Coastal Forts and Bombardment?

[RedRockRun]

Ships are sailing past them left and right, and I haven't seen them take a single shot at them. I honestly don't understand how the bombard mechanic works in terms of defense. Sometimes my artillery and ranged infantry will take shots as enemies walk by, and sometimes they won't.

 

[tjs282]

The CF Zone of Control can/will only activate if a ship moves from one of the 8 (Coast) tiles directly adjacent to the CF-town, to another of those 8 tiles.

So a CF is only guaranteed to fire a ZoC-shot if it's built in a town overlooking/ controlling a Gibraltar-type strait or fjord 1 tile wide, that the AI is intent on sailing its ships through. And even then, there's no guarantee that the shot will damage the target.

On open coastline where Sea- or Ocean-going AI ships can simply bypass the CF's ZoC, there's no real point building one (because the AI knows where all your CFs are). And if they want to bombard that town (or its adjacent land tiles), they generally sail ships in from offshore, bombard, and sail directly offshore again.

It's true that the CF does act as a defence against naval bombardment, protecting docked ships which might otherwise be damaged. But for 20 more shields, an extra Frigate would also do that...

 

[RedRockRun]

And what about defensive bombardment in general? Under what circumstances will a unit attack an enemy walking through adjacent tiles? I've seen my archers and musketmen take shots of opportunity (for lack of a better term that I know of) at enemy units, but I can't figure out why. Is it only when they're fortified? When the enemy is issuing an attack move against another target? When my units occupy certain terrain?

 

[tjs282]

Def-Bombs and Zone-of-Control are 2 different mechanics.

DB happens when a stack containing a bombard-capable unit gets attacked, provided that the bombarding unit (1) has not already fired a DB during that interturn, and (2) is not the unit being attacked. IIRC the DB-unit's B-value is compared with the attacking unit's A-value, using the usual combat-success RNG dice-roll: if the DB hits, the attacker loses 1 HP before it engages its actual target.

ZoC-shots happen when any unit passes by a unit with the ZoC ability-flag, and again, can remove 1 HP per successful shot. As with the CF, the ZoC-shot can/will only be fired if an enemy unit passes from one of the 8 adjacent tiles to another of those 8 tiles, and it will not always hit (unfortunately, I can't remember which unit-values are compared to determine a successful ZoC hit).

In the unmodded game, only a few units have the ZoC-flag by default, e.g. Cavalry, Tanks, (+ UUs), Modern Armor, and Armies (and possibly some others). IIRC, a Fortress tile-improvement also confers the ZoC-ability to any unit fortified(?) inside it, even if that unit would not normally have that ability.

But unlike DB, the same unit can make multiple ZoC-shots per interturn. I believe it was @SirPleb who used this ability to develop his 'Funnel of Doom' tactic.

 

[justanick]

IIRC the Fortress also confers the ZoC-ability to any unit fortified(?) in it, even if that unit would not normally have that ability.

This is also true for towns with walls. Notably this effect is lost when the town becomes a city(size 7+).

Kontrollzone (Civ3) – CivWiki

wiki.civforum.de

Stadtmauer (Civ3) – CivWiki

wiki.civforum.de

 

[tjs282]

This is also true for towns with walls. Notably this effect is lost when the town becomes a city(size 7+).

Kontrollzone (Civ3) – CivWiki

wiki.civforum.de

Stadtmauer (Civ3) – CivWiki

wiki.civforum.de

I did not know that!