Why won't my bombard attack an adjacent enemy ?

[elamrani]

i can't attack any of the red marked targets adjacent to my bombard, neither with right click nor with keyboard attack shortcut "A", what could be the reason ?
btw all my units managed to attack during that turn except for this unit

 

[Jaybe]

Siege units generally cannot move & then attack. You could have attacked if it had 2 movement remaining.

 

[Hactar]

Unless you have the Expert Crew 3rd level promotion, siege units can’t attack after moving. Could be worse; I seem to recall having to “set up” for a whole turn in other civ games.

 

[criZp]

set up only took 1 move point, in civ 5 at least

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Expert crew "move and attack promotion" or (I think) a great general is the only way for a siege unit to move and attack in the same turn.

 

[Disgustipated]

you can move and shoot without the promotion as long as you have 2 movement points left. A patch changed this, I believe it was the patch that came with Persia dlc. And not coincidentally, Persia has an ability that gives more movement to units upon a surprise war. So as long as they have 2 movement points left, they can attack after moving.

Regardless, I hope your war goes well. Get rid of those German bastards. Make America great again.

 

[Sherlock]

I like that screenshot. Something about it makes me wish for a 'Fantasy' version of CiVI.

 

[Naeshar]

set up only took 1 move point, in civ 5 at least

Yes it did, however in Civ6 there is no setup. Siege units behave differently, they require 2mp to fire. If you use GG or logistics to speed it up or have the promotion, it can attack after moving a bit. Unintuitive, but you lerned the lesson.

 

[acluewithout]

Out of interest, does anyone feel Seige units are more useful and or workable given their changed movement rules?

Honestly, after anti-cav, Seige are the units I most wish FXS would take a look at...

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Out of interest, does anyone feel Seige units are more useful and or workable given their changed movement rules?

Seems to work fine either way. Not having to click "set up" saves a click. Maybe slightly less intuitive for new players (see OP).

 

[Disgustipated]

Out of interest, does anyone feel Seige units are more useful and or workable given their changed movement rules?

Siege units? What are those? Honestly, I can't remember the last time I actually used them. I sometimes build them for Eurekas or city state envoys, but otherwise never actually use them. Problem is Battering Rams are so powerful, there is no reason to ever use anything else. Only exception is late game conquering you will eventually want to get some artillery corps/armies going if you want to continue on after the enemy has steel.

As for the movement rules, yes they are more useful. Obviously more so to the Civs that get various bonus moves in certain conditions. Also useful with a great general and utilizing road movement in later stages of the game. As I mentioned above, there is no reason to use them in earlier stages of the game anyways.

 

[UWHabs]

Out of interest, does anyone feel Seige units are more useful and or workable given their changed movement rules?

Honestly, after anti-cav, Seige are the units I most wish FXS would take a look at...

There's some definite flaws. The fact that they basically have to move and stop, let the city attack them, and then fire really makes them a pain. Although it is a lot of fun to one-shot walls with a bombard.

To me, I think the logical fix to siege would be to change them to a special kind of support unit, where you need to have a troop on the tile to "use" the bombard. That way, they don't get picked off while you wait to get setup, but if an opponent can come around your flank, they get auto-killed.

Or, they just simply become the modern equivalents of battering rams/siege towers. So ram/tower upgrades to catapult/trebuchet to bombard to artillery, each one giving more and more bonuses to city attack. Would at least fix the current weirdness of rams upgrading to what? Medics?

 

[SahintheFalcon]

Siege units are currently a drag on gameplay.

Make them a support unit that moves at the speed of the unit it is being escorted by.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

There's some definite flaws. The fact that they basically have to move and stop, let the city attack them, and then fire really makes them a pain. Although it is a lot of fun to one-shot walls with a bombard.

That Siege units need 2 MP left to fire isn't, in itself, a problem. I'd argue it's flavourful and makes tactical sense.

The flaw is in the design of the mid-part of the Ranged line, specifically giving all Ranged units other than Slingers and Machine Guns range 2, the same as siege units. Because of that, City Walls get range 2 as well, and can attack the Siege units without a sortie (or a defending Siege weapon inside, which was the only way that cities historically counter-attacked catapults, artillery, etc.)

Make all Ranged units range 1, give them a free initial attack against melee units assaulting them, make City Walls work the same as Ranged units. Now a city defends itself against assaults, but is vulnerable to Siege units, who take time to get into position and set up, but once set up, will eventually cause a breach that makes subsequent melee attacks much more likely to succeed.

While we're at it, adjust the impact of Siege weapons and Rams so they can each only reduce the health of City Walls by 50%, but different 50%'s, so that with both, you can eliminate them entirely. Melee attacks work like Rams, but less effective. Allow City Walls the priority attack that Bombers and Spec Ops get, so that they can target Rams (that's exactly what city defenders did, often effectively without destroying the rest of the army sieging the city).

That should make Siege weapons very useful, but not sufficient. No more "bomb the city to zero health and then walk in". You're still going to need a final assault. You'll need to decide whether to wait until you have Siege weapons in place and they've taken the walls down to 50% to save on your melee troops, or simple charge in and take heavier losses but possibly take the city quicker. Also makes Rams both useful and vulnerable.

 

[Hactar]

I’m sure the AI would have no trouble using that system effectively... right?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I’m sure the AI would have no trouble using that system effectively... right?

Easier than the current system, I think:

• The AI already needs code for how to handle range 1 Ranged units (Slingers, Machine Guns). You can now simplify the tactical decision tree to eliminate trying to tell the AI how to use range 2 Ranged units, which it doesn't handle as well as humans.
• Teaching the AI to bring up and use Sieged units would be a lot easier if it didn't get them destroyed by City Walls while moving them around trying to get the Siege units into position.
• Teaching the AI how to defend against Rams would be a lot easier if City Walls had the Priority Target feature (which the AI already needs code to use for Bombers and Spec Ops).
• If taking cities eventually requires brute strength (can't just rely on bombing the city to 0 health), that plays into the bonuses the AI gets at fielding a larger army.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Fun thought experiment: how much play would siege units get in competitive if they all had a base range of 3?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Fun thought experiment: how much play would siege units get in competitive if they all had a base range of 3?

As long as siege weapon range > city wall range, I'd say quite a lot. You might need to also either weaken the strength of their attacks or (probably better) limit how much siege weapons can reduce the health of a city and its walls, or else cities could potentially get shot out without their owner having a reasonable chance to defend.

EDIT: PS What I meant by the latter is that historically, city defenders can use ruined walls for partial defence, so siege weapons by themselves probably shouldn't reduce the strength of walls or their cities down to more than 50%, or maybe 25%.

 

[King Rad]

As long as siege weapon range > city wall range, I'd say quite a lot. You might need to also either weaken the strength of their attacks or (probably better) limit how much siege weapons can reduce the health of a city and its walls, or else cities could potentially get shot out without their owner having a reasonable chance to defend.

EDIT: PS What I meant by the latter is that historically, city defenders can use ruined walls for partial defence, so siege weapons by themselves probably shouldn't reduce the strength of walls or their cities down to more than 50%, or maybe 25%.

I like the idea of leaving some defense to the walls. As pointed out, they did provide some protection/shelter for the defenders, even when broken. I think you would need to eliminate the walls attack ability if decreased to say 25% since it would no longer be possible for the defenders to stand on the walls and shoot at the attackers. Also, there could be an exception to the one unit per turn [which I am a fan of, btw] for cities, allowing 2-3 ranged units to set up in a city for defensive purposes. So allowing siege units to bring the walls defensive capabilities down to 25% would effectively be equal to the walls begin destroyed, but the ruins remaining as a hindrance to the attackers. And allowing 2-3 units inside the city for protection would be consistent with how the wars were often fought. Another possibility would be to give ranged units one extra range while inside a city with walls, reflecting their ability to stand atop the walls and gain greater distance for their shots. Maybe [and don't know the programming issues with this], 3 units gain one increase in range with 100% walls, 2 units once it drops to 75%, 1 unit once it drops to 50%, and no increased distance once down to 25%. At that point it offers no platform for archers, machine guns, whatever. this would also allow siege units to have longer "range" than ranged units, who would pick up an extra tile range so long as the walls they were defending from remained intact. The ability of artillery and rocket artillery to essentially ignore walls would also potentially require some ability for those units to attack the defending range units directly. Of course, another rationale would be that walls in their current state represent all of that - defenders inside the city being attacked by ranged units outside the city without the requirement to actually build those defensive units.

 

[acluewithout]

Giving Seige and Anti-Cav defence v ranged would go along way to making both much more useful. There’s plenty of ways this could be implemented, eg Seige get bonus v ranged if they haven’t moved the previous term.

One thought I had was maybe a Military Policy card which gives Anti-Cav and Seige +Defence v ranged. Maybe they could have another card which gives them +1 move too (a bit like Logisitics). That would help, and would make Anti-Cav and Seige “the units which use policy cards” which might be fun.