Major Bug with Bombers

[BarneyIX]

I am not sure if this has been mention before or if anyone has experienced this so here it goes.

*I have patched before playing this game btw so this issue is POST patch.

I landed about 8-10 bombers in a friendly persons city and started to launch sorties from his base. At first everything worked normally and I was decimating his troops and resources. However, things quickly changed in ONE round ALL of my bombers were taken out by a CANNON!

I am not sure how to explain this or why it happened. There is no combat animation it just zooms in on the city where my bombers are stored. It doesn't show the enemy unit attacking or your bomber defending. .

It's 100% leathal and kills EVERY bomber stored in the town. At first I thought it was just a fluke so I moved ANOTHER 8-10 bombers into a different Friendly town. It happened again but this time the combat message was that a Battleship killed them all in ONE round!

Getting annoyed I thought okay I used the same friendly twice so maybe he is the issue and landed 5-7 more bombers into a DIFFERENT Friendly guys city. All of my bombers were killed in ONE round by ONE guy I forget which one.

I restarted CIV and rebooted my comp but it STILL plays like this. My enemy has no air defense that I can detect. I am playing on Prince level and its about 1980.

Perhaps there is some spy function or something similar that I am not aware exists. It's really frustrating that this is happening because I really want to take him out HAHAHAH


Any help would be appreciated.

 

[panzooka]

thats because your enemy has open border with your friend too, so he can move his troops into your friend's city too.

also, when u capture a city, all ships/planes/nukes will be destroyed, same case in your case. but im not sure if battleship can kill air planes.

 

[BarneyIX]

thats because your enemy has open border with your friend too, so he can move his troops into your friend's city too.

also, when u capture a city, all ships/planes/nukes will be destroyed, same case in your case. but im not sure if battleship can kill air planes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

How does ONE cannon kill a STACk of bombers though? Or one Battle ship for that matter.

I get ONLY ONE red message saying that the Enemy's unit has destroyed my bomber but ALL of my bombers are gone not just one!

 

[BarneyIX]

Here are some before and after screen shots demonstrating what I am talking about.

1st Screen shot shows a Friendly city, happens to be American, holding 4 of my air units 3 bombers and one Fighter. The city that is connected to the American city where my bombers are being stored belongs to the enemy.

*Note I am not attacking that particular city.

The second screen shot displays the message "While defending your bombers were defeated by a battleship!" I tried to get a screenie of the city directly after the turn but it didn't save for some reason.

There was NO combat animation and ALL 4 of my planes were killed in ONE encounter with I guess a Battleship.

Despite occupying that area I NEVER saw ANY battleships that belong to the enemy.

This is VERY puzzeling to me I am begining to think that ALL the opposing player has to do is enter the town and it AUTO kills all of your units rather than forcing combat. The only problem I have with that hypothesis is that I NEVER see the enemy units come or go despite having removed the FoW.

 

[stagnate]

What does your combat log show?

 

[BeefontheBone]

Turn on "Show enemy moves" to see if there is actually anything happening.

 

[BarneyIX]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the suggestions. I turned on both Friendly and Enemy units and opened up the combat Log.

Once again there is NO animation into or outta the city, there is NO record of any fighting in the combat log, and the only message is in the Event log stating that a Battleship killed my Bomber except it killed 3 bombers and 1 fighter all in ONE turn by an invisible battleship YAAY!

I suspect that it wouldnt matter what troops were in there I just happen to have Bombers because you can fly directly to thier city.

It's fairly disorienting to witness and I have included a Frapped movie of the game play with the combat log open. I looped the best bit for a second time at the end it didn't happen twice in one round or anything.

I am still convienced that this is a major bug and if you think about it could be an exploit for MP.

I couldn't upload through CIV Fanatics but here is the link to download. It's a VERY small file...


Here's the link http://files.filefront.com/CivIVBigBugwmv/;4398209;;/fileinfo.html

 

[Mercade]

How does ONE cannon kill a STACk of bombers though? Or one Battle ship for that matter.

I get ONLY ONE red message saying that the Enemy's unit has destroyed my bomber but ALL of my bombers are gone not just one!

One enemy unit can take out all your defenseless units. It's the same when you attack a stack of workers (or catapults in for that matter). Since your bombers cannot defend themselves when attacked, they all die when attacked by a single enemy unit.

Now, I agree that if you got one message about one bomber being lost, then that is a message bug. It should be a message that all your bombers were lost.

The loss of the bombers itself is not a bug. If your enemy has an open borders agreement with your friend, then they can also move into the friendly city and battle it out with your bombers (which your bombers lose).

There is a simple solution to this: Have a single defender (machine gun, etc.) of yourself in the friendly city defending the bombers. That way, if your enemy also wants to enter the friendly city, he will have to kill your defender before he can take out your bombers.

 

[BarneyIX]

How does the computer select to battle with my bombers while in a friendly city. I don't quite get that.

Also I understand that defensless units allways die but I wouldn't have put Bombers into that category especially against a Naval unit. I have lost all of them to cannons and other inferior weaponry.

You are right though all I have to do is put a ground unit in that city and they don't kill my units outright.

I think Civ needs to rethink the message that is given under these circumstances because its not enough information for the player.

 

[mrgenie]

How does the computer select to battle with my bombers while in a friendly city. I don't quite get that.

he just moves in to that city the way you do, and within this city they fight I agree this is a very stupid behaviour we faced alot of World Wars if this happened in real life, but hey, simple solution, check the diplomacy screen!

Also I understand that defensless units allways die but I wouldn't have put Bombers into that category especially against a Naval unit. I have lost all of them to cannons and other inferior weaponry.

Yah this is very wierd, so in a dutch harbor in WWI the english send a ship, on a nearby airport a german plane lands..and now this ship destroyes that plane? both on neutral land? wow, Sid!!! you found out a new rule of war, don't obey neutrals, just attack all of them Sid has gone mad!!!

You are right though all I have to do is put a ground unit in that city and they don't kill my units outright..

Yep, just live with the fact that neutral in Civ4 is not neutral really, it is something like:"observer"

I think Civ needs to rethink the message that is given under these circumstances because its not enough information for the player.

I think Civ needs to rethink ALL about this game, to start with the message:"final version 1.0 or if you updated 1.09" and change it to "paid pre-beta release v0.2"

 

[Mercade]

Also I understand that defensless units allways die but I wouldn't have put Bombers into that category especially against a Naval unit. I have lost all of them to cannons and other inferior weaponry.

Yah this is very wierd, so in a dutch harbor in WWI the english send a ship, on a nearby airport a german plane lands..and now this ship destroyes that plane? both on neutral land? wow, Sid!!! you found out a new rule of war, don't obey neutrals, just attack all of them Sid has gone mad!!!

The problem is: how would you solve this?

If you guarantee safety in the friendly city, then you'd have a safe haven from which to attack, which is also unfair to the attacked party. You could also prohibit a unit from entering a friendly city while you are at war, but that means you lose the ability to visit any friend while you are war with anyone.

Perhaps an option could be to disallow you to take offensive action from the city of a friend? I.e. no basing of jets in a friendly city while at war? Or rather, no attacking with jets based in a friendly city? For jets that might work, but for knights or boats that is not the case. With a boat or knight in a friendly city, there is no way for the computer to tell if you're attacking with a unit that was safeguarded in a friendly city, or is there?

PS: I agree the messages should be clearer.

 

[jdog5000]

I was also shocked by this gameplay mechanic ... I was moving a workboat around a penninsula controlled by my friend Isabella, when an evil german frigate appeared on the horizon. So, I moved my defenseless boat into one of Isabella's cities. The next turn the german frigate also entered the city and demolished my boat.

While it may be debateable, I consider this a bug ... it doesn't make any sense for my friend to allow the german navy to sink my fishing boats in her harbor. She's neutral, but not neutered! She still has control over her domain and should certainly not allow the slaughter of civilian fishermen in her harbor.

I understand the point that Mercade was making about military units based in neutral territory being essentially invincible. It is a sticky question, but it seems counter-intuitive to allow your war to spill over into "neutral territory" ... the neutral country should be annoyed with both parties for shooting up his land! Immagine a huge urban tank battle in a neutral city ... tens of thousands of neutral civilian casaulties. Doesn't make sense ...

I see two sensible solutions:
1. Disallow fighting on neutral territory. If a country feels they are being attacked from neutral territory, they can issue an ultimatum to the "neutral" country. "Cancel your open borders with our enemy or die!" This would leave the current style of open borders in place.
2. Two-tiered open borders system. "Open borders" would allow non-military units to move through rival territory ... scouts, missionaries, workers, trade, etc. No aggression inside of neutral territory would be allowed. "Alliance" (reminescent of Civ3 or maybe the current "Defensive Pact") would allow your military units to travel through your allies territory, but they could not remain neutral in wars you were involved in. If you attacked another nation, your ally would have the choice of joining you or taking a relations hit and voiding the alliance ("-4 you are an untrustworthy coward!").

I feel the real problem here is the current implementation of open borders ... it's ripe for exploit. The current system doesn't really solve anything, as if you have open borders with a neutral and your nemesis does not, your troops are still invincible. Somethings needs to be changed ... other ideas?

 

[mrgenie]

The problem is: how would you solve this?

If you guarantee safety in the friendly city, then you'd have a safe haven from which to attack, which is also unfair to the attacked party. You could also prohibit a unit from entering a friendly city while you are at war, but that means you lose the ability to visit any friend while you are war with anyone.

Perhaps an option could be to disallow you to take offensive action from the city of a friend? I.e. no basing of jets in a friendly city while at war? Or rather, no attacking with jets based in a friendly city? For jets that might work, but for knights or boats that is not the case. With a boat or knight in a friendly city, there is no way for the computer to tell if you're attacking with a unit that was safeguarded in a friendly city, or is there?

PS: I agree the messages should be clearer.

how I would solve this? simple, any unit of anyone in a friendly state cannot attack any other player from or to that ground for the first round he leaves this area...this way, by delaying it 1 turn, you cannot do bomb raids, or enter your enemies terrotiory and immediatly attack, yes you can attack the round after, but you loose the effect of suprise, and actually, it is you who will first show, and must wait for a counterattack...that would be fair by using your friends territory..not a perfect solution, i agree, but better then sid's idea about betraying the trust of your friends

 

[BarneyIX]

The problem is: how would you solve this?

If you guarantee safety in the friendly city, then you'd have a safe haven from which to attack, which is also unfair to the attacked party. You could also prohibit a unit from entering a friendly city while you are at war, but that means you lose the ability to visit any friend while you are war with anyone.

Perhaps an option could be to disallow you to take offensive action from the city of a friend? I.e. no basing of jets in a friendly city while at war? Or rather, no attacking with jets based in a friendly city? For jets that might work, but for knights or boats that is not the case. With a boat or knight in a friendly city, there is no way for the computer to tell if you're attacking with a unit that was safeguarded in a friendly city, or is there?

PS: I agree the messages should be clearer.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose I don't understand how you employee your bombers but mine allready enjoy a nearly indefensable position. For example....

I position my bombers a few towns away and reign down hell upon the enemy from the skies. Thier only real defense is to construct bunkers, use SAM Infantry,use Mechanized Infantry, or intercept with Fighters. By allowing one to use a Friendlies base none of these defenes change.

As for ground troups I also don't see the unfair advantage here. I normally will use a friendlies base that shares a border with my enemy to amass troops. If I want to attack i have to leave the confines of the Friendly base exposing my troops to a counter attack. Most combat pieces are not able to move attack and move back especially when you consider movement on enemy roads, in most cases, is greatly penalized. Making an attack then retreat to an unattackable city impossible to near impossible.