Field/castle battles and espionage.

Cities were not always, far from it, the only aim of attacks throughout History. There were also:

- Castles
- Various locations such as plains (big armies) or woods (ambush).

So I think there should be a smart system that makes the player and/or the AI to actually aim something.

For example, there could be kings physically represented on the map. But they could not go anywhere, that would be too easy to move them around. One could move them by spending some gold. At start, they would be in Capitol, of course. With some gold, you could move them into a castle, or into an army. They would be represented by a military unit with a given strenght, influenced maybe by civics.

But then, spying would play a great role. Indeed, how to identify them? I think it may be possible to send spies in every enemy city, to cover the maximum range of possible king's location, and in the capitol (or in the city where "military plans" are, that can be discovered by spying also) in order to discover where is the king if he is in an army.

Or spend some gold in order to localize the king. Note, the more gold you spend, the more accurate would be the king's location. Indeed, it would not be impossible to see the location of the king to be false. But this kind of thing should not be very common, indeed it is very difficult for a king to hide from his enemies, and if he succeeds in luring them, then he is very clever.

So, in order to discover a king location (if he wants to hide, which may not be always the case), players need to spend some gold or to have preemptively covered the enemy cities with spies.

Maybe the two possibilities should be active in the same time in the game, or one of the two choosen by the developers. If the two are kept, maybe the spy mission "discover the enemy king" would be much cheaper if the enemy cities are covered with spies.

Maybe also, the more the king has moved, the more expensive it is to discover him. Indeed, the first guess for a spy mission would be the enemy capitol. If the spy discovers the king here, the spy mission ends, being cheaper that if it had to be continued.

There may also be a way to be aware of enemy spying missions, depending on the real nature of it in the game. For example, if spies are not always active, but only within missions ("spend gold" version), one could be aware of those spying missions when they occur, depending not on the gold he spent, because he is not supposed to guess when the spying mission occur first and so reserve an amount of gold for it, but on the efficiency of his spies. Maybe civics would influence this efficiency. So, awared of this spying mission, the player or the AI should be able to move its king right after this enemy mission, if he/it desires so.

Of course, those are only first thought possibilities for making the battles more diversified, more realistic and ultimately more fun, with some spy games. there may be also some other ways to enable field and castle battles, with systems such as Zone of Controls, a little tweaked maybe.

Ooo, nice. Add that to the supply line concept, and you got a good game.

That would be also a good excuse for spending gold early, if you want your king in an early army (which may be costly too) or in a back city.

But as I realize it now, this idea of moving king, bare as it is, is maybe not that good practicaly. Because, what is the point of moving your king if you do not intend to lose any single city? The king could be kept in the capitol infinitly.

So this idea could go with a much more early agressive AI, and with the fact that loosing a part of your empire is not that damageable. You could lose a part of your empire more easily, but recover it as much easily, if your king is alive, and only if your king is alive.

In short, that would need a serious revamp of Civ mechanics. Now i'm not sure if another idea would be better, because it would mean a revamp of many aspects only for this feature. Now it depends on the priority of each player, some may not want to see the game changed only ofr field battles.

As to me, that would not annoy me, except if the lost empire have to be rebuilt from scratch if conquered.

So, for me, or we can rebuild destroyed captured building with some gold, or those building never disappear if conquered.

Have you ever played the board game 'Kingmaker'? This sounds like that.

I like the idea of a king unit, but I think it could be much better implemented similarly to a great general unit. Also, I think that what it is aiming at could be achieved more effectively in different ways. Instituting a completely new unit to attempt to create more wide-varying military objectives seems to be a bit of a stretch. Also, whilst the ideas of having sporadic and varied castles/forts to capture is good, it would not be possible without a complete revolution of the tile system. Unless these castles were to be very dense on the map, the idea would be a bit moot and miniscule.

Civ3C already has a 'king unit', but not in the sense that you're talking about.

Argetnyx said:

Civ3C already has a 'king unit', but not in the sense that you're talking about.

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it's called reginocide. the ai king is almost always in the capital. so i usually took the capital last, otherwise other cities would simply "raze" themselves and other ai's would take the land.

When you take the king, all other cities raze themselves? What a horrible idea! Perhaps the 'king' unit (or 'President', 'Prime Minister', 'Despot' or 'Dictator') could be confined to the capital city, with two turns of anarchy resulting from its capture (one turn if in Universal Suffrage or Representation), before another unit would spring up in the capital. This would be reflective of chaos that would result from the capture of the leader, and would also give greater significance to the capital city.

it's called reginocide. the ai king is almost always in the capital. so i usually took the capital last, otherwise other cities would simply "raze" themselves and other ai's would take the land.

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'Regicide' is the word... There's also 'Mass Regicide' in C3C.

When you take the king, all other cities raze themselves? What a horrible idea! Perhaps the 'king' unit (or 'President', 'Prime Minister', 'Despot' or 'Dictator') could be confined to the capital city, with two turns of anarchy resulting from its capture (one turn if in Universal Suffrage or Representation), before another unit would spring up in the capital. This would be reflective of chaos that would result from the capture of the leader, and would also give greater significance to the capital city.

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After you kill the king, the cities don't 'raze themselves', the player (or AI) that had his king killed is defeated, and is out of the game. Sure, it's harsh, but it's not as bad as the 'city elimination' victory type. There, if you lose a certain number of cities, game over. Quite challenging actually.

Challenging, yes... but I wouldn't want to see it in the game, especially with paratroopers around. Perhaps as an additional option, akin to OCC.

Challenging, yes... but I wouldn't want to see it in the game

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It's an optional rule, not required.

I would like to see some system where the enemy can be brought into a massive field battle, wiped out and forced to surrender (Sandhurst's famous Waterloo doctrine)

How would this be implemented? Bonuses for out of city combat? Some sort of surrounding bonus (which I wouldn't like the idea of much)? The possibility of unit surrender, with repatriation at the end of a war (would require heavier war weariness penalties from suicide attacks in order to be workable)? Basically, what would you implement in order to be able to draw multiple defenders out of a castle/city?

I would make the AI think that losing a massive field battle was really bad, so they would try to make me lose one by starting one

Would there be any penalties involved, or would be a purely coded in psychological thing? If it was just that, it probably isn't the optimum way of approaching it. Going for, say, a siege penalty, whereby war weariness increases when a city is attacked, or something, would actually provide some tangible necessity for the AI to initiate a field battle.

Surrender is the thing to be added here...

Camikaze said:

Have you ever played the board game 'Kingmaker'? This sounds like that.

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No but it sounds good.

I like the idea of a king unit, but I think it could be much better implemented similarly to a great general unit.

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Still seems pretty obscure to me.

Also, I think that what it is aiming at could be achieved more effectively in different ways.

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Maybe, and that's what this topic is for.

Instituting a completely new unit to attempt to create more wide-varying military objectives seems to be a bit of a stretch.

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As I said in my second post on this thread, I think too that it would need some serious modification of the mechanics of Civ. We could try to reduce those changes in a minimum way, like for example conquered cities flipping back to its former owner pretty quickly if the king is still alive. If the king is well perceived by his population, this last one could rebel to its newer ruler. You would have to keep a good army in the conquered cities if you don't want them to flip back (that would work for short border wars) to its former owner, that reducing you power in a long war (to be continued with a lot less troops) . But as soon as the king is killed/emprisonned, the cities cease to rebel or rebel a lot more less.

Also, whilst the ideas of having sporadic and varied castles/forts to capture is good, it would not be possible without a complete revolution of the tile system.

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I don't really see where you go there. Why would it need a serious change of the tile system?

Unless these castles were to be very dense on the map, the idea would be a bit moot and miniscule.

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With the nowadays Civ system that is: no ZOCs, impossibility to build a castle on a farm or cottages, etc... I think that first we should be able to build castles on improved tiles.

Second, we should be able to intercept any enemy unit, with a system a little like ZOCs, but with more range. For example, if the movement of a unit is 2 (on roads), it should be able to intercept any enemy unit in a range of 2 tiles around. The problem being: would this interception be an attack or a defense? If it's an attack, that should be problematic if the enemy units are on a forest hill, for example. If it's a defense, that would mean that you couldn't enter an unoccupied enemy forest hill if a castle or city or any unit being able to intercept is at 2 tiles of it.

The best thing may be to nullify the defense/attack system, it is to say that defense would not be prevalent to attack anymore, unless we've time to build serious defenses, like walls. Walls should be able to be built by any kind of military units, and it should not be variable with time like the Fortify command in Civ4 (when we have to wait only 1 turn in order to increase our defense), it should be 0 or 100%, only when entirely completed.

@Naokaukodem- I will reply in a few days- remind me.

Argetnyx said:

Surrender is the thing to be added here...

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The only problem with that is that there needs to be some incentive for doing so. I like a guarantee of repatriation at the end of conflict, but even that leaves something to be desired (what if you don't last out the war?).

If a unit surrenders, it becomes a POW unit. Either during or after the war, enemy POW's can be traded for your own.

So what would be the benefit of surrendering if you yourself did not have any PoWs to exchange with?

You don't lose the game?