AU mod: Balancing Ground Unit Bombardment

[Jaybe]

Quote:

... Not only did the AI keep all 13 Catapults in the city where I placed them ...

What might happen if you placed those catapults OUTSIDE a city??

Answering my own question: I tried a DEBUG with them outside, in 4 different adjacent tiles. When I captured one stack of them with a tank, the rest (finally) fled -- into the most endangered city, as it turns out -- 5 or 6 artillery and 3 or 4 ground combat units (2 of them conscripts).

IOW, nerfing artillery units

[JimiD]

WRT 'never build'

find it a little depressing an answer results in a position in which humans have a tactic (land bombardment) that the AI does not - makes our land campaigns such much stronger.

This does not mean it is not the best, if the AI wastes the resources, just depressing

Could we not remove artillery altogether?

'but how will I conduct military campaigns?'

the hard way, same as the AI!

[alexman]

If this were a pure 'help the AI' mod, removing artillery would be the answer.

However, this mod also tries to give the human player more choices, not fewer, while changing as little as possible. Removing artillery would help the AI, but it would also go against both of the other goals. Not a good change, IMO.

BTW, thanks for the tests Jaybe.

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay
I would support reducing the bombardment strength of artillery from 12 to 10.

I like this solution as well. It would weaken Artillery without upsetting the balance between ground bombard units. In fact, we can go as low as bombard strength of 8, and Artillery still will be no less cost-effective than Cannons.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

I like this solution as well. It would weaken Artillery without upsetting the balance between ground bombard units. In fact, we can go as low as bombard strength of 8, and Artillery still will be no less cost-effective than Cannons.

Not quite accurate. Suppose two enemy units are down to two hit points each from earlier bombardment. Two cannons could, with enough luck, take one hit point off each unit, while the best an artillery unit could do is remove one hit point from one unit (since the last hit point is immune to artillery attack). The fact that artillery's second rate of fire is sometimes (indeed, fairly often) wasted would make cannons able to do more damage per shield as long as artillery's greater range is not an issue.

Granted, artillery would still generally be the better units because of their greater range and because the upkeep cost (in governments and situations where that is relevant) would be lower. But I think a bombard strength of 10 provides a better balance to leave players feeling like the newer, more modern unit is clearly better. A strength of 10 is also more in line with the strength of bombers, unless we would decide to reduce that too.

[pvzh]

1. Catapults. Building catapults at price 30 at time warrior build-up is too expensive: it is 3 (!) warriors that could become swordsmen or UU. Even if I do not have money to upgrade all warriors at once, it is still a better deal. I build catapults only if I am in GA (too much production anyways), I have some cities were I cannot get anyting more meaningful for some reason, or disconnecting iron is too much pain. If under stock rulles I had to think should I build them along with warriors or not, under AU mod it si no question: obviously not. In this regard it is reduction of options for player.

2. Trebuchers. The question of cost effectiveness of trebuchers vs. catapults is mute because you cannot build catapults anymore after Engeneering. You would upgrade your catapults too because it is a gain anyway.

The only pro side to high cost is that it is human-only starategy, so some hinderance to it is acceptable.

[alexman]

pvzh, we have been through the arguments against expensive Catapults before in this thread (page 2), and Nathan is one person who would agree with you.

[pvzh]

I know it was discussed, I have read it.

Now I realised that you asked our opinion on unit artillery not artillery in general (catapults through radar artillery). Sorry...

I guess Nathan will be glad to know he is not alone

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
pvzh, we have been through the arguments against expensive Catapults before in this thread (page 2), and Nathan is one person who would agree with you.

Actually, I don't think I ever went so far as to argue that at cost 30, catapults would clearly not be worth building. I just wasn't convinced that such a radical cost increase was needed, and in a conservative mod, I didn't feel like such a major change was warranted in the absence of stronger evidence than had been presented. Since I'd had no experience with stacks of cats in C3C myself at the time, I had to rely on evidence presented by those trying to convince me that the change was needed, and the evidence presented didn't impress me enough for me to view such a radical solution as justified at the time. (I do think "radical" is an appropriate term for increasing a unit's cost by fifty percent.)

After my experience with catapults and trebuchets in AU 501, plus some experience using them under the standard rules in at least one or two games since, I definitely view cats at cost 20 as too powerful. Whether costs of 25 and 30 or 30 and 35 for catapults and trebuchets, respectively, would be better depends on whether one views conservatism or helping the AIs as a more important goal, but I no longer have any real objections to 30 and 35. Even at the higher cost, I was able to get good use out of them, and I will almost certainly make cats and trebuchets a standard part of whatever major slow-mover offensives I engage in during their eras from now on. That's especially true fighting under Republic, since avoiding losses helps with war weariness.

Nathan

[Jaybe]

re: Nerfing artillery (aside from costs)
Cannon: 6.1.2
Artillery: 8 (or 10).2.2

[alexman]

Under consideration:

1. Reduce bombard strength of Artillery to 10
2. Add build-never flag to artillery for all AI civs.

Voting in a week, unless you want to vote today so the changes make it into AU502.

[nbarclay]

My suggestion would be that we include the changes in the version of the mod for AU 502 if they get a supermajority of five votes (which would be about 71% of the panel). Then if support drops back below a majority in the following week, the change can be pulled back out for future versions. Hopefully, that would provide a reasonable balance of speed and safety.

[alexman]

Sounds like a plan. My votes:
1. Yes
2. Yes

[Stuie]

1. Yes
2. Yes

[ZargonX]

Though it pains me to weaken my beloved artillery...

1. Yes
2. Yes

forgive me, my sweet shell-hurlers!

[Dominae]

1. Yes.
2. No.

[Nor Me]

1,2: Yes

[lockstep]

1: YES
2: NO

[alexman]

Just curious, what is the reason for voting NO on 2?

It's a change in AI behavior (not game play rules) that clearly helps the AI.

[lockstep]

Voting YES on No. 2 seems like a confession that the AI utterly screws up with regard to artillery. As for me, I don't want to abandon hope for a competent AI as long as C3C's final patch isn't released.

[nbarclay]

A YES vote on 2 would not have to be a permanent commitment. The one real danger I see is if our making the AIs stop building artillery-type units would adversely affect a decision by Firaxis regarding whether or not to make AIs use artillery at least a little more intelligently. (Just having AI artillery bombard any human units that happen to end a turn in range of them would make AI artillery a lot more useful than it is now. Now that I think of it, it's insane that I can move my artillery stack in range and not have to worry about having my stack shot at by AI artillery in the AI's turn before I get a chance to fire.)

[ZargonX]

Voting YES on No. 2 seems like a confession that the AI utterly screws up with regard to artillery. As for me, I don't want to abandon hope for a competent AI as long as C3C's final patch isn't released.

I guess holding on to hope is always a good reason. But, in the meantime, the AI will continue to mismange bombard units, and the ones they do have will just become so much fodder for the human war machine. Like Nathan says, this doesn't have to be a permanent change if something gets patched later.

[Theseus]

Yes.
Yes, and as has been noted this can be changed subject to future patches.

[ducki]

alexman quipped in the 502 teaser thread
In C3C the AI doesn't bombard with ground units, even when you end your turn adjacent to his city where he has them.

I did text search(Ctrl+F, not forum search) on both pages of this thread and didn't find a referece to what may be a reaaaaaaly simple way to make AI bombard units at least somewhat useful to the AI.

Give them Zone of Control. IIRC, this means that any enemy passing by becomes the target of a "pot shot", right?
So, the AI has bombard units in the town, you move your units up to attack and suddenly, half your units have lost a hitpoint or two.

We can give ZoC to bombard units in the editor, can't we?

Anyway, it seemed a reasonable way to "force" the AI to "use" the units, though I don't know if it's better or worse than simply preventing the AI from building the unit at all. And I don't think it would give the human any monstrous advantage that he/she doesn't already have with bombardment. This at least would let the AI take potshots at the human without using up actual attacker turns.

How about it? ZoC for land bombard units?

[alexman]

ZoC shots happen when you move from one adjacent tile to the other. It would be nice if they happened any time you move to an adjacent tile, as you describe above, especially for Coastal Fortresses, but it doesn't.

[ducki]

Well freakin' grrrrr!
That makes no sense at all.

[ZargonX]

That makes no sense at all.

No, it doesn't. It's more sort of a "Please Don't Pass Me" Zone. It'd be nice if they could patch it to moving into any adjacent tile, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen... maybe if we beg...

[nbarclay]

I'm almost positive that the way ZoCs work in Civ 3 is a weaker version of how they normally work in wargames. Instead of outright preventing you from moving from one adjacent tile to another, they cause damage when you do so. (As I recall, in Call to Power, you can't move military units from one tile adjacent to a foreign city or military unit to another tile adjacent to a foreign city or military unit at all; you have to kill the unit to get through.)

[Madine]

The way ZOC worked in Civ 2 and the CtP games, (as well as SMAC I believe) was the following:

Suppose I have a unit that is adjacent to a non-friendly unit. My unit cannot move to a different tile that is also adjacent to a non-friendly unit.

However, I am allowed to ignore ZOC whenever I am moving to a square that contains one of my units or cities.