Using Charm To Make Artillery Seige Units Work!

[Ozymandias]

... Has anyone tried this? - Early in 2010, @tom2050 began - and completed - a thread entitled, "Major Discoveries on Charm... CHARM WORKS." - From the very first post (all emphasizes and reformatting are my own):



Here is the proof that Charm does indeed WORK in game, it does at least do something. I'm completely surprised none of this was noticed before ?? It is fairly obvious there are some massive differences between a Charm Artillery piece and a normal Artillery piece.

1. AI AGGRESSIVENESS - Charm artillery pieces act like Offensive/Defensive flagged units to the AI, and NOT like Artillery flagged units. -

• They will openly and aggressively attack with bombard!
• They will also fortify in cities as artillery does.
• Artillery, likewise, only fortifies or sits in a city. This means that the 'Charm' flag is doing this... therefore the Charm flag does do something. [EDIT: AI uses Charm artillery just like Normal artillery (- ??)]

2. Bombardment Differences -
CHARM ARTILLERY PIECES DO NOT ACT THE SAME AS NORMAL ARTILLERY PIECES.

• Charm artillery does not effect units with A/D values at all (from what I've seen).
• But Charm bombardment DOES destroy buildings in cities (it destroyed the building with the Charm barrier! ).

3. Destroying City Buildings -
It seems Charm artillery pieces WILL NOT destroy a city building UNLESS a building with Charm Barrier is present in the city! Then it will destroy all other buildings 1st, and will destroy the Charm Barrier building last. (Strange, I know... ) -

• Charm artillery attacks do not always hit the buildings, they do occasionally miss, so a Charm artillery pieces' bombard str and ROF likely effects this.
• When a Wonder/Sm Wonder was also in the city, Charm attacks were able to destroy the Sm Wonder, but I did not a Wonder taken out. Then occasionally, the Charm Barrier Bldg was destroyed and other improvements remained. It may be all chance what gets taken out.

For Terra Fantasia, my thought is to give, in Era I (at least) Every Improvement EXCEPT City Walls a Charm DF. All other attackers will presumably keep attacking - and, ultimately, the City Walls will fall! - And so the siege will carry the day -

- So, has no one tried this?

 

[Stew Pid]

The Possibilities here are intriguing...

Does Charm Bombardment affect other units with the charm flag?

 

[Ozymandias]

From the first and second posts in tom2050's thread:

1. "Charm artillery does not effect units with A/D values at all."
2. "AI actively attacks other units with Charm artillery bombardments, although it never hits. It could possibly have some other unknown effect."

... BUT (as he himself expresses in that first post) there might be contrary info to follow, even though he did his best to keep the first post fully updated.

Also, I've not entirely reread - let alone re-digested all of the the contents of - this thread. Nonetheless, here's one interesting which didn't make his first post update effort (post 25):

• "Charm artillery, Charm ships, or Charm aircraft all act similar, in that they cannot damage units at all, but they can destroy roads, railroads, mines, and irrigation."

... ...

 

[Wolfhart]

From the first and second posts in tom2050's thread:

1. "Charm artillery does not effect units with A/D values at all."
2. "AI actively attacks other units with Charm artillery bombardments, although it never hits. It could possibly have some other unknown effect."

... BUT (as he himself expresses in that first post) there might be contrary info to follow, even though he did his best to keep the first post fully updated.

Also, I've not entirely reread - let alone re-digested all of the the contents of - this thread. Nonetheless, here's one interesting which didn't make his first post update effort (post 25):

• "Charm artillery, Charm ships, or Charm aircraft all act similar, in that they cannot damage units at all, but they can destroy roads, railroads, mines, and irrigation."

... ...

Hi Oz!

There actually is a charm bombardment effect on units as well, and when I've played Anthony's excellent Third World War scenario I've used it and seen AI use it too with effect as per below (certain land artillery units also have charm bombard to simulate chemical warfare):

...
AWACS use charm bombard. They attack whole stacks and again only work outside cities. They have the stealth flag so they are harder to intercept. Any unit they successfully bomb will have its defense value reduced by half for one turn. This is not cumulative with further charm attacks. I wish there was a way to represent their real function in helping the air battle but this is the best I could do.
...

 

[Ozymandias]

Hi Oz!

There actually is a charm bombardment effect on units as well, and when I've played Anthony's excellent Third World War scenario I've used it and seen AI use it too with effect as per below (certain land artillery units also have charm bombard to simulate chemical warfare):

Ah! I do recall that - "Third World War" is one of my favorites, but I've nonetheless not played it in quite some time. Skimming through tom2050's thread on Charm indicates that he didn't quite keep his first post in that thread fully updated - but who could possibly blame him, with all the ground he covered? Irrespective, it does indeed seem that Charm can be used against units, I think halving their DF, as you cited in Anthony's quote - but I'll keep on going through tom's work for more details.

 

[Civinator]

Oz, if you use the link in your first post to tom2050´s great thread about charm attack, you can see, that tom2050 has massively rewritten that post.

The most important thing: Charm attack can have a heavy impact on the defense values of the units in a bombarded stack of landunits (halfing those values in the current turn). Details please see in the rewritten post 1 of that thread.

Beneath Tony´s 'Third World War' scenario tom2050´s mod 'ConquestsOfMightMagic3_V1.00' is using that function.
I consider to introduce this function in CCM2.50 for chemical and electronic warfare.

Spoiler :

 

[Ozymandias]

My friend, I read tom's "Point 3" as a continuation of his "Point 2." - And - interestingly? - on that same date, he also posted in a different thread:

"And furthermore, Charm artillery, Charm ships, or Charm aircraft all act similar, in that they cannot damage units at all, but they can destroy roads, railroads, mines, and irrigation.
Why in the world did Firaxis not make normal artillery like this, but able to damage units... ???"

I've been dying to get back into actually playing the game again, with CCM and TWW being my top 2 favorites to date, but right now I'm eyeball deep in collating everything about AI unit builds and unit capabilities ... with well over 100 pages of info, and counting.

- But back to Charm - has no one been able to devise a way to combine Charm with "regular" artillery functions, in any way, to any effect? - An "Army" with an inherent Bombard strength "carrying" a Charm attack unit? (Certainly tricky to do for the AI, but methinks, if that works, that @Civinator 's skills with auto-production would come in quite handy ) - But, alas, I know that I'm already getting well ahead of myself

BTW, that long promised thread on AI builds will be forthcoming, if for no other reason than I'd like the info for Terra Fantasia, but there is just so very much info to sort through, organize, digest, regurgitate - I mean, "write down ..."

 

[Civinator]

Oz, my own tests about charm attack until now were only attacks against unit stacks. I didn´t make tests about buildings with the charm barrier and until now I´m not aware about a combination of normal bombardment together with the charm attack function in a single artillery unit.

 

[Ozymandias]

Gracias! For Terra Fantasia, I'll be testing pure siege Charms units, with City Walls being the Charm defense in Era 1 - and I guess I'll take it from there

 

[Predator145]

From what I've tested the charm flag does nothing to fix the broken artillery flag. The artillery pieces behave exactly the same and never leave their city.

Charm bombard is devastating as a single hit could affect multiple units in a stack, cutting their defense stats in half. Combined with conventional bombard it's downright broken in human hands.

Charm bombard does not affect ships.

I also put the charm barrier flag on all buildings. Charm artillery bombardment can now destroy buildings easily. I'm not sure if that's because after all the units have had their defense halved the buildings get targeted (something that happens easily and doesn't require many artillery pieces) or that the charm bombard works like in Vanilla and PTW.