AU mod: Balancing Ground Unit Bombardment

alexman · December 2, 2003, 15:35

The game mechanics for city bombardment by ground units have changed in C3C. After any walls are destroyed, ground bombard units now target city improvements and population only after all defending units in the city have been reduced to one hit point each. In previous versions of Civ3, ground bombard units had a chance to hit either population, or improvements, or units, so defending units were more protected from the siege, even in a city with no improvements and population of 1. On the other hand, city improvements and population were more vulnerable.

Some argue that the C3C change in game mechanics makes ground bombard units more powerful, but the AI does not use such units in sufficient numbers to be effective. They claim that artillery provides an even more unfair advantage to the human player.

Others argue that the change makes bombardment worthwhile, but not overpowered. Units may be targeted more often, but the fact that barracks are harder to destroy, and cities are harder to reduce to towns, makes up for some of the defending units’ added vulnerability.

What do you think? Does ground bombardment need a change? Does the new bombardment add just the right value to slow-movers, so that a Cavalry or Armor blitz is not always the best approach? Does the change make artillery so powerful that the idea of putting fast ground units at risk seems silly when you can just use your artillery stack to slowly-but-surely conquer the AI with minimum losses? If so, what is the solution for the AU mod?

Dominae · December 2, 2003, 16:01

The new bombardment rules definitely make Catapults and such more powerful. Before C3C, it was generally agreed that bombardment was too good against the AI. So there's even more of a problem now.

The main culprit is Artillery. With Railroads, they're just too good. An increase in Shield cost and a reduction in Bombard value (or both) is in order.

I'm not really sure about the other ground bombardment units. Perhaps we could do a "Power of Bombardment" course (either officail or semi-official or unofficial, whatever)?

Dominae

Risa · December 2, 2003, 23:13

Please, DO NOT change the artillery!

With scarcer strategic resources in C3C, it's important to have the ability to wage war in lack of resources, which is more common now. Otherwise, if you don't have horse or saltpeter, you are unlikely to win a war from late middle age to the end of industial era; if you don't have oil, you can do nothing once enemies have infantry.

If artillery as it is now were so unbalancing, I suggest move it to deeper tech (Steel or Atomic Theory or Eletronics), rather than nerfing it.

alexman · December 3, 2003, 14:10

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
The main culprit is Artillery. With Railroads, they're just too good. An increase in Shield cost and a reduction in Bombard value (or both) is in order.

How about a reduction in range? This would effectively reduce their movement, as you would have to spend an extra turn getting them adjacent to the enemy city, even with railroads.

Dominae · December 3, 2003, 15:05

Artillery is special because it's the first 2-range ground bombard unit (that's it's defining trait), just like Cavalry is the first standard 3-move ground attacker. Still, it does appear to be a good fix. I'll remain on the fence about this for now.

Any thoughts on how to "balance" Catapults, Trebuchets and Cannons?

Dominae

MrWhereItsAt · December 4, 2003, 05:45

Cat IMO are not overpowered, because they come when there are not so many high-shield cities around. You can have only a few cities build arty and they can whoop any enemy. It takes a far greater time and a more significant investment of resources to build an effective amount of Cats at that time of the game.
Trebs and Cannons (especially Trebs) seem to be in need of a little balancing.

However, only Arty NEEDS any changes to it, again IMO. We must keep it as a n option open to those without resources however, as we don't want the game to be TOO dependent on what you start with...

alexman · December 5, 2003, 15:11

My opinion: let's leave ground bombardment units alone for the first version of the AU mod. We don't have enough experience with the game yet to make a good decision.

If after one or two AU courses we see that there is a problem, we will revisit this issue.

Catt · December 5, 2003, 16:04

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
My opinion: let's leave ground bombardment units alone for the first version of the AU mod. We don't have enough experience with the game yet to make a good decision.

If after one or two AU courses we see that there is a problem, we will revisit this issue.

That would be my favored approach, too.

Catt

Theseus · December 6, 2003, 14:44

Agreed.

MrWhereItsAt · December 7, 2003, 22:00

Fair enough.

Any convincing arguments why to change?

MoonWolf · December 8, 2003, 17:04

I'd say they should stay as they are. If you want to conquer a city you don't tell your soldiers "Aim for that bank! We must be sure not to hit the emeny units!"

Maybe it's an exploit but the AI cheats anyway...

Nor Me · December 8, 2003, 17:10

I'll agree with the consensus but doubt that conquests has any surprises in store on the subjuct.

lockstep · January 5, 2004, 15:34

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman
What do you think? Does ground bombardment need a change? Does the new bombardment add just the right value to slow-movers, so that a Cavalry or Armor blitz is not always the best approach? Does the change make artillery so powerful that the idea of putting fast ground units at risk seems silly when you can just use your artillery stack to slowly-but-surely conquer the AI with minimum losses? If so, what is the solution for the AU mod?

Quote:

My opinion: let's leave ground bombardment units alone for the first version of the AU mod. We don't have enough experience with the game yet to make a good decision.

Perusing the AU mod v1.17 (PtW) readme, I rediscovered the following:

Quote:

Originally posted by alexman

Code:

Action:  Increased cost of Cannon and Hwach'a by 20, and their ROF by 1
Reason:  To balance this unit compared to other ground bombard units.
Comment: Under the standard rules, catapults are always more cost-
         effective than cannons. With this change, cannons are more 
         cost-effective when bombarding a defender of strength 8 and 
         above. Increased cost and ROF means that you need less units
         to do the same amount of damage (less micromanagement).

Question: Doesn't the reasoning for this Cannon/Hwach'a modification hold good in C3C (the substantial changes in ground bombardment notwithstanding)? Okay, Trebuchets have been inserted between Catapults and Cannons, and the Hwach'a now has lethal bombardment instead of +50% bombard strength, but it seems to me this v1.17 change is still a good one.

Isn't this something that can/should be carried over to the C3C version of the AU mod?

Risa · January 5, 2004, 16:47

Yes, it seems a good change.

alexman · January 5, 2004, 17:11

If we make that change to the Cannon, we should also do something similar about the Trebuchet, which is always less cost-effective (expected damage per shield) than the Catapult.

With a cost of 25, (or cost 50 and ROF=2) Trebuchets would be more cost-effective than Catapults when bombarding a defender of strength 6 and above.

Alternatively, since ground bombardment units are stronger in C3C, we could weaken the Catapult and Trebuchet and leave the Cannon alone.

lockstep · January 5, 2004, 18:10

As I understand it, Cannons/Hwach'as (in PtW as well as in C3C) were/are less cost-effective than either Catapults or Artillery in nearly every case - in other words, an outlier of the artillery-type units. So, in order to change as little as possible, I'd rather leave Catapults and Artillery (and, of course, Radar Artillery) alone and adopt the AU v1.17 solution (cost 60, RoF 2) for Cannons/Hwach'as.

Consequentially, I'd like to see the new Trebuchet (obviously the second outlier) strengthened according to your calculations. And I propose a 50-shield, 2-RoF Trebuchet a) because of the reduced micromanagement b) because a shield cost of 50 is more in line with the cost of other early-medieval units (pikeman 30, medieval infrantry 40, knight 70) than a cost of 25 c) because I'd choose odd shield costs only as a last resort.

alexman · January 5, 2004, 18:37

Quote:

Originally posted by lockstep
As I understand it, Cannons/Hwach'as (in PtW as well as in C3C) were/are less cost-effective than either Catapults or Artillery in nearly every case - in other words, an outlier of the artillery-type units.

Actually, Catapults are better than Artillery for defenders of strength less than 12! So I think it's better to weaken Catapults and Strengthen Cannons instead. Here is the change I propose:

Catapult: Cost=25
Trebuchet: No change (Cost=30)
Cannon: Cost=70, ROF=2

Then, Trebuchets are better than Catapults for a defender of strength greater than 4. Cannons are better than Trebuchets for a defender of strength greater than 8, and better than Catapults for a defender of strength greater than 5.3.

PS. Artillery would then be better than Catapults for a defender of strength greater than 5.1 instead of 12.

lockstep · January 5, 2004, 18:54

Sounds good ... smoothing out artillery-type cost-effectiveness while

changing as little as possible,
especially not strengthening artillery and radar artillery,
making cannons more 'impressive' (RoF 2) than trebuchets.

EDIT: And I can live with having to micromanage trebuchets.

alexman · January 7, 2004, 13:11

Does anyone else have anything to add, or should we mark it as under consideration?

Dominae · January 7, 2004, 13:53

Why not just make the Cannon cost 35?

I have a feeling that by increasing the ROF of Cannon, they will become very powerful with upgrades. The pure Shield cost of a unit is not always a good balancing factor.

Dominae

alexman · January 7, 2004, 14:01

Either way could work, but I like the more expensive Cannons for flavor reasons (the same reason I like having Musketmen so much more expensive than Pikemen).

By the way, a Trebuchet-to-70-cost-cannon would normally cost 120g. Hard to imagine exploiting that more than the Horseman-Cavalry upgrade.

Dominae · January 7, 2004, 14:03

Well, I prefer the 35-Shield solution, as it's more conservative.

(Gee, we're not agreeing a lot today, are we Alex?)

Dominae

Risa · January 7, 2004, 14:50

As the bombard unit between Range 1, RoF 1 Trebuchet and Range 2, RoF 2 Artillery, I prefer cannon to be 70 (or 60) shields, Range 1, RoF2, rather than 35 shields, Range 1, RoF 1.

Dominae · January 7, 2004, 14:53

Well, that does not really address the gameplay aspect, does it?

alexman · January 7, 2004, 15:44

Quote:

Originally posted by Dominae
I have a feeling that by increasing the ROF of Cannon, they will become very powerful with upgrades.

2-ROF Cannons are OK, but the real danger is 2-ROF, 2-range Artillery, after railroads. You will not be able to avoid the massive Artillery upgrade unless you reduce its cost and ROF as well.

So I think it's better to increase the cost and ROF of ground bombard units earlier in the tech tree, rather than later, so you have less time to build such units to upgrade to artillery. At least then you will have to go through the process of disconnecting your saltpeter (which is not always easy, if you have a city on the resource), before you can build cheap bombardment units between Gunpowder and Rep. Parts.

Dominae · January 7, 2004, 18:07

Around Artillery, Shields are not that difficult to come by; you can have 2-turn Artillery quite easily. The same is not true when Cannon become available; in the mid-Medieval era, Gold and upgrades are still king.

So, I think there will be more problems with a more powerful Cannon that you would want to upgrade to instead of build, than there are currently with Artillery.

Dominae

alexman · January 7, 2004, 22:33

After thinking some more about it, I'm a bit uncomfortable about strengthening the Cannon when ground bombard units have been given such a boost in C3C.

So here's a better solution IMHO:

Catapult costs 30 shields
Trebuchet costs 35 shields
No change to Cannon.

Then the Trebuchet is better than the Catapult for defenders of strength higher than 3.

Cannons are better than Catapults for defenders of strength higher than 4, and better than Trebuchets for a defender of strength higher than 6.

Since units are targeted first in sieges, Catapults should be well worth it, even at 30 shields, but the cost increase definitely helps the AI. What do you think?

alexman · January 12, 2004, 17:52

Since there is no argument, let's place the above proposal under consideration. Voting in a week.

nbarclay · January 12, 2004, 20:05

I missed this proposal the first time around. As I see it, the most important balance issue is not the balance between various types of bombardment units and each other, but rather the balance between bombardment-based tactics and other tactics. Getting a better balance between different types of units would be nice,. but not at the expense of the big picture.

The question is, is the offensive use of catapults in C3C so powerful compared with other modes of combat that it needs to be toned down, or is it just powerful enough to be interesting and useful in some types of situations? If the former, increasing the cost of catapults could improve the game's balance and make the choice of how to mount an offensive more interesting. But if, at cost 20, the question of whether to build catapults or just conventional attackers is already generally interesting without an obvious generic answer, increasing the cost of catapults by 50% would tend to very seriously undermine that interest.

So the question is, is it clear that at cost 20, catapults are too powerful compared with fighting without them? I haven't kept my ear to the ground enough to know what all people have said about the issue, and I have no experience with it myself, so I'm not in a position to judge the answer. But unless the answer is, "Yes, there is a clear consensus that offensive use of catapults is too powerful," I strongly oppose such a radical increase in cost.

One factor worth noting in regard to bombardment units is that you have to pay to support them (at least past your free unit support levels). Thus, even if a larger number of less powerful units packs more bang for the shield, it is not necessarily a better deal over time. That is especially true in Republic and Feudalism since their support cost is higher than one gold per unit. I'm not saying that that makes anomalies where "more advanced" units provide less bang for the shield a good thing, but it does make such anomalies at least a little less bad.

Nathan

Risa · January 13, 2004, 00:35

Cannons won't face the same problem as artillery. Artillery can keep up with infantries (main attack force when artillery is available), while cannons can't stay with cavalries (main attack force of cannon's age) without slowing down them.