A review of land-based bombardment units and a possible solution!

[=DrJambo=]

Initially, when i first sarted playing Civ3 i used to think land-based bombardment units were severely underpowered. Now after many patches and many games i lean to a slightly different outlook on these units, primarily based on the AI's use of them.

With the default stats:

1. Catapults and Cannons still are slightly underpowered.

2. Artillery are excellent and can lead to very one sided battles in the industrial period basically because the AI can't use them effectively in large stacks. By this time you should have a large amount of these due to successive upgrading over the eras and are able to level large AI invasion forces in very little time.

3. Radar artillery come a little late, but again very useful for the same reasons as Artillery.

The main reason the latter two are so effective is their rate of fire increasing to 2 and their extra square range.

So, as a way of balancing in favour of the AI i have thought of better stats for all these units:

(str/rng/rof)
1. Catapult 5,2,1 movement 1

2. Cannon 10,2,1 movement 1

3. Artillery 15,2,1 movement 1

4. Radar artillery 20,2,1 movement 2

This will favour the AI becasue the extra range for the earlier units means they can fire them at more targets from the confines of their cities, which is what the Ai prefers to do with their artillery anyway. Furthermore by reducing the latter 2 units to a rate of fire of 1 means that approaching AI units will not get quite so decimated so quickly, but are more likely to take a single hit as a result of the compensated strength increase.

Also the Ai artillery is mostly in evidence when the human player attacks one of their cities. When this happens any stationed Ai artillery gets one free shot, which can only do 1 hp of damage independent of a rate of fire of 2. By having a rate of fire of 1 this free 1 hp shot when on defence now becomes more like a normal shot again favouring AI strategies.

Altogether, i think these modifications will favour Ai strategies more and possibly alter the current dominance of the human when they reach replaceable parts and gain artillery!

What do you reckon? I think it's pretty good!

[jabroni154]

I like it! Quite excellent DrJambo!

I might still leave catapults the same though. I'm not sure if I want them to become a more dominant force as I don't think that would be realistic. Of course, only changing 1 point of attack might not make too much of a difference but with the current defense levels of units, I think it might not be required.

Have you had a chance to test this yet extensively?

[Dwarf Lord]

I think artillery units are still uderpowered in general.
They miss mucht too often, and are therefore simply not worth their price.
Last game I had a bunch of industrial era artillery (15 or something), which I targeted on a single enemy city. The result was pathetic: 5 out of 15 bombardments succeeded, and the stationed troops were hardly scratched.
A stack of that size should be able to severly weaken the rival's defences, thus enabling other troops to invade it with ease.

Granted, artillery should'nt be too strong, as it isn't damaged if it attacks. However, currently, building artillery is just plain uneffective in my opinion.

[Random Passerby]

The problem with artillery is that it's not really effective where I feel it should be effective.

Lone enemy sitting out in the open? Send a bunch of artillery by rail and blast it to kingdom come. You've just turned a few-casualties fight into a practically no-casualties fight (unless you're throwing longbowmen at infantry).

However, against large stacks in the open, or fairly small stacks fortified in cities--the tough defense situations where something to wear down the enemy is really NEEDED--artillery just doesn't perform nearly as well.

[=DrJambo=]

Originally posted by Dwarf Lord
I think artillery units are still uderpowered in general.
They miss mucht too often, and are therefore simply not worth their price.
Last game I had a bunch of industrial era artillery (15 or something), which I targeted on a single enemy city. The result was pathetic: 5 out of 15 bombardments succeeded, and the stationed troops were hardly scratched.
A stack of that size should be able to severly weaken the rival's defences, thus enabling other troops to invade it with ease.

Granted, artillery should'nt be too strong, as it isn't damaged if it attacks. However, currently, building artillery is just plain uneffective in my opinion.

Really?!!?

I'm amazed at this!! Wait until you get invaded by 100+ riflemen and then watch that stack get decimated and split up when a stack of your artillery pound them. IF you have railroads, this stack can run around your empire and halt a lot of invading stacks with very little trouble.

The main advantages of artillery are to be found on enemy units not stationed in cities. My compensation for decreasing the rate of fire is slightly balanced out with a small increase in strength. What i am hoping to do is prevent to 2 hp take out often inflicted by artillery of wandering enemy AI units. This is where i find they are too powerful.

Jabroni, the catapult and cannon have been tested with this and work very nicely with the 2 range bombard and + to strength. You see, one never has very many of these because they appear early in the game and there are other more important things to build.... However, by the time one gets to artillery and have done all their upgrades and built more artillery, it's not uncommon for a human player to have 30+ artillery. This = devastation for any invading stack with the 2 rate of fire.

These modifications will even it out a little for the AI (i think).

Test them out and see for yourself. Possibly the increase in strength for the artillery and radar artillery may a little high, maybe 14,2,1 and 18,2,1 would be better...but i won't know until i have tested this myself.

Cheers

[=DrJambo=]

Originally posted by Random Passerby
The problem with artillery is that it's not really effective where I feel it should be effective.

Lone enemy sitting out in the open? Send a bunch of artillery by rail and blast it to kingdom come. You've just turned a few-casualties fight into a practically no-casualties fight (unless you're throwing longbowmen at infantry).

However, against large stacks in the open, or fairly small stacks fortified in cities--the tough defense situations where something to wear down the enemy is really NEEDED--artillery just doesn't perform nearly as well.

On the contrary, 30+ artillery can split a bit invasion force with no difficulty. With a rate of fire of 2 half of them will take the full 2 hp hit and turn and head for a healing sanctuary. If it's slow moving riflemen or infantry you can do this twice before they even reach your city! By then their invasion force of 100+ will be split into wounded groups heading for home and a smallish untouched group which can be dealt with. Plus, the 1 hp wounded units make easy pickings to create elite units and thus a ton of leaders!

Trust me, i know, i've destroyed 150 Greek riflemen this way creating 3 leaders in the process.