Bombardment

[Wahazar]

How to order unit to bombardment?
I don't see any option for this (I have appropriate rules enabled).
Is it working like normal contact attack or have some range?
I give myself decades of civ game break, thus I'm not familiar with new features.

[cgalik]

Yes, it's just like a normal attack but the server decides what to do.
For example in latest LT games, a bomber moves to a city and bombards. Same bomber moves to a boat and will attack.

[Wahazar]

OK, I see now - archer is bombing by attacking, but attacking unit was fortified thus I didn't noticed any effect. Archer also cannot enter a town, like any air unit.
But many bombardments did a job while phalanx was protecting them and chariot raid finished it. Interesting. BTW original (default rules) archer is overpowered, why to make 1/2/1 phalanx if you can have 3/2/1 archer? Bombardment+2/1/1 looks reasonable.

EDIT: what is a reason, that catapult and other artillery doesn't have bombardment flag? There is a large gap between archers and airplanes...

[wieder]

The catapult, cannons etc. have normal attack in the base ruleset we are using. There were talks about changing them to do bombardment but we were not sure about how to implement something that's not overpowered. That's why we are now experimenting with archers bombarding. With the experience from that we may be able to change the siege units (catapults etc) to have bombardment attacks.

However the catapult and other siege units now have the CityBuster flag. Meaning that they get double firepower when attacking cities.

[Wahazar]

There were talks about changing them to do bombardment but we were not sure about how to implement something that's not overpowered.

What about movement rate? There is no space to adjust it for classic game, but since longturn movements are 3x faster, it is possible to define 1 mp for catapult and cannon, 2 mp for artillery, not sure about howitzer, IMO 4 mp are ok - slightly faster than infantry. Bombard rate 2 for howitzer and 1 for previous ones.

[wieder]

Catapult and cannon have 3 moves, artillery 4 and howitzer 6. Would you change those to 1 for catapult and 2 for cannon? That sounds like slow since the attacker can't use the enemy roads because of the restrictinfra.

Please post here comments about how the archers work in LT44. We can then make decisions about what to do with the siege units.

[Wahazar]

Catapult and cannon have 3 moves, artillery 4 and howitzer 6. Would you change those to 1 for catapult and 2 for cannon? That sounds like slow since the attacker can't use the enemy roads because of the restrictinfra.
Please post here comments about how the archers work in LT44. We can then make decisions about what to do with the siege units.

Indeed, my proposal of movement restriction was too harsh, catapult can be chased on my own roads by any hostile unit. 2, 3 and 5 np are better ones.

Another issue is, that whole bombardment functionality is very interesting, but useless with current settings, due to game mechanics.
Classic duel contain many attack unless one unit is annihilated.
Bombardment is "hit and run" (or rather hit and stay) method, no risk of death of attacker, but very low gain of hostile HP loss is questionable trade-off, especially if combined with impossibility of claiming cities.
I tested archer with LT44 settings: A 2, FP 1, BR (bombard_rate) 2, and catapult with A 5, FP 1, BR 1.
While archers have chance to drain 1..2 HP from weak unit and 0..1 HP from strong unit, and usually nothing from strong fortified unit,
catapult would draw 1 HP from weak unit and have little chance to gain 1 HP from strong unit.

For example, I attacked city defended by two phalanx, and 5 shots from 5 catapults give almost nothing. The worst is, that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - aren't attacked units hardened?
EDIT: in current version, neither bombarder or bombarding victim gain any veteran points.

In case of classic duel, most of these catapults would be lost but defenders will be killed or very wounded.

EDIT: I made a test, 4 catapults, 3 elephants and chariot against 2 pikemen in walled city.
Standard rules: 3 catapults kaput, one wounded but survived, one pikemen left, finished by elephant and chariot, chariot claimed city.
Bombardment rules: negligible result of bombardment, all elephants and chariot killed when attacked, catapults captured by enemy.

Conclusion: I will experiment with increased FP and BR for catapult, to make it more usable. Probably IgWall flag should also be used.
Both catapult, cannons and howitzer are using plunging fire. IgWall bonus is justified due to fact, that bombarding unit can make only one attack per round
(and sub-attacks are limited to the bombardment rate count).

[Corbeau]

Indeed, my proposal of movement restriction was too harsh, catapult can be chased on my own roads by any hostile unit.

I don't think this is a problem. It is a realistic outcome.

Game-wise: always protect artillery with other units.

As for issues with too weak or too strong, again, first you need to determine what is the desired outcome of a Catapult vs. Phalanx-in-city. Then simply adjust the math to the desired outcome. You may want to check this.

[Wahazar]

As for issues with too weak or too strong, again, first you need to determine what is the desired outcome of a Catapult vs. Phalanx-in-city. Then simply adjust the math to the desired outcome. You may want to check this.

This graph confirm my empirical results.
Catapult with A=5, BR=1, FP=1 is useless against phalanx behind city wall - after attack it would have still 10 HP, maybe 9 HP. Same catapult without bombardment would die, but defender HP will be substantially lowered: http://longturn.org/warcalc/

I performed more test and found following optimal parameters:
firepower = 2
flags = "CityBuster", "Capturable", "Bombarder", "IgWall"
bombard_rate = 1

With such parameters, my experiment yield that it is possible to conquer walled city with 2 pikemen, with use of 4 catapults, 3 elephants and chariot, as discussed above (however chariot was heavily wounded and didn't enter into town, elephants died). The result is worse than with catapults used as regular units, but it is fair trade-off the fact that catapults survived.

Same parameters should apply to newer firearms, with higher bombard rate for artillery (2) and howitzer (3).

EDIT: apparently AI have no clue how to use units with bombard flag and capturable flag. Is it possible to tweak it? My towns are full of captured enemy catapults, it start to be boring.

[Hans_Lemurson]

Would it be possible to make it so that units cannot heal the turn after bombardment or taking damage? This would suddenly transform what is at present an annoying harasser into something dangerous that can lay siege to cities.

[Corbeau]

It's not an annoying harasser if there are other units standing by to attack the city.

Because if there are no such units, the bombarder is not only not an annoying harasser, but a bunch of jackasses with a deathwish.