Why do cannons need steel?

[fdrpi]

I was looking up cannons, and they did not require steel, although steel cannons were obviously better.

I ask this because I am creating a mod with a pre-rifling cannon, before the regular cannon and after the trebuchet, and was wondering what I should change the tech requirements to for the rifling cannon.

In my situation, is there a gameplay reason to make the cannon require steel when I will make it require rifling? Will this make cannons arrive too early?

 

[Culture Bomb]

I'd guess it would make the Rifling beeline too powerful if it gave access to riflemen AND cannons, though it might be different depending on what else is in your mod.

 

[damerell]

I was looking up cannons, and they did not require steel, although steel cannons were obviously better.

I think you're falling into the common trap of assuming the unit called X covers all real-world things called X. "Battleships" don't include 19th-century coal-fired battleships; "Riflemen"... well, given the inclusion of Redcoats as a variant, might not even all have rifles: if the usual pattern for a UU is followed of depicting a moment of triumph for the civ, the Redcoats are Wellington's men, armed with muskets. And the killer is "Infantry", who obviously don't include all infantry. So... "Cannons" in Civ don't include all cannons.

I agree also that the gameplay reason is that Rifling doesn't really need to become even more useful, although those armies of riflemen supported by trebuchets do look odd. The usual suggestion is to propose a "Bombard"; the usual problem is that it is hard not to make Walls and Castles less use by introducing earlier gunpowder siege.

 

[traius]

Walls and castles are pretty much useless anyway. And besides, even gunpowder siege units that "ignore" walls and castles still take extra long to shoot down all the cultural defenses when they are built. The problem is where to put said unit. I personally think a slightly-stronger-than-treb-when-attacking-cities, notably-stronger-than-treb-when-outside-cities (str 7, 25% bonus when attacking cities, and maybe immune to first strikes due to out-ranging medieval/classical units. While this would make it ignore the first strikes of Riflemen, the base str is 1/2 of the riflemen, so it should be ok... like knights being immune to Riflemen's first strikes, it just doesn't really matter) should come at gunpowder.

 

[vandermerwe]

If historical accuracy is your thing, then no, cannon weren't generally made from steel until long after their invention. But nor did they have rifled barrels until the mid-19th century. From from a Civ perspective I'm really not sure whether a 'rifled cannon' would add much. Rifling unlocks artillery if you have physics, and that's enough of an incentive.

I suppose you could say that knowledge of steel implies a wider knowledge of metallurgy needed to cast cannon barrels, regardless of what they're made of. In fact you could just rename the "steel" tech as "metallurgy" and there's no anomaly. But as Culture Bomb & Damerell said it's more about game balance than accuracy anyway. Why, for instance, do you need iron to build swordsmen but not riflemen, tanks or subs? All of them need it IRL... answer, I guess, is to give a premium to securing an iron resource in the early game.

 

[Manco Capac]

I'd guess it would make the Rifling beeline too powerful if it gave access to riflemen AND cannons, though it might be different depending on what else is in your mod.

Pretty much nailed the problem if Cannons were accessible at the same time as Riflemen.

As an example of something I consider slightly broken: Assembly Line tech.
Not only getting infantry pwning all previous gunpower-based units (except swarm of cavalries), but enable strong buildings and a good wonder.

 

[fdrpi]

A point of possible clarification: in my mod, I have a pre-rifling gunpowder siege unit: the pot-de-fer. It is like a cannon, but has strength 8. This unit adds something in between trebuchets and cannons (a rather drastic change in my opinion).

Still, I understand what all of you are saying. I think I will make cannons require rifling and steel now.

 

[Kid R]

Hard to say what to suggest without seeing your set of units and where they arrive. But one idea to help balance things out might be to make another level of accuracy promotion available with rifling. That would make sense scientifically.

 

[ksa76]

A bronze cannon with Gunpowder as tech requirement would make a lot of sense to me. The stats and costs should be roughly in between a trebuchet and a steel cannon.

You could also consider adding a ballista with mathematics as a tech requirement to give some extra spice to the ancient/classical eras.

 

[AdamCrock]

On wiki I've found an article about cannons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cannon. Here's a fragment from the article I've found:

The history of cannon spans several hundred years. First used in China, they were among the earliest forms of gunpowder artillery, and over time replaced siege engines—among other forms of aging weaponry—on the battlefield. The first cannon in Europe were probably used in Iberia, during the Islamic wars against Spain, in the 13th century; their use was also first documented in the Middle East around this time. English cannon were first used during the Hundred Years' War, at the Battle of Crécy, in 1346. It was during this period, the Middle Ages, that cannon became standardized, and more effective in both the anti-infantry and siege roles. After the Middle Ages, most large cannon were abandoned, in favor of greater numbers of lighter, more maneuverable pieces. In addition, new technologies and tactics were developed, making most defenses obsolete; this led to the construction of star forts, specifically designed to withstand bombardment from artillery.

If my memory serves me correctly I think there was a mention about XIII century monk who actually invented European Cannons in Civilopedia so Yes Medieval cannons makes sense to me. I would suggest them to have gunpowder tech reqirement and iron resource requirement (EDIT: oh and smelting tech of course) and there You go. It would be nice to implement weaker pre cannon - cannon to the game along with muskets
Hope You will succeed with Your mod

 

[Woreczko]

IMHO the most sensible solution would be to rename trebuchet as "bombard" and castle as "star fort" and add a gunpowder requirement for them (and copper for bombard). Bombards (and other gunpowder units up to tanks/artillery/infantry) shouldn`t ignore city defenses. Perhaps increase strenght of bombard from 4 to 5.

That would require to increase bombardment of cannon to 16% as well....

Dunno, perhaps it`s best to leave things, as they are

 

[Ataxerxes]

A bronze cannon with Gunpowder as tech requirement would make a lot of sense to me. The stats and costs should be roughly in between a trebuchet and a steel cannon.

You could also consider adding a ballista with mathematics as a tech requirement to give some extra spice to the ancient/classical eras.

You just gave a very good reason why RFC has cannons available at Gunpowder. For a mod I'd at least consider cannons at Gunpowder. Of course that's going to be a big help for France, Ethiopia and the Ottomans/Turks. They all have decent UU's that come at Gunpowder.

OP could try a game or two of RFC to see how that works.

 

[Dr.Null]

I'm working on a mod which will add two new early cannon units:
- Bombard: mechanically identical to the Trebuchet; requires Gunpowder and Metal Casting; flanked by Horse Archers and better.
- Culverin: strength 10 siege unit, cannot bombard city defenses, requires Gunpowder and Engineering; flanked by Cuirs and better.

The idea is:
- If you rush to Gunpowder you'll have an effective Siege unit, but no better than you'd have if you rushed to Engineering.
- If you have both Gunpowder and Engineering, then you can get a better unit than you'd have with either alone.
- Gunpowder + Engineering are the gateway techs to Chemistry -> Steel, so putting new Siege units in this path won't impose detours on those rushing to Steel Cannons.

 

[AdamCrock]

I'm working on a mod which will add two new early cannon units:
- Bombard: mechanically identical to the Trebuchet; requires Gunpowder and Metal Casting; flanked by Horse Archers and better.
- Culverin: strength 10 siege unit, cannot bombard city defenses, requires Gunpowder and Engineering; flanked by Cuirs and better.

The idea is:
- If you rush to Gunpowder you'll have an effective Siege unit, but no better than you'd have if you rushed to Engineering.
- If you have both Gunpowder and Engineering, then you can get a better unit than you'd have with either alone.
- Gunpowder + Engineering are the gateway techs to Chemistry -> Steel, so putting new Siege units in this path won't impose detours on those rushing to Steel Cannons.

There is one "but" in You theory: Cavalry is straight forward counter to stacks with cannons and besides horse archers flanking cannons ? O.K it IS possible (used as well might be) but not very civ-realistic. Imho there should be a cannon unit available after the gunpowder technology that is only countered with cavalry or cuirassiers remember it goes like weapon->counterweapon so after developing a weapon we develop it's counter weapon so pre-cannons should be countered with gunpowder technology based units right ?

 

[Dr.Null]

There is one "but" in You theory: Cavalry is straight forward counter to stacks with cannons and besides horse archers flanking cannons ? O.K it IS possible (used as well might be) but not very civ-realistic. Imho there should be a cannon unit available after the gunpowder technology that is only countered with cavalry or cuirassiers remember it goes like weapon->counterweapon so after developing a weapon we develop it's counter weapon so pre-cannons should be countered with gunpowder technology based units right ?

Yes, that's the Cannon unit, which is strictly better than either of the units in the mod I'm talking about.

In Civ logic, usually it's counter-unit first. For example, the Spearman comes before both the Horse Archer and the Tank units.

 

[AdamCrock]

Yes, that's the Cannon unit, which is strictly better than either of the units in the mod I'm talking about.

In Civ logic, usually it's counter-unit first. For example, the Spearman comes before both the Horse Archer and the Tank units.

Just one emoticon .... just one please .....

 

[rfcfanatic]

I have always wondered why they didn't add a Renaissance version of cannon to the game, while the industrial era has 2 siege weapons.

The number of siege weapons per each era:

Ancient: 0
Classical: 1 (catapult)
Medieval: 1 (trebuchet)
Renaissance: 0
Industrial: 2 (cannon, artillery)
Modern: 1 (mobile artillery)
Future: 0

It's kind of awkward to see Napoleonic-era looking riflemen and grenadiers besieging cities with medieval trebuchets.

 

[Dr.Null]

Ancient: 0
Classical: 1 (catapult)
Medieval: 1 (trebuchet)
Renaissance: 0
Industrial: 2 (cannon, artillery)
Modern: 1 (mobile artillery)
Future: 0

It's kind of awkward to see Napoleonic-era looking riflemen and grenadiers besieging cities with medieval trebuchets.

You are technically correct, but in my games it's more common to see a bunch of medieval Macemen laying siege to a city alongside "industrial" Cannons.

IMHO the Cannon unit's dress style looks a lot more like Riflemen and Grenadiers than Infantry. Maybe "Steel" shouldn't advance the era? Railroads are solidly Industrial, but Steel may not be.