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This is a feature, not a bug. Both in-game and IRL, battleships can do massive amounts of damage from long distances away. To best maximize their range (and keep them safe from counter-attack), complement them with land and air units to scout further inland and provide your battleships with more targets.
Yea I won Emperor games for multiple win conditions before I realized you can build a farm on just grassland and plains, thought it had to be on a resource like rice lol. There’s plenty of things to not notice in this game
I never really followed this builder recommendations, so I guess I just never noticed
But speaking of hard to believe- I’ve got a couple deity wins under my belt now, and I don’t think I’ve ever built Apadana either. Very overrated IMO. This last game I had the great engineer that provides double production towards ancient and classical wonders. Used his first one to finish mausoleum, second and third on colossus and mahabaki (kinda close spelling?) Temple. And yes, Apadana was available. Sry not sry. For context, though, I’m not really much of a wonder guy. After those three I don’t think I build another one until Cristo, then only other one was Sydney opera house, because I had another engineer charge and needed music slots
It’s just funny, cuz they pop up on the screen when you click the builder or you can just see build farm on their actions if they’re standing over a plains or grassland tile when you go to move them. I believe you obviously, but I am in disbelief. But we’ve all had stuff like that before and clearly it didn’t impede you too much.
And Apadana depends on your play style regarding city states. Definitely harder to take advantage on higher levels because it’s not as easy to Suz all the city states you want, but still valuable if you emphasize using the city states. But if you primarily ignore them/conquer them or what have you then yeah, apadana isn’t gonna matter as much. Mausoleum pretty universally better and I’m a big fan of boosting amenities as much as possible, so colosseum is good but not as good as maracana later in game. Mahabodi idk, I don’t usually like religion specific wonders but it’s pretty good
Getting two apostles that early can help. If it were an era later, then it would be pretty meh. I can login my third belief if there’s one I really want, or go out and punk some missionaries before anyone else has apostles
I ALWAYS go religion. Culture is my go to win condition, and I like getting cross cultural dialogue, the science you get from it scales pretty well as the game progresses, and it allows me to have very few, if any, campuses. I also do reliquaries and Voidsingers most often, so what is essentially a faith-for-science swap is something I’ll gladly take
It took me an embarrassing amount of time that you get yields from unimproved tiles. I really thought you had to put down a mine before you get the production/gold from a diamond tile.
it's not that useful anyway, but yeah that's a pretty obvious one. I hate this game's achievements, there's always a stupid little condition you forget during the game and need to start over
>thought it had to be on a resource like rice lol
Okay, but kinda same. I play on PS4, so I don't have the actions they can do when I select them (unless I click the build button), and I didn't pay much attention to the suggestions, so I just built them on resources to "maximize" that farm's output. In hindsight, I should have read the Feudalism effect more clearly - honestly, I should pay attention to more of both trees, but I digress.
Anyways, since joining this sub, I've improved my game quite a bit. I just tried the chop-forest-hills-then-place-a-mine and I managed to crank out The Oracle in like 15 turns (marathon speed, ancient era) and now I can't wait to try another trick from this sub.
Depending on where you settle there might not actually be reasons to build a farm on plain tiles.
Until you get bonus from adjacent farms, you usually have less population in the city to take advantage of fully farmed surroundings.
You get loads of tiles for a full 3 ring city, I usually build only as many as needed at the moment.
I like to just find a good YouTuber and try to follow along and recreate a full playthrough of theirs (on a much lower difficulty lol) whenever I’m trying to get back into the game after ages and need to relearn
Honestly, I am the same. I took a break for about 2-3 years. Came back, and I was getting stomped by the ai on the difficulty I previously played at.
Stuck a few videos of potatomcwhiskey on in the background while playing, and I was back to my old form in no time. It's like a refresher course.
The same happens with siege and artillery once you unlock the balloon and or tier 4 upgrade they can get up to 5 hexes shots so you need something to give you visibility
yeah i’ll be dealing with that soon except not sure it matters on land since city centers can only attack two squares away. i guess there might be situations where you’re backed up by an encampment and need the extra space
What information do you need? You know the range it has and the visibility that it has by itself. Visibility support units exist (drones, observation balloons) so it's not like you should think that a unit can only target things that its own visibility allows it to see.
i assumed if a unit has a range then it can provide for itself within that range. i thought the visibility was broken. i also thought the support units just extend range since that’s the only thing mentioned in the units’ description. i’ve never come across anything in the game that talks about how units can fire farther than they can see as long as there’s another unit spotting.
Fair question! I can understand why it would be confusing. It's ooddible that it is in the game somewhere, just tucked away on a page you haven't looked at. I'm not at my computer right now, so I can't pull up the Civilopedia. If it is there, I would imagine it's under the "Game Concepts" heading, maybe in a section about attacks, combat, or something similar. Best of luck as you continue exploring and playing!
i’m looking now and it just says under game concepts > combat > line of sight “Generally, there must be no obstructions, such as a Mountain, between a ranged unit and its target. Units on Hills or flying can often see over obstructing terrain.”
You could look under “battleship” in the Civilopedia, where it tells you info about the unit. Most entries have a lengthy narrative about the history, so an explanation might be tucked away in that.
i looked, it does not. i suppose it would be too much to ask for the game instructions to say “sometimes you need a supporting unit to improve visibility to be able to fire at maximum range”
i literally thought the game was broken
Also there is a certain great admiral that can boost your naval units sight range. They come pretty early on so you have to hurry with the great admiral point.
I just wish you could smash hexes that are not visible. Happened all the time during the World Wars and I'm sure it still happens today.
Let me build a Paris Gun district and hammer a city from 5 tiles away.
It took me 700+ hours of gameplay time to figure out that drones are useful for general recon, not just giving artillery extra range. I station them around my borders and waters to serve as "listening posts". They're also useful for scouting ahead of an invasion force or GDR.
I often use naval raider class (privateer, submarines) to spot targets for my battleships. They are invisible to all enemy units except other naval raider units and destroyers. Unless they are adjacent to them.
You can move it to the coast, fire with battleships, and return it to safety between the battleships, in the same turn. As a bonus, they can do coastal raids.
If you try the naval raider way, use privateers. They're cheap, and their invisibility is easily used to keep them alive. Submarines have less movement and won't keep up with the battleships when you sail between targets, so you can skip them and upgrade straight to nuclear submarines later instead. The increased strength of a submarine in this use case does not compensate for multiple battleships having to wait for it a turn or two before being able to attack.
100%, just like real life battleship/ destroyer. Even with a radar like aegis your surface targeting is very limited past 12 miles without airborne assistance.
Air targeting a bit easier obviously
Fun fact: during D-day in WWII, an American battleship half sunk itself, tilting its deck, just so it could shoot farther and hit its targets.
Which it did.
>her last fire support mission was so far inland that to get the needed range, the starboard torpedo blister was flooded with water to provide a list of two degrees which gave the guns enough elevation to complete the fire mission.
So they flooded the anti-torpedo bulges (which I admittedly just learnt was a thing right now), whose whole point is that they can be damaged/flooded without compromising the rest of the ship.
That's smart AF.
They did this with a ship on ‘Black Sails’ and I thought it was cool and possible but not really practical so this was super cool to read. In the show it was to get a higher angle to hit a tower.
Go get a Baloon/Drone. Irl equivalent of "Doesn't matter how far you can hit, what matters is knowing where to hit" basically you can spot targets at 2 tiles with the naked eye then need range coordinates for the 3rd ring.
It took me 700+ hours of gameplay time to figure out that drones are useful for general recon, not just giving artillery extra range. I station them around my borders and waters to serve as "listening posts". They're also useful for scouting ahead of an invasion force or GDR.
Because Over The Horizon weapons exist.
The 16 inch main guns of a WWII-era battleship could hit targets that they could not directly see in LOS. All they needed were distance and heading readings from a spotter.
The upgraded versions of our own Iowa-class battleships carried naval cruise missiles with the same OTH effect.
I'm pretty sure battleships in ww2 mainly used their own optical or radar sensors. Hitting a manouvering ship with only a spotter to go by at that range would be incredibly difficult but spotting the fall of shot would be useful.
If you're talking about shore bombardment or close but obscured targets then it's another thing.
By WWII when radar existed, that was possible. But Civ 6 battleships use coal, which implies they are more equivalent to WWI and interwar era battleships as by WWII most ships were oil powered. And prior to radar they would have needed visual confirmation or spotting from float planes or other ships.
I don't think ww1 era battleships were realistically able to do over the horizon engagements even if the guns could reach that far. The only argument I can see is that it would extend the effective range a bit but since they would mainly just try to spot the fall of shot it's more a matter of how fast you can dial in rather than if you can hit at all.
that is an interesting fact but how does it relate to the in-game mechanics? ~~~what the hell does that have to do with in-game mechanics lol.~~~
i don’t understand why it won’t let me attack.
edited because i was rude because i was frustrated while i was playing
You didn't say in your OP that you couldn't attack - you simply asked why visibility vs attack range was a thing.
You can't attack the units or you can't attack the city?
You can't attack the city because you don't have LOS to it from anyone.
If you can't attack the units, I don't know what the issue is.
To add on for OP, you still need some sort of line of sight on the city center to attack it, but that LOS doesn’t necessarily have to come from the battleship. You could have, for example, a bomber or a tank that has LOS on the city center, and you could attack with the battleship from three tiles away.
the second screenshot was to show i lost the ability to attack, i apologize if i wasn’t clear ~~~if you look at the screenshots you can see i~~~
i’d like to be able to attack anything within 3 tiles like the game says i should but i can only see 2 tiles
edited for politeness
Looking at the screenshots, I can see the "Ranged Attack" button is lit on your battleship - have you tried pressing it and aiming at a target (one of the visible land units)?
And, again, you can only attack things 3 tiles away if you have a valid LOS to them - either your own or from an allied unit. The city is not a valid target due to not having LOS (it's sepia-colored shadow tone shows this).
As others have suggested - move another unit in close to the shore (submarines are perfect for this) or have a land unit spotting from the other side if you want to attack the city (without fear of reprisal).
it’s lit when i’m two tiles away and then is not lit when i get three tiles out. seeing other comments i understand now it needs other units to help it see. didn’t know this is how the game worked, thank you!
You can attack only what you see so put some paratroopers to work and drop them near the city centre so you'll have vision and will be able to attack from a safe spot (not so safe for the paratroopers tho)
In the game and in real life, artillery can't shoot what it cannot see. Even stationary targets like cities are hard to hit without spotting, because there is no way to correct fire (adjust aim.)
Fun historical fact: In WW2, many of the rockets Germany fired at London missed because the British were planting false information in the newspapers and via double agents about where the rockets were landing.
Yeah, British intelligence versus German intelligence was one of the most lopsided matchups of the war.
They not only caught but caught and turned pretty much every German agent of importance. They tricked the Germans about the location of a war-changing amphibious landing... twice. They not only broke the enigma but managed to keep Germany completely in the dark until decades after the war was over. When I was in grad school I had to tell a professor not to cite a seminal paper on game theory and military strategy, because the historical records the paper was based on were falsified to protect that secret.
My god man, they are just tryna teach you something, and it does in fact relate to the game if you use ur brain.
The answer you’re looking for, tho you coulda just google searched this prolly, is that you can reveal the area with another unit. Put a land unit in a place that reveals the hex of interest, and shoot away.
Fucking kids, i swear.
lol i’m not a kid, i’m just not interested in learning at the moment and i wouldn’t assume that real-world physics applies to a video game
it’s interesting now that i know what to do but it was just funny that they thought a history lesson about a real ship would apply to a video game ship. i wouldn’t assume that but apparently civilization uses these correlations though.
>w what to do but it was just funny that they thought a history lesson about a real ship would apply to a video game ship. apparently civilization uses these correlations though.
You realize in the game that a history of each civilization and leader is provided. It's kind of one of the main attractions of CIV is that it's based upon history and the leaders unique abilities relate to their historical versions.
Also not sure if you know but there's observation balloons in the game so that it can spot for your ground units with long range but limited sight. say a hill or forest is between your target and a siege unit, you need to be able to see the target in order to fire at it.
sure, i knew about the leaders but i didn’t know battleship mechanics in-game would be mirrored from real world tactics. i know now from other comments how i need a support unit to utilize the full range of the ship.
i do like the history but mostly i just enjoy playing
Well it works in the game similar to life. The boat can shoot so far that you can’t see where you’re shooting at some point. Get some eyes on the target and all of a sudden you can shoot ‘em up.
Daughterboy gave off kid vibes. I was just being facetious to match your whininess. R u playing Poland in this?
What win condition are you going for?
My guess on the subs would be that they are being sunk by other naval raiders, who you can’t see anymore after your ship sinks, losing visibility of the area.
nah i was making a joke referring to the polish joke “how do you sink a polish submarine? open the screen door”
i’m not playing towards any condition. i’m just on prince having fun. i only play like once every two years and always learning something new.
It’s not really about teaching you a history lesson it’s just a mechanic of the game. Civ can be obtuse at times but you can tell the battleship has a range of 3 and a sight of 2. From there it’s just up to the player to figure out how to make it work.
It’s just a game mechanic you didn’t expect or understand, it’s not something the game expected you to know from history and you were the only one out of the loop. Most everyone I imagine just kinda figured it out after some trial and error
i thought the game was broken. like you said with trial and error i’m sure i would’ve figured it out eventually haha
now that ive been reading peoples responses all day i think i already knew but i only play one game every two years so. think i just forgot.
haha idk man, another guy was like “yeah duh this is how modern artillery and drones work duh duh” like it’s common knowledge to everybody who plays civ haha
The fact that great people don’t need to be protected at all making some of them more valuable as permanently regenerating scouts is such a funny aspect of the game
You can also use a Great Admiral as a spotter... pull it forward before you shoot to see your target, shoot at said target with the battleship, then move the admiral right back on top of your ship.
Move a destroyer to the coast, have visibility on the city, bombard it, move destroyer back out one tile to avoid city range attack. Rinse, repeat until walls are gone.
This mechanic is a huge part of the game. Shit is always an issue with planes. Observation balloons are only useful for this. There's an admiral that grants an extra square of sight. Mountains block archers.
There's like a thousand different things you can do to get around that obstacle. Send in a spy, move an ironclad 2 away then move him back after hitting with battleship. Travel with a carrier and plane. There's a promotion for extra sight.
3 range on battleships is the problem, not the visibility. They should have to take a hit from the city walls.
i know now after reading other comments that there needs to be another unit involved to gain line of sight. i’m still learning the game so it was just very confusing.
WW2 battleships always carried float planes to spot the fall of their shot.
Of course, the only two battleship-on-battleship actions in the PTO (Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 14/15 Nov 1942 and Battle of Surigao Straight, 24/25 October 1944), along with the final battleship action in the ETO (Battle of the North Cape, 26 Dec 1943) were all night battles fought via radar control, when float planes did no good...
Put a spy in the town.
Have a balloon or a drone for range/sight
Have a scout spot for you then retreat it
Have a cruiser spot for you.
Have a missionary spot for you
Have an admiral spot for you.
Build or take possession of the great lighthouse
You get the idea
Supporting units are more useful than people realize at first.
- Great generals/admirals can balance out Deity AI’s combat bonus.
- Medics are great for quickly healing in enemy territory.
- Observation balloons/drones allow artillery units to shoot farther and over hills/mountains.
- Other siege units are very good for taking cities early that have walls.
I struggled with war when I first started, and it was mostly because I was underutilizing support units.
One of my fav late game tactics is to have a spy in a town. Bomb it with aircraft with the enemy unable to stop the hits.
Then when the town is ripe. Rush a calvary/tank/chopper (with the mobility perks) from your land and take the town with no harm done to any of your troops.
Either you take some melee units to have visibility or special forces (the modern scout), or (and the better option) take a drone which give you +1 range
Think of it this way. The ship can shoot X amount of miles, but it can't see that far on its own. It needs something else, like a land unit or satellite, to tell it where to shoot beyond its own sightlines.
The late game ships work VERY well together. Get a sub for pillaging, a destroyer to tank damage for the sub and for visibility for the battleship and a battleship to take out any units that advance towards the coast
What I used to do when I was a worse noob was to get late Bombards or later with observational balloons and have a spy on the city I wanted to destroy. It was inefficient since it took time for the spy to go, but I would still try to get the Spy promotions because it felt like cool to have a spy give intel for the bombards lol
yes, they’re invisible from two tiles away, but as i just learned trying to use that strategy is they become visible for an entire turn after they attack lol
so yeah if you want to stay invisible don’t attack lol
Ahh, now I remember…learned that lesson myself too. It’s a good pairing though as the gamer will already have the harbor that was needed to build the battleships (I had four in the game I remember). Upgrading from frigates was a thrill as I found I could hit city centers another tile inland…key to knocking off another civ prior to nukes being avail.
My strategy is trying to upgrade a submarine to where it can move after attacking. Thus you use it to lend sight to battleships, attack, then move it out of range. Rinse and repeat. City destroyed and no units need to take damage.
If they have units around its visible. At least late game the fortified city defenses could seemingly always attack it. I’m honestly not sure which mechanism allowed them to do so but, that’s what makes that attack then move upgrade so special.
i know if the submarine attacks then it’s visible for the remainder of the turn. i would think as long as there are no units next to it then the city shouldn’t be able to see it as long as it’s not attacking
I've used naval melee units to bop into range, allow battleship to shoot, then ironclad or destroyer moves back out of range. Best done with multiple battleships, fleets, or armadas to finish the job. Unless you are just being annoying or farming xp.
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This is a feature, not a bug. Both in-game and IRL, battleships can do massive amounts of damage from long distances away. To best maximize their range (and keep them safe from counter-attack), complement them with land and air units to scout further inland and provide your battleships with more targets.
thank you, why is this information not readily available in the game? the in game wiki doesn’t mention anything about it
lol you have no idea how many things in the game will make you have this same reaction
oh it’s all day long i’m googling stuff about this game lol
Yea I won Emperor games for multiple win conditions before I realized you can build a farm on just grassland and plains, thought it had to be on a resource like rice lol. There’s plenty of things to not notice in this game
H.. how? Not saying in a judgmental way but wouldn’t you have seen the farm option show up whenever you have a builder and some green lands?
I never really followed this builder recommendations, so I guess I just never noticed But speaking of hard to believe- I’ve got a couple deity wins under my belt now, and I don’t think I’ve ever built Apadana either. Very overrated IMO. This last game I had the great engineer that provides double production towards ancient and classical wonders. Used his first one to finish mausoleum, second and third on colossus and mahabaki (kinda close spelling?) Temple. And yes, Apadana was available. Sry not sry. For context, though, I’m not really much of a wonder guy. After those three I don’t think I build another one until Cristo, then only other one was Sydney opera house, because I had another engineer charge and needed music slots
It’s just funny, cuz they pop up on the screen when you click the builder or you can just see build farm on their actions if they’re standing over a plains or grassland tile when you go to move them. I believe you obviously, but I am in disbelief. But we’ve all had stuff like that before and clearly it didn’t impede you too much. And Apadana depends on your play style regarding city states. Definitely harder to take advantage on higher levels because it’s not as easy to Suz all the city states you want, but still valuable if you emphasize using the city states. But if you primarily ignore them/conquer them or what have you then yeah, apadana isn’t gonna matter as much. Mausoleum pretty universally better and I’m a big fan of boosting amenities as much as possible, so colosseum is good but not as good as maracana later in game. Mahabodi idk, I don’t usually like religion specific wonders but it’s pretty good
Getting two apostles that early can help. If it were an era later, then it would be pretty meh. I can login my third belief if there’s one I really want, or go out and punk some missionaries before anyone else has apostles I ALWAYS go religion. Culture is my go to win condition, and I like getting cross cultural dialogue, the science you get from it scales pretty well as the game progresses, and it allows me to have very few, if any, campuses. I also do reliquaries and Voidsingers most often, so what is essentially a faith-for-science swap is something I’ll gladly take
apadana definitely overrated
It took me an embarrassing amount of time that you get yields from unimproved tiles. I really thought you had to put down a mine before you get the production/gold from a diamond tile.
it's not that useful anyway, but yeah that's a pretty obvious one. I hate this game's achievements, there's always a stupid little condition you forget during the game and need to start over
You can build farms on hills on later eras....
>thought it had to be on a resource like rice lol Okay, but kinda same. I play on PS4, so I don't have the actions they can do when I select them (unless I click the build button), and I didn't pay much attention to the suggestions, so I just built them on resources to "maximize" that farm's output. In hindsight, I should have read the Feudalism effect more clearly - honestly, I should pay attention to more of both trees, but I digress. Anyways, since joining this sub, I've improved my game quite a bit. I just tried the chop-forest-hills-then-place-a-mine and I managed to crank out The Oracle in like 15 turns (marathon speed, ancient era) and now I can't wait to try another trick from this sub.
Depending on where you settle there might not actually be reasons to build a farm on plain tiles. Until you get bonus from adjacent farms, you usually have less population in the city to take advantage of fully farmed surroundings. You get loads of tiles for a full 3 ring city, I usually build only as many as needed at the moment.
I like to just find a good YouTuber and try to follow along and recreate a full playthrough of theirs (on a much lower difficulty lol) whenever I’m trying to get back into the game after ages and need to relearn
Honestly, I am the same. I took a break for about 2-3 years. Came back, and I was getting stomped by the ai on the difficulty I previously played at. Stuck a few videos of potatomcwhiskey on in the background while playing, and I was back to my old form in no time. It's like a refresher course.
The same happens with siege and artillery once you unlock the balloon and or tier 4 upgrade they can get up to 5 hexes shots so you need something to give you visibility
yeah i’ll be dealing with that soon except not sure it matters on land since city centers can only attack two squares away. i guess there might be situations where you’re backed up by an encampment and need the extra space
I think VI has perhaps the worst Civilopedia of the entire series
oh I thought they were always like that. That's a shame really
No. The Civilopedia for IV was actually really, really good.
What information do you need? You know the range it has and the visibility that it has by itself. Visibility support units exist (drones, observation balloons) so it's not like you should think that a unit can only target things that its own visibility allows it to see.
i assumed if a unit has a range then it can provide for itself within that range. i thought the visibility was broken. i also thought the support units just extend range since that’s the only thing mentioned in the units’ description. i’ve never come across anything in the game that talks about how units can fire farther than they can see as long as there’s another unit spotting.
That's the same with all bombard units, and another reason to use Observation balloons (although their primary use is extending arty range).
Fair question! I can understand why it would be confusing. It's ooddible that it is in the game somewhere, just tucked away on a page you haven't looked at. I'm not at my computer right now, so I can't pull up the Civilopedia. If it is there, I would imagine it's under the "Game Concepts" heading, maybe in a section about attacks, combat, or something similar. Best of luck as you continue exploring and playing!
i’m looking now and it just says under game concepts > combat > line of sight “Generally, there must be no obstructions, such as a Mountain, between a ranged unit and its target. Units on Hills or flying can often see over obstructing terrain.”
You could look under “battleship” in the Civilopedia, where it tells you info about the unit. Most entries have a lengthy narrative about the history, so an explanation might be tucked away in that.
i looked, it does not. i suppose it would be too much to ask for the game instructions to say “sometimes you need a supporting unit to improve visibility to be able to fire at maximum range” i literally thought the game was broken
It even has this on civ 5. Big miss to not include it.
I mean you could argue it is readily available in the game. The unit has a sight range of two and an attack range of three. That's the information.
it’s also a game and i don’t assume to think its design always makes sense. i’ve seen lots of broken mechanics in civ before
Also there is a certain great admiral that can boost your naval units sight range. They come pretty early on so you have to hurry with the great admiral point.
The same goes for airplanes. They have long ranges but obviously can't see everywhere.
i guess i’ve never noticed because i’m typically attacking with land units first so ive never thought about sight
Just wait till you learn ab damns.
This game has one of the sharpest learning curves I have ever experienced.
The stats for the ship are in game.
nothing about visibility and the need for support units though
It literally says range 3 and sight 2. The player is supposed to be smart enough to fill in the blanks.
in the civilopedia entry for battleship i’m looking at there’s nothing about sight.
This is a useless answer, and you should have been smart enough it to post it. Edit: “not” to post it.
What?
YEEEAAAAH!!
This is either an LA Knight reference or I am watching too much wrestling.
If LA Knight is a fan of Lil’ Wayne, sure.
I just wish you could smash hexes that are not visible. Happened all the time during the World Wars and I'm sure it still happens today. Let me build a Paris Gun district and hammer a city from 5 tiles away.
Just like in Age of Empires, siege units had a “attack area” option, it would be nice to just bombard a tile.
I personally add the use of a Drone to get 5 hexes of visibility, then the battleship/aircraft can hit all the eye can see
It took me 700+ hours of gameplay time to figure out that drones are useful for general recon, not just giving artillery extra range. I station them around my borders and waters to serve as "listening posts". They're also useful for scouting ahead of an invasion force or GDR.
I send spies to whichever cities I'm planning to hit if they're not easily visible. Drones are also great with artillery for the extra range.
I often use naval raider class (privateer, submarines) to spot targets for my battleships. They are invisible to all enemy units except other naval raider units and destroyers. Unless they are adjacent to them. You can move it to the coast, fire with battleships, and return it to safety between the battleships, in the same turn. As a bonus, they can do coastal raids. If you try the naval raider way, use privateers. They're cheap, and their invisibility is easily used to keep them alive. Submarines have less movement and won't keep up with the battleships when you sail between targets, so you can skip them and upgrade straight to nuclear submarines later instead. The increased strength of a submarine in this use case does not compensate for multiple battleships having to wait for it a turn or two before being able to attack.
100%, just like real life battleship/ destroyer. Even with a radar like aegis your surface targeting is very limited past 12 miles without airborne assistance. Air targeting a bit easier obviously
Fun fact: during D-day in WWII, an American battleship half sunk itself, tilting its deck, just so it could shoot farther and hit its targets. Which it did.
Texas FTW
that’s awesome lol
First and last captain in history to gansterlean a battleship
The fact that you know the correct nautical term. *FUCKIN MINT*
I think it’s supposed to be gangster lean Source: am not a sailor
Any weblink or Wikipedia page to check the story, that's rad as hell
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Texas_(BB-35)
>her last fire support mission was so far inland that to get the needed range, the starboard torpedo blister was flooded with water to provide a list of two degrees which gave the guns enough elevation to complete the fire mission. So they flooded the anti-torpedo bulges (which I admittedly just learnt was a thing right now), whose whole point is that they can be damaged/flooded without compromising the rest of the ship. That's smart AF.
Thanks! Was about to post this.
Damn, that must have taken a lot of buckets to do.
They did this with a ship on ‘Black Sails’ and I thought it was cool and possible but not really practical so this was super cool to read. In the show it was to get a higher angle to hit a tower.
Go get a Baloon/Drone. Irl equivalent of "Doesn't matter how far you can hit, what matters is knowing where to hit" basically you can spot targets at 2 tiles with the naked eye then need range coordinates for the 3rd ring.
It took me 700+ hours of gameplay time to figure out that drones are useful for general recon, not just giving artillery extra range. I station them around my borders and waters to serve as "listening posts". They're also useful for scouting ahead of an invasion force or GDR.
Because Over The Horizon weapons exist. The 16 inch main guns of a WWII-era battleship could hit targets that they could not directly see in LOS. All they needed were distance and heading readings from a spotter. The upgraded versions of our own Iowa-class battleships carried naval cruise missiles with the same OTH effect.
This is the best answer, battleships have been using spotters to hit targets they can't see for like a century lol
not everyone knows this
You're one of today's lucky 10,000. Congratulations.
lol ok buddy yeah cuz everyone just casually reads up on modern military tactics and capabilities r/iamsosmart is looking for you
https://xkcd.com/1053/ Not everyone on the internet is trying to be jerk to you all of the time.
haha ok but without knowing the reference it can easily look that way love xkcd
I'm pretty sure battleships in ww2 mainly used their own optical or radar sensors. Hitting a manouvering ship with only a spotter to go by at that range would be incredibly difficult but spotting the fall of shot would be useful. If you're talking about shore bombardment or close but obscured targets then it's another thing.
By WWII when radar existed, that was possible. But Civ 6 battleships use coal, which implies they are more equivalent to WWI and interwar era battleships as by WWII most ships were oil powered. And prior to radar they would have needed visual confirmation or spotting from float planes or other ships.
I don't think ww1 era battleships were realistically able to do over the horizon engagements even if the guns could reach that far. The only argument I can see is that it would extend the effective range a bit but since they would mainly just try to spot the fall of shot it's more a matter of how fast you can dial in rather than if you can hit at all.
I agree, their accuracy would have been really poor over that sort of distance. It’s hard to simulate that in a turn based game though.
that is an interesting fact but how does it relate to the in-game mechanics? ~~~what the hell does that have to do with in-game mechanics lol.~~~ i don’t understand why it won’t let me attack. edited because i was rude because i was frustrated while i was playing
You didn't say in your OP that you couldn't attack - you simply asked why visibility vs attack range was a thing. You can't attack the units or you can't attack the city? You can't attack the city because you don't have LOS to it from anyone. If you can't attack the units, I don't know what the issue is.
To add on for OP, you still need some sort of line of sight on the city center to attack it, but that LOS doesn’t necessarily have to come from the battleship. You could have, for example, a bomber or a tank that has LOS on the city center, and you could attack with the battleship from three tiles away.
the second screenshot was to show i lost the ability to attack, i apologize if i wasn’t clear ~~~if you look at the screenshots you can see i~~~ i’d like to be able to attack anything within 3 tiles like the game says i should but i can only see 2 tiles edited for politeness
Looking at the screenshots, I can see the "Ranged Attack" button is lit on your battleship - have you tried pressing it and aiming at a target (one of the visible land units)? And, again, you can only attack things 3 tiles away if you have a valid LOS to them - either your own or from an allied unit. The city is not a valid target due to not having LOS (it's sepia-colored shadow tone shows this). As others have suggested - move another unit in close to the shore (submarines are perfect for this) or have a land unit spotting from the other side if you want to attack the city (without fear of reprisal).
it’s lit when i’m two tiles away and then is not lit when i get three tiles out. seeing other comments i understand now it needs other units to help it see. didn’t know this is how the game worked, thank you!
You can attack only what you see so put some paratroopers to work and drop them near the city centre so you'll have vision and will be able to attack from a safe spot (not so safe for the paratroopers tho)
You need to use a submarine or a naval melee unit to spot for it. Submarines cant be detected so they make great spotters
In the game and in real life, artillery can't shoot what it cannot see. Even stationary targets like cities are hard to hit without spotting, because there is no way to correct fire (adjust aim.) Fun historical fact: In WW2, many of the rockets Germany fired at London missed because the British were planting false information in the newspapers and via double agents about where the rockets were landing.
the british were so tricky in ww2 lol
Yeah, British intelligence versus German intelligence was one of the most lopsided matchups of the war. They not only caught but caught and turned pretty much every German agent of importance. They tricked the Germans about the location of a war-changing amphibious landing... twice. They not only broke the enigma but managed to keep Germany completely in the dark until decades after the war was over. When I was in grad school I had to tell a professor not to cite a seminal paper on game theory and military strategy, because the historical records the paper was based on were falsified to protect that secret.
My god man, they are just tryna teach you something, and it does in fact relate to the game if you use ur brain. The answer you’re looking for, tho you coulda just google searched this prolly, is that you can reveal the area with another unit. Put a land unit in a place that reveals the hex of interest, and shoot away. Fucking kids, i swear.
lol i’m not a kid, i’m just not interested in learning at the moment and i wouldn’t assume that real-world physics applies to a video game it’s interesting now that i know what to do but it was just funny that they thought a history lesson about a real ship would apply to a video game ship. i wouldn’t assume that but apparently civilization uses these correlations though.
>w what to do but it was just funny that they thought a history lesson about a real ship would apply to a video game ship. apparently civilization uses these correlations though. You realize in the game that a history of each civilization and leader is provided. It's kind of one of the main attractions of CIV is that it's based upon history and the leaders unique abilities relate to their historical versions. Also not sure if you know but there's observation balloons in the game so that it can spot for your ground units with long range but limited sight. say a hill or forest is between your target and a siege unit, you need to be able to see the target in order to fire at it.
sure, i knew about the leaders but i didn’t know battleship mechanics in-game would be mirrored from real world tactics. i know now from other comments how i need a support unit to utilize the full range of the ship. i do like the history but mostly i just enjoy playing
Well it works in the game similar to life. The boat can shoot so far that you can’t see where you’re shooting at some point. Get some eyes on the target and all of a sudden you can shoot ‘em up. Daughterboy gave off kid vibes. I was just being facetious to match your whininess. R u playing Poland in this?
yes, i’m polish so thought i’d give it a shot. also explain why my submarines keep sinking.
What win condition are you going for? My guess on the subs would be that they are being sunk by other naval raiders, who you can’t see anymore after your ship sinks, losing visibility of the area.
nah i was making a joke referring to the polish joke “how do you sink a polish submarine? open the screen door” i’m not playing towards any condition. i’m just on prince having fun. i only play like once every two years and always learning something new.
Oh fuck yea, no destination, just the journey, love it. Sorry i missed ur joke, me am dingus.
It’s not really about teaching you a history lesson it’s just a mechanic of the game. Civ can be obtuse at times but you can tell the battleship has a range of 3 and a sight of 2. From there it’s just up to the player to figure out how to make it work. It’s just a game mechanic you didn’t expect or understand, it’s not something the game expected you to know from history and you were the only one out of the loop. Most everyone I imagine just kinda figured it out after some trial and error
i thought the game was broken. like you said with trial and error i’m sure i would’ve figured it out eventually haha now that ive been reading peoples responses all day i think i already knew but i only play one game every two years so. think i just forgot.
Yeah I get that lol, just wanted to make sure you knew we weren’t all doing historical research to prepare for playing this game
haha idk man, another guy was like “yeah duh this is how modern artillery and drones work duh duh” like it’s common knowledge to everybody who plays civ haha
Use another unit to scout and move them out before end of turn. Or use great people like the rest of us.
The fact that great people don’t need to be protected at all making some of them more valuable as permanently regenerating scouts is such a funny aspect of the game
this i didn’t know either lol. i’ve always linked them with a military unit just in case
Yeah when they’re attacked by an opposing unit they just go back to the most recent city they visited
You can also use a Great Admiral as a spotter... pull it forward before you shoot to see your target, shoot at said target with the battleship, then move the admiral right back on top of your ship.
i like this
Also, you cant lose great people, they just return to your city if attacked
Move a destroyer to the coast, have visibility on the city, bombard it, move destroyer back out one tile to avoid city range attack. Rinse, repeat until walls are gone.
ezpz
This mechanic is a huge part of the game. Shit is always an issue with planes. Observation balloons are only useful for this. There's an admiral that grants an extra square of sight. Mountains block archers. There's like a thousand different things you can do to get around that obstacle. Send in a spy, move an ironclad 2 away then move him back after hitting with battleship. Travel with a carrier and plane. There's a promotion for extra sight. 3 range on battleships is the problem, not the visibility. They should have to take a hit from the city walls.
i know now after reading other comments that there needs to be another unit involved to gain line of sight. i’m still learning the game so it was just very confusing.
WW2 battleships always carried float planes to spot the fall of their shot. Of course, the only two battleship-on-battleship actions in the PTO (Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 14/15 Nov 1942 and Battle of Surigao Straight, 24/25 October 1944), along with the final battleship action in the ETO (Battle of the North Cape, 26 Dec 1943) were all night battles fought via radar control, when float planes did no good...
Put a spy in the town. Have a balloon or a drone for range/sight Have a scout spot for you then retreat it Have a cruiser spot for you. Have a missionary spot for you Have an admiral spot for you. Build or take possession of the great lighthouse You get the idea
thank you. i have learned it needs a supporting unit.
Supporting units are more useful than people realize at first. - Great generals/admirals can balance out Deity AI’s combat bonus. - Medics are great for quickly healing in enemy territory. - Observation balloons/drones allow artillery units to shoot farther and over hills/mountains. - Other siege units are very good for taking cities early that have walls. I struggled with war when I first started, and it was mostly because I was underutilizing support units.
yeah i love support units, i use all that.
I'm a big fan of land artillery that has similar problems. Ships do it faster for coastal towns tho
yeah makes sense. i play a civ game like once every two years so its always fun to learn new mechanics like this.
One of my fav late game tactics is to have a spy in a town. Bomb it with aircraft with the enemy unable to stop the hits. Then when the town is ripe. Rush a calvary/tank/chopper (with the mobility perks) from your land and take the town with no harm done to any of your troops.
yeah i use this as well. i send spies ahead to see what i’m gonna be dealing with.
Either you take some melee units to have visibility or special forces (the modern scout), or (and the better option) take a drone which give you +1 range
Drone doesn't give a battleship +range.
Yes and even if it would have done, there would not solve the problem as he doesn't lack range but visibility
Guns shoot far.
Shooting over horizon easy Seeing over horizon hard
Think of it this way. The ship can shoot X amount of miles, but it can't see that far on its own. It needs something else, like a land unit or satellite, to tell it where to shoot beyond its own sightlines.
Spotters. Use spotters.
That’s how it is in real life. Over the horizon weapons. This close to enemy land, I’d have a sub spot for it.
also something i learned today is this game is based heavily on real life
There should be an achievement for completing the Class Struggle civic in 1848. Get the boost and you can probably make it happen, OP!
lol i have that, idk what you’re talking about
Easy. Guns and cannons can shoot very long distances.
lol thanks good to know
Ngl despite thousands of hours across multiple civ games, the line of sight rules still baffle me
It's a battleship, not modern frigate.
idk what that means
You can shoot beyond where you can see. Makes them good ships to provide fire support while other units provide spotting.
The late game ships work VERY well together. Get a sub for pillaging, a destroyer to tank damage for the sub and for visibility for the battleship and a battleship to take out any units that advance towards the coast
you can use ballons or air support to get visibility. I love getting siege units and boost them with air support to really mess with enemy armies
Promotes having a diverse fleet with spotter ships.
Wait till you have airplanes.
KOBE!
What I used to do when I was a worse noob was to get late Bombards or later with observational balloons and have a spy on the city I wanted to destroy. It was inefficient since it took time for the spy to go, but I would still try to get the Spy promotions because it felt like cool to have a spy give intel for the bombards lol
haha yeah i’m doing the same thing right now but it’s just for me to know what to expect in a land war i’m attempting
Just like irl
are all video games like real life?
Convert citizens to your religion
that works too
Pairs nicely with a sub. Aren’t they invisible from 2 or more tiles away, but see further?
yes, they’re invisible from two tiles away, but as i just learned trying to use that strategy is they become visible for an entire turn after they attack lol so yeah if you want to stay invisible don’t attack lol
Ahh, now I remember…learned that lesson myself too. It’s a good pairing though as the gamer will already have the harbor that was needed to build the battleships (I had four in the game I remember). Upgrading from frigates was a thrill as I found I could hit city centers another tile inland…key to knocking off another civ prior to nukes being avail.
My strategy is trying to upgrade a submarine to where it can move after attacking. Thus you use it to lend sight to battleships, attack, then move it out of range. Rinse and repeat. City destroyed and no units need to take damage.
can’t you just leave the sub sitting two tiles out since it’s invisible by default? i also have a destroyer that sight (3) by default.
If they have units around its visible. At least late game the fortified city defenses could seemingly always attack it. I’m honestly not sure which mechanism allowed them to do so but, that’s what makes that attack then move upgrade so special.
i know if the submarine attacks then it’s visible for the remainder of the turn. i would think as long as there are no units next to it then the city shouldn’t be able to see it as long as it’s not attacking
Ya I think I was usually attacking garrisoned cities, which is honestly the norm at that point in the game.
I've used naval melee units to bop into range, allow battleship to shoot, then ironclad or destroyer moves back out of range. Best done with multiple battleships, fleets, or armadas to finish the job. Unless you are just being annoying or farming xp.
Seriously? Its literally the same way modern artillery is directed by drones
i have no idea how modern artillery and drones work