Colonel Kraken said:
I think it's important to note that naval gunfire has historically been incredible inept at "damaging" land units. The historical example is one particular Pacific island battle of WWII (I can't remember which), the U.S. bombarded the island for weeks. When the Marines landed, they still got nailed!
you probably mean iwo jima - not a very good example, as the japanese were dug into the island, not running about transferring from city to city. if you used loads of concrete and fortifications blasted into solid rock, you could hide from pretty much anything WW II weapons technology had to offer.
even with trenches, artillery bombardment
can be effective - an example would be the british gallipoli campaign, where at one point barrages from naval units nearly finished off the osman troops. had the british
noticed that, the outcome would have been quite different.
units not protected by defensive structures of some sort (trenches, fortifications, etc) under artillery fire are sitting ducks.
on a more general note, artillery in civ4 is more the artillery of the 19th century, which was extremely effective in destroying city defenses - so much so that most european cities dismantled their medieval fortifications in the second half of the century.
the trench warfare of WW I and the concrete fortifications of WW II are not the only examples of artillery being used
