Need clarification on terrain elevation in Civ 6

[AntSou]

I don't think I've come across this situation often enough. I was confused as to why I was able to shoot the Spearman from my current location. I know Forests and Jungle technically count as higher elevation, but apparently it affects ranged units shooting from lower elevations:

So, to visualise it:

But that's not all. Because, unless I'm missing something, it's not consistent:

What am I not understanding? It seems Forests on Hills work both as added elevation but also as an hard cap. That is, any Forest+Hill adjacent to a Forest+Hill will not be able to shoot over it. (where's Hill over Hill is fine.)

But as long as there are no trees blocking sight, a unit on flat terrain can shoot two hills away as long as the third hill also has forest/jungle. If it's just a hill, the unit can't shoot it.

Is that it?
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Edit: This is the more common, intuitive scenario one faces. Straightforward enough:

 

[aieeegrunt]

Having 2 hex range AND LOS in this game was really dumb. Range units are either OP or useless.

One hex range
One unit of each class per hex

Not only would this remove 90% of the frustration with UPT, but it also makes the AI 90% more effective at war.

 

[Yzman]

Its a pretty simple concept.

You can not see over a higher elevation, aka trees or hills. You do not stand on trees so if there are trees on the hill next to you, you can't see over them. You are still standing at the hill elevation, regardless if there are trees on your tile or not.

 

[AntSou]

Its a pretty simple concept.

You can not see over a higher elevation, aka trees or hills. You do not stand on trees so if there are trees on the hill next to you, you can't see over them. You are still standing at the hill elevation, regardless if there are trees on your tile or not.

Yes, that's how one would expect it to work. Instead, trees on hills have the unintuitive effect of making your defending units visible to ranged units in the specific scenario shown above. To repeat:

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Idk, if it'll answer your question, but have you checked out Victoria's LOS guide?

 

[AntSou]

Idk, if it'll answer your question, but have you checked out Victoria's LOS guide?

I think I went through most of Victoria's guides, but they can get technical and hard to keep to memory if you're not facing certain situations on a regular basis (or not paying attention). I think I must have gotten the notion of "height value" from that guide. Looking through it again, there seems to be an indirect reference to the scenario I faced above:

Spoiler :

If seems that if the settler were a ranged unit with range 3, it would be able to hit tile C but not tile E. More relevant to the scenario I posted, even if E were a hill, it would still be hidden, whereas C is revealed:

I haven't tested this on range 3, but clearly it works like this with range 2. The forest/jungle reveal the hill tile, and therefore the unit in it.
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So, in practice, the intuitive result of having objects with higher height values made visible has the unintuitive effect of revealing enemy units on those tiles, resulting in the "units on canopies" effect.

Edit: In my OP I confuse the issue. Hill+Forest affects LOS of units targeting that tile only. It doesn't grant the unit on the tile greater height.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

yes that's inconsistent and really stupid.

why do trees give any tile a higher height? It should be giving any unit within them less visibility looking either in or out.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who found some of the ranged attack rules to be a little "off" in Civ 6.

 

[AntSou]

why do trees give any tile a higher height?

Well, they're taller off the ground, so it's not illogical, but the way it works in Civ ends up having an unintended effect.
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Not that it matters now, but I think it would have worked better if most units gained Stealth on forest/hills, unless adjacent to the tile. Then you could grant the Scout unit the ability or promotion to spot hidden units.

 

[Victoria]

I have seen this also, also it seems inconsistent like there is land elevation also, but when I checked it out, nope.
Just got tired of the whole mess, you do lots of testing but get nothing back from Firaxis.
Gave up in the end,play about 1 game every 2 weeks now. Bad features battered me down in the end.

 

[Mahi]

Yes, that's how one would expect it to work. Instead, trees on hills have the unintuitive effect of making your defending units visible to ranged units in the specific scenario shown above. To repeat:

Are you sure it's not the enemy chariot exercising zone of control, which makes it illegal to shoot over?

 

[AntSou]

Are you sure it's not the enemy chariot exercising zone of control, which makes it illegal to shoot over?

I wasn't, so I checked:

Also, in the second picture, notice how the Hill which I cut from the screenshot is not targetable (the red area excludes it). By adding forests, it becomes targetable, as is the case with the tile with the Scout.

 

[Mahi]

I wasn't, so I checked:

Also, in the second picture, notice how the Hill which I cut from the screenshot is not targetable (the red area excludes it). By adding forests, it becomes targetable, as is the case with the tile with the Scout.

LOL this is confusing.. I don't get it either. It checks out with some experiences that I had with the game, where I just thought I couldn't see some bonus that was going on.

 

[Victoria]

@AntSou all of your examples above seem acceptable apart from the first which seems a bug... this one.
It has been the case for a while that units at 3 could shoot 1 but not the other way around.... but below is just wrong. I suspect this is not an elevation bug but a visibility bug, there are odd times when things cannot be shot when they should be an it is about crowding the terrain, I suspect in this case they have tried adding a frig to the code for some reason and this is the result. It certainly used to work right.

Look, it is all rubbish, here is one from tonight
It is the start of a turn, last turn my builder chopped trees to allow archers to fire.
And indeed my archers can now fire right?
.... load the save and try, I even restarted the software... however wait a turn and you can.
This is a long occurring bug when things randomly do not update at the EOT. Of course because a unbit cannot shoot and you try (because it says you can... the unit starts to move 15 turns to navigate the long way around due to one of many pathing stupidities.

 

[fy00sh]

This jankiness could all be avoided I think if, for the sake of visibility, the elevation of a tile was determined by the terrain (like hills, mountains) plus features (like woods, rainforest), but the visibility of a unit on that tile is ONLY determined by the terrain and not the features. The reason you can see wooded hills past non-wooded hills is because you can see the tops of the trees, but units arent going to be hanging out there, they'll be at the base of the trees where you can't see em. Tho there might then be further unexpected jank from decoupling tile elevation from unit elevation.