Probability of successful bombardment?

[morchuflex]

Hello.

How is the hitting probability calculated when bombarding? I guess the base formula is the same than for normal attacks. But does the defender benefit from all the usual bonuses (city, walls, fortified, terrain, river)?
In my current game, I'm attacking Inca towns (6<pop<13) defended by musketmen, and my catapults hardly ever hit.
So I guess bonuses do apply, except maybe the accross river bonus, which wouldn't make a lot of sense...

Any light?

 

[Admiral8Q]

Anything with a bombardment less than 4 is useless, and 4 is barely any help. With catapults it would probably be better to just bombard terrain. (I only build catapults to upgrade later or to send to less productive cities to disband) Cannons and Ironclads are the first useful units with bombard I find.

 

[morchuflex]

Anything with a bombardment less than 4 is useless, and 4 is barely any help. With catapults it would probably be better to just bombard terrain. (I only build catapults to upgrade later or to send to less productive cities to disband) Cannons and Ironclads are the first useful units with bombard I find.

I completely disagree. Catapults simply rock against any defender below pikemen, and still do decently against pikes. On Emperor level, I have utterly destroyed mighty empires with a stack of only 10 archers, a fistful of spearmen (against counter-attacks) and... tons of catapults (typically 20 or even more).

 

[Admiral8Q]

I completely disagree. Catapults simply rock against any defender below pikemen, and still do decently against pikes. On Emperor level, I have utterly destroyed mighty empires with a stack of only 10 archers, a fistful of spearmen (against counter-attacks) and... tons of catapults (typically 20 or even more).

Usually me, and the AI civs are advanced beyond archers before any real wars start up. I tend not to play agressively unless another civ is blocking my expansion. I rarely end up needing many archers before longbows or swordsmen are available unless I play a small map or start on a small island with another civ.

Still if you can build up a large enough force of catapults (and can support them) before technology is too advanced, then by all means I can see how this would work. I prefere to keep a small, defensive/counter defensive army to maximize workers and trade.

This just shows the versitility of the game, which is why I'm adicted to it

P.S. I disagree with your strategy morchuflex, but I understand what you are saying

 

[nullspace]

Yeah, it works very similar to regular combat. The chance of scoring a hit is b/(b+d) where b is the bombardment strength, and d is the defenders's defense with bonuses. The "rate of fire" of the unit determines how many hits are possible.

So, catapult (4 bombard and 1 rate of fire) attacking a musketman fortified in a city (defense 7) has a 4/(4+7) = 36% chance of hitting. That's not a bad chance, but you do need quite a few catapults to make a difference. But if you're so far behind that you're using catapults against musketmen, then bombardment units are your best choice for fighting a war.

 

[Admiral8Q]

Hmm, for some reason I thought Catapult was bombard 2, stoopid me! I've never had any real success with them, just a drain on millitary support, I'd rather pay the support for Knights, Midieval inf, and longbowmen. But if archers and spearsmen are still the most advanced units, I guess alot of catapults could be useful.

Now I just have to experiment with catapults, Thanks alot!

 

[Xerol]

I'm pretty sure 'paults are only 2 bombard in vanilla.

 

[TimBentley]

In PTW city size didn't give defensive bonuses to units when bombarded. I don't know if it has changed in Conquests, however.

 

[jimmywfl]

Do catapults, cannons, etc get more accurate as they gain experience?

 

[justanick]

No. Also they donnot gain experience unless they kill another unit like the korean UU can. If an elite unit is promoted this can create an MGL. Except for this the promotions only affect hitpoints and chances of retreat with eliteunits having the best chances of saving themselves.

 

[jimmywfl]

Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate your help. It certainly seems to me that they get more hits as they have more combat. No facts, just an overall, unscientific observation from playing. Pardon me for asking, but how do you know? Is it in the code or have you calculated it? What about captured catapults, cannons, etc? Same hits to tries ratio? Again, thanks for answering.

 

[justanick]

The chance for hitting is bombard value / (bombard value+defense value). What exactly defense value is may vary, but bombard value does not. Not sure about the special case of Radar towers, but they hardly seem to apply due to their late appearance.

 

[Lanzelot]

Pardon me for asking, but how do you know? Is it in the code or have you calculated it?

Most of the formulas about Civ3 that are known today, have been either tested by someone (i.e. running large series of tests and then reverse-engineering the probabilities from the observed results), or have been revealed by the programmers themselves (in the early days of Civ3 a number of Firaxis developers were active members here on Civfanatics or on Apolyton).
Test series can be created in the Editor: just make a little Scenario where you give each side 10000 catapults and 10000 swordsmen, and then play the game in hotseat mode...

This does not only include formulas for combat probabilities, but also for flip risks, corruption, unit promotion and leader spawn probabilities, war weariness, and lots and lots of other stuff. Most of that has been preserved for later generations in the "War Academy", so take a look at it, it`s very instructive.