Why artilleries? Why no armors, might one ask. After all, both of them have basic attack strength of 10 and armors have 3 movement points against the 1 of artillery. Further, an armor has more hitpoints (3 vs 2) and much better defence (5 vs 1) as well. IMHO, the difference is in artillery's fire power which is 2 opposed to 1 of the armor's. Besides, artillery is much cheaper: 50 shield vs 80 of armor's. So the artillery is very efficient taking alpine/riflemen behind city walls one at the time - you can expect very few losses if you use them. Not so if you use armors.

I do build armors in my games: they are great killing the partisans and all other off-city units or finishing off the weakened city defenders (in the rather rare case when the artillery died). Further, they can protect those weak artilleries outside enemy cities. And of course, they are good taking the counter attacks inside the newly captured city.

My point in writing this post is to find out if this is a common practise. Somehow I've got the feeling that the artillery is a bit underrated and the armors preferred by civers..

The biggest reason i can see for armor is the nostalgia of civ 1...... armor was by far the killer of that game and to be honest my favorite unit in civ 2 for modern warfare as well

unfortunately..... my main assault in civ is the calvalry vs phalanx

My own experience is that pre-Howitzer, bribing cities is a lot more time and cost effective... of course I play SP and don't see a lot of AI democracies. Despite saying that, though, I find Howitzer conquest to be boring... just a question of building enough of them, railroading them up to the AI and taking out his cities four by four (one by one is too slow ). Maybe I should try a no-bribe, no howie game... if I do, I'll give the Artillery approach a try.

Do you build a preworked fortress next to the city you're attacking a put a Rifleman or other defensive unit in there, stacked with your Artillery? That would be my tactic if I had the resources to make it work.

quote: Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man on 04-02-2001 11:21 AM Artillery's 2 FP versus Armor's 1, and Artillery being cheaper to build sounds good in theory. But don't you find that even if your Artillery do win, that they're kind of vulnerable when your turn ends? Leaving 1d units in the field always seems to mean their demise - even if I do take the city, the Partisans will often attack anything I've left in the field.

Well it's good in practise too. About partisans, I usually take enough armors with me to kill the partisans, sometimes I bribe them if they are in rough terrain. I really hate partisans pillaging railroads! If I have enough units and feel like micromanaging , I surround the city with my troops so that there is no room for partisans to pop up. Then, if I can, I try to spread my artillery to many squares around the city to minimize the possible losses

Then I take advantage of AI built fortification where I station a couple of good defensive units between my newly conquered city and the rest of AI empire to take the blow of counter-attacks. To me, the AI counterattack on my artilleries is rarely a problem.

quote: Do you have any stats to compare Armor and Artillery as against Riflemen/alpines/mechs behind walls?

Actually, I do.. I just ran some test and here are the results:

Attacking a walled city on grassland with 10 vet riflemen, not fortified (am I right but I think fortification doesn't matter if you have city walls?)

Attack Defence Hitpts Firepts
Rifleman 5 4 2 1
Armor 10 5 3 1
Artillery 10 1 2 2

1. round
--------
10 vet armors: 4 successful, 6 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 9 successful, 1 casualty

2. round
--------
10 vet armors: 7 successful, 3 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 9 successful, 1 casualty

3. round
--------
10 vet armors: 4 successful, 6 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 8 successful, 2 casualty

4. round
--------
10 vet armors: 4 successful, 6 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 7 successful, 3 casualty

5. round
--------
10 vet armors: 4 successful, 6 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 9 successful, 1 casualty

6. round
--------
10 vet armors: 5 successful, 5 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 7 successful, 3 casualty

7. round
--------
10 vet armors: 5 successful, 5 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 7 successful, 3 casualty

8. round
--------
10 vet armors: 3 successful, 7 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 8 successful, 2 casualty

9. round
--------
10 vet armors: 4 successful, 6 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 9 successful, 1 casualty

10. round
--------
10 vet armors: 4 successful, 6 casualties
10 vet artilleries: 6 successful, 4 casualty

Summary
-------
Armors 44 successful, 56 casualties
Artillery 79 successful, 21 casualties

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This proves my (and Geofeld's) point, there is no need to sabotage city walls if you use artillery! You save the population and a bunch of city improvements. If you try sabotaging with diplos, city walls usually comes down last. You'll lose a lot of diplos and get an empty city with few population points, so..

An army of artillery is good as long as your enemy can't counter attack. If you don't take out all the cities or get a cease fire then your in trouble. I rarely take engineers with me as the ai often has RR the whole continent.

However my production is usually great at this point in the game.... with a few cities producing around 80 shields. Actually any city doing this produces armour.

Plus on the homefront side , when those pesky barbs come in waves of twenty.... its better to have tanks than artillery for the three pronged attack.

quote: Originally posted by Marko Polo on 04-02-2001 02:31 PM I just ran some test and here are the results: Attacking a walled city on grassland with 10 vet riflemen, not fortified (am I right but I think fortification doesn't matter if you have city walls?) Summary ------- Armors 44 successful, 56 casualties Artillery 79 successful, 21 casualties

Thank you for testing, Marko. I'm sure ST will be glad to know (since he's not yet finished testing catapults ).
May I mention that one of my beloved vet spies can do the job (bribing at 2/3 of the price, without any loss) much sooner(if you don't skip researching communism in time).

quote: Originally posted by Marko Polo on 04-02-2001 02:31 PM Actually, I do.. I just ran some test and here are the results: Attacking a walled city on grassland with 10 vet riflemen, not fortified (am I right but I think fortification doesn't matter if you have city walls?) Summary ------- Armors 44 successful, 56 casualties Artillery 79 successful, 21 casualties

Actually, I am convinced... I still prefer spies and eventually howitzers, of course, but if I do need to go on the offensive in the mid game, I'll definitely try Artillery... plus, I can keep Sun Tzu if I avoid MW

As for the fortification question, I thought it did matter, but I could be wrong. Either way, I would think Artillery would still be better than Armor against fortified Riflemen, in a similar ratio.

Thanks for the tip!

------------------
Scouse Git[1] -- git1@scousers.net

By the end-game phase, I'm conquering cities by force or bribery. If I'm taking over cities by bribery, I may find the cities to be defended by inferior units such as musketeers or perhaps even phalanx, which, however, can be upgraded into riflemen due to Leo's workshop. Armor can only be obtained by going through Automobile, which means that you have to give up Leo to get it.

quote: Originally posted by Everyman on 04-06-2001 04:06 PM There's no question that when you compare the two units -- artillery and armor -- armor is preferable due to its movement of three.

Agreed, against technologically backward civs I'd use armors too. However, the situation changes when you are attacking e.g. walled veteran riflemen. Then prepare to heavy losses if you rely on armors - only 44% of the attacks are successful. With artillery you are much more successful with 79% chance. See my test results earlier in the thread.

{combat system}
{walls}{fortify}
{}{end2}{SlowThinker}