Early game city attacking changes v34

I noticed something has changed with the early siege units (e.g Log Ram).

When trying to lower a city defences, I now have to attack the city instead of bombard it and hope the enemies' city defences will drop a little...and also hope I wont lose my units.

Does it mean that I will lose more units when attacking a city?
Does this also mean that conquering cities early is much more costly?
Where can I find more info on this?

I usually play on emperor difficulty.
Has the game become harder since v34?

Thanks in advance!

This is a part of realistic city siege thread somewhere on forum. In reality rams are not distance units so you can lose them on attack.

Cities have become too hard to conquer in the early game once archers and obsidian are used, period. This isn't right or good from a game play standpoint or a historical one either.

Also having the defender bonus for walls never go below 5% is a contributing factor as well to this going to far in making city siege not worth the effort. Rather disappointed on how this worked out.

It's only redeeming point for me is that you don't have to worry about the AI taking your cities in the late Preh and all of Ancient era. So expansion is facilitated. All you have to do is get a wall of any kind up and a few Archer units and your safe. Voila!, you can have 20 cities up and running by the end of Ancient now as long as you find enough resources to sustain the Gold drain from maint. costs.

JosEPh

I've done a lot of work in the last week making rams work properly. They had been extremely muted with the last change and weren't causing nearly as much damage as they should've been - which did prove to be a bug (sorta). Anyhow, it's resolved as of the latest SVN and they should be as or more powerful against defenses than catapults with the downside being that they do have a low life expectancy.

Again Joe... 5% minimum doesn't make much of a difference at all. And what's the point of building a wall at all if an attack force can just bring enough siege to tear it down completely?

But the rams not working right would've made a huge and frustrating difference. Shouldn't take more than a few rams to breakdown all possible defense that can be torn down now (if properly promoted anyhow.)

Also... the point that the AI was having trouble may now be resolved - they've been taught now to value rams as if they were nearly as good as Cats. When they don't have anything BUT rams this means they SHOULD be building many more rams to add to their city attack forces, which gives them the teeth they need to be able to invade cities at all. This was imo a major bug that they could not value rams enough to build them and would therefore not be able to invade cities that had any minimum defense to enter value.

Another step that will be taken, hopefully fairly soon, will be to add ladders (for now as a promo) that allow units to take a bit of a hit on their invasion ability but make them CAPABLE of ignoring the minimum defense to attack a city.

Anyhow... early invasion scenarios should be much more possible at this point.

I am no longer having any problems attacking and taking barbarian cities in the prehistoric and ancient eras. I did for a bit but it has gone back to being fairly straight forward. I don't play with any of the advanced combat options not even the Commanders one.

, will be to add ladders (for now as a promo) that allow units to take a bit of a hit on their invasion ability but make them CAPABLE of ignoring the minimum defense to attack a city

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But remember taht moat should give protection against them (against siege towers also)

Nimek said:

But remember taht moat should give protection against them (against siege towers also)

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I'll have to review the Moat again to recall how we've set it up to act now... I guess the main question would be 'in what way' would we express the moat's protection against a unit that can ignore the no-entry limit? Do we make it a second 'level' of no-entry enforcement? Added defense against units attempting to ignore the minimum entry level? Or do we work that in with additional Repel value? (Note that Repel is currently disabled until we can open it up with the Heart of War option which has yet to be designed to a stage where it can be implemented.)

@Nimek,
My point was about late Preh Era and Ancient. Moats are not available at that time.

As for ladders ??? And what is the point of the 5% T-Brd? It's unnecessary fiddling to a system that was working impo.

@DH,
This last game I didn't have an opportunity to try to capture an AI city late Preh or early Ancient. If you're having success against barbs then horse and elephant "should" be able to take an AI city with 1/2 dozen early archers in this time frame. Later game we shall see.

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

@Nimek,
My point was about late Preh Era and Ancient. Moats are not available at that time.

As for ladders ??? And what is the point of the 5% T-Brd? It's unnecessary fiddling to a system that was working impo.

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There wasn't a specific odd 5% put in place there... it's part of a growing chain of minimum defense that cities develop as their walls improve. It's not a random number pulled out of the blue - its a result of the minimum still provided defense of a building that's been built in that city. When ALL of the building defenses can be knocked down to nothing it mutes the purpose of ever building them. Even a demolished wall is likely to be able to provide a little defensive advantage in its wreckage.

Just so happens that the first wall building only adds 5% minimum defense. (Which by the way is worth 1/10th of the defensive bonus of a city being placed on a hill... not all that effective at this stage.)

And since walls could be totally destroyed in one round I did NOT feel they were working to be worthwhile to build. They provided nothing but a reason to bring an extra siege weapon or two.

I explained to myself that the 5% represents defenses provided by other buildings inside the city. It seems reasonable that even if you do manage to knock down every piece of the wall around the city that the soldiers wouldn't use other buildings to garrison themselves in and use that as protection.

I think it's realy cool I started a discussion

From what you all started talking about (and it's stuff I don't realy understand) it seems to me some things indeed changed, but still in need of some finetuning.

What I would normally do is create an army of 5-10 melee, 15-20 archers, 5+ sieges units (and a general) and rage rampage. Now that the siege units are changed, this stack won't do any good.

At this moment, what would be a good stack? Should I forget about conquering cities if I dont have mounted units, as JosEPhII mentioned? And thus making conquering cities more dependeble on availeble resources?

meddiecap said:

I think it's realy cool I started a discussion

From what you all started talking about (and it's stuff I don't realy understand) it seems to me some things indeed changed, but still in need of some finetuning.

What I would normally do is create an army of 5-10 melee, 15-20 archers, 5+ sieges units (and a general) and rage rampage. Now that the siege units are changed, this stack won't do any good.

At this moment, what would be a good stack? Should I forget about conquering cities if I dont have mounted units, as JosEPhII mentioned? And thus making conquering cities more dependeble on availeble resources?

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You also need to consider the defences (if any) -fire pits etc , they give a minus strength penalty to most attacking adjacent units each turn.

Funny was just thinking about starting a thread on how difficult it is to take cities. I dont claim to fully understand all the c and C combat mechanics buit it does seem archers are too strong as defenders.

I was triying to take a city defended by 4 or 5 archers. I had 12 archers bombarding them for turns before I realised they were healing as quickly as I was hurting them, I reduced defence to zero and attacked with at least 15 macemen, swords etc. Not one archer dropped below 50% strength.

I am not sure its just about cities. Any unit on a hill is extremely difficult to even wound.

I think the whole Tile defense thing needs to be seriously scaled down or archers brought down a notch or swords/axes increased. BTW really really enjoying the mod. I had commented previously that it took too long to reach Tribalsim but think its nicely placed now.

Sounds like you might need to infuse your armies with a bit more throwing units... they are the earliest means of causing collateral (not just bombardment) and they expect to not necessarily have to WIN the battle. They go in to weaken and they're the unit type that is intended to primarily counter archery units. Axes are really only useful against melee and are thus pretty tough to make the best use of offensively. Maces can be great if the city is defended by mostly melee units. And swords are awesome once you have your enemy whittled down. But after bombardment and reducing city defenses as far as you can, the next best to go in with are your throwing units. Withdrawal + Archery Counter + a little collateral... how can all that be bad? (Answer: you'll still take some losses - but we kinda want it that way - if you develop out your withdrawal on those units as strong as you can (I know it's limited by the lesser withdrawal promo line) you'll vastly improve their survival rates.)

Bringing this thread back up because after over a year it's plainly and painfully obvious that City Defenders are over promoted and too easily promoted. And you still have to have a stack of rams to breakdown the cities defenses so that you can then send 80 units into the city to attack it's defenders and still lose them all.

Why? Because every failed attempt at taking the city the defenders get multiple promotions (There Are Too Many Promotions!). So by your 3 or 4th Attempts at taking a city the 1/2 dozen to dozen defenders inside are virtually indestructible. Some may have as many as 8+ promotions at the 3rd and 4th levels! And after losing over 100 top of the line units with better base str values. You end up just surrounding the city with 40+ Top units and move on to try another city. Letting those surrounding units to try and soak up any excursions from that city by your enemy.

You have to pillage every tile And still it takes a miracle to get a border tile to flip to your culture. So that surrounded Impenetrable city still controls most of it's Fat X or more (if it's a city bigger than 8 pop).

Madly frustrating in trying to take early game cities. Even a year after this discussion was held. As for the AI it's seems to have a good handle on who to use as defenders and what promotions to go for.

I'm of the opinion that the Unlimited XP Option should not be used Unless you are a Deity+ player. If you play at less than Deity, you had better take enough Fodder units( and here I literally mean 50+ or more) to wear down the Enemies defenders before you even dare to send your best. And you will probably lose all of them too. So if you 1st attempt fails, just surround/pillage/move on to another city. Unless of course you like sacrificing your elite units and having your main cities do nothing but pump out units. You can do this for Thousands of game years!

JosEPh

JosEPh_II said:

Some may have as many as 8+ promotions at the 3rd and 4th levels!

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So why have you turned on spontaneous battlefield promotions? (A BUG option) If you were only talking about free promotions from buildings, then I'm sorry for my cheeky remark.
In my experience, the AI is usually quite bad at defending their cities. Do you have any concrete suggestion for change?

Toffer90 said:

So why have you turned on spontaneous battlefield promotions? (A BUG option)

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I have not knowingly turned on spontaneous battlefield promotions. Are they On by default? Guess I better have a look see then.

If you were only talking about free promotions from buildings, then I'm sorry for my cheeky remark.

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I'm not sure from where they are getting all these promotions, could be a combo of things, buildings etc. I argued with T-brd 2 years ago that there were getting to be too many promotions back then. He said his goal was to have "5000 Promotions available", and that is a direct quote.

In my experience, the AI is usually quite bad at defending their cities. Do you have any concrete suggestion for change?

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I suppose I should post some screen shots and maybe a savegame or 2. In my game the AI is doing well in defending his cities. After 4000 game years of war (Pacal declared on me) I do have him down to 4 cities out of 7 when the war started.

As for suggestions and being concrete, reduce the number and kind of promotions overall.

Some side notes: I do not use the Combat Mod nor the Size Matters Mod Options (or any variations thereof) when I play a game. As I told T-brd I don't care to play Squad Leader while and when I play Civ. Not my playstyle or liking, just like REV, City Limits, or Fixed borders of any kind.

2nd sidenote: in this mornings session, the city that I have sacrificed over 100 units on and completely pillaged every square is starting to lose some of it's defenders by sending some out to attack a unit I've place on a desert tile next to that city. And it would seem it has lost several more because it is succumbing to the seige and loss of production base. So this will have to be my new tactic for it's other 3 remaining cities (size 10-16 with capital at 16 pop).

I need to get this war over as I've just met this games Top dog and while I have the same # of cities as Charlemagne, I'm only half his score and am far behind in tech. And I also was able to Found Judaism too this last turn ( a religion at last!). Things should start turning around a bit now. My # of AI met has also increased today and I now rank in the top 3 instead of bottom 3 (when war started Pacal was #1).

It's currently 1760BC and I'm 4 techs from Classical Era. Even though I seriously dislike losing so many units to take a city this has been an uphill battle type game so far. So when success does come it is sweeter. And I know my arguments can be a double edged sword that bites both ways.

JosEPh

@Joe, have you considered using enough withdrawing attackers to wear down the defenders so that your actual attack forces have no chance of loss?

Thunderbrd said:

@Joe, have you considered using enough withdrawing attackers to wear down the defenders so that your actual attack forces have no chance of loss?

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That doesn't work.

Especially now as the defenders heal quickly with multiple healers in every city thanks to the Disease property. And every round you attack and Do not take the city, the Defenders Bone up on more XP and promos. So multiple unsuccessful attacks just keep making the defender more and more invincible.

I'm not talking about attacking with less than a dozen units. I'm talking sending 40+ units and watching your best promoted units get a 3.46% chance of success and your stock basic promoted units get 0% chance and do absolutely No damage during the attack. I've tried sending in 20 obsidian axe and 20 basic archers all with at least combat 1 (plus what ever the city they are built in gives them too) after reducing the walls so i can attack the defenders (and that takes 5-10 rams every time) and it's a total massacre on my units with the defender taking virtually no damage.

Example, Reducing a Javelineer from 5 to 4.86 after it's been attacked multiple times (by these waves of fodder troops) and some elite units that followed is nothing. And next turn that javelineer is back to str 5 Plus now has another promo and better XP.

It's basically down to attrition thru rampant pillaging of All the surrounding tiles of a city, destroying All routes, and blockading if coastal. Eventually the AI will start send excursions out and you sacrifice a unit for them to attack so that you counter and wipe out the excursion force. I've had one city surrounded for 4000 game years (Epic gamespeed) and havefinally gotten the defender numbers to start coming down. Brute force does not take a size 6 and above city in the Ancient era any more. And I'm about 4-5 turns from entering the Classical era, at 1485BC.

I'll eventually take the city now that it is surrounded by wasted tiles filled with fortified troops and blockaded from the sea. I leave 1 desert tile vacant (no food or hammer from that tile for the AI to use) to get the AI to send out it's excursions. And those are dwindling down.

But I've lost hundreds of elite troops on this one city. Example I have the Tlax Warrior str 7 withsome very nice promos. I don't use Unlimited national units so I can build up to 15. I've completely ran thru the allotted 15 4 times already. Plus Elephants and horsemen and Coyote Runners, early chariots, chariot archers, yada yada yada. Obsidian axe, spear and sword are dust in the wind. The new copper units are not that much better but maybe enough on the next city to be seiged, maybe!?

JosEPh

Thunderbrd said:

@Joe, have you considered using enough withdrawing attackers to wear down the defenders so that your actual attack forces have no chance of loss?

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How many stone throwers/slingers with how many promotions do you need for this outcome? I've never been able to get prehistoric withdraw units to do anything but suicide (or maybe the combat odds erroneously said they were doomed, and that's why I didn't use them...)

Also note that Joseph apparently doesn't use Fight or Flight. That must make quite a difference too.