Lethal Bombardment

[Jon Shafer]

What do people think of lethal bombardment? I've recently modded my game so that all kinds of bombers have lethal bombardment. Pretty devastating on ships.

[Nakar Gabab]

Option not listed: All units should have lethal bombard (that can bombard, that is), but the AI should know how to use this.

[BigDork]

Hi all...

I voted all should but I don't necessarily feel that. I think that some of the early units should not but that later ones should. Modern ships, planes and artillery definatly should but ancient age units should not have the ability.

And dang it, why don't radar artillery have 2 movement points. They do have wheels you know.

BigD

[Jon Shafer]

I think only Aircraft should have lethal bombardment, but that's stretching things. With enough units you can basically make entire armies evaporate with 0 risk, and especially given the AI's inability to do the same, it unbalances things pretty badly.

[BigDork]

Originally posted by Trip
...and especially given the AI's inability to do the same, it unbalances things pretty badly.

And that is the main reason I haven't modded any of the units. It's just not fair for the AI. Yeah it sucks and all but it makes the game more of a challenge. The AI can't use bombard units the way they are now effectively they sure as heck aren't if you make them more powerful.

BigD

[alva]

and especially given the AI's inability to do the same, it unbalances things pretty badly.

That's all that needs to be said indeed, below deity I stopped building (and using) Artillery all together (games usually end when planes becomes availlable in sufficent numbers) as it becomes to easy to take the AI on.

Since there aren't any anti aircraft units, even in MP lethal combat could be a very imballancing modification.

[Catt]

I played a few games with various forms of lethal bombard enabled shortly after the option was made available in the editor. Unbalanced the game tremendously. Very limited forms of lethal bombard seem less so -- I believe the AU Mod gives fighters, but not bombers, lethal bombard . . . perhaps only against naval units.

Until the AI gets better with bombard I find it unbalancing. Even with a superb AI, I'm not convinced that it would be a good idea. I can envision industrial age slugfests consisting of huge armies of artillery and later airborne units -- like the card game "War," it could be laborious bombarding followed by a mop-up of the player with superior numbers.

Catt

[bongo]

The only spot where I feel lethal bombard would be good is against naval units. But I don't want it in until the AI is capable of using it.

[CerberusIV]

I give bombers, jet fighters and F-15's lethal sea bombardment. The AI does use bombers against ships so I feel this is reasonable.

I also allow F-15's and stealth fighters lethal land bombardment. The AI isn't really able to use this but since a game is pretty much decided by the time these units become available it just allows me to finish off damaged AI units easily rather than changing the outcome of a game.

I would never give artillery units (of any type) lethal bombardment because it just makes it much too easy for the human player.

[Arrian]

What others have said: the AI can't deal with it. Non-lethal bombardment is already a human advantage.

-Arrian

[AJ Corp. The FAIR]

Lethal bombardment: yes!

But Firaxis then sure must take care of AI using them properly.

We could also consider giving some units leth bomb, others not.

But generally, yes! In real life you die when a grenade is fired upon you. (ok, now units in civ representlarger numbers and that civ3 is not real life, so don't start about that )

AJ

[GarP2]

Agree that it would unbalance the game, but also, I wouldn't want it to be risk-free And lethal. As for naval units, they can attack directly as well as bombard, so they have a lethal mode.

GarP

[PLATO]

Destroyer, Battleship, and Aegis with lethal bombard against land targets. Arty and Radar Arty with lethal bombard. These would be good to see.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Catt
Until the AI gets better with bombard I find it unbalancing. Even with a superb AI, I'm not convinced that it would be a good idea. I can envision industrial age slugfests consisting of huge armies of artillery and later airborne units -- like the card game "War," it could be laborious bombarding followed by a mop-up of the player with superior numbers.

Catt

How is that different from how it is now?

[Catt]

Originally posted by Trip

How is that different from how it is now?

Not tremendously different, if one chooses to play it that way.

But, with lethal bombard (versus the current situation) a human player with the capacity to build / upgrade 30 or so artillery shortly after RP would have won the game. As it stands now, a mass of artillery can defend successfully, and supported by a small supply of foot units, can often conquer worlds; but at least AI civs will focus on unit building during war -- and unless you go out and kill bombarded units after artillery barrages, they'll come back at you when healed, beefed up by the reinforcements built by the AI. With lethal bombard, building a small mass of artillery would enable destruction of AI civs without fail -- the "smart" move in such a game would be to build a mass of bombard units and disband virtually all other units (eliminating upkeep). After having done so, the human could still choose between economic wins and military wins. Though not much better today, at least a focus on an economic win injects some risk into the equation -- a psycho, communist AI civ invades with 100+ units and manages to start taking cities. And a focus on a military win injects risk (primarily a diplo, and to a lesser extent a SS win).

Bombard is already a human advantage in the game; enabling lethal bombard widens that advantage.

Catt

[Cruddy]

I go for naval lethal bombard, but ONLY for ship based air and cruise missiles.

Up to the aircraft carrier, ships had to engage at sea in a duel.

No land unit was ever destroyed by arty alone, so if I can figure out how to turn off LB for land based cruise I will (I'm still a klutz with the editor).

[cumi]

In real life, the bombers can also destroy totally the target army. I think, it would be very interesting to simulate this in civ3 game. But, of course, destroying units only with bombardments should be a very difficult task for the players...

Seconds, the importance of building fighters will be increses a lot, if the bombers would be so powerful. I think the most of the civ3 players never builds bombers, fighters or especially carriers! The "naval war" has also a minimal importance now.... It would be also interresting (for me), to be able to destroy ships with artillery.

Last but not least, this would be an interresting issue only if the AI would use the bombardments wisely...

[dexters]

I think the AI should be programmed to use artys more effectively.

Once they can do that, I think we'd all be modding our games back to non lethal.

[nbarclay]

I like the AU Mod's approach of giving lethal bombardment to fighters but not to bombers. That makes it possible to sink ships with air power alone, but the fact that fighters aren't very competent at bombing keeps the ability from creating serious balance problems.

When has air power ever completely destroyed all the military units in an area to a point where enemy troops could walk in with zero opposition? I think the way Civ 3 handles things on land reflects reality pretty well: American bombers reduce the Iraqi infantry to one hit point each, and America's Modern Armor clean them up easily.

On the other hand, naval units in the real world are a lot more vulnerable to lethal bombardment. But there are two catches. (1) In real life, a defender can't haul artillery across the continent on railroads, install it, and sink ships with it before the ships even get a chance to pull back. The artillery has to already be in place when the ships arrive. So denying artillery lethal bombardment against ships is a necessary counterweight against the ridiculously high mobility Civ 3 artillery has. (2) Historically, ships have far more to fear from precision weapons from smaller aircraft than they do from heavy bombloads from larger aircraft. Giving bombers their full attack power against ships, plus lethal bombardment, makes them too strong against ships.

[CerberusIV]

The point about giving bombers lethal sea bombardment is that once large scale airpower arrives then attacking into enemy territorial waters near their land should be pretty fatal for ships without fighter cover from aircraft carriers.

You only get one type of basic bomber, not the division into heavy bombers and torpedo bombers and so on that exist in the real world so the one unit ends up doing all the roles.

I find that the ideal way to deal with ships bombarding your coastal areas without giving artillery lethal sea bombardment is to shift artillery across by RR and bombard the ship down to 1HP then finish it off with a single cruise missile. I have never had one miss yet and it is more economical than using two or three cruise.

[Gen.Dragolen]

I´ve done some playtesting with lethal and non-lethal bombardment, and found that lethal was a little too much, but if you up the RoF 1 or 2 to a more relistic level, reducing even elite units to 1 hp makes their impact a little more realistic.

You can leave the buildings and pop untouched as artillery will start fires that do most of the damage. Even cruise missles should not have a lethal bombardment. Indirect fire, while devastating, is not capable of destroying the enemy alone. He just won´t stand still long enough for you to hit him...

However, I also increased the effect of being in a fortress to reflect how good it is in modern warfare to be ´dug in´ and that reduced the impact of artillery. After all, the Island campaigns in the Pacific showed that fortified infantry could take all that a battle ship could dish out, and still fight back effectively. And for modern units, being dugin amounts to being in a fortress. Being fortified in my mind is more like being ready to repell an attack than having constructed defensive works.

This also works well with bombers too. It does look impressive to see a unit taking 4 hits from a bombing raid and maybe a building destroyed.

D.

[monkspider]

My vote is for this, give lethal bombard to Man O War, F-16, and H'wacha.

[MyOlde]

Interesting thread. I had been holding off modding anything to lethal, being afraid of what the AI would do with it against me. But most of you seem to think they're not very good with it. That doesn't seem good, either. Maybe, once again, the game is best left alone -- the way the designers designed it.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by monkspider
My vote is for this, give lethal bombard to Man O War, F-16, and H'wacha.

Great Idea! This would actually make these UU's worth something!

[Epistax]

I think naval units need to be able to be sunk by aircraft.

Should a plane be able to completely destroy a convoy? Tough to say.

I would like to see ...

...bombardment damage randomly spread about all units in the stack that is effected, until precision weapons are developed.
...napalm tactical weapons which do more pop damage.
...non-nuclear ICBM's.
...lethal bombardment only to units in red status, no going from green to dead in one bombardment, or at least extreme (1000 to 1) odds against it.
...boats be completely destroyed by planes.

Also, whatever happened to units being slower when they are injured, especially boats? (off topic)

[Gen.Dragolen]

Epistax,

So what would you call carriers like the enterprise and hornet that were damaged but not sunk? They are effectively removed from being usefull with only 1 hp left. At that point even a lowly sub could score a kill.

Mind you, there is one unit I immediately upgraded the attack on since a torpedo can sink all by the biggest ships, and then they are crippled by a good hit. Even battleships which were designed to take a few torpedo hits suffer. The Bismark springs to mind, or the Italian Fleet at Taranto and US Fleet at Midway. Even the Japanese Fleet at Midway was not wiped out, but suffered heavy casualties and was withdrawn for repairs.

One thing you may want to try is changing the number of hit points a ship has if you are going to allow Lethal Bombardment. Part of this depends on the scale on which you see the game: Is a ship a single vessel, or a squadron of ships ? My vote is for the squadron, since this is supposed to be a strategic level wargame (IMO).

D.

[Epistax]

Originally posted by Gen.Dragolen
So what would you call carriers like the enterprise and hornet that were damaged but not sunk? They are effectively removed from being usefull with only 1 hp left. At that point even a lowly sub could score a kill.

I disagree entirely. Unless you have a fleet in an area, by the current rules no amount of bombing will destroy a ship. This makes it so that you need naval defense everywhere sorrounding you empire. While that isn't a lot to ask, it shouldn't have to be required.

Take the enemy computer. They barely bombard or build ships. If they bombard my carrier to one red, I'll happily keep bombing their continent into nothing because bombard as they like, my carrier will never die, and they'll never send a ship.

So at current to me, it doesn't matter how much health any carrier or any naval ship of mine has since they never get attacked directly.

[Jaybe]

A ship is not just a ship. It is a ship UNIT, representing several ships. A battleship, for instance, is roughly 3 battleships plus a few smaller ships (destroyers/escorts).

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Battleships should have two shots.

[Jaybe]

Chrisius, Chrisius, what do you want?!
An 18.16.5 with bombardment of 8.2.1 and BLITZ!! (RoF of 1 to partially comensate for the blitz that's available to destroyers, battleships and nuc subs).

Oh, wait ... nevermind. That's the way I play the game.