Surrendering Cities

I think it should be possible for a city to surrender when there's a giant city razing army just sitting outside it's walls. The mongols did it so why can't we? It would help in having small insignificant cities severely harming your stack.

Here's how I think it should work:

When you have a decent size army outside of a city you're at war with, there should be an option to ask the city to surrender or die. The city (not the civ, the city) then does a check with defenders vs. attackers and how likely it is to survive along with a random #. It can be a low chance or not, I don't care. If the city thinks it has a reasonable chance of surviving the attack, it doesn't surrender and if you take it, you're forced to raze it in order to punish the inhabitants and prevent abuse. If you raze it, other cities get intimidated and are more likely to surrender to your army.

If the city does surrender though, you get the city with no population loss and no building loss as well as not needing to waste troops.

Another thing I thought of was the possibility of giving the "surrender or die" option to spies that are in the stack rather than any random unit.


Ideas? Comments?

Good idea. But the surrender factor should be given by only the forces in the city radius of the city.

Good idea, but the surrender factor should be based on several things:

City defenses. Walls and Castles should reduce the surrender chance.
Culture rate. Both existing culture and current culture production per turn should be factored in.
Civics. Civilizations running Nationalism, Free Speech, or Free Religion will be less likely to surrender then ones under a ruthless dictator.
Happiness/Unhealthy level. Do I really need to explain this?

Onionsoilder said:

Good idea, but the surrender factor should be based on several things:

City defenses. Walls and Castles should reduce the surrender chance.
Culture rate. Both existing culture and current culture production per turn should be factored in.
Civics. Civilizations running Nationalism, Free Speech, or Free Religion will be less likely to surrender then ones under a ruthless dictator.
Happiness/Unhealthy level. Do I really need to explain this?

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I agree, but I also make some additions:

1. "Starvation" factor
If the city loses population from cutoff of food, then this increase the chance of surrendering.

2. The Number Ratio
If the city defenders is 3 (or higher) times outnumber by attackers located in city radius.

3. Foreigners
Cities with foreign populations should increase chance of defecting (more so to invader w/ same civ.)

4. Casualty Ratio
The ratio of unit between invader and defender since the war began. More defender deaths = fear and defect.

Ok, I picture a huge SoD moved next to a city. The city surrenders in one turn, a few defenders moved in, and the 100% healthy SoD moves on to the next city. In ten or so turns, the civ is conquered. Powerful civs would quickly and easilly overrun smaller civs. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

the overall surrender probability thing should be small. The expectation value should be 1 surrender city per war.

Infantry#14 said:

the overall surrender probability thing should be small. The expectation value should be 1 surrender city per war.

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That would lead to a lot of automatic razing.

Good idea, just that an entire continent could burn if a leader was to headstrong.

Khan Quest said:

Ok, I picture a huge SoD moved next to a city. The city surrenders in one turn, a few defenders moved in, and the 100% healthy SoD moves on to the next city. In ten or so turns, the civ is conquered. Powerful civs would quickly and easilly overrun smaller civs. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

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Which is how it actually was pretty much.

Although some attrition would be a good thing to balance this with.

Khan Quest said:

That would lead to a lot of automatic razing.

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If when you were going to ask the city to surrender it could display the odds of it surrendering, you would probably not even ask cities that you want to keep to surrender if they have low odds (below 75%) because you don't want to raze it. If small, poorly defended cities are the only ones that have significant chances of surrendering then it wouldn't make much of a difference if they refused because they would probably be razed anyway. It would just be an option that you would use if you wanted to keep a weak city because of something such as an abundance of resources or denying land to the AI or airlifting troops.

Maybe the defnder should offer such surrenders, and maybe they should result in 10 turns of peace or so... I wish they could have put this feature in the game!

Maybe the War Weariness can change depending on the cities! Border cities get almost twice as much, and the closer the army gets, the more it increases, with each loss, it increases, the length that the army stays there increases it as well. Sieges should be REAL sieges.

I would also like offensive warfare to be handled differently, and have been thinking a bit about how sieges could be resolved. Military units need food each turn (I have come up with a system for supply lines and different recruitment, but that's not important to mention here), and units have a small zone of control. If you cover all the tiles around an enemy city with your ZoCs (this will typically require two stacks), the city is considered besieged, and everybody inside will starve to death, including the military units. In the case of port cities, you also need blockading navies, and if the city has an airport you need air superiority or lots of AA-guns.

During this siege the city might offer to surrender. The decision to do so should depend on several factors (like Onionsoilder said): Loyalty to its homeland, culture, your reputation for cruelty to conquered cities, etc...

This is a slow but effective way to take enemy cities. It is expensive though, as your armies sitting in the field will also require food to stay alive, and will most likely outnumber the enemy. The enemy could also relieve the siege with a new army.

Anyway, the important point of this point: Military units must eat, so thay can be starved

As a side note, I would like to see the combat system changed so as not to give huge advantages to the defender in a pitched battle (I think the current system with lots of artillery is silly, though I have to admit it's working).

cIV_khanh93 said:

Maybe the defnder should offer such surrenders, and maybe they should result in 10 turns of peace or so... I wish they could have put this feature in the game!

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It is in the game. A defending Civ can offer a city as part of a peace deal. Of course the defending Civ has to be willing to talk to the attacking Civ to be able to offer a peace deal though.

Soldiers should live off of the land, and have a food supply or something for missions without food.

Its off topic yes but related, I do think an army should require feeding, I hate the way that you can have a huge army camped in a city and that a) makes the populace happy and b) doesn't consume all the food. I mean AN ARMY MARCHES ON ITS STOMACH!!! I would like to see sieges play a more important role.

Scilly_guy said:

Its off topic yes but related, I do think an army should require feeding, I hate the way that you can have a huge army camped in a city and that a) makes the populace happy and b) doesn't consume all the food. I mean AN ARMY MARCHES ON ITS STOMACH!!!

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Tell this to whichever programmer took "units cost food from their home city" out of Civ between Civ 2 and Civ 3.

Military units cost shields and settlers food IIRC?

I remember irritating myself over all the micromanagement required to assign each unit to the right city so I didn't spend any shields needlessly. With a better system for dealing with this I wouldn't mind bringing back civ2 upkeep system, although troops should require food instead of shields mostly for the sake of realism, (I also think farms should get +1 somewhere in the late classical era to compensate, but that's another matter)

Anyway, both civ2 and civ4 upkeep system works in a strategic manner, by punishing militaristic nations with loss of shields and gold respectively. This will give them a disadvantage in the long run unless they manage to use their troops wisely and conquer new land. I would like to see supplies work on a more tactical scale, where you can surround and deny supply to enemy troops to gain an advantage in combat.

A very simple system could be: Whenever a unit is completely surrounded by enemy ZoC (the squares directly around a unit), is looses 10% health every turn. Could lead to some interesting changes of tactics... Oh, and to stay on topic, this also applies to troops in cities.

Wimsey said:

Military units cost shields and settlers food IIRC?

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Depends on the government you are using, IIRC, what costs what, but settlers were food and shields, military units cost shields and sometimes happiness.

I remember irritating myself over all the micromanagement required to assign each unit to the right city so I didn't spend any shields needlessly.

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I remember finding that precise exercise rather a lot of fun. To each their own.

With a better system for dealing with this I wouldn't mind bringing back civ2 upkeep system, although troops should require food instead of shields mostly for the sake of realism, (I also think farms should get +1 somewhere in the late classical era to compensate, but that's another matter)

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I could go with the food cost rather than the shield cost because it sould seem to make war harder, which is a good gameplay reason; realism is secondary. (If I were designing a unit support system from scratch, it would be food from home city for all units, shields for units post-mechaninsing, and a Civ 3/4 type monetary cost.)

Anyway, both civ2 and civ4 upkeep system works in a strategic manner, by punishing militaristic nations with loss of shields and gold respectively. This will give them a disadvantage in the long run unless they manage to use their troops wisely and conquer new land.

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I am unconvinced that either of those systems are actually balanced well enough to make the cost of going a-conquering steep enough relative to the benefits; victorious armies do still need to be fed and paid.

I would like to see supplies work on a more tactical scale, where you can surround and deny supply to enemy troops to gain an advantage in combat.

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I'm disinclined to this, because tactical-scale is not something I want to see any more of in Civ; with unit promotions there's too much of it in Civ 4 already.