How will GamePlay change if there is no City Defense?

historix69

historix69

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I just wonder how combat / conquest would change in Civ5 / Civ6 if cities would have no City Defense element with hit points and ranged attack but rather provide a simple defensive bonus to its garrisoned unit (e.g. 50% default, 100% with city walls) ... an undefended (ungarrisoned) city would be immediately conquered/taken/plundered by every military unit stepping on the city tile ... player and AI would be forced to build multiple units per city (e.g. melee, range, medic, reserves) early to be able to defend against barbarian attacks and neighbours looking for advantages ... maybe the military upkeep would have to be lowered to allow enough units for defense without going bankrupt early in the game.
 
I believe risk of the first city being conquered by barbarians is just ridiculously high. The idea of city being able to defend against basic barbarians is good. However, the far ranged attack and crazy regeneration made Civ5 cities way too strong.
 
Back in the old days you had to defend your city with actual troops all the time! Up hill both ways.
 
In Civ5 you start with a settler and a warrior, so the warrior is your first garrison until you produce scouts, warriors, archers ... unit costs are subject to gameplay balance ...
 
I don't think it would make that much difference in Civ VI. You'll probably need more units anyway, because you want to defend your districts, not just your city, and from that point on it's just a bit of micromanagement to not have the AI snatch your cities while you're not looking. Unnecessary micromanagement that wouldn't add much to the game if you ask me.

I believe there is a large middle-ground between Civ 5ish Fortresses and "Cities can't defend themselves" and I hope that Civ VI positions itself somewhere in that gap, or at least makes wars without taking cities potentially very profitable.
 
My personal hope is that it will make newly-settled cities much more vulnerable. One of the most frustrating things to me in V is that if the AI forward-settles you, you can't punish them unless you literally immediately drop everything and build up a huge force to take the city--a token city, far from their core and very close to yours should be very easy to conquer with a handful of units. By far the most annoying thing is when a settling party that's under fire just settles the city which immediately starts bombarding your units (ugh).

Forward-settling should be an extremely high risk move, but you can get away with it far too easily in V (or at least, the AI can, on higher difficulties).
 
Cities required units for defense in civ 1-4. Theoretically that meant having to build at least one unit per city, but if you understood how the barbs and other civs behaved well enough, you could usually get away with a lot less.

I think it makes sense to need to protect new cities but then be able to build some amount of self-defense. The city defense of civ 5 seemed overpowered; what we've seen of 6 so far seems like a good middle ground between 5 and the earlier versions.
 
From what I've seen, in Civ VI, cities probably don't start with any city defenses (at least early on), but that is what walls is for. (Walls must be sufficiently damaged for an opponent to take the city) Which if the city has an encampment is actually more powerful than Civ V because it gives both the city and encampment offensive bombardment capability.

It's yet to be seen what barbs do; while in Civ IV, the barbs could conquer your city which would be a full grown city that they could build military units from, in some previous titles what happened is that the barbs held it for ransom, which was auto deducted from your treasury.
 
Acken said:
For the better. City defense is one of my most disliked feature in Civ5.

Or at least please no city bombard and less strong counterattack.
Click to expand...

I wondered about it in the lead up to Civ 5 but came to really like the feature. Building defenses so barbs don't take it wasn't particularly interesting. Deciding monument/shrine/scout/worker was to me. I liked you couldn't blitz a Civ.
 
Easier to steal workers builders.
 
I don't know. I always thought garrisoning cities was a bit tedious and liked that CiV had self garrisoning cities. It was one less nit you had to account for that really wasn't all that fun.

Granted, in CiV cities were fortresses even at just medium size. However, that's easy enough to tone down with a small tweak to defensive bonuses. And, for CiV at least, it provided an important counterbalance to REXing prior to BNW.

If they're bringing back city garrisoning like you had in Civ IV, I hope they also bring back defensive bonuses by garrisoning with ranged units. Even better is if they do some interesting things with unit choice for garrisoning so that it's not straightforward what unit to use. If it's just nothing more than "put unit in city...and done" then it's going to be pretty tedious IMHO.
 
There would be less minmaxing with initial settling phase. You would -have- to build a garrison unit first and -have- to escort the settler.

Sieges would be easier as you could camp on the terrain and tear down the city's output and/or starve it out just from occupying the tiles without the need for an army double its size just to cycle units out. With districts, any somewhat tall city is a precarious investment due to this increased need for staunch and dynamic defense.
 
MIS said:
Easier to steal workers builders.
Click to expand...

Have we seen if you can capture them? I'd prefer they disappear like great people when you enter their tile as a hostile. I always thought the whole "steal worker" was an exploit of sorts.
 
Based on what hint's we've had, it sounds like the city doesn't start with a ranged attack, but does start with some sort of hit points.

So it sounds like a single barb can't just walk in and take a newly founded city, but that a unit that doesn't have walls or a garrison wouldn't put up much of a resistance against even a small army. After a city builds walls, an encampment, and perhaps additional defensive structures, that would boost it back to Civ-5 level strengths. (Or, at least, those are my guesses.)
 
it has been confirmed that cities have defense from the start but no ranged attack until walls. Also, there are two bars above the city representing hit points for both the city and the wall (once built), with the wall having to be destroyed (which will presumably remove the ranged attack) before the city itself starts taking damage.
 
King Rad said:
it has been confirmed that cities have defense from the start but no ranged attack until walls. Also, there are two bars above the city representing hit points for both the city and the wall (once built), with the wall having to be destroyed (which will presumably remove the ranged attack) before the city itself starts taking damage.
Click to expand...

Ooh, that's interesting!

- - - - - -

I would love to see cities with much higher hitpoints and lower defense. With more HP, you'd still need to siege them for a while before marching into them. With defense progression scaled down, melee units could join the siege earlier without taking a ton of damage from a single attack and wouldn't be forced to just stand around until the final shots. Also, lower-tech units would still have a decent chance at threatening cities that are a bit more advanced. The city's ranged attack could still remain potent with lower defense numbers if it receives a larger % bonus (instead of the usual 75%).
 
rastak said:
I wondered about it in the lead up to Civ 5 but came to really like the feature. Building defenses so barbs don't take it wasn't particularly interesting. Deciding monument/shrine/scout/worker was to me. I liked you couldn't blitz a Civ.
Click to expand...

I'm fine with the fact that they did away with "exploring warrior/random barbarian wanders into empty capital, game over". That was always one of the weaker parts of the game. By the same token though, newly settled cities should be very weak if not defended. Hopefully the VI system of no ranged attack until walls is balanced enough.
 
I'm actually hoping a 1 pop city can actually be taken by a single warrior unit, barely, if there are literally zero supporting units. It will force somewhat more careful play to avoid overly quick expansion having disastrous results.

Did pop raise city hp in previous games? Because I definitely think it should. (though maybe not attack much or at all)
 
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