Civ3 style artillery - possible?

Back to the whole CivIII Artillery thing....

Is anyone going to take the lead on this? I think that it would be a VERY popular mod... one that I would download at once!

Please make it so! :)
 
==As for shelling cities and doing damage, I don't really know how you can simulate this, nor do I see an easy way to simulate naval support of a marine invasion. You *might* be able to use the nuke routines for regular bombing, with much lower destruction percentages than an actual nuke. The marine thing - well, regular civ doesn't allow for one unit to support another. The mechanic just doesn't exist.== Max

Yes, and that's a shame. What I meant regarding marines and battleships was that in Civ3 I could have warships pound the hell out of units on the beach, as in Normandy or any of the Island Hopping campaign, especially after the disaster at Tarawa that was caused largely by inadequate shelling. I believe it was you who pointed out that artillery never destroys units, but enough of it can leave them weakened and in broken formations, which was simulated in Civ3 by bombardament reducing hitpoints as far down as 1. In Civ4, if I'm not mistaken, you can't have a ship damage ground units. Very, very inaccurate and probably bad for gameplay.

ScooterB (any relation to Libby?),
That's beyond my ability or the kind of time I have, but I certainly like the idea and hope someone manages to do it.
 
I have been fiddling around with this in the XML to no avail. I tried all kinds of settings to artillery to give it a bombing feature. Problem is, the "domain"-tag that describes whether the unit is a naval, land, or air unit is restricting units from having any feature associated with another domain. I did manage to make my artillery cross water when moving by simply removing the domain-tag.

I tried to create a land-artillery with 0 combat strength, 10 air strength, that could be captured, had 1 move, and 1 range bombing attack. The bombing attack is there, but it can only be applied to the artillery if I make it a "domain-air" unit. And Air units cant move, only rebase.

My next idea is giving artillery weak strength, say 5, and a 100% chance of retreating. That way it causes some collateral damage before retreating. I´ll see if it will work with capturing it too, I have noticed that alot of the XML-tags arent as simple as the seem.

I recommend everyone to go ahead and play around with the XML´s, just make a backup first. Maybe someone will find a solution...
 
Max: I wont dispute about the facts you presented about reality, since I aknowledge them as well, but I think we should keep in mind that the Civilization combat system is still a very abstract one. And though you can make some conclusions about the numbers of units, distances on map, etc. no one has defined how big one tile is or how many men a unit actually is composed of. Instead of even trying to reach absolute realism, we should rather think "realism through gameplay".

Which means that the way units function in the game should resemble how their corresponding forces act in reality, even though they may not work exactly like them in the game mechanics.

To me suicide artillery doesn't give the slightest immersion of real artillery in the battle. Civ3 artillery gets much, much closer.

Civ3 style artillery would also solve the "independent artillery" dilemma you accurately presented. You could still use artillery independently (as you technically could in real life as well) but since the arty units would be unable to fight on their own, that'd be simply stupid (as it would in reality). Leave your arty unguarded and it will be either destroyed or captured.

Clifford said:
My next idea is giving artillery weak strength, say 5, and a 100% chance of retreating. That way it causes some collateral damage before retreating.

That gave me an idea. What if artillery was given a First Strike with 100% chance of triggering (possible?) in combat, and then have the unit retreat before the "actual" combat begins? I see two problems that need to be addressed if that was to work:
1. How to code the retreat (100% withdrawal will still result in the arty fighting it out and taking damage - gamey)
2. What happens if the target unit has First Strike as well?​
 
Exel said:
To me suicide artillery doesn't give the slightest immersion of real artillery in the battle. Civ3 artillery gets much, much closer.

Civ3 style artillery would also solve the "independent artillery" dilemma you accurately presented. You could still use artillery independently (as you technically could in real life as well) but since the arty units would be unable to fight on their own, that'd be simply stupid (as it would in reality). Leave your arty unguarded and it will be either destroyed or captured.

[/INDENT]


My thoughts exactly. Civ3 arty was such a big step forward from the high-attack/low-defense standard combat unit of civ1&2, I wonder what they were thinking regressing like that? I was worried when I heard they were eliminating attack/defense strengths, but they've basically compensated for that by not giving offensive units terrain bonuses. But the artillery thing is just wierd. (I'm also curious why, with the addition of so many great people types, there's no longer any type of Great General when such made up such a big part of history.)
 
Clifford said:
My next idea is giving artillery weak strength, say 5, and a 100% chance of retreating. That way it causes some collateral damage before retreating. I´ll see if it will work with capturing it too, I have noticed that alot of the XML-tags arent as simple as the seem.

Had any positive results from testing?

Are ground units able to use air unit missions given to them if they are not classed as air units? If yes, then this could be a possible solution for both artillery and ships: give them and air strike mission with 100% chance of evading interception and a range of 1 or 2.

Also, can a unit be given a "can not defend" flag or something similar, making it always destroyed if attacked. And how would that cope with a 100% withdrawal chance? Would the unit always retreat or only when attacking and losing?
 
Exel said:
Had any positive results from testing?
Haven´t had time but will do today
Exel said:
Are ground units able to use air unit missions given to them if they are not classed as air units? If yes, then this could be a possible solution for both artillery and ships: give them and air strike mission with 100% chance of evading interception and a range of 1 or 2.
Short answer: NO, they can´t. Only air units can use air missions.
Exel said:
Also, can a unit be given a "can not defend" flag or something similar, making it always destroyed if attacked. And how would that cope with a 100% withdrawal chance? Would the unit always retreat or only when attacking and losing?
You can give them a capture flag, along with 0 power...
How it would work with 100% withdrawal I don´t know. And what if you add first strikes? Lots to test, lets try it!
 
Clifford said:
You can give them a capture flag, along with 0 power...

But can they have effective bombardment if they have 0 strenght?

Alternatively, does capture flag work if strenght is higher than 0 so that the unit would be captured when attacked regardless of strenght? *crossing fingers* :mischief:
 
Darn RL, screws up my testing. I´ll try to do a thorough check today or tomorrow. I have so far discovered only one really interesting thing. If you remove the domain-class all together from the XML, the unit can move over both land and water. I think some other mods can use that, like the gunship mod perhaps.
 
Considering that the missionaries are limited to three at any one time...

Couldn't Artillery be REVERTED to Civ3 style but also have a limit of say "no more than 5 of any one Artillery at any time" in the same way that missionaries are limited? I don't know anything about modding, nothing at all, but if there is a way to limit the amount of missionaries (single units), why not a way to limit the amount of artillery you can have at one time?

That way we get Civ3 realism without it becoming Arty S.O.D. It would keep balancing and provide flexibility. It would also make the human player have to make tough decisions regarding where to put them.
 
I too miss the civ3 style artillery. The only sense i can make of artillery units getting killed all the time in Civ4 is that it perhaps represents their ammo getting used up. This was a huge issue in WWI. Civ3 artillery was awesome, at least the way it worked. Firaxis definitely fixed something that wasn't broke in this case. Also, am I the only one who misses paratroopers?
 
Yup, and how the helicopters could airdrop marines behind enemy lines.
 
Ranbir said:
Yup, and how the helicopters could airdrop marines behind enemy lines.

Well the choppers can "easily" be modified in the XML files to carry troops and to cross over water etc. I thought folks knew this but I guess not.

BTW, if you need instructions on how to do it just yell.;)
 
I wonder if it is possible to make arty work as a carrier. This way it could be scripted to always carry a type of aircraft (new one so that fighters can't be placed on the arty) and given stealth (so it can't be intercepted) as well as be put on air strike missions. This way it leaves the possibility to give the arty 0 strength while also giving the arty's shell (aircraft) an attack that can not withstand attacks from other units.

I have not done any modding so I have no idea if this is even remotely possible.

The only problem that I can see is that the shell and the arty could be easily separated, but there may be a way through scripting to get around this problem.
 
Xavier Von Erck said:
Considering that the missionaries are limited to three at any one time...

Couldn't Artillery be REVERTED to Civ3 style but also have a limit of say "no more than 5 of any one Artillery at any time" in the same way that missionaries are limited? I don't know anything about modding, nothing at all, but if there is a way to limit the amount of missionaries (single units), why not a way to limit the amount of artillery you can have at one time?

That way we get Civ3 realism without it becoming Arty S.O.D. It would keep balancing and provide flexibility. It would also make the human player have to make tough decisions regarding where to put them.

Anyone who can revert arty to the Civ3 style will be a hero, but why limit their numbers? If you think they're overpowered massed, you can probably increase their maintainance cost to represent the sheer tonnage of ammunition they use, the high cost of training crews in advanced (for whatever era) mathematics, etc. Also there should be a more modern gun than the one that replaces cannons!
 
I have used Kael's code for summoning units in order to make siege units able to summon a short ranged aircraft unit with 100% evasion (so it won't be shot down). I use a shrinked ICBM to represent the summoned barrage and the AI seems to understand how it should be used. (Well, at least near cities. For some reason the AI doesn't seem to think it's worthwhile to use aircraft far away from cities.) It will soon be included in my mod and I can write a short tutorial on how to do it.
 
Bump.

So can we soon have our Civ 4 play with Civ 3 artillery (in our norm games?)
 
Mumin said:
I have used Kael's code for summoning units in order to make siege units able to summon a short ranged aircraft unit with 100% evasion (so it won't be shot down). I use a shrinked ICBM to represent the summoned barrage and the AI seems to understand how it should be used. (Well, at least near cities. For some reason the AI doesn't seem to think it's worthwhile to use aircraft far away from cities.) It will soon be included in my mod and I can write a short tutorial on how to do it.

Now that is a fairly creative idea Mumin.:D I think this could be done by making the arty act like a land carrier. Maybe it carries no attack value, but can send the "shell" on very limited ranged bombing missions to simulate a ranged arty strike.

I think I'll look into this. Always trying to find ways to do this stuff without python:D
 
Mumin said:
I have used Kael's code for summoning units in order to make siege units able to summon a short ranged aircraft unit with 100% evasion (so it won't be shot down). I use a shrinked ICBM to represent the summoned barrage and the AI seems to understand how it should be used. (Well, at least near cities. For some reason the AI doesn't seem to think it's worthwhile to use aircraft far away from cities.) It will soon be included in my mod and I can write a short tutorial on how to do it.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
 
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