(2-VT) Attrition damage to non-scout line in enemy territory

[BaldSamson]

Goal:
Force players to rotate their lines more aggressively, so that elite units aren't capable of plugging gaps indefinitely.

Details:
5 damage per turn incurred in enemy territory. Scout line has promotion to counter the mechanic.

Considerations:
- 5 damage is easily counteracted by having 1 healing unit in your 2nd line. This creates a virtual "supply line".
- Isolated super units will struggle to sustain.
- In the future, we may consider a promotion to infantry to counter this mechanic with the goal of creating more variety, but their is an opportunity cost to picking this.

 

[balparmak]

If anyone wants to test this, there's a modmod: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/dynamic-battle-lines.29884/ (remove main.sql to just get the attrition change). I don't know if AI considers it though, probably needs AI work

 

[Stalker0]

This feels like such a fundamental change to combat, it really should just stay a modmod

 

[pineappledan]

We already have this modelled with units in enemy territory getting -5 healing and scouts getting a bonus 10 in enemy territory from promotions.

What this will mainly do is swing wars heavily in favour of defenders, and domination is arguably too hard already. rotating units in and out requires double the amount of war supply for the same effectiveness and turns war into a traffic jam for the attackers, amping up the frustration of the 1UPT tile puzzle.

Not a fan. Everything about this will make everything about unit management on attack harder.

 

[CppMaster]

This feels like such a fundamental change to combat, it really should just stay a modmod

In general this is a great idea. Mod mods like that could serve a function of an experimental branch to test out how does it work out in practice and then maybe merge it to the base VP. Just like it was with UI mod mods.

 

[Rekk]

The problem of elite units plugging gaps is on  defense, not offense. This change does nothing to alleviate that.

Dynamic Battle Lines
Download here
- All melee units receive a tweaked version of Heavy Charge. Victorious melee units will push back the defending units, unless they are stationed in a city, fort or citadel. Units unable to retreat take 25 damage. (Polish Winged Hussar gains Blitz to compensate)
- Civilian units retreat with military units to prevent easy captures.
- Units suffer 5 attrition damage in turns they move in hostile lands. Recon, submarine and barbarian units are immune. Can be disabled by removing Attrition.sql

Balparmak adds attrition damage as way to balance the huge strength of attacking his mod creates, not as a mechanic in and of itself.

 

[Recursive]

Proposal vetoed.

Reason: Out of scope for the mod. I concur with @pineappledan and @Stalker0 that this is too fundamental a change to the combat mechanics, particularly when combined with anti-warmonger fervor, and the AI would struggle with it.