Lethal Bombardment Survey

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by romelus
that's true, but at least some of the men, and more equipment (harder to entrench larger hardware such as tanks and trucks) are destroyed, permanently. men don't rise from the dead, and equipment don't repair themselves, not for free, and not without a route for resupply. right now in civ3 without lethal bombardment, you can bomb for a thousand years and not harm a single soul, because units heal themselves for free.

There is a primitive supply mechanism in that units must return to friendly territory to heal; until Battlefield Medicine, then healing is available in enemy territory as well. Presumably, if you hide in your fortress, not sending troops out to destroy the damaged units, letting them escape to return home for reinforcements, then you'll just have to keep fighting them until you do. Or one side or the other gets sick and tired of war.

[Thrawn05]

Sorry about not posting here, I was on a little trip over the weekend. I never knew I had the power to start such a lively thread.

I couldn't read it all (i'm in page two, I had to quite for a while, my eyes were hurting ), but there are lot of good points here. I change what units get what. Most of which reflected some earlier posts.

I'm still tweaking away here, trying different combos. I know there are some puriest who wouldn't even dare to think doing this, but I like the lethal stuff. Sometimes, I like getting my butt kicked.

Happy dive bombing!

EDIT:
BTW: I do agree that lethal land bombardments are unrealistic, but I still would use it, because it is fun. It also gives some more meaning to these otherwise usless cannons that I never make. It's just my own little mod I like use. I made Radar Artillary the only that can kill land units though.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Andrew Cory


Heh, just goes to show, in addition to SoCalians stealing all the watter they can, they attach too much import to a minor raid...


BTW: The water theif comment was somthing of a joke, being a native Nor'Caler, I am legaly bound to take any potshot I can at Sothern California...

Of course he doesn't mention that while Southern California PAID for the aquaduct most of the water is used for agriculture in Northern California.

San Fransisco has this strange one way rivalry with Southern California. They take our money for their rapid transit and the water we paid to transport for their agriculture and then complain about Southern California.

We keep thinking San Fransisco is the nicest looking city in the US.

Such thanks we get.

Ohh have to say something on topic.

I am leaving bombardment alone.

[homegrown]

I am also trying to determine how I want to mod the bombard on the default units.

One change that I've been thinking about giving to Cannon is not the lethal land, but the lethal sea. Coastal fortresses are SO worthless. I see coastal cities fortifying cannons to protect the 'harbor' from attack. I also figure one huge metal cannonball would put a big enough hole in a wooden ship that it would sink.

So here is what I'm working with right now.

*Cannon and Artillery adds the lethal sea bombardment ability
*Radar Artillery adds lethal land and sea bombardment

Enough Radar Artillery could be ordered to systematically destroy everything ! Since the AI won't surrender a city, we have to be able to destroy it.

*Man-o-War gets lethal sea because it needs help.

I have a question about the ships. If Destroyer, Battleship and AEGIS all have both attack/defense values and bombard/range what need is there to add lethal sea bombardment? I admit I haven't done a lot of naval stuff in Civ III but if they can't bombard and attack in the same turn, will adding Blitz to those units correct that ?

*Destroyer, Battleship and AEGIS Cruiser add lethal land bombardment.

I think the question for me is ultimately could any of these ships destroy a small coastal city with bombard only? Maybe one of the military types could talk more about this, thank you for sharing.

* Bomber and Stealth Bomber add land and sea lethal bombard ability
*Fighters, Jet-Fighters and F-15s, and Stealth fighters get lethal sea bombard.

My feeling is that ships at sea are so cut off from 'backup' that enough fighters and jets can shoot enough times to sink it.

Only bombers can actually destroy cities with bombard, I think that is more realistic than a bunch of prop fighters with machine guns. Even if jets or stealth fighters carried tactical nukes (now there's a mod idea), without ground troops cutting off the roads to the city, it could eventually recover even from a prolonged bombard assault.

Homegrown
Flogging will continue until morale improves.
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[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Thrawn05
EDIT:
BTW: I do agree that lethal land bombardments are unrealistic, but I still would use it, because it is fun.

That's the best reason for lethal bombardment I have seen.

[Dom Pedro II]

I think that skipping realism is a good idea here. I'd like to point out one thing that kind of got overlooked. I remember people complaining when the game came out that there is a HUGE gap between rifleman and infantry and that when infantry come out, it is completely impossible to take a city with cavalry. It's true... there is. Artillery with lethal bombardment could be the answer to this because then a combined cavalry, infantry, artillery assault could bring the desired effects. As it stands, I know that from personal experience that I can blast the city to rubble, reduce every infantry in the city to 1 HP, and the AI will STILL win when I send in the cavalry because of the randomness of the combat system.

Second, I find it even more amusing that those who criticize lethal bombardment have failed to bring up Civ2. Talk about unrealistic! In Civ2, the greatest attack weapon of the game was : Catapult (Ancient), Artillery (Industrial), and Howitzer (Modern). Oh how I LOOVVVED the Howitzer . I once took out an entire civilization in a single turn with just howitzer. How bout that for realism? Now, I know its unheard of for artillery batteries to wipe out an enemy army, but how often is it that the artillery attacks, beats the enemy army, storms their cities, and conquers their empire? I don't think I ever built anything more than a handful of cavalry and tanks. In fact, tanks sucked! I would have built only Howitzers in the World War II scenario if they had been available at the time.

And as far as this argument goes regarding using only artillery to attack an enemy invasion force... its a weak argument at best. Could you do it? Sure! Are you going to play that way? No? Then why do you care. I'm not playing that way, and anybody who does is cheating themselves of the fun experience of the game! But that's not your problem or my problem if they decide to do that. Furthermore, I hear complaints of what happens when Multiplayer comes out... *AHEM* just turn of the lethal bombardment before you start the game.

Anyway, that's all I have to say. I await the verbal artillery barrage that will no doubt follow. Gentlemen, fire when ready!

[Random Passerby]

Hey! I love the "trench warfare" era of combat. It's the only part of the game past ancient times where an infantry and artillery-based offensive has any real merit whatsoever, which is pure bliss to someone who finds the massed cavalry rush so disgusting. The balance of offensive units is reasonable in ancient times; catapults suck, but swordsmen, spearmen, and horsemen are all important parts of a well-organized offensive. Early middle ages are fine; knights are dominant, which is sensible enough, and they're also very expensive resource hogs--pikes, musketmen, and even longbowmen are all useful support units. Cannons? OK. Add in cavalry, and... good night. In my view, cavalry should be desirable on the offensive because of its increased speed and mobility. It's like they reflected this by giving cavalry a very dominant attack rating, which sounds OK... but it still has that speed and mobility anyways! Once you get to tanks, sure, it's perfectly reasonable that they dominate offensively (and in general), but cavalry? Yeugh.

That's my feelings about the land combat situation in general. As specifically applies to land bombardment units, I think a boost in strength is what's needed most, supplemented by more even attack strength between foot units and mounted units, so that while bombardment units can't take a city on their own, a stack of riflemen-backed cannon becomes a very formidable attacking force compared to an equal-sized stack of cavalry, and stacks of infantry and artillery basically become the dominant standard for the period between replaceable parts and tanks.

[Akka]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
I think that skipping realism is a good idea here.

It's personnal, but I tend to think that realism brings fun on its own. So I always make a modification based on realism.
THEN, I make some changes to avoid unbalancing the game.

[bigvic]

Lethal sea bombardment for airplanes and cruise missiles good. anything else bad.

I thought this was a poll.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by bigvic
Lethal sea bombardment for airplanes and cruise missiles good. anything else bad.

I thought this was a poll.

I thought cruise missiles were already capable of killing units and the two options merely gave bombard units that ability. Or something like that.

(Yes, I'm wondering if I have to go back and put those two values back into the cruise missile entry.)

[Dom Pedro II]

It's personnal, but I tend to think that realism brings fun on its own. So I always make a modification based on realism.
THEN, I make some changes to avoid unbalancing the game.

You're right, it is personal. I like realism too, and I try to create mods based on realism, but sometimes I think that its ok to do things slightly off from what would be 100% realistic.

And in the end, everybody in this thread can argue till their blue in the face, but as long as lethal bombardment for land is an option (as I think it should be) then people will do what they want, and that's ok because they should be allowed to play the game however they want even if that means having units that may be over-powered or unbalanced. Nobody's forcing everyone else to use land lethal bombardment, so its ok. It comes down to: if you want it, use it. if you don't want it, don't use it. the choice is the player's.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by bigvic
I thought this was a poll.

Sorry bigvic, but I ran out of bananas.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

My .02c worth,

O.K, for starters, I don't think that any of the land based artillery or naval units should have a lethal ground bomardment ability!!
I think that existing bombers and fighters should retain non-lethal air and sea bombardment!
I think that all modern surface naval power vessels should have lethal bombardment capability!
I think that you should have dive-bombers and fighter/bombers which possess lethal land OR lethal sea bombard (not both in the same unit)! The trade off would be a lower defense strength and/or attack strength than a standard fighter, and increased bombard strength, but reduced rate of fire and intermediate range! These units will, no matter what is done, be terribly unbalancing until such time that Firaxis adds an Air Attack/Air Defense flag for ground and naval units. Basically, Air Defense would give units a 2x defense strength against air attacks, and Air Attack would give the unit a seperate attack strength for the purposes of "intercepting" air units. This would help greatly to balance out the air power issue.
On a final note, I think it would be cool to have a ground artillery unit with a lethal sea bombardment only. Coupled with the immobile, rebase and paradrop flags, you could then create a line of "Coastal Fortresses" up and down your coast, to harrass enemy ships even before they get to your cities!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker