I'm surprised they haven't added ranged bombardment yet!

[THARN]

One of the best changes made from modding has been ranged bombardment. I can see only using catapults an trebuchets for city attack, but once you get to canons, artillery and battleships... you should be able to bombard land units in tile squares and within cities. having to attack with an artillery piece to cause collateral damage is nonsense. Maybe have it so they can only bring units down to half strength, but the developers have had to have discussed adding this- Im wondering why they left it out?

 

[VladTepes]

They had it in Civ 3, but I think they thought it unbalancing and too powerful so it was removed in IV.

 

[Roland Johansen]

I'm in the camp of those who are opposed to civ3 style ranged bombardment for artillery type units.

The reason is gameplay related and has to do with the turnbased nature of the game. Every unit in the game can die when it attacks and with good reason. If you have units that can damage the opponent without any risk, then you will create as many of those as possible and hide them underneath other units that can protect them. Any unit or stack of units that you encounter will be weakened as much as possible by these units that can attack without risk of being damaged and then the pitiful remainder of the enemy stack will be destroyed by normal units that can die when they attack. However, they won't die as the enemy units are weakened to the extent that their chance of defending themselves successfully is close to 0%.

The problem with this model of war is that the turnbased nature of the game will result in no form of protection against these bombarding units. In a real time game, you can try to move around or over the protecting units and hit the bombarding units, but in a turn based game you will have to wait until it is your turn. You will have to sit and endure the bombardment while your units cannot counterattack. So typically, victory in combat will go to the side who's turn it is and can use the bombarding units to obliterate the defending armies. It's hugely unrealistic that armies would sit there and endure the bombardment.

The reason why the bombard model for bombers works is because there is a unit that can counterattack them during the bombers turn, namely fighters and ground based anti-air units.

If you add a unit that can bombard without any form or possibility of counterattack during the bombarding units turn, then this unit will dominate the game. The attacker will have a huge advantage as the attacker can use the bombardment units to weaken the defender to the point that victory is ensured.

By the way, if anyone want to know: I'm in favour of a combat model where stacks (of some limited size, size could be based on technological level of the civilisations) fight as a stack with combined arms. When two stacks meet, a graphic representation of the fight will be shown. The bombardment units and bombers of both sides will go first (where the bombers can be intercepted by the opponents fighters), then ranged units will fire a shot and then the melee units will hit eachother. This will continue for several combat rounds. One sides line of melee units will die or break and the other sides melee units can close with the ranged units and start hitting them. Flanking units might have moved around the front line to attack the ranged units and bombardment units of the opposing side while front line troops try to stop this flanking. After several combat rounds one side emerges victorious or one side retreates and then the graphic representation will end and the combat results of the battle between the stacks will be shown on the main map. (This model has been used in various implementations in several games).

The advantages of such a model would be:
1) the military part of the game would go quicker as units would fight in stacks and thus you would be losing (parts of) stacks of units and killing (parts of) stacks of units with the same number of clicks as you'd normally use to fight a single unit on unit battle.
2) it would be a more realistic representation of war
3) there would be a nice strategic element in creating the most optimal combination of units in the stacks.

disadvantage:
Its probably harder to balance combat correctly for the programmers.

 

[Blaarg]

Cannons combined with Railroads were ridiculously overpowered in Civ III. Basically, with enough cannon/artillary you could bombard any invading stack down to nothing and mop them up with no casulties what-so-ever.

 

[THARN]

It's hugely unrealistic that armies would sit there and endure the bombardment.

The reason why the bombard model for bombers works is because there is a unit that can counterattack them during the bombers turn, namely fighters and ground based anti-air units.

If you add a unit that can bombard without any form or possibility of counterattack during the bombarding units turn, then this unit will dominate the game. The attacker will have a huge advantage as the attacker can use the bombardment units to weaken the defender to the point that victory is ensured.

I understand your point but I have to disagree- In WWI thats all they did- was bombard with arty- and the ooponent could not move- WWII 70% of the casualties were caused by artillery.

It's unrealistic in civ 4- to have your artillery charge the city- arty is and always will be ranged weapon- not an attacker like a tank.
Here's an example of when I try and take a city- Ill take 5 trebs or artillery to attack a city along with 6 to 10 other units- by the time I get the defenses down to under 10%- my opponent has somehow created or slipped in about 5 or 6 more units to defend.

So instead of attacking his original 5 units with my 10- now I am at a disadvantage.
I really dislike having to run around with 20 unit stacks.

A good compromise would be to have it so that if you had ranged weapons in your city and you were attacked with arty- then your ranged weapons would get a defensive fire on the stack that fired upon you. Perhaps even making one of the exp upgrades a 'dig in' upgrade so if you have one of those units in your stack the entire stack is protected 80% or so against bombardment.

This would bring more strategy to the game imo.

 

[THARN]

By the way, if anyone want to know: I'm in favour of a combat model where stacks (of some limited size, size could be based on technological level of the civilisations) fight as a stack with combined arms. When two stacks meet, a graphic representation of the fight will be shown. The bombardment units and bombers of both sides will go first (where the bombers can be intercepted by the opponents fighters), then ranged units will fire a shot and then the melee units will hit eachother. This will continue for several combat rounds. One sides line of melee units will die or break and the other sides melee units can close with the ranged units and start hitting them. Flanking units might have moved around the front line to attack the ranged units and bombardment units of the opposing side while front line troops try to stop this flanking. After several combat rounds one side emerges victorious or one side retreates and then the graphic representation will end and the combat results of the battle between the stacks will be shown on the main map. (This model has been used in various implementations in several games).

yep- used pretty well in CiV-Call to Power.

 

[lord_graywolfe]

i like the ranged bombardment myself. you can only wipe out an enemy stack if your stack is bigger anyway. if they have more units then after you bombard them and attack they will still be there and get to return the favor, and if you were the small stack to begin with you are probally going to get wiped out. also if you send your troops off to attack another stack and you win then you will have only a few if any units left guarding you ranged units and enemy flankers will move in and capture them and use them against you. when i use it the most ranged can do is 75% damage, no complete kills, and they have no defense and can be captured.

 

[agentsmith952]

I'm in the camp of those who are opposed to civ3 style ranged bombardment for artillery type units.

The reason is gameplay related and has to do with the turnbased nature of the game. Every unit in the game can die when it attacks and with good reason. If you have units that can damage the opponent without any risk, then you will create as many of those as possible and hide them underneath other units that can protect them. Any unit or stack of units that you encounter will be weakened as much as possible by these units that can attack without risk of being damaged and then the pitiful remainder of the enemy stack will be destroyed by normal units that can die when they attack. However, they won't die as the enemy units are weakened to the extent that their chance of defending themselves successfully is close to 0%.

The problem with this model of war is that the turnbased nature of the game will result in no form of protection against these bombarding units. In a real time game, you can try to move around or over the protecting units and hit the bombarding units, but in a turn based game you will have to wait until it is your turn. You will have to sit and endure the bombardment while your units cannot counterattack. So typically, victory in combat will go to the side who's turn it is and can use the bombarding units to obliterate the defending armies. It's hugely unrealistic that armies would sit there and endure the bombardment.

The reason why the bombard model for bombers works is because there is a unit that can counterattack them during the bombers turn, namely fighters and ground based anti-air units.

If you add a unit that can bombard without any form or possibility of counterattack during the bombarding units turn, then this unit will dominate the game. The attacker will have a huge advantage as the attacker can use the bombardment units to weaken the defender to the point that victory is ensured.

Actually, I have a suggestion based upon modern-warfare models: counter-battery fire. Enemy artillery can always triangulate and determine where you are firing at and start lobbing shells in that direction.

I think you could successfully implement a ranged bombardment method if you used the same model in Civ IV as you use with interception. In other words, why not incorporate a chance of counter-battery fire so that a unit doing ranged bombardment has a chance of getting damaged if an enemy artillery unit is present in the tile you are attacking?

Not only would this give the obvious advantage of bombarding enemies without artillery support, but it gives added incentive to move towards combined arms tactics for offense and defense. It would make it useful to have some artillery defending cities, for instance.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually, the model I think would be the best is simultaneous turns... extending the air model to ground combat... everyone give thier units 'orders' and then all the orders for all units execute simultaneously (requires more General Orders that current. so Attack v. Defense isn't a matter of whose turn it is.)

 

[mrt144]

didnt smac have a return fire method where bombarded artillery could also damage the bombarding artillery?

 

[Blaarg]

didnt smac have a return fire method where bombarded artillery could also damage the bombarding artillery?

Yes, I seem to remember it did and I was going to mention it but I can't remember how it worked. It might have only been in the Alien Crossfire expansion pack.

 

[SpiderMinky]

Actually, I have a suggestion based upon modern-warfare models: counter-battery fire. Enemy artillery can always triangulate and determine where you are firing at and start lobbing shells in that direction.

I think you could successfully implement a ranged bombardment method if you used the same model in Civ IV as you use with interception. In other words, why not incorporate a chance of counter-battery fire so that a unit doing ranged bombardment has a chance of getting damaged if an enemy artillery unit is present in the tile you are attacking?

This is really the only way I would like to see ranged bombardment added in. I actualy would like to see this added in as a response to when some one is bombarding your defenses or perhaps when the cat\treb\cannon\artiliry piece attacks. It would only happen when there is another equivilant type unit in the square. This would give an element of risk to it not just a free pass to causing colateral damage or defense capability loss.

And as noted this is similar to the mechanic used in SMAC.

 

[agentsmith952]

And as noted this is similar to the mechanic used in SMAC.

Out of curiosity, what's SMAC?

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

Other turn-based games have a way to do "ranged bombardment". Fire Emblem's archer/sniper and nomad/"hero" nomad, Advanced War's artilery and missle lauchers, and Age of Empires: Age of Kings (DS)'s ranged units could attack at range (READ: 2+ squares away). However, for the former two games, they couldn't attack at CC (1 square away). The latter could, but sucked at it. And there were no stacks, and there was the "return fire" power in play.

I like this combined arms + returning fire idea, however. Sounds like it could work in the stacking nature of Civ.

 

[nbcman]

Out of curiosity, what's SMAC?

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

There is a forum for it on Civ Fanatics. Similar to the Civ series but based on colonizing an alien world.

 

[SwordofStriker]

Counter artillery fire or counter battery fire as was mentioned is the simple answer which would provide a counter to ranged bombardment.

 

[Ekmek]

how is artillery having ranged bombard different then air units? you can still bombard now with air then mop up so why not have artillery. I'm for ranged bombard and since Dale already made a mod for Firaxis should atleast add it into the next patch and let modders do the adjusting.

 

[LiberiGlacialis]

how is artillery having ranged bombard different then air units? you can still bombard now with air then mop up so why not have artillery. I'm for ranged bombard and since Dale already made a mod for Firaxis should atleast add it into the next patch and let modders do the adjusting.

Because, without changing anything else (such as adding in returning fire), artillery and there ilk would become game-breaking. Fighters and Bombers can be picked off by SAM Inf. and Mech Inf. if attacking a stack, Fighters/SAM/Mech if attacking a city. Artillery would have no counter.

 

[Blaarg]

Out of curiosity, what's SMAC?

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, widely considered 'Civilization 2.5' because it's the game Sid Meier's made after he founded Firaxis and as such had no access to the Civilization Franchise (I don't know how he got it back, but I think at the time Microsoft owned the rights to it or something)

I think it's the first game Firaxis ever put out as well.

 

[Blaarg]

Let me elaborate. Sid Meier started as a co-owner of Microprose a company that was known for it's Flight Simulators (the other owner, Bill Stealey, was an airforce guy or something) Sid wanted to make something that's never been done before and so he created Civilization in mostly his own spare time.

Civilization was released in 1991 and turned out to be Microprose's biggest to date. (and possibly of all time) But Sid had a falling out with Microprose and at sometime(I forget where in the time line this actually occurs, but I think it was before he actually created Civ) sold his share and became a independent contractor.

Bill Stealey sold Microprose to a company named Spectrum Holobyte in 1993, and the following year Bill Stealey left Microprose.

In 1996, Microprose released Civ II, created mainly by Brian Reynolds and Jeff Briggs.

Shortly after Holobyte started cutting thier staff and Brian Reynolds, Jeff Briggs and Sid Meier left Microprose and founded Firaxis.

They released SMAC in 1999 as thier second game and it was thier first big hit. A game very like Civilization but takes place after the spaceship in a spaceship victory of civ actually gets to Alpha Centarui.

After SMAC Brian Reynolds left Firaxis and founded Big Huge Games which is now known for the Rise of Nations RTS game.

At some point after that Firaxis obtained the rights to the Civilization history, Sid and Jeff oversaw production of Civilzation III and well...well that's the history before Civ IV.