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Author Topic:   The demise of Artillery in v4.0

ZahnSama posted 08-25-99 03:38 PM ET
What happened to the 'Big Guns'? In v1.0 they worked fine (though it always annoyed me that they could never do 100% damage). When I downloaded v4.0 and saw that editing the alpha.txt file would now allow me to customize artillery I was estatic. I had just seen on the History Channel a program about the importance of artillery in warfare and was looking forward to playing a SMAC senario designed to recreate the trench warfare of WWI. Imagine my disappointment when my guns placed high in the mountains of my senario did absolutely nothing to approaching enemy troops. Did anyone else notice this bug?
Mongoose posted 08-25-99 03:47 PM ET
My experience is that it happened in 3.0.
Artillery is now of limited use, IMO. Still works well against ships. Also of use keeping besieged defenders from healing in bases. That's about all I use it for, now.
Change was NOT documented, to the best of my belief.
mcostant posted 08-26-99 05:34 AM ET
I agree with Mongoose - I almost never build artillery in SMAC, because they are almost useless. I used cannon and artillery alot on CIV 2, because you need any help to conquer that *damn* hardly defended city. BTW the computer builds a lot of artillery, as someone at Firaxis forgot to tweak it after some "artillery depowering" design decision (hopefully that's not another bug, is that? ).
Something to address at incoming SMAX, I suppose (well, with a quite long list of things, in fact ).
killkwik posted 09-02-99 02:55 PM ET
I tend use artillery alot. Not only can you keep an attack going on a base, you can use it to soften a base before you attack. Also helpful when being attacked. If you have sensor around and see the enemy coming, blast him with a few artillery units befor they hit your base. Sometimes the AI will just run away after being damaged.

Dave
Charon posted 09-05-99 12:12 PM ET
Another thing to mention, if anyone is bombarding your town with artillary, move an artillary unit of your own into that town. The next time they attack, your artillary and theirs duke it out, the rest of your units are spared, allowing them to heal.
mcostant posted 09-06-99 10:56 AM ET
killkwik & Charon: sorry if I disagree with you, but may I suggested you to build a rover (with best weapon available, no armour) instead of an artillery?
Usually it cost less and is more efficient to preemptive attack any incoming enemy (usually destroy at least one unit, and damage any other stacked, where none artillery in SMAC 4.0 is able to destroy a unit not already greatly damaged). If you can attack using roads you can often attack two times same turn, may be ending with a badly damaged rover but also leaving the attacker only with some damaged unit (or none at all), unable to win against any garrison you have in town. Of course, I'm speaking about AI attacker, because human player are usually better organized to defense against a counterattack.
On the other hand, if your rover survive you can easily use it later as attacker unit, where I think that attacker artillery are sitting duck
When available, Needlejet are so better than artillery: preemptive attacker, rapid deployment obstacle (because of ZOC) against enemy advance, immune to probe, very good to soften base garrison (until lot of them has AAA). After airforce development you can really throw away (desband & retire) any SMAC artillery (real world artillery are another story).
Until then, only good use of artillery IMHO is to defende base against enemy ship during shore bombardment, if you don't have developed a good navy to counterattack ship to ship.
Just my opinion, of course, don't bombard me .
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Author	Topic: The demise of Artillery in v4.0
ZahnSama	posted 08-25-99 03:38 PM ET What happened to the 'Big Guns'? In v1.0 they worked fine (though it always annoyed me that they could never do 100% damage). When I downloaded v4.0 and saw that editing the alpha.txt file would now allow me to customize artillery I was estatic. I had just seen on the History Channel a program about the importance of artillery in warfare and was looking forward to playing a SMAC senario designed to recreate the trench warfare of WWI. Imagine my disappointment when my guns placed high in the mountains of my senario did absolutely nothing to approaching enemy troops. Did anyone else notice this bug?
Mongoose	posted 08-25-99 03:47 PM ET My experience is that it happened in 3.0. Artillery is now of limited use, IMO. Still works well against ships. Also of use keeping besieged defenders from healing in bases. That's about all I use it for, now. Change was NOT documented, to the best of my belief.
mcostant	posted 08-26-99 05:34 AM ET I agree with Mongoose - I almost never build artillery in SMAC, because they are almost useless. I used cannon and artillery alot on CIV 2, because you need any help to conquer that damn hardly defended city. BTW the computer builds a lot of artillery, as someone at Firaxis forgot to tweak it after some "artillery depowering" design decision (hopefully that's not another bug, is that? ). Something to address at incoming SMAX, I suppose (well, with a quite long list of things, in fact ).
killkwik	posted 09-02-99 02:55 PM ET I tend use artillery alot. Not only can you keep an attack going on a base, you can use it to soften a base before you attack. Also helpful when being attacked. If you have sensor around and see the enemy coming, blast him with a few artillery units befor they hit your base. Sometimes the AI will just run away after being damaged. Dave
Charon	posted 09-05-99 12:12 PM ET Another thing to mention, if anyone is bombarding your town with artillary, move an artillary unit of your own into that town. The next time they attack, your artillary and theirs duke it out, the rest of your units are spared, allowing them to heal.
mcostant	posted 09-06-99 10:56 AM ET killkwik & Charon: sorry if I disagree with you, but may I suggested you to build a rover (with best weapon available, no armour) instead of an artillery? Usually it cost less and is more efficient to preemptive attack any incoming enemy (usually destroy at least one unit, and damage any other stacked, where none artillery in SMAC 4.0 is able to destroy a unit not already greatly damaged). If you can attack using roads you can often attack two times same turn, may be ending with a badly damaged rover but also leaving the attacker only with some damaged unit (or none at all), unable to win against any garrison you have in town. Of course, I'm speaking about AI attacker, because human player are usually better organized to defense against a counterattack. On the other hand, if your rover survive you can easily use it later as attacker unit, where I think that attacker artillery are sitting duck When available, Needlejet are so better than artillery: preemptive attacker, rapid deployment obstacle (because of ZOC) against enemy advance, immune to probe, very good to soften base garrison (until lot of them has AAA). After airforce development you can really throw away (desband & retire) any SMAC artillery (real world artillery are another story). Until then, only good use of artillery IMHO is to defende base against enemy ship during shore bombardment, if you don't have developed a good navy to counterattack ship to ship. Just my opinion, of course, don't bombard me .