Why does the gatling gun and machine gun have less range than the bow and arrow?

[Vibby]

And I might let it slide for the gatling gun, considering how inaccurate older models were, but when it comes the machine gun unit? That should at least have two range.

[oikos_mcnomos]

Because the trajectory of bow and arrow is a parabola (meaning it can cover more range), while the trajectory of gatling gun and machine gun is linear. As in, you can aim your bow and arrow upwards to hit a faraway enemy (through parabola trajectory), but you can't do the same with machine guns.

[D3bs]

The crossbow or equivalent (China) is one of the few units I don't upgrade until very late game, if at all; especially if they have all their promotions

[ForevaNoob Wonemorturn]

There is a mod for that: "+1 Range for Post Industrial Ranged Units"

[leichenteil]

Gameplay wise, because their purpose on the battlefield changes.
Every ranged infantry unit up to Gatling Guns has quite low defensive battle strength.
Meaning they can't be used at your frontlines.
With Gatling Guns this changes.

It's a little bit like upgrading pikeman to lancers.
Pikeman are anti cavalary units and very good meatshields in their era.
Lancers suddenly loose all their tanking abilities but gain more mobility and remain their use versus other cavalary.

The key element in both upgrade path stays the same but their secondary purpose changes.

Crossbow (Dealing ranged Damage/City Defense/Siege) -> Gatling (Dealing ranged Damage/City Defense/Blocker)

Pikeman (Anti cavalary/Blocker) -> Lancer (Anti cavalary/Anti Siege/Pillager).

Basically the game tells you at this point to finally get some real siege weapons if you don't have any and need some.

[Twelvefield]

The stronger question should be: why does the bow and arrow have greater range than the machine gun? While there is lethality to shooting an arrow sideways, an army of bowmen shoot their arrows upwards. They don't have a lot of range, but they do penetrate armour.

Friend leichenteil explains all of this very well, though. It's not the unit but the class that decides range.

[Damsteri]

A game is always compromise between playability and realism. Civ V would be very boring to play if all units would have realistic ranges.

Think about it. An English longbow have range of 3 ingame and in reality their range was around 200 meters (or little bit more, I'm not an expert on those). How about a battleship then? Real life range of 40 km would convert to ingame range of 200 tiles if the scale is same. Would you want to play a game where battleship could shoot to any tile in the map? The scale of weapon range changes when the era changes. Range must be unreal, otherwise it would be impossible to make a game that spans trough multiple eras and still use one fixed scale map.

[Damsteri]

Originally posted by Quos Britanniae rex:

Originally posted by Damsteri:

A game is always compromise between playability and realism. Civ V would be very boring to play if all units would have realistic ranges.

Think about it. An English longbow have range of 3 ingame and in reality their range was around 200 meters (or little bit more, I'm not an expert on those). How about a battleship then? Real life range of 40 km would convert to ingame range of 200 tiles if the scale is same. Would you want to play a game where battleship could shoot to any tile in the map? The scale of weapon range changes when the era changes. Range must be unreal, otherwise it would be impossible to make a game that spans trough multiple eras and still use one fixed scale map.

Agreed...

I also think of archery units as being 'skirmish' units; the ability to hit from distance doesn't represent 'range' as such...it represents an abiity to get into range, fire, and then get away without being hit.

Gatling guns/machine guns aren't really 'skirmish' units like the crossbows etc...they are heavy hitting entrenched units. Hence to represent this they have one range.

You are right. Units in the game represent larger groups, not just single soldiers, tanks or ships. Unit's range is more about operating range of that group, not the range of their weapons. Your skirmish comparision is quite nice.

[ForevaNoob Wonemorturn]

It gets even worse with bazookas, a weapon created to hit a far away target without exposing oneself.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by leichenteil:

It's a little bit like upgrading pikeman to lancers.

In that both completely lose their original purpose and become awful.

[sickVisionz]

Realism aside, it's one of the only units in the game that upgrades into a significantly worse unit. There is a mod that fixes that though.

[zxcvbob]

In their eras, Gatling guns and machineguns are strong against cities and can take a hit or two from the city. They don't need range. Also, the extra defense strength starts getting very important (more important than the ranged attack strength) once the enemy has planes and/or artillery -- or even cavalry. They can also get March for their third promotion.

[tangoafterdark]

Originally posted by leichenteil:

Crossbow (Dealing ranged Damage/City Defense/Siege) -> Gatling (Dealing ranged Damage/City Defense/Blocker)

This is correct. XBs are the primary military unit of their era, mostly because siege units before Cannons are ineffective and cumbersome to use. By the time you get Gatling Guns, you already have Artillery, which take over the siege responsibility. Units start to become more specialized in the Industrial Era and you need a unit killer/blocker unit that can protect your Artillery and Cavalry, and Gatling Guns do the job just fine. Gatling Guns are basically a melee unit that can attack without taking damage or breaking formation, which is exactly what you need.

They're not the best units, but they're balanced and they're worth upgrading to. XBs and Artillery are the units that are broken.

[Mafia]

Originally posted by sickVisionz:

Realism aside, it's one of the only units in the game that upgrades into a significantly worse unit. There is a mod that fixes that though.

I disagree with this, only the case where the upgrade would be "worse" is if maybe the city you are taking has no defence structures or a unit inside and you didnt build any seige units so you need the 2 range on your Xbows. The gatlin/machine gun units can front line and take a good beating and deal a lot more damage to citys if needed i mean at this point in the game you should have artillery (if using machine guns) and cannons (if using gatlings and you could just wait to artillery at this point anyway).

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by Damsteri:

Would you want to play a game where battleship could shoot to any tile in the map?

Oh, man, that would be great! I'm hitting the WANT button, but it isn't happening. Naturally, the brave and just Twelvefieldians would be placed in charge of such a wonderful ship; the rest of the Civs can tremble at the might of my fully operational battlestation!

[Vibby]

Originally posted by Damsteri:

A game is always compromise between playability and realism. Civ V would be very boring to play if all units would have realistic ranges.

Think about it. An English longbow have range of 3 ingame and in reality their range was around 200 meters (or little bit more, I'm not an expert on those). How about a battleship then? Real life range of 40 km would convert to ingame range of 200 tiles if the scale is same. Would you want to play a game where battleship could shoot to any tile in the map? The scale of weapon range changes when the era changes. Range must be unreal, otherwise it would be impossible to make a game that spans trough multiple eras and still use one fixed scale map.

You make a great point.