[GS] Was something changed in how city defense score is calculated in GS?

[player1 fanatic]

In base game and first expansion, base score of city defense was based on highest land unit (or maybe included ships) you ever created, minus 10 (armies also count to raise this). Then on top of this, add +2 for every city district.

There may have been some other factors that add up, but that is gist of it. It was always beneficial to create unit with strongest combat value, at least once or have army with it, to boost defenses.

What I noticed that this does count in GS too, but it looks like sometimes city defense of AI cities drops to lower number (!!!).

I have no idea why this happens, but have one theory.
Maybe score is recalculated based on current troops that AI has. In which case this is very very bad balance change if done intentionally (will make game much easier). Hopefully it is just a bug.

Anyone else had experience with this?

 

[Mango201]

Side question: In base, if a ranged unit was the strongest unit you built was the ranged or melee strength used? How did garrisoning a unit affect this?

Did the same formula apply to city states? I.e. it was easier to conquer a city that had built all warriors as opposed to one swordsman?

 

[WillowBrook]

I have noticed lower than expected city defense numbers with GS in some cities, but I have not taken a close look. I think they did change something.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Side question: In base, if a ranged unit was the strongest unit you built was the ranged or melee strength used? How did garrisoning a unit affect this?

Did the same formula apply to city states? I.e. it was easier to conquer a city that had built all warriors as opposed to one swordsman?

I think it was melee. Of course when having actual garrison defense would temporary raise.

And yes, city state that never had swordsmen will have lower base city defense then one that had at least once a swordsmen.

You can also easily see liberated city state having very low defense, until it gets its first combat unit.

But this is all how it works in base game and first expansion. In GS defense sometimes drop to lower values.

For example in my game against Romans, they had city with defense of 14 (no walls and two districts), while they did had in past heavy chariots (so expected minimal defense would be 18+4=22).

 

[Disgustipated]

It's kind of an annoying bug. And I still think it's a bug because it seems to affect some civs, but not others. It kind of takes the fun out domination victories when some civs are ridiculously easy to conquer once you get their army down. I first noticed this in my Ottoman games, but it's actually present in other games as well. I just only noticed it at first because I was conquering everything with the Ottomans. I sometimes see city strengths of like 10, 12, or 14 well after they have more advanced units.

 

[player1 fanatic]

Anyone else experiences?

Not sure if this would maybe need moving to bug reports, so it gets more visibility with the devs.

 

[Victoria]

There has always been a ‘bug’ where the Shield strength does not include terrain, rivers.
It used to drop by 10 when there was no garrison which may be what you are seeing.
City states got +2 for every envoy... so buffing envoys and using puppeteer helps defend them.
I’ll check it out.

 

[Victoria]

City strength here is Warrior melee strength + 3 for palace guard -10 for no unit inside... or when the unit moves in... 23.

So, build an xbow (melee strength 30) and +3 for the palace guard = 33

No Xbow inside = 23 (33-10)

So now I build a spearman (strength 25) remember that I already have built an xbow strength 30... the difference bnetween the 2 units melee strength is 5 ... so max strength of 33-5 = 28

Nothing has changed

 

[Karmah]

someone asked this question in another thread I can't remeber which one right now,so my apologies if that was answered. Are we talking units created in a given city or any units ever created by your civilization ?

 

[player1 fanatic]

The bug is that minimum defense, which is calculated based on strongest land unit -10 (including armies), and +2 per district, sometimes drops to 10 (+2 per district) for no reason for some AI civilizations, making them pushover for conquest (only cities with garrison are defended decently).

So your enemy could be in late Renaissance and have cities with defenses like 10-18, if not manned by garrison.

 

[Disgustipated]

The bug is that minimum defense, which is calculated based on strongest land unit -10 (including armies), and +2 per district, sometimes drops to 10 (+2 per district) for no reason for some AI civilizations, making them pushover for conquest (only cities with garrison are defended decently).

So your enemy could be in late Renaissance and have cities with defenses like 10-18, if not manned by garrison

this is what I experienced. Not sure if the test above will produce these results since it doesn't happen to the human player, and doesn't happen to every ai Civ in the game. Posting saves would be most helpful. I'm not actually playing anymore at present time (taking a break), but I could look through a few saves when I get home.

 

[Disgustipated]

The first save only has 1 example I can find. Elenaor to the East. a couple of her cities have city strength of 12, one has 15. The tech tree shows her in the Industrial era, I'm not sure of her exact tech progress though. Only 1 AI civ this happened to this game. For me it's usually only 1 or 2 AI civs, the others seem fine.

2nd save is Qin Shi, but Japan is the one with low city strengths. He's not doing real great this game, but he is listed in the modern era. Keep in mind the year is after 1900, and he still has cities with strength of 20. His capital has strength of 80.

The last save has the best example. Genghis Khan. Tamar's cities are pretty weak too, but she's pretty weak overall. Genghis Khan is listed in the industrial era for tech progress. He has cities at strength 10 and 12.

All of these saves are post patch, though only the top save is post hotfix. Now I didn't check to see if they are lacking resources. But at the very least they should have been able to build strong anti cave units like pike and shot which should cause their default city strength to go up.

 

[WillowBrook]

In my last game, city strength was dropping by about 30 when a pike and shot moved out of Alexander's cities. They were, IIRC, 64 with it in a city and 34 when outside. I might have a save, but I'm not at the computer and I was running a whole bunch of mods (although none that should affect city strength).

 

[player1 fanatic]

Yeah... If they had Pike and Shot and if it was their best unit, then minimal defense of their cities would be 45 (+2 per district). It should never drop to 34.

 

[Bradypus]

All AFAIK

Side question: In base, if a ranged unit was the strongest unit you built was the ranged or melee strength used? How did garrisoning a unit affect this?

Did the same formula apply to city states? I.e. it was easier to conquer a city that had built all warriors as opposed to one swordsman?

Ranged strength applies only to your city's ranged strength meaning higher bombard damage. Unlike melee strength, ranged strength applies the same regardless of the ranged unit being garrisoned or not.

So now I build a spearman (strength 25) remember that I already have built an xbow strength 30... the difference bnetween the 2 units melee strength is 5 ... so max strength of 33-5 = 28

It is not true as a general rule that the shield strength of the city equals the melee strength of your strongest unit minus the strength difference between your garrison unit and your strongest unit (not taking into account other modifiers). It is only true in your example because the melee strength of the garrison unit is higher than or equal to your strongest unit's melee strength minus 10.

If, however, your strongest unit was a knight (48 strength) and your garrison unit was a warrior, the city's strength would be 38 + modifiers (if only palace (+3) then 41). It would not be 51 (48 + 3) minus the difference between knight and warrior (28), i.e. 23.


If any of these kinds is not the case, either it's the cause of (1) other modifiers like districts, unit health and policies, (2) changes made by the developers, (3) mods or (4) bugs. Personally I have not experienced any suspiciously low AI shield values. Keep in mind that losing your strongest unit(s) will reduce the shield value of your cities.

 

[Victoria]

It is not true as a general rule that the shield strength of the city equals the melee strength of your strongest unit minus the strength difference between your garrison unit and your strongest unit (not taking into account other modifiers).

Yep, true, minimum should be 10 less.

 

[player1 fanatic]

My testing pre-GS with observing AI and with player army in GS is that losing strongest units should not affect minimum unmanned city defense.

I even disabled all my units and everything was keeping it defense on bext turn or two.

Not to say that same could not be the cause for getting this issue for AI in GS, since in my case both AIs that had the isse were in war with me previously, losing a lot of units.

Although when they did get better units back mininum defense did not recover.

Could it be that loss does reset their defense, but getting those unit back does not restore it?

 

[Karmah]

All AFAIK



Ranged strength applies only to your city's ranged strength meaning higher bombard damage. Unlike melee strength, ranged strength applies the same regardless of the ranged unit being garrisoned or not.



It is not true as a general rule that the shield strength of the city equals the melee strength of your strongest unit minus the strength difference between your garrison unit and your strongest unit (not taking into account other modifiers). It is only true in your example because the melee strength of the garrison unit is higher than or equal to your strongest unit's melee strength minus 10.

If, however, your strongest unit was a knight (48 strength) and your garrison unit was a warrior, the city's strength would be 38 + modifiers (if only palace (+3) then 41). It would not be 51 (48 + 3) minus the difference between knight and warrior (28), i.e. 23.


If any of these kinds is not the case, either it's the cause of (1) other modifiers like districts, unit health and policies, (2) changes made by the developers, (3) mods or (4) bugs. Personally I have not experienced any suspiciously low AI shield values. Keep in mind that losing your strongest unit(s) will reduce the shield value of your cities.

So the point of Victoria is valid though. It does increase by the difference of units power (could not be otherwise mathematically anyway)

Before : unit strength S, city is S-10
New unit strength S+3, city is S+3 - 10.
Net increases of city power :3.

 

[Oortael]

Hello everyone.
Does this explain why the "garrison" promotion for archers does not increase the defense value of a city center or encampment ? (Because the promotion only applies when the archer is directly targeted, or because the defense value is based on the default model of the best unit in melee, and not the real unique best one ? Anyway…)

 

[Victoria]

Hello everyone.
Does this explain why the "garrison" promotion for archers does not increase the defense value of a city center or encampment ? (Because the promotion only applies when the archer is directly targeted, or because the defense value is based on the default model of the best unit in melee, and not the real unique best one ? Anyway…)

The garrison promotion is for the benefit of the archer, not the city.
The city works off base strength, so always ignores unit promotions.
Many things work off base strength. Rightly or wrongly it does stop some strange situations but also does open the door to argument. For example your warrior gets the same XP fighting a spearman even if the spearman has 2 anti melee promotions and Choke Point because it uses base XP to calculate XP. Fighting a spear that is +27 vs you should really give you extra XP for surviving the affair.