Siege weapons are too unreallistic

[screwtype]

What I do find funny, well strange in any case, is that Firaxis said one of the main reasons to change arty to the way it is now is to cut down on the super stacks. Ummmmmm why change how an entire class of units works to do this, why not just put in a stack limit per tile? Even with the current rules there should be a limit of 4 to 6 units per stack.

Yes, that sounds like a much more sensible solution. Although I think a limit of four would be too small.

And maybe you could have a higher than normal stack limit in cities, just to make things more interesting...

 

[antracer]

Antracer,

I'm all for making the game as 'realistic' as possible. I guess my complaint is seeing people say that artillery is unrealistic without looking at the whole picture.

I have no issue with you rule ideas if it works in game terms. That is, if the artillery is so slow in the GAME, say 1/3 the speed, is it possible to take cities, or does it take too long and the military part of the game shortchanged? For pre-cannon, all artillery was pretty much made on site, so moving it at all is simply a game issue.

Your rule ideas seem well suited for the gunpowder era.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Thankyou Breunor

I can see where a long trip with a catapult could shortchange it's effectiveness/use ingame, and would lean more towards a setup time onsite vs. a longer trip to the target city.

If you want to start a whole 'nuther thought, perhaps you'd have to have a special unit, like an engineer/worker/seige engine builder. He'd have to go into enemy territory and chop trees down to build the catapult... say 4 or 5 catapults to a forest. Definitely give a whole new meaning to all the worker chop posts...

Lastly, I want a simple way to include what you said. I hope I was not misunderstood, although it's common in this medium. I'd like ot think there IS a way to simulate the logistics issues that you speak of.

 

[screwtype]

What we have is unrealistic warfare. Therefore, to make the game 'work', we need unrealsitic artillery.

You talk as though the choice can only be between total realism or total unrealism. And that is not the case.

Of course, computer games cannot be totally realistic. If they were, they would be simulations that most people would probably find incredibly boring.

The object is to get the right balance. Game mechanics don't have to be realistic, but they should "feel" authentic and simulate actual tactics to an appropriate degree. At the very least they should feel authentic and be logically consistent enough as to create suspension of disbelief.

The problem with Civ is that it is so outrageously illogical and inconsistent that it completely fails the suspension of disbelief test to anyone with plain common sense, let alone an interest in history.

Civ should and could be a lot more logically consistent in the way it simulates warfare, without detracting in the slightest from gameplay - indeed I think gameplay could be considerably enhanced with a more logical warfare system. As things stand, it's so ludicrous that it all but destroys any sense of immersion.

 

[screwtype]

Yeah, is it just me, or are most of the mods out there designed to make cIV more of a war game?

I don't know, but what I can tell you is that I'm working on a mod right now that aims to do precisely that!

 

[Helmling]

Ok, here's my two cents on the whole thing:

1. Suicide catapaults is so absurd as to subtract from the suspension of disbelief, and hence the immersion of the game. Ergo, it should be changed.

2. Artillery weapons should be capable of bombarding at range--like in Civ3. However, this bombardment should be at something like "half strength" and have the same limitations as air bombardment in Civ4--it can't take a unit below 50%.

3. Artillery weapons in a stack should get a free shot against attackers, just like in Civ3.

I know, I know, nothing you haven't heard before, but I thought I'd chime in.

The key to stacks in Civ4 seems to be mixed unit abilities--both in terms of unit types and also promotions. Catapaults/cannons/artillery are a very important part of that equation, but I find it silly that these units have to be overrepresented and constantly replaced because of the kamikazi nature of the way they attack.

 

[antracer]

I think of seige weapons as ammo. They're expended constantly on the offensive, and you have to have a steady supply line behind your army. If there's enemies between your army and your cities, you can't resupply your army without escorting the supply train.

You have to use seige weapons to take cities. This is realistic...
Seige weapons are great at softening up large armies. Also realistic...

All their current purposes in strategy seem very real to me.

The only difference is that they can take damage or die. If they couldn't die or take damage when attacking you'd remove the supply line element and have balance problems. Artillery duels would just increase the number of seige weapons on both sides: if the defender builds 3 more, the attacker would just build 3 more too, ending up in the same place you started.

I agree with this... but to a point. I just had a "battle" in my game that illustrates your post, and why I'd like to change the system....

I had a force of 8 cannon and some rabble defenders gleaned from all my inner cities forced into action against King Louie on a 2nd front. I didn't want the war, I already had one going... I took my force to his nearest city to find I was bringing 1800's tech against his Artillery, Infantry and SAMs... He had his hands full on 3 fronts, so I had 6 units to deal with in a 100% defense city. He hit me with Artillery, collateral on 8 of my Units. I took 1 turn, 5 cannon to reduce defense to zero. He attacked me again, collateral damage to 8 units. I lost 1 cannon and 2 longbowmen and some muskets, rifleman and cavalry at half HP, with a few left near full strength. I attacked with the cannon. 7 cannon down, 1 retreated and his "defense" were all collaterally damaged to 2-3 strenghth. A quick mop up with the cavalry and I took the city.

The only thing having technlogically superior forces did was require the sacrifice of 4 more cannon. Why build any units other than cannon? What's all this "make sure you mix units" garbage ? He had a nice mix of superior units, which i shelled into nothingness with 17th century cannon.

This just shouldn't be so. If I was using 20th century artillery, maybe. Even then it should take more than 8.

They didn't really change the artillery stack of death, they just changed how you use it....

 

[screwtype]

Seige weapons are great at softening up large armies. Also realistic...

Do you honestly think that hurling a big, inaccurate rock every half an hour or so at a large, well entrenched army would do it any appreciable damage?

 

[antracer]

Ranos----

Nice ideas !

Making the units useful without making them too powerful is what I'm after. I like the collateral ideas with buildings and population, although I would rather a defensive bonus instead of a limit on damage HP to units. Fact is... soldiers, people and llamas all die during bombardment. Some of those people have good hiding spots, and some sit out looking at the explosions going "oooooh... ahhhh....." I think that a unit should be able to die, but that unless you can afford to bring 29 cannon, it will be unlikely.

I Really like the building idea....

 

[antracer]

You talk as though the choice can only be between total realism or total unrealism. And that is not the case.

Of course, computer games cannot be totally realistic. If they were, they would be simulations that most people would probably find incredibly boring.

The object is to get the right balance. Game mechanics don't have to be realistic, but they should "feel" authentic and simulate actual tactics to an appropriate degree. At the very least they should feel authentic and be logically consistent enough as to create suspension of disbelief.

The problem with Civ is that it is so outrageously illogical and inconsistent that it completely fails the suspension of disbelief test to anyone with plain common sense, let alone an interest in history.

Civ should and could be a lot more logically consistent in the way it simulates warfare, without detracting in the slightest from gameplay - indeed I think gameplay could be considerably enhanced with a more logical warfare system. As things stand, it's so ludicrous that it all but destroys any sense of immersion.

EXACTLY !!!!!

 

[Proteus]

I think of seige weapons as ammo. They're expended constantly on the offensive, and you have to have a steady supply line behind your army. If there's enemies between your army and your cities, you can't resupply your army without escorting the supply train.

You have to use seige weapons to take cities. This is realistic...
Seige weapons are great at softening up large armies. Also realistic...

All their current purposes in strategy seem very real to me.

The only difference is that they can take damage or die. If they couldn't die or take damage when attacking you'd remove the supply line element and have balance problems. Artillery duels would just increase the number of seige weapons on both sides: if the defender builds 3 more, the attacker would just build 3 more too, ending up in the same place you started.

Artillery duels according to the scheme I proposed would do more:
They would do collateral damage to the attacking stack (siege units as well as normal units) (same goes of course for the defending stack )

This way you would have to make some choices:
How many normal units to place into the stack with artillery (the numbers shouldn´t be too low as this would make them easy prey for an enemy counterattack but also not too high, so that too much units of your attacking force might get damages.
Will I place all of my attacking artillery units into one stack or will I place them into multiple stacks (as they, too, could get damaged due to the collateral damage of an artillery duel, making them easier to get destroyed in their own artillery duels)

Of cpourse the attacker could use the tactic to move his normal untis away from the artillery stack as soon as the artillery duel takes place (therefore avoiding collateral damage to these units) but this works only with units that have 2 MP. And of course the player defending the city could either use this, too (with an advantage to the defender as he can use roads and therefore can move all units out and into the city again in one turn [with sacrificing his accumulated defensive boni for having been fortified several turns]) or he could just attack the stack with the attacking artillery one turn before they will bombard the city (if the attacker uses above mentioned tactics [of having mobile units stationed with the artillery] they will be good targets for pikemen or gunships )

And especially if you still cannot loose more than 50% of your max HP due to collateral damage the defenders won´t be an easy target, even after initial artillery bombardments.

So even if artillery units had a button to bombard units and would be subject to an artillery duel with the meachnics I proposed, there wouldn´t be less tactics that could be employed, but rather it would give you more things to think of and more tactics you could use as attacker or defender

 

[Thalassicus]

Seige weapons are great at softening up large armies.

Do you honestly think that hurling a big, inaccurate rock every half an hour or so at a large, well entrenched army would do it any appreciable damage?

Cannon and artillery would obviously be good at this.

I'm not a medieval weapons expert, but I would imagine in early eras unconventional projectiles would be effective against human targets, especially armies massed in cities. Fire-lit ammo coated in tar could wreak havoc in a city or on opposing siege weapons; diseased corpses could be used for biological warfare or lower morale.



One point to keep in mind is that units at 50% strength have both half health and deal half damage (for 25% total effectiveness). A 10-strength knight wounded to 5 strength is equivalent to a 2.5-strength unit.

So one possibility might be to simply limit all pre-Aircraft bombardment damage to 70% strength (50% combat readiness) and allow ranged bombardment.

I don't think destroying buildings or population would be worth it. There's a very strong dynamic in the game right now of pillaging or conquest: you can either ravage the countryside and leave, or keep it intact to take the city. Seige is ment for the second purpose, so there's no reason to be destroying what you're about to take...enough buildings are lost when the city falls anyways.

The hardest part with any bombardment possibility is figuring out how to keep them from being invincible. A possibility might be to add a new counter tangent, where Archers and Siege units both counter (can fire back at) Siege. Longbowmen with flame-tipped arrows could be very good at lighting catapults on fire.

There's still the problem of simulating supply lines though; if seige were gone in that regard it'd be necessary to add something to fill that purpose.



Why not have:

- Seige engineers
- Weapon gear kits (Catapult Gear, Trebuchet Gear)

Seige engineers move around with your army.
Weapon gear is built in your cities.

Seige engineers can create a seige weapon from a gear unit on its square.

The gear turns into a seige weapon, becomes permanently immoble, and gains all the bombardment abilities. When you're done with it there's obviously no reason to keep it around, so you'd disband it.

It'd be more realistic details, even if pretty much the same as sending the seige weapon itself out there and suiciding it.




Just throwing some ideas out there
.

 

[Seven05]

So is it more unrealistic that you have to move your artillery in order to get them to attack (and probably die in the process) or that it takes you 100 years to bombard a city into submission? Worse yet is the fact that early in the game it may take you 500 years just to make the catapult let alone try to move it a few miles down the road.

Just thought I'd throw a wrench into the realism discussion...

 

[antracer]

So is it more unrealistic that you have to move your artillery in order to get them to attack (and probably die in the process) or that it takes you 100 years to bombard a city into submission? Worse yet is the fact that early in the game it may take you 500 years just to make the catapult let alone try to move it a few miles down the road.

Just thought I'd throw a wrench into the realism discussion...

LOL !!!

I've modified my game to make bionics the first tech... now I have steve austin as my siege builder/pusher/fire-er.... I can make a catapult, have it to the front and fire it it 1.6 turns...

 

[Breunor]

You talk as though the choice can only be between total realism or total unrealism. And that is not the case.

Of course, computer games cannot be totally realistic. If they were, they would be simulations that most people would probably find incredibly boring.

The object is to get the right balance. Game mechanics don't have to be realistic, but they should "feel" authentic and simulate actual tactics to an appropriate degree. At the very least they should feel authentic and be logically consistent enough as to create suspension of disbelief.

The problem with Civ is that it is so outrageously illogical and inconsistent that it completely fails the suspension of disbelief test to anyone with plain common sense, let alone an interest in history.

Civ should and could be a lot more logically consistent in the way it simulates warfare, without detracting in the slightest from gameplay - indeed I think gameplay could be considerably enhanced with a more logical warfare system. As things stand, it's so ludicrous that it all but destroys any sense of immersion.

I'm sorry, but this isn't what I'm saying or meaning. What I am saying is that if you have an unrealistic combat game, you can't make artillery realistic. You can go part way as much as you want.

Board wargame designers have faced this debate for 40 years. Realism vs. playability became such a byword that people got sick of hearing it. Realistic games would have intiricate logistics (generals spend 90% of their time on logistics), but players like strategy and tactics.

If you can create a more realistic combat game that keeps the game fun and moving, that's great.


But I do object to 'seeming' realism that isn't real. Why are people OK with large stacks of catapults bombarding units to one hit point in the field but aren't OK with suicide catapults? There were NO suicide catapults in real life -- and there were NEVER large groups of catapults bombarding armies in the field.

Since they are both utterly ridiculous and never happened, I'm for whichever system makes a better game.

But the argument is that bombarding units in the field is better because PEOPLE THINK it is realistic even though it isn't?? Isn't this a crazy reason for a design decision? In CIV III, because they were so powerful, artillery could win wars by themselves with small ancillary forces, making, to me, the suicide catapults 'more realistic'.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Breunor]

Cannon and artillery would obviously be good at this.

I'm not a medieval weapons expert, but I would imagine in early eras unconventional projectiles would be effective against human targets, especially armies massed in cities. Fire-lit ammo coated in tar could wreak havoc in a city or on opposing siege weapons; diseased corpses could be used for biological warfare or lower morale.


Baliistas were effective against entrenched enemies in the field, while catapults and trebuchets were more effective against walls. Ballistas could use fire weapons which could be effective. Generally, they were important in trying to tie down defense.

Diseased corpses were a later tactic. The Mongols used this effectively, I don't know of a lot of cases earlier (there are cases, but they weren't widespread -- the Mongols made it standard.) Disease was a key part of warfare at the time.

As you say, they were useful somewhat against defenders in cities. They tended to be difficult to use against an army in the field. For the scale of this game, giving ancient field artillery bombardment probably isn't realistic, and giving them a shot agianst units moving adjacent isn't realsitic at all.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Breunor]

I agree with this... but to a point. I just had a "battle" in my game that illustrates your post, and why I'd like to change the system....

I had a force of 8 cannon and some rabble defenders gleaned from all my inner cities forced into action against King Louie on a 2nd front. I didn't want the war, I already had one going... I took my force to his nearest city to find I was bringing 1800's tech against his Artillery, Infantry and SAMs... He had his hands full on 3 fronts, so I had 6 units to deal with in a 100% defense city. He hit me with Artillery, collateral on 8 of my Units. I took 1 turn, 5 cannon to reduce defense to zero. He attacked me again, collateral damage to 8 units. I lost 1 cannon and 2 longbowmen and some muskets, rifleman and cavalry at half HP, with a few left near full strength. I attacked with the cannon. 7 cannon down, 1 retreated and his "defense" were all collaterally damaged to 2-3 strenghth. A quick mop up with the cavalry and I took the city.

The only thing having technlogically superior forces did was require the sacrifice of 4 more cannon. Why build any units other than cannon? What's all this "make sure you mix units" garbage ? He had a nice mix of superior units, which i shelled into nothingness with 17th century cannon.

This just shouldn't be so. If I was using 20th century artillery, maybe. Even then it should take more than 8.

They didn't really change the artillery stack of death, they just changed how you use it....

I agree that this is a problem. I agree that some sort of cap on artillery damage is probably appropriate.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[kernok]

What if....

...every artillery units works like this:
1_ +75% power when attacking
2_ -75% power when defending
3_ do collateral damages
4_ not able to withdraw
5_ not able to capture cities

???

 

[Seven05]

So heres an idea that may actualy work without changing the game mechanics (which can't be done yet and possibly never)...

Decrease the strength of siege weapons by 50% (or more)

Reduce the number of units hit by collateral damage (especially with catapults) and the amount of collateral damage done

Give all siege weapons a +100% strength vs other siege weapons, maybe even +200%, whatever it takes

Give all siege weapons a minimum 50% withdrawl chance (increase for cannons and again for artillery) but remove the "flanking" promotion availability for them.

Remove the "no defensive bonus" penalty and give them an inate bonus in hills & cities.

The game has a number of "abstract" effects already so there is really no reason why siege weapons would need to be "realistic" unlike everything else in the game. The abstactions just need to make sense. So you need siege weapons that can be used effectively but they can't be overpowering. They also need an obvious counter that makes sense, for me this would be other siege weapons. This would mean that a stack of catapults attacking a city would first have to deal with any defending catapults. It would also mean their biggest uses would be dealing with other siege weapons and reducing defenses. They would be fragile and vulnerable, just like real life artillery units, they are stationary when in use after all and stationary targets are easier to deal with.

Now, this would give the abstract effect of siege weapons having to deal with defensive counter-barrages first, once the defending siege weapons were suppressed you could move on to the remaining units but it would be highly unlikely that you would actualy score any kills. At the same time the increased defensive capabilities of siege weapons would make them worthwhile defensive units even if horribly ineffective against anything except other siege weapons.

The key is to look at siege weapons in the context of the game, Breunor has the right idea. Even though you see it represented by two catapults in the game try not to get caught up in the idea that you're playing an RTS where you make each and every individual unit. They are an abstract representation of siege weapons just like "warriors" are representative of a collection of armed men. To get caught up on realism means that Chicago, near where I live, needs more than one library, a whole crapload of grocery stores, more banks and markets than I can count and not a single farm within 50 miles. Keep the scale and game concept in mind, it's a strategic game, not a tactical game. You don't control the individual units, you have no control over the extact placement and use of siege weapons and you can't really out-flank your enemy. The issue of realism isn't the important issue here, the issue is the usability of the siege weapons by all players including the AI. So it needs to be adjusted so that you can't make a "stack of doom" with them and they need something to counter their effectiveness when used to attack.

 

[BCLG100]

Siege weaponry was overpowered in civ3 and underpowered in civ4 there must be a comprimise somewhere.

 

[screwtype]

But I do object to 'seeming' realism that isn't real.

I don't. Because as I said, it's a matter of degree. If you can come up with a combat system that makes logical sense and which simulates at least *some* aspects of reality, it's better than a system that is totally arbitrary.

But really, I think we're more or less in agreement with each other on this point.

Why are people OK with large stacks of catapults bombarding units to one hit point in the field but aren't OK with suicide catapults? There were NO suicide catapults in real life -- and there were NEVER large groups of catapults bombarding armies in the field.

I totally agree. And I'm one of those who is "not OK" with this.

In fact one of the next things I intend to do in my mod is eliminate catapults altogether from the game, since I don't believe they were effective in the antipersonnel role and weren't much better at breaking sieges. In my mod, bombardment capabilities will effectively start with the advent of cannon.

In CIV III, because they were so powerful, artillery could win wars by themselves with small ancillary forces, making, to me, the suicide catapults 'more realistic'.

Quite frankly, I think artillery is just as overpowering in Civ4, perhaps more so, because artillery now reduces not only hitpoints but also offensive and defensive strength - as well as bombarding *every* unit in the tile. And you can build the "artillery stack of doom" just the same as in Civ3.

Anyhow, to tell the truth my biggest grudge against the game's lack of realism is not in the handling of artillery, but in the absurdly long time it takes to build and move combat units. Fortunately, that is something that can be rectified with modding, which I am in the process of doing.

What I really wish I could do was mod in zones of control for units. Then I could create exactly want I want, which is a computer version of a traditional board wargame