The building is called Civic (Banditry) 1. It says it autobuilds with the Banditry civic. Though oddly I can't see it in any of the building tabs, so either it didn't actually build, or its invisible. I'll build something and find out..... OK, the promotion doesn't seem to be being applied, so I guess the building is not actually being built. Which is actually a bit of a relief, for the purposes of my current game.
I've attached pictures of the building, and the promotion it desires to apply.
Yeah, if all units gain that its going to cause so much crime it'd be completely unmanageable I think. However, if it's giving that free promo to Criminal CC units I could understand that.
There are other defensive units beyond archers. While the City Defense promotion makes for a good all-round defense, I've always preferred a rounded mix of units. I always have a spearman in case of cavalry, and anti-melee melee, such as axemen. Importantly, these units are also useful for counter-attacking and other purposes beyond defending a city, leaving you with more flexibility. Rather than starting any other units with built-in city defending bonuses, merely giving them access to the City Defense promotion line would probably be sufficient. (Assuming the AI understands that sort of thing). That particularly makes sense for spear/pikemen.
With almost all units having a strong bonus against at least one other unit type, it's not necessary, and possibly counter-productive, to focus on City Defense bonuses.
I agree with most of what you say. But my suggestion would simply be to add the same degree of innate city defense to the Mace line as they have city attack, which by the way is not as strong as the sword line. I think they have pretty much 10% city attack so that would also mean 10% city defense. Nothing too imbalancing there... just gives the Maces a bit more purpose in the game imo.
AND, though I may not have said it, the city defense promotion line would be good. However, I'm still a bit fond of the promotion line I asked for some time back, Streetfighter, that was a lesser form of city defense (that also included some minor City Defense capability) for Melee so as to not overwhelm the role of the archer.
I carry the same observations about axemen and spears too and I don't think this adjustment would threaten the value of their roles just as you put them. If the ai is not trying to cross protect its cities with a variety of units like this it will simply be less defensible all around. But that's really potentially another issue entirely.
@ls612: If I work up the Streetfighter buttons do you still have the shell of the xml you said you'd done for that set of promotions? (Probably would be needing some updates.) If not, I suppose I could go back and look at all the first pages of your promotions thread to find reference to the stats we agreed on for those.
I totally Disagree. And here is why.
Is everyone forgetting that crime is also on the cities workable tiles as well as the city itself? That crime diffuses from a tile to surrounding tiles, whether in the City tile or on a tile working tile. That if a for ex. an enemy Rogue (any crime spreading unit) is in your empire the tile it is on has an increase in Crime. The very basics of the TW is that it reduces crime, not only in the City but on Empire tiles. Otherwise the 2nd Crime reducing value of a TW is useless. But it isn't.
So if you see AI's TW's out of the city there just Might be a logical reason for it. We've made the AI to Build Crime producing units. And it builds them. We wanted a Crime reducing unit line so the TW was adapted to that role. By the way, TW were in the game Before Crime was introduced. So now the AI is trying to use it's resources to keep Crime under a somewhat manageable situation/status.
But now you want to go and dicker with the balance? When you don't remember, or maybe in Arkenor's case don't know, from past development cycles the full workings of the TW and it's Crime role?
Seems to me that all this is accomplishing is to cloud the issue.
JosEPh
I can understand this point. But consider the following:
Yes, the AI is doing a great job of pumping out Crime Fighter units at this time and as a result they're keeping their crime levels under control. The
problem is that these units are expensive - they carry extra costs over other unit types and should for the game balance. As a result, the most effective player will build them ONLY as much as they need them. Otherwise, their expense becomes as much a burden on the economy as the crime itself would've been.
So the question becomes, once the AI has its crime under control, is it then also building these units (now to an excess) because the unit is also evaluating as the best choice for city defense? The suspicion is that they are doing just that and they need to be told in a simple way that this unit is not BEST for that.
This is also an issue for realism immersion - I'd like to see a real world nation try to defend its cities with police forces alone when an army comes to invade. Shouldn't be the most effective strategy I think. Policing professions are good fighters... they have to be to do their jobs WHEN their jobs get rough. But unlike soldiers, they aren't equipped with the weapons and training to make killing their absolute profession. Too much of their training regimen involves more complex acts like detective work to have the sole focus on warfare be their ultimate role. Simply put, they should not be as strong as equivalent era soldier classes.