Watiggi's Raze City Mod (Warlords)

Watiggi's Raze City Mod.

I have allways felt that there was something missing when you razed a double shrined holy city with 5 wonders and heaps of culture and a) you get nothing and b) it happens too quickly and easily. In reality, allthough the city gets razed, select people who are valuable to the conquerors are kept and relocated back to their own cities (Genghis Khan style). In this mod, valuable cities are harder to raze and the conqueror can receive relocated specialists when the city gets razed.


The process:

-capturing cities is no different except you don't get the "install governor or raze city" popup option.

-after capture and during the revolt period, you can if you wish pillage the city tile. Pillaging may reduce the cities population.

-pillaging the population to the ground will destroy the city like a normal raze.

-you can stop pillaging at any time and then let the revolt timer count down, giving you control of the city.

-when the city is razed, you might get a specialist relocated to one of your other cities. This specialist is much like the Statue of Liberty type of 'free specialist' in that you both need to have the free slots from buildings or civics in order to make it useful. Otherwise it will be a citizen until a better choice becomes available.

Gameplay notes:

-the bigger and more valuable the city (with wonders and holy cities), the harder it is to raze.

-the bigger the city, the more chance you have of getting a specialist relocated. Holy cities and cities with world wonders will give a relocated specialist regardless of size.

-you cannot pillage the city tile unless it's in the revolt period which originated from a conquest. This is to prevent human players from exploiting it.

-you cannot get specialists from barbarian cities.

-AI knows how to raze a city in this manner.


updates:

v1.0.02 changes:

-includes source code.

v1.0.01 changes:

-the "A specialist has relocated to xxxx" message has been changed to "You have relocated a specialist to xxxx". This makes it more consistant with the pillaging messages ("You have plundered x gold from xxxx").

-holy cities will now allways give a relocated specialist, even with no shrine (religious wonder). A design goal was for a reliability in knowing that a preceived valuable city would give a relocated specialist. Previously, a holy city may or may not give one, which contradicted this design goal. Now it feels more consistant.


Watiggi's Raze City Mod Download page

I have tried to exploit the representation/specialist strategy of the game, but found out I am not that good with the strategy. So, if some people could try to exploit this strategy with this mod and see if it becomes game breaking, that'll be cool.

Watiggi said:

The mechanics:

When you capture a city and the city is in revolt, you can pillage the city tile (and this is the only time!). Pillaging will suspend the revolt period and may actually increase it with enough pillaging. When you have razed the city, you may get a relocated specialist. The higher the population, the more chance you have of getting one, but they are reasonably likely. A city with world wonders (including shrines) will allways give a relocated specialist when razed (even size 1). Barbarian cities never give relocated specialists.

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I also think that if destroy a town requires 4 turn, raze a captured city can't be done by a single unit (probably damaged) in just one!
But I don't really understand what actually your mod does... after the revolt period, what happend to the city? it can be either razed and taken? it is like posticipating the decision to after the revolt?
I like the concept, that's why I ask about.

Too easy golden ages ?

yatta77 said:

I also think that if destroy a town requires 4 turn, raze a captured city can't be done by a single unit (probably damaged) in just one!

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You'll like this then It gets interesting when you juusstt scrape through with a unit half damaged and capture the city, but you can't raze the darn thing before the enemies 'cavalry' arrives.

yatta77 said:

But I don't really understand what actually your mod does... after the revolt period, what happend to the city? it can be either razed and taken? it is like posticipating the decision to after the revolt?
I like the concept, that's why I ask about.

Click to expand...

When the revolt period ends, you are able to use the city like normal. The pillaging only allowed during the revolt period idea prevents the human player from just razing any of their cities when it suits them - it can only be done after conquest.

Here's another way of looking the whole process: When you capture a city, it's yours, end of story. Whilest the city is still in the revolt period, the game lets you raze that city by pillaging the tile. After the revolt period, it no longer lets you raze it. This is to prevent the human player from just razing any and all cities.

snipperrabbit said:

Too easy golden ages ?

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I haven't found that it does (allthough I haven't exploited the Rep/specialist strategy properly). The specialists require the buildings or civics in order to be useful as a GP producer so it isn't an automatic guarentee of GP points. In the begining, they become citizens producing no GP points.

I've updated the OP. Hopefully it's more understandable. Let me know if it's still confusing.

Watiggi said:

I've updated the OP. Hopefully it's more understandable. Let me know if it's still confusing.

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Thanks! Few more question (if/when you get time to answer, of course ):
- If I have 2 or more units in the city can I pillage it several times? (to get more chanches to decrease the population?)
- Pillaging a city makes money? Free Workers (slaves)?
- How probable is to get a Free Citizen/Specialst? (general rule)
- How probable it is to reduce the population? (general rule)
- % of reducing population also depends on city value/culture?
- How long the revolt last if I don't stop pillaging?

My opinion: _that's a great idea_!!! I wonder why Firaxis couldn't think of something like that. If it is balanced (probably it needs sone testng?) it is surely a nice way to let player able to raze a city (I don't like the "no city razing" option), but also make it something more "realistic" and allow who lose a huge city by the last enemy unit to retake the city back in the next turns. I like also the free specialist/citizen idea. I'll try it in the next month, and let you know again my opinion then.

Btw: your first post changed twice. I started reading it after you edited it, than I reloaded the page and it changed again. Just asking because the first edit seemed more complete (I didn't read it all, but it looked longer and more specific), this one seems more synthetic and the post looks more like it was before editing . Just wondering if this was supposed to happen...

...don't even know if what I wrote makes any sense in english, lol

Anyway, good job!

EDIT:

-you cannot pillage the city tile unless it's in the revolt period which originated from a conquest.

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uhm... this means that if another civ city on my cultural border flips I have to always take it? also if I don't like it? (it sounds not so fair: it might be a not useful city which I don't want to include in my empire... not my fault if another civ placed it there while I builted lots of culture...)
Or it is just about when cities I built are in revolt for other civ cultural expansion? (in this case, of course, it is fair to put that limitation).
I mean: if a city flips there's no revolt and I can choose between take or raze the city (in not modded game). In the modded game, in this case what happens? Am I allowed to raze the city? A revolt happens? I have to always take the city?
Sorry for all the questions, hope I'm not bothering.

It is much clearer now. What happen if a city re-revolt ? Does it allow to pillage again ?

snipperrabbit!! said:

It is much clearer now. What happen if a city re-revolt ? Does it allow to pillage again ?

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No. If the city recovers and then goes into revolt again due to say cultural pressure, it wont allow you to pillage it again. In this context, it plays out the same way as a normal game.

yatta77 said:

- If I have 2 or more units in the city can I pillage it several times? (to get more chanches to decrease the population?)

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Yep. That's the idea A bigger military presense in the city will give you the potential to raze the city faster. On top of that, mounted units can pillage twice as fast because they have two movement points per turn. The more valueable the city though, the harder it will be to raze.

yatta77 said:

- Pillaging a city makes money? Free Workers (slaves)?

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No, but this answer is a little complicated. Basically I've tried many different ideas and finally settled on the specialist relocation.

When looking at the normal game, giving gold with each pillage would be a consistant strategy, but it was too strange giving little amounts of gold and too over the top giving a more appropriate amount of gold (consistant with pillaging a town). My original idea was to also give research and specialists aswell, but giving gold, research and possible specialists during the pillaging stage was just too much. I eventually abandoned the whole idea when I realised that a human player could just capture a city and then pillage it almost to the ground - getting the goodies in the process - and then keep the city afterwards.

In the end I settled with the idea of relocating specialists who, based on your empires infrastructure, can give gold, research, hammers, etc in more steady, proportional amounts and whom can only be given once the city is razed. And in the end, it became more realistic, balanced and simple in my opinion.

Think of the specialist relocation as slaves that can be forced to produce gold, research, production, culture, etc in your own cities. That's the idea

yatta77 said:

- How probable is to get a Free Citizen/Specialst? (general rule)

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The probability is based primarily on city size. Currently, a size 11 city will give a 100% chance of getting a specialist. A size 2 city will give 10% chance. This is calculated only once and is done when the city is captured. My aim was to have the relocated specialist as a bonus for razing a city, but it became apparent that one could just raze small, new cities in order to get them, so I gave this probability in order to balance it out. This should stop any "wait for AI to plant city so I can raze it and get specialists" type of exploit.

Also, if the city has a shrine or world wonder - regardless of size - it will give a specialist guarenteed. Even a city of size 1.

yatta77 said:

- % of reducing population also depends on city value/culture?
- How probable it is to reduce the population? (general rule)

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Depends on:
-cultural level
-the number of national wonders in the city
-the number of world wonders in the city
-whether it's a holy city - taking into account whether it's a holy city to multiple religions.
-population (which is recalculated as the city is reduced).

Normal cities without the above will have limited resistance (the only resistance will be from the culture - if any - and population size). After that, wonders, national wonders and holy cities increase the resistance - especially if they are all in the same city.

yatta77 said:

- How long the revolt last if I don't stop pillaging?

Click to expand...

Until the city is razed. By not stopping pillaging (in other words, by continuing to pillage), the city will ultimately be razed.

It stops the revolt timer provided you pillage the city tile each turn. When you skip a turn, the revolt timer will count down as normal. There is a small chance that it might increase, but it's there for flavour and to remove a potential issue with the revolt period count down getting 'in the way' of razing a city properly. The chance of it increasing is per pillage too, so the more pillages per turn, the more chance you have of increasing the revolt timer. This also gives the flavour effect of having to wait longer for the revolt to finish if you decide to stop pillaging a city midway during the raze.

yatta77 said:

My opinion: _that's a great idea_!!! I wonder why Firaxis couldn't think of something like that. If it is balanced (probably it needs sone testng?) it is surely a nice way to let player able to raze a city (I don't like the "no city razing" option), but also make it something more "realistic" and allow who lose a huge city by the last enemy unit to retake the city back in the next turns. I like also the free specialist/citizen idea. I'll try it in the next month, and let you know again my opinion then.

Click to expand...

Cool

yatta77 said:

Btw: your first post changed twice. I started reading it after you edited it, than I reloaded the page and it changed again. Just asking because the first edit seemed more complete (I didn't read it all, but it looked longer and more specific), this one seems more synthetic and the post looks more like it was before editing . Just wondering if this was supposed to happen...

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Yeah. The first one was a little confusing. The second I just copied and pasted from the readme file in order to explain it in more detail. Eventually though, I figured people would just want it in simple point form, so I changed it to what it is now. I changed the readme to be this simple format too. It's more straight forward.

yatta77 said:

...don't even know if what I wrote makes any sense in english, lol

Anyway, good job!

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It makes sense and thanks

yatta77 said:

uhm... this means that if another civ city on my cultural border flips I have to always take it? also if I don't like it? (it sounds not so fair: it might be a not useful city which I don't want to include in my empire... not my fault if another civ placed it there while I builted lots of culture...)
Or it is just about when cities I built are in revolt for other civ cultural expansion? (in this case, of course, it is fair to put that limitation).
I mean: if a city flips there's no revolt and I can choose between take or raze the city (in not modded game). In the modded game, in this case what happens? Am I allowed to raze the city? A revolt happens? I have to always take the city?

Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't tested it. It works though (just tested it): A menu pops up asking you whether you want to keep the city that wants to join or you can disband the city, so there is no change there.

Do I still have to pay the city's maintenance while I'm razing it to the ground over the course of several turns??

Dom Pedro II said:

Do I still have to pay the city's maintenance while I'm razing it to the ground over the course of several turns??

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No. You don't pay maintenance when a city is in revolt anyway.

Watiggi said:

No. You don't pay maintenance when a city is in revolt anyway.

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Are you sure?? Because in the regular game, when I take a city, my maintenance costs go up, and if I then immediately raze it, they go back down again.

Thanks for the answers! Once again, Good Job!
It seems very well planned, and seemes to be easely played and fairly balanced, at least on paper. I'll defenitively try it in my next games, expecially since you say the Ai knows how to use it and take benefits of it (my bigger issue when I mod, since I'm only able to modify .xml files, so I can't change things AI won't take benefits from).
Something like this should be included in BtS expansion, at least as an option, in my opinion.

There's another question, I hope I'm not getting boring. In the edited .xml file there's the lines:

TXT_KEY_MISC_PLUNDERED_GOLD_FROM_CITY
and
TXT_KEY_MISC_FOUND_RESEARCH_IN_CITY

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Since you said that you don't get money (and you never said you get technologies) pillaging a city, I guess they're something left there from a previous test version. Is that correct? Just wondering about the use of them. I ask since after testing it in SP, I'd like to add this mod changes also to my next MP games (shold be working fine also in MP, right?), so before proposing it to the people I play with, I have to make sure I understood everything well. Of course I'll give you credit for it. Thanks again.

Dom Pedro II said:

Are you sure?? Because in the regular game, when I take a city, my maintenance costs go up, and if I then immediately raze it, they go back down again.

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Hmmm. I might have to look more throughoughly into that then. I am (was?) pretty sure that cities in revolt don't produce any commerce, gold and research, but also don't cost any gold aswell. I'll look into it to confirm it.

yatta77 said:

It seems very well planned, and seemes to be easely played and fairly balanced, at least on paper. I'll defenitively try it in my next games, expecially since you say the Ai knows how to use it and take benefits of it (my bigger issue when I mod, since I'm only able to modify .xml files, so I can't change things AI won't take benefits from).
Something like this should be included in BtS expansion, at least as an option, in my opinion.

Click to expand...

It is easy to play and I think gells into the game without being dominant in any way. Heh, it's harder to take cities though!

As for the AI, the AI only knows how to raze, it doesn't alter its strategy in any way, so the check the AI does in order to decide whether to raze a city or not is still the same, except now, it will move into a raze-city-by-pillaging mode until the city is destroyed.

Yeah, it looks balanced on paper. I am playing a game now (Monty), I have just got Representation and I'm now in a full swing specialist strategy. I have been razing left right and center in order to exploit it as much as possible and it seems ok. I'm still behind in tech as usual ^.^ so it doesn't at this point feel game breaking. I have received 8 specialists (in Caste System) and have razed 22 cities. I have 12 cities and the Great Library aswell.

The 'interesting' thing with this bonus is that you loose the city, so allthough you get a bonus, it pails in comparison to keeping the city itself. It takes time and effort to replace the city, so a straight "I'm going to raze so I can exploit the bonus and then replace the city" (which is largely what I am trying to do, all be it not so well) is a lot of effort which doesn't nessecerily allow you to come out on top. I might try it next with an Imperialisitic trait. The settler bonus would help with city expansion while razing, so it might push this mod to breaking point: Rep/Caste/Mercantilism, Genghis(Agg/Imp) with a strong razing and replacing strategy. That would be a good test.

I do need some good representation/specialist experts and/or heavy razers to play the game and exploit the crap out of it to see if it's imbalanced. If it passes that, then its cool. If it doesn't, I have a few strategies that can balance out the relocated specialist bonus without having to scrap the idea completely. But I want to see it exploited first.

yatta77 said:

There's another question, I hope I'm not getting boring. In the edited .xml file there's the lines:

Click to expand...

It's cool, ask away

yatta77 said:

Since you said that you don't get money (and you never said you get technologies) pillaging a city, I guess they're something left there from a previous test version. Is that correct? Just wondering about the use of them. I ask since after testing it in SP, I'd like to add this mod changes also to my next MP games (shold be working fine also in MP, right?), so before proposing it to the people I play with, I have to make sure I understood everything well. Of course I'll give you credit for it. Thanks again.

Click to expand...

Yep. They're remenants from previous models I experimented with. I decided to keep them in as I have pretty much also left 95% of the code still in aswell (commented out though, off course) so that I could re-explore them if need be. Those TXT_KEYs that you described aren't currently implemented in the game though.

I was going to make shrines give gold and the Great Library give research, but again, the idea of being able to pillage a city almost to the ground and then keep the city and get the best of both worlds was a little exploitive, which crushed that idea.

As for MP, it hasn't been tested on MP. I have no idea if it works. The code I have changed/added shouldn't really affect MP though. You might want to try a few experiemental games in MP to see if it works first. If you do, let me know how it goes so I can know too

Ok, a new (minor) version has been put up. It just rewords the "A specialist has been..." to "You have relocated a specialist....". It sounds better and more consistant.

Also, holy cities will now allways give a relocated specialist. Previously, it depended on whether there was a shrine present or not. Now it's not required. It was strange razing a holy city and sometimes getting nothing from it because there was no shrine there. A holy city is naturally perceived as being more valuable, and as such, should allways give a relocated specialist.

Dom Pedro II said:

Are you sure?? Because in the regular game, when I take a city, my maintenance costs go up, and if I then immediately raze it, they go back down again.

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No, when you capture a city, the city's maintenance costs are 0.0. So I don't know what you refering to exactly. In a couple of tests I did, my expenses didn't increase at all when I captured it. When you refer to maintenance costs, where are you seeing this?

Watiggi said:

No, when you capture a city, the city's maintenance costs are 0.0. So I don't know what you refering to exactly. In a couple of tests I did, my expenses didn't increase at all when I captured it. When you refer to maintenance costs, where are you seeing this?

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My gold per turn drops... I always assumed this was from the additional maintenance. Hm... must be from the number of cities...

Hmmm. Moving units that were in enemy territory into a captured city may also increase your gold per turn, depending on how many units you have and how their respective supply costs impact your economy. So the fact that you're getting a net drop is interesting.

Maybe it does have something to do with hitting a number of cities city maintanence threshold or something, which might increase it from 4 gold per turn per city to 5 gold per turn per city. The tests I did wouldn't have shown that so it's still very plausable.

I'm quite sure (in unmodded game):
1. Cities in revolt costs 0.0 maintenence. They produce nothing.
2. If you don't raze a city, then your "number of cities" maintenence cost in _the other cities_ will be calculated adding the new one (and it's population/buildings) to the calculation. In the same way I'm quite sure also governement costs may vary in + or - (growing the population with the new city the cost may be increased, but maybe you could get more units "without mainetence cost" or "pacifism maintenece costs"... don't know if I could explain myself... I mean getting more unit with "free mainetence").
3. When a city flips from culture its the same, except that you may see your maintenence cost grow also for (whatever you raze the city or not) the free units you get inside the city.
Not completly sure, let's say 92.76% chance to win lol
@Watiggi: thanks for the answers, I'm playing the mod (HuaynaCapec/Marathon), but I just started, didn't had a chance yet to let my Quechua pillage some cities...