the way the artillery units, and navel units "melee" instead of bombard.

Only being able to bombard city defenses is a step in the wrong direction. I miss being able to bombard improvments, weaken troops that were dug into a city, or even whittle down an attacking force from a distance.

And how come there is not any notification (that I found yet) of bombard range? I have to keep inching my units closer and closer to the city until I finally see the bombard icon appear on the menu. Why doesn't B bring up a "bombard radius" like the old grid?

And naval units; no sea to land bombard of units? Battleships played a major role in combat in the World Wars as support units. Now their only purpose is to whittle down city defenses? What a waste! And like artillery, there is no notification of bambard range?

I really hope someone else feels the same way about this, and eventually it gets modded back to the way it was in the other civ series. Because I'm really dissapointed in artillery and to a point naval units.

***Edited for spelling (I hope I got 'em all)***

 

[Garand]

I also don't like the back seat that naval units seem to take in this game. I was always a naval-minded player in Civ III - I would build large navies to protect my coasts, prevent landings of enemy troops, and harass enemy shipping and destroy their coastal improvements. Now, naval ships seem to be very one-dimensional.

Hopefully the SDK will allow this to be changed, or if enough people complain, they may fix it in a patch.

 

[Matches10]

I have always sensed that navies take a back seat in this series and this game, from what I can tell, is no exception. I believe they could be used in an ocean to guard against an invasion but I'm not sure they have the visibility range really needed to make them useful. I've always wanted to build up a large navy and duke it out with some other armada for control of the waterways but I've never really felt the NEED, nor has the AI ever seemed to successfully use large navies.

In particular the carrier unit is somewhat useless. Once you establish a foothold on another continent you can simply rebase your entire airforce in that city, effectively rendering carriers obsolete. I've wanted them to put in an "air strip" improvement (or at least require an airport in the city) for an air unit to rebase.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Those Artilley units are still useful for attacking the stack in the city (collateral damage and a high retreat chance)

 

[fishlore]

I don't mind the new bombard units. Approach city, bombard city to 0% defense, then start attacking with the bombard units themselves to weaken the troops, execept this time you hit large portions of the stack each time instead of one unit at a time.

The only differences I see is that you can't attack buildings or population with the bombard units. You can still remove a city's defenses and you can still deal severe damage to the units within.

I suppose I would prefer the ability to attack certain buildings and lower the pop count, but I can live without these functions.

 

[skeller]

I like the new artillery -- they seem like a cross between Civ2 and 3, in that they are useful at attacking and also for bombardment. That they do collateral damage makes them essential for taking cities before you have tanks.

What I do find strange is you often have to suicide artillery into a city to soften up the defenders before you begin attacking. It's sort of a nice strategic element -- it slows down an invasion force since you have to replenish you artillery between cities -- but it does not seem very realistic. Oh well, nobody ever said Civ was a realistic combat simulator.

I do agree about navy though. It seems like naval units keep getting toned down with each game, which is too bad. Having a few ships to bombard coastal cities is useful, but they definitely take a backseat to ground and air units.

 

[Lucky4s]

What I do find strange is you often have to suicide artillery into a city to soften up the defenders before you begin attacking. It's sort of a nice strategic element -- it slows down an invasion force since you have to replenish you artillery between cities -- but it does not seem very realistic. Oh well, nobody ever said Civ was a realistic combat simulator.

Exactly! I found it very odd that after you reduce the city defense, you only other option with artillery is to suicidally "melee" with it. I was never a fan of the "killing of citizens" and I'm glad thats gone away with. But besides aircraft, there is no ranged combat in this game. And even with aricraft, I don't even think that is lethal. I've yet to kill a unit with aircraft.

I miss the old default bombard, where there was the grid, and you selected what unit or where to bombard. Now its all just one dimensional. There is very little stratigy involved.

Before, we could attack from a distance, and counter that attack with sneak attack units to take out the ranged attackers. Now its all....gone.

And navies are even worse. They have one purpose, to attack other naval units. I feel combat is oversimplified.

 

[Dida]

my mighty battleships can only reduce city defense and cannot even scratch my enemy land unit. what the hell.

 

[Double Barrel]

I don't understand what concept of artillery the developers were going for in Civ 4.

It is basically useless for waging war against enemy units in the game, which is completely different than arty as support in the real military.

I agree with Lucky4s, they've made the unit one dimensional and almost worthless now. I don't see the point of even building them anymore.

 

[Arathorn]

Artillery have two purposes in Civ4, as I understand it from my playing.

Purpose 1 is to remove city defense bonuses. As strength is multiplied and an unsuccessful set of attacks can lead to promoted defenders, this is very non-trivial. Removing a 60% defensive bonus can dramatically change the number of units required to take a city. Probably a 2-3X factor. That's huge.

Purpose 2 is to wound stacks. Artillery (starting with catapult) does collateral damage, so it can wound an entire stack of defenders. This is huge, as a couple (OK, generally suicidal) attacks by artillery can wound a stack so much that the higher attack value units (knights, axemen, whatever) can win more easily and with less damage.

These two often go together, as stacks often defend cities. Artillery is quite valuable.

As for the value of a navy.... Tearing up fishing nets to get a bit of gold is hardly exciting. Transports and defending transports seem to be their main roles. At least they can't die to land units either. But, I agree, the value of navies is hard for me to see at this point (and may well just not exist).

Arathorn

 

[FrantzX]

You guys are forgetting the most important thing about navies. Ships can blockage sea tiles. One enemy ship in a city's radius blocks all sea tiles from being used. This can hurt alot.

 

[Jeffrey]

I'm not too crazy about thew new bombard functionality either. I really miss being able to bombard and cutoff access to resources from ships etc...

 

[Fieryphoenix]

Fixed wing aircraft are the new artillery in Civ4!

They are the unit that can (usually) safely bomb enemy units, cities, and terrain improvements.

So build an air force.

I do miss artillery too... it was my anti-naval defense against shore bombardment.

 

[valrond]

I always use artillery BEFORE attacking a city. A 60-80% defense bonus is huge. It makes even a bowman a threat to a swordsman. And if the quality of the units is on par, it's almost essential to eliminate the city defenses before the attack. Just think of a Crossbowman with a 45% defense city bonus, plus 60% it's 105%!. So it's a little over 12 power. Even a Maceman with 45% attack city bonus is under that (11.6 power), and you will possibly lose him in the attack and only damage that crossbowman. However, if you take out that defense, it's 11.6 vs 8.7, your maceman will survive. And if you sacrife a couple of catapults in the attack,, you will hardly lose any other (and most costly) unit.

 

[Eyemaze]

You guys are forgetting the most important thing about navies. Ships can blockage sea tiles. One enemy ship in a city's radius blocks all sea tiles from being used. This can hurt alot.

Really? Is that in the manual? That is great if true.

 

[fuad]

am just wondering cos i don't have the game yet , can't u bring some other kind of units like knights for example with the catapults and just bombard with the catapults then charge and attack the city with knights???? do u need to sacrifice the catapults in attackin the city???

 

[skeller]

Arathorn is completely corrrect. Artillery is vital for taking out cities if you and the defender are roughly even in technology -- defenders get such huge advantages otherwise that you have no chance. You have to bombard city defenses and sacrifice artillery for the collateral damage to reasonably take out cities.

I agree that it's weird that this does not entirely reflect the use of artillery in real life. But Civ is not a wargame and I'm okay with this liberty. I still find them more useful than in Civ3, where I felt they were underpowered not being able to directly attack and kill units (though they were still useful). Remember in Civ2 they were basically just melee units with high offense and low defenses. I think here they are a combination of those two concepts: they are useful in melee but die easily if attacked, and they have some limited bombardment capabilities.

For those who are saying this and the nerf to navies (even less useful than in Civ3, which in turn weakened naval units from 2) represents a simpler combat system, I respectfully disagree. With many units now having inherent bonuses to other unit types, and the customizable unit promotion system, I feel the combat system is at its most complex. They just removed one dimension from siege weapons (though collateral damage is new) while adding dimensions elsewhere.

 

[Slimbo]

am just wondering cos i don't have the game yet , can't u bring some other kind of units like knights for example with the catapults and just bombard with the catapults then charge and attack the city with knights???? do u need to sacrifice the catapults in attackin the city???

Fuad you still can, however bombarding with artillery only softens up city defense multiplier up to 0% it doesn't do any damage to defending units

Sometime the defending units are still to strong to attack them with your knights without loosing a lot of those units, there you come to the "suicidal missions" for artillery: If you make a melee attack with artillery, they cause a lot of collateral damage TO ALL (or at least a lot) of the defending units. However your artillery runs risk to loose its life against the main defender during this attack. But its still worth sacrificing 1 or 2 artillery units, instead of 15 knights

 

[cleverhandle]

I still say (as I did a year or so ago) that navies would be infinitely cooler if they had some impact on overseas shipping routes. I'd like to be able to order a couple of destroyers to break an enemy's vital oil supply or order them to protect my own. It would require some slippery mechanics to deal with the geographical issue of just where those routes are and where the ships need to be, but it would be a huge incentive to maintain a decent navy.

 

[Soryn Arkayn]

You can bombard city defences until they reach 0%, then you can attack the garrison with any unit you want, including artillery.

The problem is that most people don't want to use their artillery to attack because often they'll lose.


Regarding other people's posts, I sympathesize with both sides of the argument. I agree that it's frustrating being restricted to only bombarding cities and forts, instead of any unit or terrain tile, but the compromise is that artillery can now attack and defend, whereas before if its escorts were killed it would be captured by the enemy. However, my complaint about artillery is that collateral damage is too high. I hate it when a single Catapult attacks one of my stacks and inflicts ~25% damage to most units. That's way too much, especially for a catapult. The damage should be divided so that it either inflicts heavy damage on a single unit, or light damage of several units. My suggestion would be that the artillery unit's combat strength should translate into the collateral damage it inflicts, and it's divided amongst the number of units hit.

So, for example:

A Cannon (12 combat strength) attacks a stack of 4 units. It fights a Rifleman and loses, but inflicts collateral damage on the stack. Because there's 3 other units, there are 3 possibilities for damage inflicted.

1 unit hit = maximum 12 damage inflicted
2 units hit = maximum 6 damage inflicted each
3 units hit = maximum 4 damage inflicted each

And that would be the maximum damage inflicted -- in practice, it would probably be less. Also, I think whether or not the artillery unit defeats the unit it's attacking should determine how much collateral damage it inflicts. If the unit wins, it would inflict more CD, but if it loses it inflicts less.

Besides the damage dealt by artillery units, I think the range for Artillery should be extended to 2 squares because modern artillery has much greater range than medieval catapults and industrial-era cannons. Also, I think Artillery should be able to be "towed" by mechanical units, like tanks, which would allow them to share the unit's 2 movement rate. The Artillery would be loaded similar to how units are loaded on a Transport, and would have to be unloaded to use, and it would be inactive for one turn. Also, if the mech-unit its loaded on is destroyed, so would the artillery, so there'd be an inherent risk associated with the movement bonus.

As for the issue of warships and bombarding land, they've obviously been limited like artillery, so it'd be impossible to permit one unrestricted bombardment and not the other.