dreadknought
timelord
I think that one aspect of the human use of artillery is that it has unfair field movement when compared to the real movement of troops.
You cant move in catapults and cannons and such as quick as ground troops can charge into battle and esp. mounted units. In real battles catapults are used to break walls in sieges that lasted for months if not years and were very slow-probaly put together nearby.
Cannons were brought in and set where battle lines were established as a front again a slow process not moved around every turn with the troops. They were then used by both sides to support the defenders and help the attackers in a charge. You dont see stacks of cannons being quickly moved around at will, they are too big and heavy to do this. Both armies would need all their men to move them around in large numbers.Of course in cities they would stay set in defensive spot.
Artillery is somewhat more mobile but still used to support 2 sides of troops in a battle line that could slowly change but would sometimes stay set for months on a front. Again artillery is slowly brought in to weaken positions to be taken by troops or tanks or to slow an advance.
Now modern artillery is quicker to be moved by an attacker but with planes to attack cities artiller is still mainly used to bombard troops to be attacked by tanks and mech infantry...ect....
So I think the problem is that land bombard units can move just as fast as ground troops in the field where they really should be quite slow and used to fortify lines and aid armies or for defense.
If you can imagine a huge battlefield on 2 sides and one side charges then the commander says ok lets move the 100 cannons an equal distance when our army attacks so we can get in our next shot. Thats not going to happen.
Or when your army charges and overruns the fortified line with the cannons that are set. The cannons dont simple turn and start to follow the moving forces . They cant they are locked where they are at.
In the game as it is you can hunt down troops with bombard pieces and keep up with them turn by turn. A swordman-spearmen-archer-whatever cant out run a catupult . Or musketmen -riflemen-infantry- cant outrun a speeding cannon that is after them. I can see a guy pushing a cannon running after some musketmen and keeping pace then to finish them off.
I think that land bombard units should be set in a fixed spot in a battle that you must set in advance ( which is in a scenario I was working on before I was sidetracked by conquests)
Ideally they could move but at a much reduced rate but since to move at all they get 1 move per turn it is not a simple fix. I was thinking of giving them a immobile flag and increase the range you could set them per unit and that way you would have to leave them locked in place or rebuild more (that simulates slower deployment) to redeploy them.
In other words you could place land bombards but they couldnt move( simulates slow battlefield movement) and you remove them and build more to place somewhere else( simulates taking units apart to move- and the time delay to position these units) This would make it impossible to build large mobile stacks of land bombards to overwhelm the AI but it would be possible to use them to help your troops in set areas and and pre-position them quickly to defend cities (simulates your advantage at having a location a long time.
You cant move in catapults and cannons and such as quick as ground troops can charge into battle and esp. mounted units. In real battles catapults are used to break walls in sieges that lasted for months if not years and were very slow-probaly put together nearby.
Cannons were brought in and set where battle lines were established as a front again a slow process not moved around every turn with the troops. They were then used by both sides to support the defenders and help the attackers in a charge. You dont see stacks of cannons being quickly moved around at will, they are too big and heavy to do this. Both armies would need all their men to move them around in large numbers.Of course in cities they would stay set in defensive spot.
Artillery is somewhat more mobile but still used to support 2 sides of troops in a battle line that could slowly change but would sometimes stay set for months on a front. Again artillery is slowly brought in to weaken positions to be taken by troops or tanks or to slow an advance.
Now modern artillery is quicker to be moved by an attacker but with planes to attack cities artiller is still mainly used to bombard troops to be attacked by tanks and mech infantry...ect....
So I think the problem is that land bombard units can move just as fast as ground troops in the field where they really should be quite slow and used to fortify lines and aid armies or for defense.
If you can imagine a huge battlefield on 2 sides and one side charges then the commander says ok lets move the 100 cannons an equal distance when our army attacks so we can get in our next shot. Thats not going to happen.
Or when your army charges and overruns the fortified line with the cannons that are set. The cannons dont simple turn and start to follow the moving forces . They cant they are locked where they are at.
In the game as it is you can hunt down troops with bombard pieces and keep up with them turn by turn. A swordman-spearmen-archer-whatever cant out run a catupult . Or musketmen -riflemen-infantry- cant outrun a speeding cannon that is after them. I can see a guy pushing a cannon running after some musketmen and keeping pace then to finish them off.
I think that land bombard units should be set in a fixed spot in a battle that you must set in advance ( which is in a scenario I was working on before I was sidetracked by conquests)
Ideally they could move but at a much reduced rate but since to move at all they get 1 move per turn it is not a simple fix. I was thinking of giving them a immobile flag and increase the range you could set them per unit and that way you would have to leave them locked in place or rebuild more (that simulates slower deployment) to redeploy them.
In other words you could place land bombards but they couldnt move( simulates slow battlefield movement) and you remove them and build more to place somewhere else( simulates taking units apart to move- and the time delay to position these units) This would make it impossible to build large mobile stacks of land bombards to overwhelm the AI but it would be possible to use them to help your troops in set areas and and pre-position them quickly to defend cities (simulates your advantage at having a location a long time.
