Thoughts on if there will be an Artillery Fix?

[stealth_nsk]

I always thought it was weird how the ranged units would transition after gunpowder. There are two systems: ancient/medieval with smaller units where you need to position your ranged units and protect them.

The second system comes with gunpowder where the units represent larger formations armed with guns where the defender can shoot back .. and so they fight like melee units. Ranged units in this system represent very long range weapons, like artillery or battleships.

I understand that they wanted to make the 1UPT more tactical and more interesting but it has its problems, especially when it comes to sieges and artillery.

In Vanilla Civ5 Crossbowmen upgraded to Riflemen and it looked right from both historical and gameplay perspective. However, the game didn't have smooth ability transition for upgrades between ranged and melee units and so instead of fixing the core of the problem, developers created a new line of unit upgrades.

 

[labellavienna]

Does anyone know how long c6 has been in production?

 

[Thormodr]

Does anyone know how long c6 has been in production?

I would say right after Brave New World was released which was in mid July, 2013. IIRC, the Civ VI team had nothing to do with Civilization: Beyond Earth.

 

[sugerdady87]

Artillery would soften but not kill. Regular units would have to do most of the damage.

- ranged attack in general would have diminishing returns based on the health of the receiving unit - they are and always have been used to soften enemies, not to destroy entire armies

Again, none of this makes any sense to me because it's unrealistic. A good solution could be to reduce the accuracy of artillery so that they don't strike their intended target every time. But to go off on the far end to say they can't even kill units strikes me as bizarre. The whole point of field artillery (howitzers, mortars, mobile rocket artillery, etc) is to kill troops.

 

[elwin00]

Again, none of this makes any sense to me because it's unrealistic.

It is actually realistic, see below.

But to go off on the far end to say they can't even kill units strikes me as bizarre. The whole point of field artillery (howitzers, mortars, mobile rocket artillery, etc) is to kill troops.

There are many points why artillery is used nowadays and killing troops is only one of them. It is also used to destroy fortifications, deny access to areas and inflict moral damage on enemy combatants.

But artillery alone will NEVER destroy entire units on the scale that Civilization is played, that is divisions and bigger. It is a support weapon that makes it easier for actual troops to assault fortified positions. Sure, there will be casualties on receiving side and perhaps some enemy elements will need to retreat if the artillery barrage is focused and intensive enough, but it's other troops that must go in, fight off entrenched enemies and seize the area.

It is very difficult to actually kill enemies with artillery that are properly dug in. Just search how many pieces of ammunition are needed on average to kill a single enemy.

 

[Jimdigriz]

The whole ranged combat being overpowered thing is something that needs fixing but it wont be easy of course.

 

[Jimdigriz]

So, I'm more interested in the gameplay mechanic, but as a historian of sorts, you're quite wrong in that there are many, many examples of cities or fortified areas being able to outlast invading armies and thereby stopping a superior military from taking land and resulting in a new "owner" of a country rather than just a temporary invasion.

Hannibal invaded Rome, won Cannae where nearly all 70,000 Romans died in battle... but he didn't have the manpower to take Rome, itself, even though it was mostly defenseless apart from walls and militia. He'd spend years in Roman Italy killing soliders but never got land as Romans wouldn't offer a peace deal, and Hannibal couldn't take big cities via siege. Conversely, the Roman engineering Corps made Roman invasions extremely successful against fortified cities or river networks of defense.

The Danish invasions of England over a century failed precisely because of a) city walls, and b) Alfred the Great eventually making as many cities as possible into Burghs, i.e. fortified walls. Danes and then other Norsemen would frequently plunder the countrysides but struggle against a Burgh system where the harvest could be protected and relatively untrained soldiers could withstand a siege against elite infantry.

The Byzantines held onto to Byzantium so long (even as the Byzantine 'empire' shrunk over centuries) precisely because its walls were so difficult to take, and its geographical location in the Bosphorous. Byzantium resisted all comers, even if armies routinely rolled into what is now Turkey and won battles.

Anyway, the impetus for a Capital city, or even a few "major" cities being untakeable unless the invading army learned siege techniques (Genghis and Alexander were famous precisely because of this ability to learn and adapt after a setback taking a city) is vast and I could give example after example.

As a CiV mechanic, it does make Tall and Turtling until Artillery (a ruthless siege-breaking device) entirely too comfortable a strategy. Hence my original query to open this thread: if Beach/Shrik want to reduce comfort zones, the artillery tech path/mechanic needs to be altered to make a player play differently than core-4 into Ideologies into Aborb nearest neighbor with Artillery. So long as you can pre-build cannon, artillery is vastly superior to an Air Force you need to hard build and came later in the path.

Good post and I agree with nearly everything there.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm sorry, but that makes no sense. What needs to happen in Civ 6 is for the A.I. to become better at using it, not a nerf to range. All warfare overtime has increasing become longer range because it's more efficient.

No, the overwhelming majority of the timeline ranged was not primary damage. Six crossbows can beat six Pikes in the game and if you're talking a history perspective that's a joke.

If anything, it's rifled barrels that should overtake the xbow. Before then ranged was important but didn't carry wars itself. Even early guns weren't great, though by 1700s the rifled barrels gave that nasty range advantage.

In game it trumps everything else in v too long, bad for history and gameplay.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Again, none of this makes any sense to me because it's unrealistic. A good solution could be to reduce the accuracy of artillery so that they don't strike their intended target every time. But to go off on the far end to say they can't even kill units strikes me as bizarre. The whole point of field artillery (howitzers, mortars, mobile rocket artillery, etc) is to kill troops.

That's probably what the Germans thought as they turned Stalingrad into heaps of loose brick.

On the other hand in an open field...

 

[stealth_nsk]

No, the overwhelming majority of the timeline ranged was not primary damage. Six crossbows can beat six Pikes in the game and if you're talking a history perspective that's a joke.

IMHO, for combat the rule "gameplay > realism" becomes an ultimate. If course, historical units need to be used and changes in warfare need to be reflected, but in terms of "stronger/weaker" it should be only a matter of game balance.

If ranged units will not be effective, the whole combat will heap into melee clashes, loosing most of 1UPT tactics.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

IMHO, for combat the rule "gameplay > realism" becomes an ultimate. If course, historical units need to be used and changes in warfare need to be reflected, but in terms of "stronger/weaker" it should be only a matter of game balance.

If ranged units will not be effective, the whole combat will heap into melee clashes, loosing most of 1UPT tactics.

I don't think you can make a real sell for "one unit class dominates every other with only a tiny shred of support from other units" as a necessary gameplay balance abstraction.

"1UPT tactics" amounts to "focus fire with one type of unit and make a passing effort at abusing ZoC". Every time, every era until planes/nukes.

If ranged even had a semblance of balance in this game, it would be almost impossible to kill a unit with only ranged on a given turn, forcing them into an important support role (soften target from areas other units can't) without making them THE unit for 3/4 of the game.

For as much as the Civ V crowd rails on SoD in previous games, Civ IV actually forced significantly MORE unit balance than V, to the point where it's not even debatable. There's nothing you can spam in IV with maybe a cover unit or two that does not have a hard counter + some counterplay before nukes. The closest thing, siege for collateral damage, still needs far more relative investment in a cost-effective army than xbows.

So no, right now ranged is a joke from a historical perspective *and* it makes the tactical aspect of Civ V more shallow, not less.

 

[daft]

No, the overwhelming majority of the timeline ranged was not primary damage. Six crossbows can beat six Pikes in the game and if you're talking a history perspective that's a joke.

If anything, it's rifled barrels that should overtake the xbow. Before then ranged was important but didn't carry wars itself. Even early guns weren't great, though by 1700s the rifled barrels gave that nasty range advantage.

In game it trumps everything else in v too long, bad for history and gameplay.

Just give arquebusiers(they should be in), musketmen, riflemen and other gunpowder units the range of 2, make them ranged, because that's what gunpowder weapons were designed to be (originally).
Makes little sense having archer being able to have the ranged ability and not a rifleman.

And for Artillery units, like I mentioned before, range 3 - just like longbowmen,
Make the catapults slow fire-if possible, but the range of all(almost) artillery/bombardment units should be 3 and the collateral damage should be applied as well. On battlefield they still shouldn't destroy units, but be capable of ruining their strength to a point of near obliteration, even with a single salvo (howitzers).

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Make all the units direct attackers except Cannon+ artillery, change the combat formula in respect of archery and melee, maybe even get away from allowing missile units as many free counterattacks as they get heat on the battlefield every turn.

The ranged bombard is 100% the problem. Units cannot bombard each other without very special circumstances.

Then the ranges of bombards including the city importantly, can be 1 mostly, with just advanced weaponry being 2. Longbows can get range 2 and actually be able to use it over complex terra.

Also we should take Bikini Bottom and push it somewhere else.

 

[sugerdady87]

No, the overwhelming majority of the timeline ranged was not primary damage. Six crossbows can beat six Pikes in the game and if you're talking a history perspective that's a joke.

If anything, it's rifled barrels that should overtake the xbow. Before then ranged was important but didn't carry wars itself. Even early guns weren't great, though by 1700s the rifled barrels gave that nasty range advantage.

In game it trumps everything else in v too long, bad for history and gameplay.

Maybe I didn't type correctly, but what I'm saying is warfare has increased its operational range overtime. I am not saying range has been the convention for most of history. Nerfing artillery to the point where it can't kill units doesn't make any reasonable sense.

That's probably what the Germans thought as they turned Stalingrad into heaps of loose brick.

On the other hand in an open field...

Over 470,000 Russians died at Stalingrad. Significantly more than the Germans.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Maybe I didn't type correctly, but what I'm saying is warfare has increased its operational range overtime. I am not saying range has been the convention for most of history. Nerfing artillery to the point where it can't kill units doesn't make any reasonable sense.



Over 470,000 Russians died at Stalingrad. Significantly more than the Germans.

obviously late game ranged needs more damage relative to melee than early, or it won't compete with air. Maybe you even let gunpowder unit choose between the two as attacks.

Melee needs to be more than just sponge though.

 

[Gali]

Well one thing that can help melee is making siege a support detachment rather than separate units. If melee can have siege towers that make it a significant impact against cities again it would be much more valuable. Add in nerfs to ranged unit killing power and melee could have a rule.

Another interesting factor is the announcement that bombers can destroy improvements. That could mean they want to add more options for an attacker to cripple a defender who turtles around cities. How much damage an attacker could do to districts separate from a city could have a huge impact. If an attacker can damage and maybe over time destroy buildings, but not wonders casuals would hate that, it could force defenders to spread themselves out more. That could make horses more valuable and melee in forts for zone control more valuable.

 

[dexters]

I would assume the introduction of support units and having military bases as a separate entity on the map capable of ranged attack and one would presume Anti-air defence, reduces some of the threat of bombers.

If for example defensive units around a city have AA units attached to them, it would be far riskier to operate bombers with impunity as is sometimes possible in Civ5 as the AI will often use their AA units as melee units and lose them in the course of a war.

It would be more difficult to crack that nut if there is a critical mass of units with AA attached + AA cover from the cities/military bases.

 

[Gali]

Yes but this points to a design focus of forcing you to defend all your territory. The main weakness of ranged units is their dps. They don't take damage but they kill things more slowly. If battles become more spread out to defend districts you might not be able to get a critical mass of ranged units in place in time. l

The new stacking rules will allow potentially much stronger AI units. Take a standard melee unit now as a division. If the Ai on any difficulty above prince sends melee units with siege support that unit now has much more power to take out cities or fortified blockers. Later on it will be a corps and an army. A critical reason ranged units are so powerful is that melee units can't stack enough threat density to punch through quickly. The Ai does way too much dancing around becasue it doesn't have enough space and completely wastes its siege. If the new Ai can fit the same units in half the space it might be able to punish armies overly dependent on range.

 

[dexters]

Until we know the range of AA defences and how they work (1 defend per turn? multiple? is there an upgradeable AA path), it would be difficult to say if the requirement to defend district tiles is overly onerous or not.

I assume a city + military base would be sufficient unless under intense focused 'surprise' attack, and for cities without military bases yet (such as newly acquired frontline cities) units with AA may be required.

We'll see.

 

[UWHabs]

You could potentially solve most of the issues by having the siege units do damage more proportional to the HP of the defending unit.

So if the first artillery can take an opponent from 100 to 50 HP, the second artillery strike would only take them from 50 to 25. So the siege could still kill units, but you might have cases of a weak unit basically being unharmed by a siege shot depending on some random dice rolls.