Thoughts on if there will be an Artillery Fix?

[TheMeInTeam]

City range was fine.

No, cities by default defeating units designed to counter cities (siege) to the point of being able to 1 or 2 shot them in many cases is not "fine". Counters to something should actually counter it.

Nothing in historical cities could possibly out-range trebuchets in their respective periods, and it's not like trebuchets were too good in Civ V; these were miserable units that people ignored outright in favor of more versatile xbows, which were barely worse vs cities.

Ranged in general is too strong in Civ V, ironically the time period where it became most dominant in mainline armies (rifling) is exactly when Civ transitions basic units out of being ranged. Meanwhile we have nonsensical units dominating from ancient-medieval and into renaissance, xbows everywhere, infantry serving blocking at best, and somehow this was deemed reasonable from a tactics point...or even better than vanilla horse spam. Perplexing.

Regardless, cities having the strength and range they did lent nations to get away with sparse investment into units to defend. In a franchise where science rate is already heavily valued, that makes no sense; it dumps even more strategy preference on the already-alpha strategy. That does not fit any reasonable standard of "fine".

 

[Lexicus]

Nothing in historical cities could possibly out-range trebuchets in their respective periods

Mm, didn't defenders usually use pretty much the same siege engines as attackers, but elevated on walls (and so having longer range)?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I'm with TMIT, I've never felt the need to have a credible military in civ5. why would I need one? I can just focus on teching and if I do get attacked, my cities will be able to stall the enemies long enough for me to get a couple of units out to repel the invaders. it never feels about IF I'm going to win, merely WHEN.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm with TMIT, I've never felt the need to have a credible military in civ5. why would I need one? I can just focus on teching and if I do get attacked, my cities will be able to stall the enemies long enough for me to get a couple of units out to repel the invaders. it never feels about IF I'm going to win, merely WHEN.

Count me in.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Mm, didn't defenders usually use pretty much the same siege engines as attackers, but elevated on walls (and so having longer range)?

It was not viable to put those giant trebuchets elevated on walls, and trebuchets were notoriously inept at hitting anything that could move. It's not like cannons and later where you really could just fire the same stuff back.

While people can move, walls not so much. AFAIK trebs and before were never effective as field artillery, so in Civ you'd represent that with pathetic strength vs units but very high strength vs cities, and let them outrange cities.

Catapults are similar, but weren't quite so good vs fortifications as trebs.

I'm with TMIT, I've never felt the need to have a credible military in civ5. why would I need one? I can just focus on teching and if I do get attacked, my cities will be able to stall the enemies long enough for me to get a couple of units out to repel the invaders. it never feels about IF I'm going to win, merely WHEN.

Even on high difficulties due to how ZoC and 1UPT work you'd at most need a good defensive unit on a fort impeding their approach so you could shred them with a couple ranged units. Citadel is overkill typically but certainly effective. With that kind of stuff you were good until arty/bombers/nukes, more than enough time to start working AIs to fight each other or leave you alone instead.

 

[kaspergm]

While people can move, walls not so much. AFAIK trebs and before were never effective as field artillery, so in Civ you'd represent that with pathetic strength vs units but very high strength vs cities, and let them outrange cities.

Catapults are similar, but weren't quite so good vs fortifications as trebs.

Which might work, except you'd then also have to make trebs do abysmal damage to cities for things not being extremely unbalanced. I know people often claim "trebs are not very good" but fact is a treb will almost one-shot most cities without walls, and even cities with walls but not a castle will be taken down by two trebs in a couple of turns. Cities with castles fair slightly better, but still, trebs are pretty powerful, so if they can sit comfortably out of range and hit cities you need some really extreme re-balancing to make it work. Case of point, the whole starting point of this thread is how loop-sided the game gets once artillery comes into play, and what you suggest is basically artillery starting from ancient era.

 

[Aristos]

Funnily enough, the Community Balance Patch attacked this very issue with success; they made cities much weaker, almost in need of a defender, made the defender take a portion of the HP damage when bombarded, and reduced city bombardment range to 1 by default, which can only be increased by techs and defense infrastructure (walls, etc). Works pretty well, and shows that even with the civ5 engine, dedicated people can find very good solutions.

And it's for free.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Which might work, except you'd then also have to make trebs do abysmal damage to cities for things not being extremely unbalanced. I know people often claim "trebs are not very good" but fact is a treb will almost one-shot most cities without walls, and even cities with walls but not a castle will be taken down by two trebs in a couple of turns. Cities with castles fair slightly better, but still, trebs are pretty powerful, so if they can sit comfortably out of range and hit cities you need some really extreme re-balancing to make it work. Case of point, the whole starting point of this thread is how loop-sided the game gets once artillery comes into play, and what you suggest is basically artillery starting from ancient era.

You're anchoring based on now, but no. They just need to be fragile and useless against units. Cities are over strong now and making trebs flatten ones without serious defense is both realistic and forces people to actually invest in defending themselves.

 

[Thormodr]

Funnily enough, the Community Balance Patch attacked this very issue with success; they made cities much weaker, almost in need of a defender, made the defender take a portion of the HP damage when bombarded, and reduced city bombardment range to 1 by default, which can only be increased by techs and defense infrastructure (walls, etc). Works pretty well, and shows that even with the civ5 engine, dedicated people can find very good solutions.

And it's for free.

Yep. CBP did an admirable job in these areas.

 

[UWHabs]

The biggest "flaw" with artillery was that it gave both the extra range plus indirect fire, making it way too powerful an upgrade.

If it took one upgrade from a Cannon to get indirect fire, and then a second upgrade to get the extra range, that would push Artillery back to make it a bit more balanced. Artillery when you're fighting in the age of Great War Infantry was actually not too powerful. But when you have artillery mowing down riflemen, then you have problems.

If you also had all siege units provide a maximum damage to cities (ie. can only reduce cities to 50%), forcing you to actually use land units to attack the city, that would certainly drop their relative values down.

 

[Aristos]

Yep. CBP did an admirable job in these areas.

hey, you are back man... dexters is also around. The power of Civ...

 

[kaspergm]

You're anchoring based on now, but no. They just need to be fragile and useless against units. Cities are over strong now and making trebs flatten ones without serious defense is both realistic and forces people to actually invest in defending themselves.

I just don't think the solution you suggest will work. Even if you make trebs frail, you can just move them in behind a line of infantry, and they'll sit protected and can hit city without taking any damage [if their range is increased to 3]. So I agree fully with Aristos, what needs to be done is not make siege weapons more powerful, but make cities less powerfull - as it's done in the CBP. Even this approach has a flaw, however - once you eliminate an enemies army, you can steamroll his entire empire.

 

[dexters]

hey, you are back man... dexters is also around. The power of Civ...

I've been posting when each new expansion hit as well (see my siggy) don't really miss the big arguments I've had with others over Civ5. I actually miss those expansions because you get a nice selection of fans just discussing the features and talking about their games.

With Civ6 we're back to the bad old days.

In anycase
I'm pretty satisfied with how Civ5 turned out as the best Civ game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I just don't think the solution you suggest will work. Even if you make trebs frail, you can just move them in behind a line of infantry, and they'll sit protected and can hit city without taking any damage [if their range is increased to 3]. So I agree fully with Aristos, what needs to be done is not make siege weapons more powerful, but make cities less powerfull - as it's done in the CBP. Even this approach has a flaw, however - once you eliminate an enemies army, you can steamroll his entire empire.

What rationale leads you to perceive that as a flaw? Normally you would expect an army to beat nothing pretty easily.

 

[tat501]

Obviously the counter to arty is air units. The ai should prioritize gaining air superiority - unless there is arty within 3 tiles of its city, unless there are sufficient adjacent defensive units that will and can kill said arty first - in which case it should revert to it's first priority - gaining air superiority, then its second priority, killing ground units. There I've coded the fix.

 

[Lexicus]

Artillery when you're fighting in the age of Great War Infantry was actually not too powerful.

Erm....what? The first industrial war, the American Civil War, saw the great majority (perhaps 90%) of casualties inflicted by rifle fire. WW1 saw about two-thirds of all casualties inflicted by artillery.

If anything the real-life strength of artillery is drastically underrepresented in the game. But obviously balance is more important (not saying it's well-balanced as is).

 

[Aristos]

In anycase
I'm pretty satisfied with how Civ5 turned out as the best Civ game.

hmmm... don't know. I learned to enjoy Ed's "savior" version of 5, but I am not sure if we can call it "the best" version of civ... not at all. But in any case, that is old argument, we are all here to fight about if 6 will be the best... I mean to debate.

 

[Aristos]

Erm....what? WW1 saw about two-thirds of all casualties inflicted by artillery.

errr... what? Can you share a link to some backup of that, because it sounds pretty inaccurate to me.

 

[kaspergm]

What rationale leads you to perceive that as a flaw? Normally you would expect an army to beat nothing pretty easily.

Perhaps flaw is the wrong word. But may not be the best for balance. Admittedly lousy AI was a major part of this in Civ5, but it was an issue that generally unit production took so many turns that once you started loosing, it was virtually impossible to prevent complete eradication (should the offender want that). I did miss some sort of mechanism from the old games where you could draft units from population in cities in an emergency situation to withstand an assault.

 

[Lord Tirian]

...they made cities much weaker, almost in need of a defender, made the defender take a portion of the HP damage when bombarded, and reduced city bombardment range to 1 by default, which can only be increased by techs and defense infrastructure (walls, etc).

I think it also bumped city HP a little bit, meaning that cities take time to take, making it safe(ish) from random stray units but vulnerable to concerted efforts.

I quite like that, taking cities takes effort but without defenders they're doomed to fall. Personally, that it the spot because I think it's "silly" that any random unit can just walk into a city and take it over but having them act as doom fortresses wasn't helping either.