POLL: Do you like the change to bombardment (never hits city improvements)?

RobC · November 9, 2003, 14:12

In C3C, bombardment was changed so that it only targets units in cities, and never hits improvements. Do you like this change? (see http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=101166 for earlier discussion on this change)

Catt · November 9, 2003, 15:14

I voted "No."

It's not terribly bad since we can self-impose limits on our own use of offensive artillery against the AI. If you don't self-impose limits, it seems to me that the disparity between the effectiveness of human use of artillery units and AI use of the same units just got even wider.

Catt

vmxa1 · November 9, 2003, 15:25

I am ambivalant, I vote yes anyway. I hate busted the cities down before capture, so I skimpped on bombardment, no I do not have to skimp.

WarpStorm · November 9, 2003, 15:25

No, it's unrealistic and makes it too easy to beat the AI.

Sarxis · November 9, 2003, 16:07

I'm still curious why this was changed.

ChrisiusMaximus · November 9, 2003, 16:22

I wont vote until Ive seen for myself when I get my mits on conquests, but I think its been changed because most people said they did not like bombardment the way it was before.

Unless the AI uses it more effectively then it looks to be too powerful, but time will tell.

Fatwreck · November 9, 2003, 16:24

where is the banana option

?

Pyrkaige · November 9, 2003, 16:56

As someone who rarely used artillery at all in standard/PTW Civ3, I find this a very useful change. The main reason against it seems to be that it makes stacks of artillery too powerful, which really works both ways. As long as the AI makes the same moves (and it does seem to be using artillery itself a bit more), this is a non-issue.

Of course, ideally this would be a variable within the editor, so that everyone could have the level of damage to units, population, and improvements that they enjoy.

WarpStorm · November 9, 2003, 17:08

Another thing I don't like is the inability to damage infrastructure if that was your intent. Say you were just planning on bombing a city with a barracks hoping to take out the barrracks with a lucky shot so that the defenders would stop healing. If they have more defenders that you brought arty, it can't happen now. So much for strategic bombardment.

At least Air bombardment works right anyway.

Fosse · November 9, 2003, 17:21

No... I don't have Conquests yet, but I agree with the others that it makes artillery more unbalanced against the AI and is unrealistic... Plus... WS has it right, sometimes you just want to destroy infrastructure.

asleepathewheel · November 9, 2003, 17:35

don't care for the change.

G'Kar · November 9, 2003, 17:41

I'm still unsure but I voted no.

Inverse Icarus · November 9, 2003, 17:56

ideally, there should be an option on what to target that you set globally, or per unit.

a little button that says "aim for buildings", or "aim for units". i mean, come on, did people really blindly fling rocks at dirt? and in the modern era, ww2-style artillery can't aim well enough to pick a target?

Sarxis · November 9, 2003, 18:24

Ok, I'm not a big artillery stacker, so I didn't try it out yet. But does it:

when you fire 10 arty at a city with 3 defenders, after the 3 defenders have each taken a hit, does it then go for infrastructure if there are leftover arty?

vmxa1 · November 9, 2003, 18:41

WarpStorm I am not sure I understand what is unbalanced as compared to PTW or CivIII. If you are coming with a large stack of arties, you are also coming with a lot of troops. At that point the AI is toast anyway, so all we are talking about is wither it is worse to bust up the city or the units first? Am I missing something.

I mean when the humans sends stacks of arties and gets to the civs city, that city is gone. The only issue is how much will be captured and how much will be lost to capture it.
Often players will raze the city and move on or drop a settler in place.

Jaybe · November 9, 2003, 19:12

Many of the non-cultural improvements are often lost when you take the city, anyway (e.g., market, harbor). Arty focusing on troops just makes it easier.

Perhaps the change was made to assist the AI, who is supposed to use arty now (not that I know -- yet).

If there were stacking limitations in the game, then limiting arty to 3-6 in a tile at the end of a move could work, but the game doesn't seem to be aware of the concept.

Kaos XIII · November 9, 2003, 19:15

I agree with everything that Warpstorm wrote, about it NOT being realistic.

Sometimes I have no intention of taking the AI city, I just like to obliterate it. Destroy all their buildings and kill most of the people.

But now the fun is gone.

Kuciwalker · November 9, 2003, 20:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Fatwreck
where is the banana option

?

darn, beat me to it (that's usually my line

)

Kuciwalker · November 9, 2003, 20:11

Oh, and I voted no.

PrinceBimz · November 10, 2003, 03:26

I am not 100% sure what I think about this yet, but I am leaning towards "no" so I voted no. It is less realistic and like warpstorm mentioned, you cannot attack structures even if you intended to. Besides, if land and naval are like this then air should also be the same. It does make artillery more useful but I always thought it was useful and worked good enough anyway.

I have an idea for this which I think would be good and more realistic. All bombardments (artillery, naval, air) should be put back to how they were, random hits on units and structures. Then they can create a new "spotter" unit. If this unit is adjacent to a targeted bombardment location, you can choose what to attack. Example, allowing you to choose either structures or units. This can work for everything, even planes. So if you don't have a spotter unit then whatever you hit in the targeted location is random.

Just an idea

player1 · November 10, 2003, 04:16

With just 2 choices it's a biased poll.

Old system was absurd and supported bombard city to 1 pop strategy (which is also totaly unrealistic, since you would obliterate city even before you do any significant damage to units, not to say that if any hp damage to units is done in one round it will be healed in next).

It also made catapults pretty much pointless (automatic 50% miss chance, plus bombard 4 vs buildings defense of 16).

On the other hand,
new system never targets building which is not so good too.

At the end, I was foced to choose a lesser evil: NEW system

notyoueither · November 10, 2003, 04:23

I like it. For SP it means I don't need stacks of 8 or 12. 4 or 6 will do. Less fuss for desired result. If I move a stack to that city, I AM going to take it. Not having to blow the hell out of the population and improvements just means less time consumed moving more units around.

For MP? Ho ho. No longer will the plan be to reduce pop to reduce defence of the defenders. It will be more 'pure' war game. Units on units, as it should be.

player1 · November 10, 2003, 04:29

Quote:

Originally posted by notyoueither
I like it. For SP it means I don't need stacks of 8 or 12. 4 or 6 will do. Less fuss for desired result. If I move a stack to that city, I AM going to take it. Not having to blow the hell out of the population and improvements just means less time consumed moving more units around.

For MP? Ho ho. No longer will the plan be to reduce pop to reduce defence of the defenders. It will be more 'pure' war game. Units on units, as it should be.

Well said.

Gunter · November 10, 2003, 04:39

I am still waiting for the game from lazy Amazoners

BTW Does the editor allow to customize the bombardament ? I mean if it allows to choose among units,buildings and both ?

Gunter

player1 · November 10, 2003, 04:56

Hmm...

I just remembered somethibng.

If land bombardment doesn't target buildings and if city has barracks, then players need to make sure to do as much damage as possibile in one round, otherwise enemy units will be healed.

Who said that it would be too easy?

Tiberius · November 10, 2003, 05:43

But catapults and cannons won't ever hit city walls which was the primary reason why they were used in siege warfare.

And artilleries not hitting barracks? Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't barracks among the most important targets artilleries are looking for?

Sarxis · November 10, 2003, 05:46

Yup. I've gone through this already vs. the AI - where I didn't bring quite enough artillery and units, and I'd have to strike again with another wave later.

Just don't know still. Proper collateral might be better.

dexters · November 10, 2003, 07:01

Quote:

WarpStorm I am not sure I understand what is unbalanced as compared to PTW or CivIII. If you are coming with a large stack of arties, you are also coming with a lot of troops. At that point the AI is toast anyway, so all we are talking about is wither it is worse to bust up the city or the units first? Am I missing something.

Well, yes and no. I think you're right on about stacks of artys and stacks of troops. If the human player is really winning in a major way and the war is swining in your favour. sure. They can make artys the vultures only and with enough forces you can take any city.

The question is seige like play. The fact of the matter is, not all players can dominate in every game, and it was a major exploit to just send a stack of arty to hammer away from a hill, destroying market places, barracks (this is a big one) and other improvements while your main force arrives.

Hitting units only, and not an improvement like a barrack, means that defenders get to fully heal each turn. This makes wars harder. And artys stack of doom weaker. And I think the arty stack of doom remains viable as an industrial age tool. So it's not like the whole strategy has been thrown to the wolves, just that AI gets to play or a more even playing field, and this will make those ill conceived foreign adventures even harder since artys can no longer be relied to soften up cities for several turns to conserve troop losses. We have to find some other way... and I think that other way is to send even more units.

In anycase, AIRPOWER have lethal bombard and will knock out troops inside cities as well as reduce poplation. So that still works. But we won't get it until the late game.

mimi · November 10, 2003, 09:04

Certainly do...why spend my money developing stuff when it was already there on the day of conquering... what's the point of "owning" a size 1 town with no improvements when it used to be size 10 with everything?

Gunter · November 10, 2003, 09:11

BTW Does the editor allow to customize the bombardament ? I mean if it allows to choose among units,buildings and both ?

Thanks

Gunter