Infantry/artillery now require oil?

[TheMeInTeam]

Regarding the "siege barely does anything to urban defenses":



Linux blocking f12 made the screenshot process a bit awkward, since this game likes to force-maximize itself over and over on full screen.

Even against Brazil's capital at ~105 strength, these chewed through it in a couple turns. Against ~90 strength cities or less they could move into position from previous spot (4 movement points + modern roads), break walls, and leave target city in the red in 1 turn.

Stealth bombers can outperform this on a per-:cog: basis, but they're later in the tech tree.

Well promoted machine gun armies with fascism + great general could easily kill modern armor in 1 turn per machine gun. It was also doing ~15 wall damage per shot on cities, though I rarely bothered using it for that.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

According to Ed, they need to oil their rifles and cannons... so here you go...

(Petroleum) Oil not just as a material to make fuels (through distillation techniques), but also lubes and chemical mixes for smokeless gunpowder.

Still better than Rubber Hunt in Civ3 though. in that game player depended ALOT on luck as well as skills to claim every strategic resources needed. (World Map Resource Quantity Choices aren't quite exists in Civ3). back then Infantry needs rubber (for o-ring sealings inside bolt action rifles or MGs i think) to either train or to upgrade previous units to.

 

[Bitterman]

I think they tried to make it a little bit more difficult for warlike players in later eras.

Having a decent army in modern eras requires you to stack military cards for extra oil (and maybe even coal and aluminum) and maybe attack others who happen to have some. I really like the idea and think it could work if they balance some units and trade properly. This makes red cards more important (and fascism/monarchy) and avoid crap-war civs going to war with huge armies like nothing just because they have some moneys. That is, going to war after a certain point in the game now requires you some commitment, which is good.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think they tried to make it a little bit more difficult for warlike players in later eras.

Let's be real, who is more likely to struggle in attaining modern resources and integrating these into a modern army in late eras, or compensating if it turns out a resource is lacking?

• AI with 8 cities
• Expansive warmonger human with 20+ cities

Having a decent army in modern eras requires you to stack military cards for extra oil (and maybe even coal and aluminum) and maybe attack others who happen to have some. I really like the idea and think it could work if they balance some units and trade properly. This makes red cards more important (and fascism/monarchy) and avoid crap-war civs going to war with huge armies like nothing just because they have some moneys. That is, going to war after a certain point in the game now requires you some commitment, which is good.

You can make a case that it's good. I might even be inclined to agree that investing in military should be required to perform well militarily (in fact I am inclined, I think some of the freebies given to defenders to hedge against bad estimates for self defense are silly). But this does *not* make the late game harder in SP. Each of these decision points is something AI opponents get a chance to screw up (and generally do). Earlier in the same game above, I killed a mechanized infantry in one turn with a single machine gun army. At least in principle, I was behind in tech there.

The issue with infantry/arty (especially infantry) costing oil is that they are in direct competition with each other and tanks, with tanks being pretty much strictly superior. The only exception is that infantry might have lots of XP, so leftover ones are usable as upgrades (which is why you see them above and why they could attack cities at > 120 strength). Perhaps this is reason enough to require oil for them, but it seems strange and I'm not convinced it creates a balanced set of endgame units.

 

[Bitterman]

Well first we better make one thing clear; one problem is balance between resources and unit cost/effectiveness and another different problem is that AI derps. In my argument I presume both AI and human player are more or less at the same level, as it should be (but it's not, I know).

If that was the case (and again, it's not) things would play differently though. Let's take your own sceneary as an example:

• Peaeful player with 8 cities
• Expansive warmonger with 20 cities

Let's start with the second one, the warmonger. Assuming we're talking about late game, this guy has already attacked several civs and maybe even has eliminated someone, so his friends are more likely few, if not zero. His power in congress and diplomacy is none, because wars and lack of alliances damaged badly his diplomatic favor. He is probably also in the brink of unhappiness, since lot of cities + war = sever war weariness. His large standing army consumes a ton of resources and GPT and he must fascism to make use of red cards if he wants to stay in positives.

Now the other guy, the peaceful cool fella. He didn't bully anyone (at least without clear justification) so he has some friends and high level alliances. As a result his diplo game is at leat ok, maybe even good enough to pull whatever he wants in congress. His cities are happy and his friends provide him with a steady flux of luxuries and GPT (he has more since he is not forced to maintain huge armies). He has few cities but very well developed and in pack-easy to defend territory. His economy-production is probably better than the other (outside of military stuff).

Now let's assume that the second guy has very few or no late strategics at all. The warmonger attacks him, thinking he is an easy prey. But wait, this guy had some friends right? wow, it turns out you declared war on 3 civs at the same time, damn! Maybe you lose some trade routes now with that juicy GPT you needed so much. Oh well, who cares, let's smash him. Hmm? what's that? A lonely CS i've been ignoring the entire match is backstabbing one of my underdeveloped cities in the other side of my huge empire. God damn ok, I'll send some units there to defend. And now what? Well, it seems that this guy has bought some strategics from his friends and is using his moneys to buy some good units. It's getting rough, but nothing I can't take care of. I enter his heavily defended territory but now some spies are getting my neighbourhoods partisan'd and my dams are flooding. More problems, I guess. I can't convince anyone to join me, but this guy has enough gold to bribe half of the world. And last of all, an embargo has passed against me in WC, so I'm screwed.

On top of that the peaceful guy would be getting free-low maintenance AT crews that *SHOULD* counter my tanks, machine guns that counter my infantry and anti-air that counter my planes.

This however, would be what I believe the developers wanted or had in mind, and not what is it right now.

 

[orasis]

ersonally, I love resource scarcity. It makes the 'world' feel alive.

That was one of the reasons I did not like IV, strat-resources were just too easy to come across (although the ryse and fall mod was awesome) and while V changed it a little, I love how VI has made strategic resources brutal again as they were in III.

How much euphoria do you feel about being the dominant iron power? Then, then you find out you have no coal or oil... diplomacy or war?

 

[criZp]

Then, then you find out you have no coal or oil... diplomacy or war?

*tries diplomacy but the opponent doesn't want to trade because he's making units*
*tries war but gets btfo because the opponent has made superior units*

 

[Victoria]

*tries diplomacy*,*tries war*....

Finds CS with oil and kills off foreign envoys.

 

[criZp]

Finds CS with oil and kills off foreign envoys.

*conquers your city state*

nothing personal...

 

[MrRadar]

*tries diplomacy but the opponent doesn't want to trade because he's making units*

Not that kind of diplomacy. DoF and Alliance kind of diplomacy. Last game I only had 2 oil income from Hattusa. Not a single drop in vicinity, plenty further away and probably more than half of it in Teddy's lands. But he wanted last shirt off my back and probably some patches of skin as well for a few barrels, so I saw none of it. No uranium. One source of aluminium. Only iron, coal, some horses and niter.

So my wars ended in Renaissance and none of my military units moved a tile ever since. I just upgraded them all to have some power rating, my oil reserves were immediately drained, but I did not care about that any more. Four alliances and one friendship ensured peace in my lands forever. One unfriendly neighbor was too crippled to do anything, and another unhappy one was too far away to be of nuisance. Strategizing!

That being said, do infantry and artillery units really need such amounts of oil for lubrication? I smell embezzlement. A spot check or two would be in order

 

[S1AL]

Regarding the "siege barely does anything to urban defenses":



Linux blocking f12 made the screenshot process a bit awkward, since this game likes to force-maximize itself over and over on full screen.

Even against Brazil's capital at ~105 strength, these chewed through it in a couple turns. Against ~90 strength cities or less they could move into position from previous spot (4 movement points + modern roads), break walls, and leave target city in the red in 1 turn.

Stealth bombers can outperform this on a per-:cog: basis, but they're later in the tech tree.

Well promoted machine gun armies with fascism + great general could easily kill modern armor in 1 turn per machine gun. It was also doing ~15 wall damage per shot on cities, though I rarely bothered using it for that.

So it's getting a bit late to reply to this, but whatever, thread is live.

This is just the terrible AI being terrible. A human player's city would be rocking about 129 in that situation, not 79. Seriously... 45 base strength? That means the strongest unit is a Musket. And you have an Artillery army.

 

[Pietato]

So it's getting a bit late to reply to this, but whatever, thread is live.

This is just the terrible AI being terrible. A human player's city would be rocking about 129 in that situation, not 79. Seriously... 45 base strength? That means the strongest unit is a Musket. And you have an Artillery army.

Lol no. The Inca clearly have a Cuirassier Army in that screenshot, and 129 is around Modern Armour Army levels of city defense.

That said, there is a bug currently with AI cities not getting the proper defense level.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So it's getting a bit late to reply to this, but whatever, thread is live.

This is just the terrible AI being terrible. A human player's city would be rocking about 129 in that situation, not 79. Seriously... 45 base strength? That means the strongest unit is a Musket. And you have an Artillery army.

Brazil had mech infantry earlier, and it still didn't take more than 1 turn to break cities at ~100 strength. Brazil's capital is the only city that took 2.

A human player wouldn't let artillery freely fire on the city in the first place, because human players position their army decently.

 

[S1AL]

Cuirassier Army (78) + 10 (Garrison) + 10 (districts) +8 (Palace and Victor) +9 (Steel Walls) = 115.

So, bug instead of stupid AI. Same issue. You aren't melting walls against even someone who's significantly behind (Cuirassier Corps v. Artillery Army).

EDIT: I think there's a mistake in my mechanics math there, but it doesn't significantly change the details.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

EDIT: I think there's a mistake in my mechanics math there, but it doesn't significantly change the details.

It does. 10 strength differential makes a big difference in damage dealt.

• Base city strength is that of your strongest unit -10. Adding a melee unit only brings its base back to strength of that melee unit.
• You only get +9 from steel walls if you build at least ancient walls earlier, but we'll assume all cities did so to be conservative.
  
• You need five districts to get +10 from them. Do these still count if pillaged?
• Damaged cities have a strength penalty, ranging from 2 to 8, so it will start taking a bit extra damage over time.

As such a renaissance army would fail pretty badly as the city would still be more than 20 strength short of the artillery's bombardment. Also not that *because* the AI is awful, the artillery did not get to farm much XP. Upon seeing more resistance and firing more, they could get a ranged promotion which would allow 6+ of them to fire on cities pretty easily using 4 range.

Finally, if you get rocket artillery you add +15 more strength and another range, so those things can shoot cities from 5 hexes away with a drone/balloon.

Though my understanding is that in most MP games none of this late game stuff is particularly relevant.

 

[S1AL]

Ok, keep in mind that I already granted the aggressor the assumption of massive tech and culture advantage. Assuming parity, travel time, etc., your opponent is going to about have tanks when you start hitting cities with Artillery...

In that image, you also have +6 Intel, fascism, general, and 10 more points from some source that's not displayed on-screen. Take away Intel at minimum, and fascism if parity, etc.

If you go balloons + Artillery and your opponent is still on Cuirassiers, it's hard to adequately state how far ahead you are in tech. Against a modestly competent human, you're going to be sending Rocket Artillery into Modern Armor (because you can beeline Modern Armor) even if you're far enough ahead to actually get to Rocket Artillery.

Late game stuff actually does matter a lot in multiplayer (organized, not pub games) now because of (a) massive walls, (b) resource issues, (c) mountain ranges blocking access. That's how we figured out that bombers are the only feasible way to break 400-strength Urban Defenses. When you aren't bonus-stacking against the incompetent-cheater AI, the disparity in combat values goes way down.

Now, of course, the larger part of the player base is SP, not MP... But if the AI were better, this stuff would matter for them as well.

 

[Pietato]

You upgrade your siege into Artillery (and buy a balloon), and the movement is quite minimal if you do not suck. Also, having a spy gain intel on the civ you are sieging is a basic tactic, so why remove it? Hell, you are basing everything on fighting a capital with 5 districts and Victor in it, so why do the positive modifiers have to be removed?

Bug or not, it sounds more like you have no idea how to use ranged siege.

 

[S1AL]

You upgrade your siege into Artillery (and buy a balloon), and the movement is quite minimal if you do not suck. Also, having a spy gain intel on the civ you are sieging is a basic tactic, so why remove it? Hell, you are basing everything on fighting a capital with 5 districts and Victor in it, so why do the positive modifiers have to be removed?

Bug or not, it sounds more like you have no idea how to use ranged siege.

1) Going to both Flight and Steel is an enormous tech investment in comparison to the other options. It's far, far less efficient than getting, say, Cuirassiers (for defense) and Bombers. What I am saying is that, at the point you're hitting that, a parity opponent is already killing your cities with said bombers. And had fighters to kill everything else.

If, otoh, you're so far ahead that you have Artillery with Balloons while your opponent only has Cuirassiers...

To clarify the Intel issue, I'm assuming the opponent isn't a moron and knows how to use his own spies. There are a lot of things that change when you play against humans and not the incompetent-cheating-moron AI.

2) To repeat what I said: in the first scenario I gave the aggressor the assumption of a massive tech/culture advantage. Reduce that to, instead, a modest advantage and you're just not going to be taking cities that way.

You presented multiple Artillery Armies with Fascism and 21 points worth of other combat bonuses attacking an ungarrisoned city. And you presented that as the "normal" scenario by which sieging cities ought to be considered. If you have to stack all the bonuses on one side to make the point, you aren't making a good point.

 

[Einiweini7]

Have a "synthetics" building in the industrial zone that costs 1 oil to maintain and have it support up to 5 artillery/infantry units. It is realistic and hits the game balance just about right. The AT and Machine gun should remain resource free as it allows for a defensive campaign if oil is not available. All military units since Dunlop have required increasing synthetic production, which requires oil but not in the quantities associated with mechanised units.

 

[Pietato]

1) Going to both Flight and Steel is an enormous tech investment in comparison to the other options. It's far, far less efficient than getting, say, Cuirassiers (for defense) and Bombers. What I am saying is that, at the point you're hitting that, a parity opponent is already killing your cities with said bombers. And had fighters to kill everything else.

If, otoh, you're so far ahead that you have Artillery with Balloons while your opponent only has Cuirassiers...

To clarify the Intel issue, I'm assuming the opponent isn't a moron and knows how to use his own spies. There are a lot of things that change when you play against humans and not the incompetent-cheating-moron AI.

2) To repeat what I said: in the first scenario I gave the aggressor the assumption of a massive tech/culture advantage. Reduce that to, instead, a modest advantage and you're just not going to be taking cities that way.

You presented multiple Artillery Armies with Fascism and 21 points worth of other combat bonuses attacking an ungarrisoned city. And you presented that as the "normal" scenario by which sieging cities ought to be considered. If you have to stack all the bonuses on one side to make the point, you aren't making a good point.

You really, really need to stop twisting EVERYTHING into an argument revolving around multiplayer. It is incredibly annoying.

Steel gives urban defenses, oil wells, artillery and battleships, and has a simple eureka. It is a key tech, especially if you are a warmonger and have Cuiraissers which can turn into tanks. It is also far simpler just hitting upgrade on your units (bombards) than it is researching radio and advanced flight, and building aerodromes and bombers.

Of course this is all beside the point. Artillery are effective at bringing down walls, and your inability to interpret screenshots and calculate defense does not change this.

Now, if you want to discuss siege and air in general, then I would say catas need a buff, bombards a slight buff, an upgrade added between them, anti-air buffed (navy massively), and planes forced to better specialise so they are not so effective against everything.