Should/Barbarians-Rebels be able to capture Cities

I think they should so rebels may be an actual threat other than just pillaging a few tiles. But that's just me.

I think it's poor design that rebels are just barbarians and act like that. Rebels seek to overthrow the government, not pillage farms. They should go straight after cities, and if they capture them, the cities should become city states, with a resting point of -30 for the original owner and triple decay.

Barbarians = no, they shouldn't be able to.
Rebels = yes. I like the suggestion Quineloe put forward, that rebels should be able to capture cities, which will then become new city-states with poor relations with their former owner.
However, if the revolt is due to ideological pressure, perhaps this should be the new mechanic by which cities defect to the nearest Civ with the desired ideology (so that, instead of it just being a spontaneous thing, there's actually a chance for the civ losing the city to crush the rebellion and retain the city.)

I am pretty sure barbarians can take cities (hence the achievement) It is just that the city is usually too strong for barbarians who attack piecemeal.

I can make a case for rebels "just pillaging". Pillaging is just a foundational step to overthrow the government. Because there is a asymmetric distribution of force with the state's military out-numbering the rebels, it make absolute sense for rebels to conduct raids like pillaging in order to erode support for the government which in this game means happiness.

If rebels go straight for cities, the cities are just going to destroy them. Without Artillery and planes, the rebels are just going to suicide themselves. I rather they continue doing their pillaging thing.

Some barbs and rebels are already a threat to trading caravans or cargo ships.

Perhaps all barbarians spawned by revolts should be given a 50% combat bonus against cities or instead, whilst (-10<) all cities receive a 50% combat penalty against barbarians, in that city defence is halved against barbarians.

Stellarnight said:

I am pretty sure barbarians can take cities (hence the achievement) It is just that the city is usually too strong for barbarians who attack piecemeal.

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No, barbs can't take cities. When a barbarian sacks a city he doesn't actually capture it, he just takes a bunch of gold out of your treasury. If you ever get into this situation it can be a pretty serious issue because the city stays flat lined, meaning that every turn that barb is there he's going to sack your city again.

Of course, you're never going to get into a position where this would happen unless you do it intentionally.

Arachnofiend said:

No, barbs can't take cities. When a barbarian sacks a city he doesn't actually capture it, he just takes a bunch of gold out of your treasury. If you ever get into this situation it can be a pretty serious issue because the city stays flat lined, meaning that every turn that barb is there he's going to sack your city again.

Of course, you're never going to get into a position where this would happen unless you do it intentionally.

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Ah, I stand corrected then. Never had a situation where barbs were close to taking my city. Barbs are problematic enough already though with them pillaging your trade routes. No need to make them even stronger. Though i would not mind if every once in a while, barbs will launch an orchestrated massive attack on random Civ if too many barbs camps are left uncleared.

Stellarnight said:

I am pretty sure barbarians can take cities (hence the achievement) It is just that the city is usually too strong for barbarians who attack piecemeal.

I can make a case for rebels "just pillaging". Pillaging is just a foundational step to overthrow the government. Because there is a asymmetric distribution of force with the state's military out-numbering the rebels, it make absolute sense for rebels to conduct raids like pillaging in order to erode support for the government which in this game means happiness.

If rebels go straight for cities, the cities are just going to destroy them. Without Artillery and planes, the rebels are just going to suicide themselves. I rather they continue doing their pillaging thing.

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if your empire is so unhappy that it has rebels spawning, those cities have a very large penalty to combat strength. I can easily see a city getting captured by 3-4 melee units due to that penalty.

Stellarnight said:

Ah, I stand corrected then. Never had a situation where barbs were close to taking my city. Barbs are problematic enough already though with them pillaging your trade routes. No need to make them even stronger. Though i would not mind if every once in a while, barbs will launch an orchestrated massive attack on random Civ if too many barbs camps are left uncleared.

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It happens when you play with raging barbarians and set down a city close to two undiscovered barbarian camps. You can very quickly get 4-5 of them on your city and there's very little you can do as a freshly settled city has very poor combat ratings.

Yes...However, upon capture they should either
1. liberate the city to its original owner
OR
2. just 'loot the city' ie you lose some gold and the city loses some pop+buildings

after either looting or liberating the city, the attacking barb should disappear

I say no to capture cities, yes to raze. It makes more sense thematically though I realize there are many cases of barbs sacking cities without burning them down.

KrikkitTwo said:

Yes...However, upon capture they should either
liberate the city to its original owner OR just 'loot the city' ie you lose some gold and the city loses some pop+buildings after either looting or liberating the city, the attacking barb should disappear

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I agree in that barbs should not be made a real civ. That's not their purpose in the game. Far better to simply create "barbarian flavored" civs to fill that niche (e.g. Attila) if needed. However, that said, I do think that the barbs should be able to capture a city and hold it until recaptured. That would bring some extra spice to the game.

How about simply bringing back the original-original version that was in Civ1 way back then? When barbs captured a city they switched it to building military units and pumped out new barbarians until a real civ re-captured the city.

In Civ5 terms it'd be a "Big Barbarian Camp" with all the city defense bonuses and ranged fire. The barbarian "governor" AI could be quite simple: switch worked tiles to maximize hammers even if city is starving and pump out randomly military units the previous civ that owned the city knew. This would represent the barbarians enslaving the population and making use of their knowledge. The arrangement would also make sense when the barbs originated from an unhappiness rebellion.

Would make a bigger challenge to clear out such a "semi-citystate".

In general, this game seems to operate under the principle that, no matter what happens with the populace and the government, you are always in charge. This is because the player doesn't represent any kind of human ruler, but rather a sort of "oversoul" of the State. The closest thing to internal civil strife this game has is the penalties for unhappiness, particularly the extreme unhappiness that comes from adopting the wrong modern ideology, and can be alleviated with the adoption of the popularly desired ideology.

So the player never faces organized opposition to his control, because he isn't a ruler who can be toppled by the people; he IS the People, and the Ruler, and the Government, and the Opposition. He does, however, have to watch his people tear his country apart as they fight over exactly how his will will be implemented, what form it will take. Even if the rebels successfully enter and take over a city, it's still YOUR city, because you are both Government and Rebels. It's just wasteful to allow this to happen, because of the destruction that results when Your People kill Your People in Your Name.

Even the Barbarians represent some fragmented piece of the Oversoul, though not yet claimed by any of the competitors. They can cause damage, but can never separate the civilized people from the collective will of the State that is you.

I miss seeing barbarian empires and laughing at AIs that got overrun by barbarians.

Oh well my desire to see it happen is satisfied for the time being in FE:LH where I occasionally see monsters successfully sack a city and raze it to the ground.

Yes, this means there will be quite a few city states that get overrun and oppressed by barbarians in their isolated locations XD

And while we're at it, we should remove the ridiculous huge bonus modifiers towards the barbarians for both human and AI players alike.

Mmmm Napalm in the morning.

Oh and thousand shames upon lazy firaxis for being too lazy to rename barbarians as rebels when there's a rebellion happening towards a faction.

No, because they would most likely end up razing, they have nocities and I really think it would be annoying,.

What would be wise is that instead of capturing the cities, the rebels throw your cities into revolt for several turns (as if they were captures) but you still retain control over them.

I wish they came in larger numbers so they actually have the chance to do damage, especially with the -35% modifier that they have. Then if they manage to take 3 cities, they would become a civ, but only taking 1 or 2 results in a city state/s.

And giving the barbs some artillery, too. So they actually have a chance.

Johnnymac1418 said:

And giving the barbs some artillerynukes, too. So they actually have a chance.

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As Nikita Kruchev put it, one barbarian with a nuclear weapon can ruin your whole weekend.

I think that there should be a larger penalty for getting a city sacked. My suggestion is that In addition to loss of gold randomly one of the following three options should occur:

1. Sacked cities are in anarchy a couple of turns. (Make the city vulnerable for conquest by other civs)
2. Loose some population in sacked cities.
3. New city state emerges from the sacked city. (Like already suggested above)

Maybe there could be other options too.
Most of the time barbarians didn't hold a city, they looted it and burned it down partially and the city get recaptured by its original owner or another civ took it over. Thus the first two options should occur more often than option 3 for barbarians. For rebels option three should occure more frequently in comparison to barbarians sacking a city.

I'd like to see a city (or several at a time) be able to declare independence and create a whole new competitive AI civ or a city state with multiple cities.