[C3C] What - no collateral damage?

[patinthedesert]

Civ3 has no collateral damage that I can find. Where a hit by a bomber or artillery can damage multiple units. That takes away most of the fun - and the advantage - of bombers and arty.

 

[Civinator]

C3C has collateral damage, but it is only working against buildings (not against units). In my mod CCM the strategic bombers have the collateral damage flag, so they are able to destroy two buildings with one attack:



The option that comes closest to a collateral damage for units is the 'charm attack' enabled in the Quintillus and Polish hacked editor. This special bombardment halves the defense value of some units in a stack for one turn - but that option is only working against landunits.

 

[CKS]

Civ3 has no collateral damage that I can find. Where a hit by a bomber or artillery can damage multiple units. That takes away most of the fun - and the advantage - of bombers and arty.

It doesn't take away the advantage of artillery. Bombardment with artillery in Civ3 does not risk the artillery unit. (Bombers may be at risk if the defender can shoot them down.) I can haul my artillery around and red-line every unit I meet, without ever risking losing a unit. (If I play as Korea, I can kill them, too.) They let you take out TOW and Mech Infantry units in a metropolis with only cavalry armies, so you can destroy a modern aged opponent while you are still in the middle ages. (You do need a giant stack of cannons for this, of course.)

 

[patinthedesert]

I am coming to C3C from the knowledge of CIV4. Civ4 BTS is probably my favorite version of the CIV series. I can adapt to the difference. I see where artillery can take double hits on units some percentage of the time.
I am currently playing out a game on small map with continents. My China civ is trying to defeat the best other Civ the Americans. I have a slight advantage but not much. I can't fight a long war as my Republic goes into increasing war weariness. I'm going to have to sign a peace deal because the production has been cut so much. So I guess it is peace for 10 or 15 turns then back to war. I will have destroyers by then which take care of his navy. Just will need enough gold to upgrade about 6 of the ironclads.
I would switch to communism but I hate the 5 or 6 turns of anarchy. It makes it almost worth it to play a religious leader.

 

[justanick]

So I guess it is peace for 10 or 15 turns then back to war.

Make it 20 turns if you care for your reputation.

 

[patinthedesert]

Make it 20 turns if you care for your reputation.

When the peace treaty was offered and then accepted, the message was that peace would last until war was redeclared. So it's more like a truce really. If there is a rule about the 20 turns I guess I'll have to be careful.

 

[justanick]

When the peace treaty was offered and then accepted, the message was that peace would last until war was redeclared.

Which would break the threaty. A regular way to declare war is to cancel a peace treaty. This is not possible during the first 20 turns.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Which would break the threaty. A regular way to declare war is to cancel a peace treaty. This is not possible during the first 20 turns.

I've never seen "cancel a peace treaty" as a way of declaring war. Just the regular way when popping up the AI leader from the F4 board declaring war. Am I missing something ... ?

 

[patinthedesert]

C3C has collateral damage, but it is only working against buildings (not against units). In my mod CCM the strategic bombers have the collateral damage flag, so they are able to destroy two buildings with one attack:



The option that comes closest to a collateral damage for units is the 'charm attack' enabled in the Quintillus and Polish hacked editor. This special bombardment halves the defense value of some units in a stack for one turn - but that option is only working against landunits.

I like the cool image with the B-29. Is that from a mod?

 

[CKS]

I've never seen "cancel a peace treaty" as a way of declaring war. Just the regular way when popping up the AI leader from the F4 board declaring war. Am I missing something ... ?

Not really. You can go into active deals, put the peace treaty up for consideration, and then cancel it by removing it from consideration. This can be a way to try to squeeze concessions out of an opponent (by renegotiating peace) or to make sure that you end up at war with an opponent if they don't fulfill their part of a bargain (typically a military alliance).

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Not really. You can go into active deals, put the peace treaty up for consideration, and then cancel it by removing it from consideration. This can be a way to try to squeeze concessions out of an opponent (by renegotiating peace) or to make sure that you end up at war with an opponent if they don't fulfill their part of a bargain (typically a military alliance).

Ok, and I just figured out how to do that, too. Brain not functioning as well as it used to... Thanks.

 

[patinthedesert]

I am currently playing out a game on small map with continents. My China civ is trying to defeat the best other Civ the Americans. I have a slight advantage but not much. I can't fight a long war as my Republic goes into increasing war weariness. I'm going to have to sign a peace deal because the production has been cut so much. So I guess it is peace for 10 or 15 turns then back to war. I will have destroyers by then which take care of his navy. Just will need enough gold to upgrade about 6 of the ironclads.

going back to this situation. After a period of peace. I now have destroyers in the oceans plus a few transports. Army units are infantry and artillery plus some cavalry. We went back to war with Americans to continue to invade their continent. It went better this time. Rioting from war weariness much less this time. 2 things probably helped. I bumped the lux tax to 10% the same turn that I declared war, before anybody started rioting. Also I had one more luxury resource. I'm just learning how lux resources equals happy faces in the cities. I had a good army stack with 6 artillery and about 8 infantry, mostly veteran. Captured his capitol, plus the second capitol. This is now headed for a Domination victory.
The area where the capitol (Washington) has a pattern I have not seen. It is all flood plain or plains, no grass or hills. All the tiles are irrigated and all have roads. Also there is a larger than usual space between capitol and other cities. Is this a strategy of some kind?

 

[justanick]

The area where the capitol (Washington) has a pattern I have not seen. It is all flood plain

Flood plains are rather valueable due to their high food, but they offer no production and come with risk of illness.

Also there is a larger than usual space between capitol and other cities. Is this a strategy of some kind?

None you should try to emulate. AI is not doing what makes most sense.

[...] a few transports. Army units are infantry and artillery plus some cavalry. [...] I had a good army stack with 6 artillery and about 8 infantry, mostly veteran.

You should think a bit bigger. A decent stack would be 20 to 30 artillery, maybe 15 infantry and say 30 cavalry. Infantry has no advantage over cavalry in attack. Cavalry has speed 3 and artillery has firing range 2. Artillery should redline(reduce to 1 HP) enemies which fast cavalry will then take out. Infantry has the passive role of protecting artilllery, cavalry and taken cities.

One measure of a military is the amount of invested shields divided by the total amount of production over a period of 20 turns.

An army of infantry is excellent at defending and if you need that, it is a good choice. But usually it makes much more sense to put cavalry in an army. 4 moving points are worth a lot and armies can attack more than once per turn.

At the tech level in the mid of the industrial age with cavalry and infantry but no tanks or bombers, infantry have a clear superiority at defence, there is no need need to boost that. An army of 3 cavalry without military academy has attack 9. And army of 4 cavalry with military academy as attack 12. This is the kind of boost that really helps in war.

 

[patinthedesert]

@justanick, I will look at that advice. Playing a small world, not sure I can afford the support cost for that army. I am playing at Regent which is about right for my skills at this point.
About the army leaders and armies, I don't know much about advantages. I have had some success with assembling an army after a leader appears. Once an army is loaded am I stuck with the units in it? Or can units be replaced with better units, I don't see commands for that. When I build the military academy the cost for building an army is high. It is the time it takes as much as the shields. So I've never done it. Does that give a full army or just a new leader ? Documentation is vague on this.

 

[CKS]

Once you put units in an army, they are stuck there, so plan ahead. Make sure not to put a slow mover in with fast movers.

Once you build the Pentagon, you can add an extra unit in. Sometimes you don't have any of the same unit to load in, and you may still want to add a unit. If you do this, be careful later, because which units you see may not always be the same. For example, if I have a 3-knight army but I have no more knights available when I build the Pentagon, I might add a cavalry (giving better attack and defense, but still keeping it a 3-move army), a tank, or a mechanized infantry. (Sometimes the Pentagon is a long time coming for me.) Then I need to be careful not to confuse my 3-knights-and-a-cavalry army with a 4-cavalry army.

Building the military academy makes your old armies better. An army gets a bonus to attack (and defend) that is the total of the attack (or defense) values divided by 6 if you don't have the MA but divided by 4 if you do have the MA. (Example: 3 cavalry in an army. Before MA: attack bonus is (6+6+6)/6 = 3, after MA: attack bonus is (6+6+6)/4 = 4.5, which rounds down to 4, I think. With the Pentagon and MA a 4 cavalry army gets an attack bonus of 6.) So, building the MA is worth it even if you don't use it to build armies.

However, here is the really nice thing: You can cash-rush armies. (Well, you could pop-rush them, too, but you are unlikely to have a population big enough for this too be really helpful.) You don't have to spend many turns building them if you have some gold lying around.

The military academy builds empty armies. They aren't leaders, but they don't have any units in them, either. And, of course, you can't build them if you already have the maximum amount of armies for the number of cities you own. If you lose towns and the number of allowed armies decreases below the amount you have, your army build may turn into something else - I don't know for sure, but the Pentagon build does (if you lose an army), so be careful if you are near the army limit.

 

[justanick]

However, here is the really nice thing: You can cash-rush armies.

Which is horribly expensive. The city with the MA should be the city with the highest regular production. Also leaders can be generated at quite a high rate and those leaders are best used for forming an army. At some point this will render the ability to produce armies useless. The purpose of MA and Pentagon is to make existing armies more powerful.

 

[CKS]

It is expensive, but it isn't _that_ expensive. If I have tanks, yes, I get leaders quickly. With cavalry, not so much. However, if I've turned off research after military tradition, I have lots of money lying around. (I don't like disconnect/reconnect tricks to build horses and upgrade, which might otherwise suck up money.) If I'm still researching, then I won't be cash-rushing armies much, but I may do some short-rushing.

I have actually cash rushed armies just so I'd have enough to build the pentagon for culture games. I've also cash rushed armies when at peace, so that I would be prepared to go to war sooner.

 

[Lanzelot]

You should think a bit bigger. A decent stack would be 20 to 30 artillery, maybe 15 infantry and say 30 cavalry.

... if you want to invade a Demigod/Deity AI...! But:

I am playing at Regent which is about right for my skills at this point.

At Regent, the stack patinthedesert mentioned, may already be sufficient. It all depends on difficulty level and on your objective (e.g. do you want to take the AI out completely in one swift attack, or cause some permanent damage to take them out easier at a later time, or just secure 1-2 towns for an important resource, etc.)

 

[patinthedesert]

Thanks for the info on armies and leaders. So it is better to load identical units and most of the time units with high attack values and a movement of at least 2. Like tanks in Industrial era or cavalry in earlier time. When I was playing Ottomans 3 of the Sipahi would have been good.
I finished the game I talked about earlier. With a domination victory shortly after 1894 (looks like I did not save the Win turn). Final push was easy with artillery and several tanks in each stack, along with infantry, some cavalry and some marines. Bombarding of coastal cities was supported by destroyers. With 2 stacks I rolled up cities until win percentage on land area was reached.
I have not had the patience to ease up on the wars and pay for the tech advances and the space victory. So my scores on the win are not impressive. But I still enjoyed the play. Civ has so much replay value to try different leaders, Pangea vs continents or islands etc.

At Regent, the stack patinthedesert mentioned, may already be sufficient. It all depends on difficulty level and on your objective (e.g. do you want to take the AI out completely in one swift attack, or cause some permanent damage to take them out easier at a later time, or just secure 1-2 towns for an important resource, etc.)

Yes it was like that. Against the strongest opponent, war weariness problems meant war could not continue without great risk. So was in stages, trying to cause permanent damage.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Yes it was like that. Against the strongest opponent, war weariness problems meant war could not continue without great risk. So was in stages, trying to cause permanent damage.

War weariness is accumulated *per opponent*, not globally. If you have 2 neighbors (say) to the west and to the south, it is often profitable to war with one first for 15-20 turns, take a few cities or a resource, and make peace with that neighbor. You may then move your stack to the other neighbor and attack, and the war weariness from the first war will not affect your happiness. The war weariness from the first campaign is decreasing while you prosecute the second war. I also play at Regent difficulty. Yes, I also keep the luxury slider at 10% in Republic in both wartime and peacetime. I have also pushed it to 20% in the latter stages of a war to forestall rioting.