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Yeah, I think it would be better for strategic balance too... keeps you from getting those situations where there's almost nothing you can do to weaken that really strong lead defender no matter how much you sacrifice against him.YES, I also find it unrealistic that you can't hit the leading defender with collateral damage! Change it straight away
So they are an EARLY Mortar. Or 'French Mortar' unlike the more Modern Mortars depicted here. I think we've been lacking these modern ones in C2C for too long. And the cool thing is if we make them bombard specialists then we could really have a whole solid unit line context for them to remain within as well as (via that wiki page) a wealth of upgrade unit concepts all the way up through the modern era. No need to even have them blend in or join with other upgrade paths.
I think it's the city attack not jiving with the city defense bombard abilities making units that aren't so great at city attack better at bombarding the defenses of those cities than the ones that ARE good at city attack that's enhancing some confusion for me... I'd suggest we focus them in a little more clearly on field vs urban and keep them aligned in this way throughout their upgrade paths.
Let's please leave flaming arrows out of the picture for now as that will be addressed with equipments... I can also see explosive tipped ballistas - they do it with modern harpoons and surely they tried to do this some with those weapons as explosive technologies proliferated in the late renaissance.
In the case of the Ballista Elephant, you could replace its Ranged Bombard capability entirely with Archer Bombard. In fact, I would recommend it. I would like to see the Frigate's ship-to-ship bombard capability changed over to Archer Bombard too (however their shore - ideally including ships in port - bombardment should still be damaging multiple units
As a rule, any divergence from Firaxis game mechanics is an improvement...
If you are motivated enough to go the whole hog, yes that would be preferable. If not, the hard-coding will be adequate imho. And even if you are enthusiastic for the complete overhaul, in the short-term the 'rough patch' would be good anyway.
I for one totally agree. I can't think of any good reason why bombard damage should not affect the lead unit - from either the realism or the game mechanics perspective. It seems like specifically a cavalry flank attack mechanic...that lost its way or got shanghaied for no good reason into bombardment...
The only problem with all of this is if it doesn't have AI support. I can totally see it's great to put all sorts of cool new stuff in that only the player can do. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it! But without AI support, it is unavoidably going to make the game easier to win, and I can see no attractive means of balancing that...
Considering these comments I'm thinking a total bombardment overhaul that takes these kinds of varieties into consideration is warranted.
