Lethal Bombard?

[ALA Gator]

I am playing Conquests 1.22 on a large map Regent level.

I know that bombers and ships have lethal bombard now. Do artillery have lethal bombard also (I think they don’t)? So, say I have a city that I am attacking. I have been using my artillery first to get all the garrison units down to redline. Then attacking with the bombers to try and kill some of the units. The bomber missions either fail, destroy city improvements or kill population. The bombers seem to have no difficulty killing units outside of a city. Is it possible to kill a unit fortified in a city?. If anyone has some insight into this I would appreciate it greatly.

 

[psweetman1590]

Yes, bombers can kill units inside cities too. The problem is that inside cities, units are much tougher. They get all those nasty defense bonuses and whatnot, and that makes it more difficult to hit them to get that last hp off. Also, when bombarding cities, you have an equal chance of hitting population or an improvement instead. So, not only do your bombers have a mere 1/3 chance of targeting the unit inside the city, but when they are targeted, there's a good chance the bomber will miss because of the increased defense rating.

 

[bryanwallace]

wasnt there a thread bout hit rates for bobard somewhere?
wanted to know how successful dromomns are on city improements

 

[ALA Gator]

wasnt there a thread bout hit rates for bobard somewhere?
wanted to know how successful dromomns are on city improements

Typing...

Thanks. I figured it was something like that. I have to be careful with a few of the cities. I do not want to destroy the wonders. Do y'all know the probabilities of what you will hit when bombarding? Especially with artillery?

 

[AznWarlord]

You can't destroy wonders unless you have the Great Wall bug (I think that's what it's called).

But it does piss me off when I smash Barracks and Temples. Barracks would help me defend the city and Temples would keep it from flipping.

From personal experience, I think bombers target Improvements before killing units. But I rarely bomb cities with Bombers anyways, I used them on attackers. They're more efficient when you DON'T have a couple dozen units waiting at your city walls.

I go old fashioned siege warfare with Artilleries when dealing with cities.

 

[Optional]

But it does piss me off when I smash Barracks and Temples. Barracks would help me defend the city and Temples would keep it from flipping.

I don't know whether it would make you feel better, but cultural buildings - like temples - always get destroyed when you take the city anyways.

About the others details I'm less certain, I'm pretty sure Aquaducts always stay intact when taking a city, and I believe with improvements like harbours, marketplaces and so on, there's a 50% chance they will survive the seizure.

 

[Tasslehoff]

Even if temples didn't get destroyed, capturing them don't avoid flip chance. You don't receive culture from buildings built by an enemy, and only culture (or tons of troops) help stop flipping.

 

[Optional]

Tons of troops will help against flipping, but there's no guarantee. And if the city flips with those tons of units in it, gone are your units. Maybe it's better to put those units just outside the city. I would certainly try not to leave an army in a city that stands a flip chance.

The first turn after seizure there's no risk, so put as many units as you can spare in the captured city then, to quell resistance. After that, maybe just a couple of defenders, for further quelling. If you leave your valuable offensive units outside the city, they can always take it back when there's a flip.

 

[iambenben]

In my current game I had at least a hundred bombard units attacking different cities, I mainly destroyed improvements but I did manage to kill units.

 

[AznWarlord]

I don't know whether it would make you feel better, but cultural buildings - like temples - always get destroyed when you take the city anyways.

And here I was, thinking I was destroying valuable temples. Well, that changes everything, now smashing temples is a good thing.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The only Bombard units that have lethal bombardment besides airplanes would be the Dromon and the H'wacha, UU's of the Byzantines and Korea. Definitely fun to play with.

 

[MAS]

And missiles!

There is a difference between lethal bombard and collateral damage to city improvements.
Missiles can kill units, but just like artillery, they don't destroy city improvements.

 

[dirtworm]

i like using bombard...specially with the naval vessels...but it ALWAYS misses for me, it gets me so mad

 

[bryanwallace]

sorry ,but with dromons is there any way to get a whole stack to bombard one at a time without pressing the button every time?

 

[TheOverseer714]

You can set them to autobombard a tile every turn, but that's about it. If you move them, even that gets cancelled. Pretty much...no.

 

[Empire Engineer]

The only Bombard units that have lethal bombardment besides airplanes would be the Dromon and the H'wacha, UU's of the Byzantines and Korea. Definitely fun to play with.

Fun to play with, yes. But giving the H'wacha lethal bombardment while not giving the same to artillery and radar artillery is so ******ed. It ruins the realism.

 

[Headbanger]

He's right. Getting hit with radar artillery in real life would do far more damage then a H'wacha.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The reason artillery is not lethal is that it would make the game unbalanced in favor of the human player, as the AI rarely builds artillery, and even rarer, uses it properly. A really good player with H'wachas can just trash the computer civs, and will use them even in modern times just because they are lethal. The only way artillery could be lethal and not totally overtip the balance is if each shot only had a 5% chance of lethality.

 

[Tribute]

Alternatively, one could tweak the AI to build more artillery, if it were lethal. It would have to be counterbalanced with artillery being very, very weak. Such as catapults having 1 bombard power, trebuchets with 2, cannons with 4, and artillery with only 5. Sounds like something to mod in if someone's really bored. Although, I don't know if mods can modify AI behavior; you could check 'focus on artillery' for each civ in CivIIIEdit, but the change is not very dramatic.

 

[Empire Engineer]

The reason artillery is not lethal is that it would make the game unbalanced in favor of the human player, as the AI rarely builds artillery, and even rarer, uses it properly. A really good player with H'wachas can just trash the computer civs, and will use them even in modern times just because they are lethal. The only way artillery could be lethal and not totally overtip the balance is if each shot only had a 5% chance of lethality.

Or,... just not make the H'wacha lethal. It's totally ridiculous to have a weapon from the middle ages be an integral part of an artillery stack during the industrial/modern ages.