Zone of Control

[Rodrig0]

Hey guys! Long time no seeing

I have a question about zone of control... how exactly does it work? The civilopedia says units on a fortress have ZoC and will attack enemies that pass by. So in my last game, Sumeria got too strong, I guess they feared me, so they built infantries like crazy. So I imagined building a "corridor of death" I fortified my borders, leaving only one entrance, and leading to it I built my corridor, with fortresses at the sides, and infantries and arties fortified on it. If what the civilopedia said was right, my units would fire on enemies passing through the corridor. It happened as I imagined, Sumeria sent everything they got through the only opening, but not every unit that made it was hit. In fact, the units I feared the most, infantries, were most of them unhurt. So what should I have done so more of my units would fire? It didn't matter that my units were in enemy territory, some of them still attacked. I'm not sure if they were hit more than once each... could it be so? Maybe a unit can only be attacked once by ZoC fire? I think I remember in previous games that some units were hit many times per turn, so they were near death... Does anyone know for sure?

 

[Turner]

It's random. The more units you have there the more will take pot shots at the enemy troops. But it usually only does one point of damage. So if you were lucky enough it would slowly whittle away at the enemy troop's health, and make them less effective when they get to your city.

A better tactic would be to have a stack of arty and plenty of roads/railroads and whittle them down that way. Then you know you get x amount of shots at them, rather than % of x amount of shots.

 

[Spoonwood]

If you use armies with what you've described Rodrig0 actually gets called the "Funnel of Doom" or "Army Wall Tactic".

 

[Rodrig0]

If you use armies with what you've described Rodrig0 actually gets called the "Funnel of Doom" or "Army Wall Tactic".

So it is nothing new what I did...

I also noticed that if a unit was hit until it only had one hp left, no more units would fire... is it because ZoC behaves like normal bombardment? What if I place units with lethal bombardment? Like hwa-cha... the only ground unit with lethal bomb. Could they actually kill the injuried unit?

 

[Argetnyx]

No, I don't think they can. Your best defensive plan is to make a wall of fortresses, with barricades, and put your defensive and artillery units on those, stronger on likely places of attack. Then make a mobile reserve force, made up of attack units with more than one MP (unless you have rails), and when an enemy unit breaks through your defensive line, attack the probably battle-weakened unit with some of your reserve units.

 

[Spoonwood]

Do artillery type units actually have ZoC? I thought only land fighting units did, but I could be wrong.

 

[Argetnyx]

No, I've just checked, artillery units do not have ZoC.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I think that he meant that the artillery units are there to further weaken the AI units and to help if they do attack.

 

[Spoonwood]

Thanks Argetnyx!

Maybe I misunderstood Rodrig0, Overseer714.

 

[tom2050]

Just to add this in here... Zone of Control has a chance of taking off an enemy hitpoint when it passes, but it does the calculation based off the unit's (inside the fortress, or unit with it's own natural Zone of Control) Offense? versus the passing unit's Defense. So if a unit has an attack of 1 in a fortress, and a unit with 20 defense goes by, chances are it will not / very very rarely get a ZOC popshot at that unit.

I believe this is how it works to some extent.

Tom

 

[Argetnyx]

I don't really care about the probability, I just take it when it happens. If your strategy depends on this, you're screwed.

 

[Spoonwood]

SirPleb's "Going for Sid" game relied on the "Funnel of Doom". He won. His game has gotten surpassed, but his write-up makes for a fun read http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=81424. Moonsinger recommended using the "Funnel of Doom" in an article on how to establish a beachhead on Sid http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-85940.html. Here's Bamspeedy's game also relying on Zone of Control http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=66169&page=2.

 

[Rodrig0]

I don't really care about the probability, I just take it when it happens. If your strategy depends on this, you're screwed.

I didn't rely on it, I had already won. That's why I didn't mind the rep hit for my units fortified in his territory when I attacked. I just thought it would be fun, and maybe teach me a couple of things about ZoC that might be useful later. So it happened as they said, the units with the biggest defense had the least chance to be hit. Infantries were the least injuried. So one last thing... the unit with the biggest attack at that time was the artillery, but they said that arties have no ZoC... neither when on a fortress? The animation only showed the enemy units stopping briefly when they got hit, but it didn't show who hit 'em.

I'll fortify workers and see it they attack with shovels and pickaxes

 

[Argetnyx]

I'll fortify workers and see it they attack with shovels and pickaxes

What a war winning plan!

 

[TheOverseer714]

I'll fortify workers and see it they attack with shovels and pickaxes

That would be a good one for the bad advice thread.