Ranged Combat

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

I realize this has been discussed thouroly in general, but I just want to put it in specifics of what I want 'ranged combat' to be:

ranged combat would be the number of spaces a unit can fire upon another unit, heres the statistics of how many tiles a unit can shoot:

1. archers: 1/2 tiles. so the farther away the arrows fly, the weeker the damage. same thing with the: Tank, Destroyer, Cruiser, AEGIS cruiser, and battleship, Artillery, and cannon. make an exception for ALL other infantry units, and Howitzer. note: see my thread on sieges for catapults.
2. musketeers: 2 tiles.
3. marines: 2 tiles.
4. riflemen: 2 tiles.
5. alpine troops: 2 tiles.
6. Tank: 1/3 tiles.
7. Cannon: 1/3 tiles.
8. Artillery: 1/3 tiles.
9. Howitzer: 4 tiles.
10. Destroyer: 1/2 tiles.
11. cruiser: 1/3 tiles.
12. AEGIS cruiser: 1/3 tiles.
13. Battleship: 1/4 tiles.

I have to cut this thread short, cause I have to get off-line for awile, but Ill be back to finish my thread, and create my SIEGE/CATAPULT thread.

[DarkCloud]

Ranged combat should not work for one major reason:

A tile is the size of a city.

Perhaps it should be calculated, but you shouldnt be able to shoot from three squares away and hit a unit.

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

Darkcloud, if you have some sense in your head, then cities should NOT be one tile large. that goes for FIRAXIS too! also, the maps had better be much, much larger then they are already, which will open up a whole new world for suggestions, and combat, etc.

see my thread, CITIES, AND YOUR CAPITAL..., on my siege idea.

p.s. I used to be Tim White.


[This message has been edited by Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto (edited December 19, 2000).]

[Yog-Sothoth]

I would also like to see ranged combat in Civ3, but I disagree in the giving that ability to all the units you do diablo. Even with larger maps the distance from one tile to another will be quite long, so I think only 8-13 of the units you listed should have the ranged attack ability.

I would also cut down on the range, especially the howitzer. 4 tile is to long.

And last, there should be simple to select ranged combat. Preferably one mouseclick/key.

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

I guess your are right, the ranges are a bit too long. but think about it, in real life, Howitzers can shoot slightly quite a ways, say, maybe 3-10 miles in real life, I know cause my brother is in an Armored/Cavalry (artillery) division, in the military, and he tells me stuff all the time when we get together.

[DarkCloud]

The ranges in civ are about 200 miles a tile; but even if shrunk to the size you wish, 5 miles,

An arrow won't travel one and neither will a musketters bullet, or much else.

Sorry, this is out of the range of civ's limitations.

[orange]

But really, when you attack/defend with archers, the fighting is taking place in the same square. I don't see how you could give Archers a range other then 1...

Same with howitzers, etc. I can't see any way to make them fire over a long distance. The only thing this system could work with is cruise missiles and nukes...which I would hope are now "point and click" rather than having to manually move it to the city you wish to attack.

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[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

And I also suppose you guys think its realistic that two battleships right next to each other fire on each other, and hit its target.

please, if you want this game to be at least a bit realistic, then use your brains.

p.s. you also think then that a tank against an infantry unit that is right next to each other is going to lose.
and lastly, since when did ANY nations place cannon right next to the target.

[orange]

Diablo - what are you talking about

quote: And I also suppose you guys think its realistic that two battleships right next to each other fire on each other, and hit its target.

What?

quote: p.s. you also think then that a tank against an infantry unit that is right next to each other is going to lose.

Who's going to lose?

quote: and lastly, since when did ANY nations place cannon right next to the target.

as far as Civ's concerned...they would be in the same tile wouldn't they? even if the size of each square was reduced to 5 square miles

I don't understand where your post was going.

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~ The Apolyton Yearbook
~ The poster formerly known as "OrangeSfwr"

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

Orange, you plainly stated that you dont want Ranged Combat. today, there is no other kind of combat BUT ranged combat. so your saying that you want to live in the ancient and medievel times for the whole game?

Ive played civ2 before where my Armor unit has lost to a marine unit, doesn't that sound a little strange to you??

I guess Im just frustrated that as smart as people as you are, you think you would use your head.

[Yog-Sothoth]

You have to remember Diablo that tanks are vulnerable to infantry at close range. Tanks need infantrysupport to handle enemy infantry effectively, since they are designed to destroy other armoured vehicles.
[This message has been edited by Yog-Sothoth (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Grumbold]

Diablo, are we talking about ranged combat inside the battle screen, or actual ranged combat from map tile to map tile?

I'm worried you are talking about the latter. Civ is (usually) depicting an entire world. Taking truly approximate figures, lets say the distance around the earth in a temperate zone (rather than the equator) is 16,000 miles. That means that even if Civ3 came up with maps that could support 1,600 x 1,600 tiles (gasp) a weapon would still need an effective range of 10 miles to fire into an adjacent tile. That still leaves long range bombardment in the province of 20th century artillery. Multiple tile ranges are for rockets and already implemented for cruise and nukes.

If we are discussing a battlefield screen on which multiple unit combat will be played out, then yes I hope that there is an option for quick resolution or for nicely detailed tactical battles that take differing weapon ranges and effectiveness into account.

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

I have to ask, dont you hate it when you have to go right up to land when you are controling a battleship to fire on a wimpy infantry unit??

I would especially like Ranged combat for historical scenarios, like I was making a 'Normandy Landing' scenario the other day, I had to make my own map, since there wasnt one of specificly 'normany'. Historicaly, before the Allies sent in the Landing Craft, they bombarded the coast with Battleships, cruisers, destroyers, etc., the ships were well over 15 miles off the coast.

and about battlemaps, I would like them, but I highly doubt FIRAXIS will put them in.

[Ralf]

quote: Originally posted by Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto on 12-21-2000 02:06 PM I have to ask, dont you hate it when you have to go right up to land when you are controling a battleship to fire on a wimpy infantry unit??

Nope! Thats no problem for me whatsoever.

Besides, the AI cannot "see" and "overview" the map, the same way as the human player can (without unrealisticly long AI-turn calculations, what is). Therefore, the AI unit-shuffle-back-and-forth syndrome. The AI tries to anticipate any "maybe-threaths", without actually having any extensive overview over the map, to go after.

This is also why this idea could be utilized much better in the hands of the human player, then it ever can be in the hands of the AI-player. In short: implementing this idea beyond one (1) tile away, would make the AI a sitting duck, basically.

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

the AI is already "sitting ducks", when I cant get at them with my ships, I use bombers. and if Firaxis improves the AI as we all want, then it will be alot smarter then in civ2.

[hHydro]

Improve the AI? Brilliant idea Diablo!! Why didn't they think of that before? Just give it the best AI that the world has ever seen! Should only add a week or so to the production schedule, right?

The reality is, Diablo, that good AI is probably the toughest part of this game to program, and every time they impliment a new feature like artillery or pollution or slavery, they have to find a way to make the computer use it.

Firaxis did okay with artillery in SMAC, but I found the artillery seldom fired on towns. More often it just took out terrain enhancements. Could have been intended, but I know that if I had a choice to either program artillery how to pick off easy (defenseless) farm improvements vs. teaching them how to manouever into place in order to accurately provide support for a separate attacking ground army, I'd definately have them pick off terrain enhancements. "If terrain enhancement location = enemy territory then action = destroy". There. Done.

[Diablo, Bro. of Mephisto]

Yes, your right that the AI problem is the hardest to combat, but, if take a Poll, and look at what everyones top ten changes are, Ill bet you that 90% of everyone will have AI in there top-10.

[lord of the mark]

doesnt this illustrate the difficulty of using a single engine for such a wide range of scenarios?

IIRC, The Operational Art of War, designed for scenario building , has hexes which are considered to range from about 10 miles to about 50 miles.

Here we have people using a game where, at one extreme, you play the entire world on a small map, and a tile is well over 100 miles, to people making Normandy scenarios where the entire map is well under 100 miles across.

With all due respect to the Civ scenario designers, this wasnt designed as a war game like TOAW or Combat MIssion. Its designed to look at the development of civilizations (thus the name) over historical epochs. Its great how creative people are doing WW2 scenarios, but you can hardly fault the game for not being designed to make your lives easier.

OTOH ranged attack for certain 20th century weapons might make sense - what was the range for Big Bertha, 1918 German siege artillery? Also WW2 era Battleship guns, long range sub torpedos, etc?

[Deity Dude]

I think ranged conflict is a great idea. I'm not sure about the 1/3 tile range because tiles are full units.

PS Diablo you have some great ideas, and some lousy ones, but there is no reason to have an "attitude" when you post them. I've seen this time and time again on your threads. You seem to have to insult other people, natioalities or posters in order to get your point across, and its really not necessary. I think that everyone here is using their heads - their head just might not come up with same conclusion as yours.

[orange]

I agree with Deity. You seem to have this attitude that you are right and everyone who doesn't agree is wrong. Saying stuff like that will give people a lousy impression of you

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[hHydro]

Just remember that this game is an abstraction. Ranged units (a la SMAC) are a fine idea, but I don't think they should be able to shoot more than 2 squares.

All we need is an abstraction to show that the artillery is able to attack from range, and that only highly mobile units can hope to counter attack next turn. We do not need to start measuring ranges of weapons throughout the ages and modelling them.

Lord of the Mark is right about one thing though... This is CIVILIZATION, not Sid Meier's Ancient art of War. I WANT battle to be an abstraction so I can focus on all aspects of Civ-building.. not just war.
[This message has been edited by hHydro (edited December 21, 2000).]

[Grumbold]

This is why the combat screen for stacked combat will be an important part of what makes or breaks Civ3. The AI on the game map only needs to know what are sensible stacks to make and ideally how to move them around in support of each other.

The battle AI can then take over and concentrate purely on achieving the best combat result on the tactical map, perhaps with parameters to give it major goals - like don't lose more than 50% or only use long range bombardment.

You can only keep the two mostly separate if unit ranges are not normally a factor on the main game map. As soon as it becomes more advantageous to have an attack stack with an artillery stack behind it (and a fighter stack nearby for air support etc) then the human players will always find a way to outwit the AI and lure it to destruction.

Keep it fairly simple, though, and games like the Panzer General series show that losing a bit of realism can result in a fast flowing battle where the AI is capable of defending extremely well and knows how to attack without leaving itself wide open too.

[lord of the mark]

glad we finally agree on something, hydro