[question] Does Cover I/II promotions work against city attacks?

[jogi]

Ok ... can we pinpoint why it doesn't work for siege and archer units - is it related to the "no terrain defence" ability, or something deeper in the code? Has anybdy tried remove the "no terrain defence" ability from archers/siege units and see if that fixes it?

There was a thread the other day suggesting that range units actually defend against ranged attacks with their ranged strength, not their defensive strength. Maybe that has something to do with the problem? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=516249

 

[Barghaest]

There a thread the other day suggesting that range units actually defend against ranged attacks with their ranged strength, not their defensive strength. Maybe that has something to do with the problem? http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=516249

Entirely possible. It could be RangedDefenseMod applies to CS and NOT RCS, so if a unit has an RCS rating it's not getting Cover bonuses. I just got back a while ago and am in the process of preparing my hotseat tests to see if it displays differently than my IGE tests.

As for removing No Defensive Bonuses, I did that with my mod - and even added a further 66% ranged defense bonus to Must Set Up Before Attacking free promo for most early siege units - and Siege was still practically one-shotted by cities (as I was playing Single Player games I didn't get many chances to see the city attack point of view).

 

[tommynt]

Cover I/II does provide defense bonus against archers for any unit, regardless of them having no defence bonus on terrain or not.
Cover I/II does not provide defense bonus against cities for any unit.
Cover I/II does not provide defense bonus against air units for any unit.

Or maybe all this thread is 100% pointless as the desciption of cover is totaly clear.

DEFENSE AGAINST RANGED ATTACKS

not city attack
and also it should be obvious that units who dont get TERAIN defense bonus can still get promotions defense bonus

how can it be THAT hard to read?

 

[Barghaest]

Or maybe all this thread is 100% pointless as the desciption of cover is totaly clear.

DEFENSE AGAINST RANGED ATTACKS

not city attack
and also it should be obvious that units who dont get TERAIN defense bonus can still get promotions defense bonus

how can it be THAT hard to read?

Firstly, City Attacks list as Ranged Attack when you launch them from a city and as there's no specific promotions for Defense Against City Attacks, most people would assume Cover would apply to all Ranged attacks but it does not... apparently only Ranged unit class (or in some cases not at all).

As for No Defensive Bonuses, it didn't originally specify just terrain (although now in the online Wiki it's listed as No Defensive Terrain Bonuses instead of simply No Defensive Bonuses) nor does it just affect terrain... it removes the ability to fortify (which isn't a terrain bonus) and the bonus from Forts/Citadels (could be argued to be a terrain bonus but it's an improvement bonus) and in my prior experience with said units it also removed other categories of defensive bonuses.

 

[tommynt]

and the bonus from Forts/Citadels

pretty sure that citadels gives def bonus to all units - just as its description says ...

 

[Barghaest]

Okay, running my tests I see the following.

A warrior (CS 8) with Cover II (+66% vs range) and in Rough Terrain (+25%) is next to a city. When I mouse over the attack from the city the display only shows one modifier for the warrior... the rough terrain; however, his effective CS in the combat window is 15.28 which is 191% of his CS. Conclusion, the Cover II is applying from the city but for some reason is not showing in my combat previews.

An archer (CS 5 RCS 7) with same circumstances is also not displaying Cover bonuses and has an effective CS of 8.75 (which is just +25% more than his RCS and 175% more than his CS). So my conclusion here is he is defending with RCS and not getting Cover II bonuses.

A catapult (CS 7 RCS 8) with same circumstances is not displaying any bonuses and has an effective CS of 8 in defense (which is unmodded RCS or 14.28...% of CS). Conclusion here is he is defending with RCS and not getting Cover or Rough Terrain bonuses.

Situation was identical whether using City Attack, Archer or Jet Fighter as source of attack... so, Cover DOES apply to ALL range attacks; however, it only adds to CS and ranged units use their RCS in defense so no units with an RCS value will benefit from these promos.

I also tested CityDefense and found that adding any amount of that to a promo made no impact on the numbers, so it doesn't apply to defense from city attacks.

So the flaw is how ranged units defend from ranged attacks. I think the best fix would be to change that mechanic and make units ALWAYS defend with CS regardless of whether the unit is ranged or not (this will also make archers more effective vs other archers, which should be the case as most archers with shields would be those with Cover which would up their defense if they used CS instead of RCS).

Both Siege Tower and Battering Ram are "Melee" units so they lack an RCS and should benefit from the Cover promos.

And I need to find out what is causing my display bug which led to my incorrect conclusions in the first place before I decided to pay more attention to actual CS numbers and do some basic math...

 

[Barghaest]

pretty sure that citadels gives def bonus to all units - just as its description says ...

If so, that's a change from last I tested that... I know pre-G&K they did not help Siege units as I normally parked siege in citadels on hills and they took no less damage than those in open field but my test a few weeks back could have the display issues, so I'll retest later when I fix my display problem (currently using no UI mods so I might try and find one that improves combat preview).

 

[kaspergm]

Okay, running my tests I see the following.

A warrior (CS 8) with Cover II (+66% vs range) and in Rough Terrain (+25%) is next to a city. When I mouse over the attack from the city the display only shows one modifier for the warrior... the rough terrain; however, his effective CS in the combat window is 15.28 which is 191% of his CS. Conclusion, the Cover II is applying from the city but for some reason is not showing in my combat previews.

An archer (CS 5 RCS 7) with same circumstances is also not displaying Cover bonuses and has an effective CS of 8.75 (which is just +25% more than his RCS and 175% more than his CS). So my conclusion here is he is defending with RCS and not getting Cover II bonuses.

A catapult (CS 7 RCS 8) with same circumstances is not displaying any bonuses and has an effective CS of 8 in defense (which is unmodded RCS or 14.28...% of CS). Conclusion here is he is defending with RCS and not getting Cover or Rough Terrain bonuses.

Situation was identical whether using City Attack, Archer or Jet Fighter as source of attack... so, Cover DOES apply to ALL range attacks; however, it only adds to CS and ranged units use their RCS in defense so no units with an RCS value will benefit from these promos.

I also tested CityDefense and found that adding any amount of that to a promo made no impact on the numbers, so it doesn't apply to defense from city attacks.

So the flaw is how ranged units defend from ranged attacks. I think the best fix would be to change that mechanic and make units ALWAYS defend with CS regardless of whether the unit is ranged or not (this will also make archers more effective vs other archers, which should be the case as most archers with shields would be those with Cover which would up their defense if they used CS instead of RCS).

Both Siege Tower and Battering Ram are "Melee" units so they lack an RCS and should benefit from the Cover promos.

And I need to find out what is causing my display bug which led to my incorrect conclusions in the first place before I decided to pay more attention to actual CS numbers and do some basic math...

Awesome job, this is a huge help in pinpointing the problem. I will definitely bring this up over at the Firaxis/2k forum also in the unlikely but desirable case that someone will bring the information to the programmers and have them fix this.

 

[Paszczak]

Okay you've really done it this time around, guys.

I've been browsing this forum for a long time but there is just so much misinformation in this thread that I just couldn't help myself and had to register.

So let's get on with this:

1) The 100% defense bonus from Citadels counts as a terrain defense bonus so it does not apply to siege, mounted and armor units, because of their negative promotion that says "No Defensive Terrain Bonuses".

Conclusion: Expending a Great General to make an aggresive Citadel and putting a Cannon inside does absolutely nothing. Don't feel bad about this one, though, even Deity Let's Players do it notoriously.

2) City Bombardment counts as a ranged attack. Airstrikes are also ranged attacks, unsurprisingly, but aircraft take damage after each strike for balance reasons.

Fun fact: Bombing a Worker or any civilian unit kills it instantly, as opposed to dealing 40 damage like a ranged or siege attack would, and grants experience. Great way to level up Bombers without Air Repair.

3) Ranged Units do indeed defend against ranged attacks using their base Ranged Strength (Accuracy and Barrage promotions don't help on defense). This has never been a big secret, as the in-game combat preview already shows it.

4) Cover promotion does work on ranged and siege units and it does work against City Bombardment and Aircraft. This thing is, as another poster pointed out, it doesn't show in the combat preview, but it does actually reduce damage taken.

If you don't believe it, play a game until Modern Era and get a bunch of Great War Bombers.

A GWB with Bombardment II will one-hit kill a Cannon without Cover, because 83 vs. 20 combat produces a kill.

BUT

if enemy Cannon has Cover II (and AI likes Cover) the encounter becomes 83 vs 33,2 and the Cannon survives, because 2.5 combat strength ration is not enough for one-hit kill.

Same deal with City vs Cannon, Bomber vs. Gattling Gun etc. Just look at the "approx damage inflicted: XX" field and not the "their strength: YY" when hovering over different enemy units with and without Cover and it will all make perfect sense.

PS. Hi!

 

[Gamewizard]

Wow, this is confusing. I blame Firaxis for not making this clear enough. Frustrating.

 

[kaspergm]

Okay you've really done it this time around, guys.

I've been browsing this forum for a long time but there is just so much misinformation in this thread that I just couldn't help myself and had to register.

So let's get on with this:

1) The 100% defense bonus from Citadels counts as a terrain defense bonus so it does not apply to siege, mounted and armor units, because of their negative promotion that says "No Defensive Terrain Bonuses".

Conclusion: Expending a Great General to make an aggresive Citadel and putting a Cannon inside does absolutely nothing. Don't feel bad about this one, though, even Deity Let's Players do it notoriously.

2) City Bombardment counts as a ranged attack. Airstrikes are also ranged attacks, unsurprisingly, but aircraft take damage after each strike for balance reasons.

Fun fact: Bombing a Worker or any civilian unit kills it instantly, as opposed to dealing 40 damage like a ranged or siege attack would, and grants experience. Great way to level up Bombers without Air Repair.

3) Ranged Units do indeed defend against ranged attacks using their base Ranged Strength (Accuracy and Barrage promotions don't help on defense). This has never been a big secret, as the in-game combat preview already shows it.

4) Cover promotion does work on ranged and siege units and it does work against City Bombardment and Aircraft. This thing is, as another poster pointed out, it doesn't show in the combat preview, but it does actually reduce damage taken.

If you don't believe it, play a game until Modern Era and get a bunch of Great War Bombers.

A GWB with Bombardment II will one-hit kill a Cannon without Cover, because 83 vs. 20 combat produces a kill.

BUT

if enemy Cannon has Cover II (and AI likes Cover) the encounter becomes 83 vs 33,2 and the Cannon survives, because 2.5 combat strength ration is not enough for one-hit kill.

Same deal with City vs Cannon, Bomber vs. Gattling Gun etc. Just look at the "approx damage inflicted: XX" field and not the "their strength: YY" when hovering over different enemy units with and without Cover and it will all make perfect sense.

PS. Hi!

Hi! So ... what you are saying is: Everything works like it should (except the interface)?

 

[Barghaest]

Hi! So ... what you are saying is: Everything works like it should (except the interface)?

It appears so... most of my misinformation came from errors in the UnitPanel not showing all the proper bonuses. Apparently it doesn't even take into account the Cover bonuses when calculating Effective Combat Strength for Ranged units but the formulas in the game DO (so it's taken in but not displayed). Which means damage sustained should always be less than damage predicted (as in the previous poster's example with the Bomber vs Cannon - on my game both would have identical Combat Predictions but damage inflicted would differ).

As I said, I'm using unmodded UI, so all these UnitPanel display issues are in base BNW for me. That's the issue that needs to be addressed by Firaxis/2K, for now we can probably workaround it by using UI mods (gonna check bc1's Enhanced User Interface to see if it works better).

 

[Paszczak]

Yeah everything is working just fine. The problem is with the outdated combat preview that doesn't take Cover promotion(s) in consideration when calculating units strength, however the actual damage dealt is calculated and displayed correctly.

I guess this is a leftover from vanilla Civ 5 and the old combat system that was weird in many ways.

I agree though it's confusing as hell right now and could easily be avoided if they added a simple +33% defense against ranged attack to the combat preview.

 

[KmDubya]

I just tested a treb with cover I and II took the same damage from city bombard as a treb without any cover promo. The supposed extra +66% defense should have made a difference.

Both show a city attack strength of 28.04 versus a defense strength of 13.44 with a -4% due to unhappiness. If the cover was working for siege versus city attack the damage would have been less. In this case it is not just a display error, they take the same damage from the attack.

Treb with cover I and II, rough terrain and fortification took 35, 31, 29, 37 and 42 damage.

Treb with rough terrain and fortification took 40, 42, 32, 32, and 32 damage.

I know this is only 10 tests but if treb #1 had an extra 66% defense it should have taken noticeably less damage. They take pretty much the same.

Maybe bombers act differently than city attacks. But what I saw in game was that the damage taken matched the predicted damage and that the cover defense did not help for trebs versus city attack. If it is working but the effect of an increased 66% defense is this negligible, than it might just be a worthless promo for siege.

 

[Karmah]

To sum it up , the promo cover is bugged for range...It either should work with rcs in defense or not be available to any units with rcs. As it is ,since it only applies to CS then if u take it for a ranged unit it won t apply if you are defending ...against a range attack oO

 

[Karmah]

Or maybe all this thread is 100% pointless as the desciption of cover is totaly clear.

DEFENSE AGAINST RANGED ATTACKS

not city attack
and also it should be obvious that units who dont get TERAIN defense bonus can still get promotions defense bonus

how can it be THAT hard to read?

....... pretty offensive tongue especially since at the end you are wrong....
And btw ,even if you weren't wrong , you still forgot a tiny but meaningfull word : ALL

+33% Defense against all Ranged Attacks.
http://www.dndjunkie.com/civilopedia/PROMOTION_COVER_1.aspx

And that s pretty much why people would expect it to work vs city ....in fact it does , just not for ranged units since the mecanism is obviously bugged.

I ll indulge myself , HOW COULD YOU NOT BE ABLE TO READ THE THREAD !

 

[kaspergm]

Treb with cover I and II, rough terrain and fortification took 35, 31, 29, 37 and 42 damage.

Treb with rough terrain and fortification took 40, 42, 32, 32, and 32 damage.

Hmm ... mystery still open then? How difficult is it to make these tests ... would you be willing to collect some more data on this to make statistics more solid?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Okay, running my tests I see the following.
So the flaw is how ranged units defend from ranged attacks. I think the best fix would be to change that mechanic and make units ALWAYS defend with CS regardless of whether the unit is ranged or not (this will also make archers more effective vs other archers, which should be the case as most archers with shields would be those with Cover which would up their defense if they used CS instead of RCS).

Both Siege Tower and Battering Ram are "Melee" units so they lack an RCS and should benefit from the Cover promos.

And I need to find out what is causing my display bug which led to my incorrect conclusions in the first place before I decided to pay more attention to actual CS numbers and do some basic math...

Would a work around to address siege's vulnerability against cities be to increase the RCS of siege and then take away it's bonus vs city and give it a penalty defending against melee/gunpowder/mounted?

 

[KmDubya]

Hmm ... mystery still open then? How difficult is it to make these tests ... would you be willing to collect some more data on this to make statistics more solid?

The testing is easy, all I did was start a hotseat multiplayer game, set map to duel, choose two civs and set on different teams and both controlled by human. You end up with two civs that you control on alternate turns. Then just start a war and shoot your other teams units. For extra promotions I just made a bunch of scouts and killed them off for the exp.

I stopped after the ten shots because the city grew and the ranged attack was increasing. Also the data was running pretty much the same damage with the damage spread from the attack. They had the same highs and lows, a 66% extra defense should have shown up. This was enough for me not to use cover on siege but instead to get it on a melee. It works fine on a melee unit.

 

[Barghaest]

WHoward said the code for applying Cover was in the (BNW) DLL, but I may have misunderstood whether he meant the base game DLL or his Enhanced one. I plan on using his DLL with my mod-that's-broken anyway so when I can figure out which part of the SQL is FUBAR, I'll test that with his....