not on board with ranged attack...

[Minmaster]

at least with the archers...

this image from the manual shows the archers about to perform a ranged attack across another tile, which happens to be mountains (capped with snow).

mountains are impassable in this game, and i'm supposed to believe that archers can shoot arrows from one side of the mountain to the other side? these are impassable mountains, not hills! i'm trying to imagine archers shooting over mt. everest... makes no sense... i cannot accept this...

maybe with modern artillery, but not with basic bow and arrow...

 

[Cyberian]

The promotion INDIRECT FIRE lets you ranged attack a tile to which the unit has no direct line of sight but which can bee seen by you.

I suppose that this is it. And it seems every ranged unit has access to this promotion.

 

[King Jason]

Oh well.

 

[Dbob]

You can't accept that, but you can accept that units only move a few hundred miles in 50 years or that leaders can live for 6000 years? As has been said before...its a game!!

 

[Fin]

Not looking at it from a point of realism, because that's already been laid to rest as far as the game is concerned, but looking at it from a point of strategy.

Since ranged attack can be over mountains, thinking that you're protected when you settle with a mountain range to a side of a city is apparently not a good strategy. Just seems like one of those new strategical things everyone will have to get used to.

 

[Ashbery76]

I agree, it should only be a promotion with modern units.

 

[wingsoverithaca]

mountains still provide some protection.
1) the enemy needs sight (in civ4 at least if you had a mountain range you couldn't automatically see across it (hopefully true for civ5).
2) i'm pretty sure the enemy would need to bring another unit up to your city to capture it

 

[Louis XXIV]

From a gameplay perspective, I do feel that impassible terrain shouldn't be something you can fire over (at least before artillery), but it's possible "indirect fire" is required, though, which offsets this concern somewhat.

 

[Schuesseled]

this game is all about scaling, thats not a mountain that is a rockface your shooting over, the city is only 100 meters away.

(It's certain indirect fire is required)

 

[GlobularFoody]

I agree, shooting arrows over mountains is stupid and needs to be patched out. I'm starting to not like archers as a 'bombard' unit entirely, but that's pretty much been discussed to death.

I think(hope) they will work out things like this in patches.

 

[Ahriman]

That screenshot is from the bit on the manual talking about indirect fire. It is a specific example of something that Archers cannot normally do. Only things like battleships can. Archers would have to somehow get a promotion that granted indirect fire in order to be able to do this.

 

[PACrivellaro]

Keep in mind that to shoot over the mountain, you have to be able to -see- the target you're shooting. And the archers themselves obviously can't see it. It requires you to have a unit on the other side of the mountains that can.

Not that that makes shooting over mountains -realistic-, only that it makes it something that won't be too overpowered.

 

[Minmaster]

indirect fire or not, this is just not good combat mechanics. to represent the firing distance of a bow/arrow accurately, they should not be able to perform a ranged attack past an adjacent tile. ranged units that come later like seige weapons i can accept this, but not some ancient era archer.

 

[Drago Askani]

indirect fire or not, this is just not good combat mechanics. to represent the firing distance of a bow/arrow accurately, they should not be able to perform a ranged attack past an adjacent tile. ranged units that come later like seige weapons i can accept this, but not some ancient era archer.

Its not about the Accuracy of the depiction, its all important from a gameplay stand point. If you expect realism in civ then you need to ask yourself this. why did it take your scout 1,000 years to cross the country and how they lived that long on top of all these other inane thoughts in your head.

 

[Louis XXIV]

They don't represent it accurately, they represent it to make sense in the game. In that sense, Archers need to shoot two tiles in order to have them protected by units in front of them. Leave realism aside for this one, please, you'll only give yourself a headache otherwise.

 

[12agnar0k]

As for shooting over the mountain, he has indirect fire, which allows him to fore go normal blocking rules, he can shoot any tile in his range that is seen, (not neccesarily by him), their is most likely a friendly unit just above and to the right of the city just out of view.

 

[bhavv]

Whats the big deal? Put an archer or a catapult in that city, farm defence XP then fire back. Its not like a single archer is going to manage to kill a unit fortified inside a city.

Use it to your advantage and get lots of XP from it.

 

[Helmling]

indirect fire or not, this is just not good combat mechanics. to represent the firing distance of a bow/arrow accurately, they should not be able to perform a ranged attack past an adjacent tile. ranged units that come later like seige weapons i can accept this, but not some ancient era archer.

Given the scale of the maps, archers should not be able to bombard at all. No unit should. Tiles represent a huge swath of territory. This, like everything in the game, is something you have to think of an abstraction representing larger dynamics in history.

 

[Minmaster]

i guess much of my problem with this is that i see mountain as a tile that should mean more. if it is impassable, it should be a real hindrance. it should not be easy to shoot arrows over snow capped peaks.

 

[Tarkhan]

I know Civ is all symbolic, but that screenshot makes me chuckle.

"Alright boys, put some muscle into it, they're just on the other side of that mountain!"