Alternative City Capture Options

[Delekhan]

I've noticed that since GEM there hasn't been much reason to puppet cities anymore, given the yield penalties.

I was thinking that this made the city capture options (Occupy/Puppet/Raze) somewhat less engaging. I've been playing Shogun: Total War and noticed that their system for deciding a captured city's fate was pretty awesome. Call to Power 2 also had a similar system, and was one of its stronger features.

How about we augment the Puppet option with a "Sack City" option? By selecting this option, the conqueror can get 10 - 20 turn's worth of base gold production from the city. The tile improvements in the city's radius also get auto-pillaged, with the income from that being added to the prize.

In exchange, the city would go into resistance for twice as long, and maybe generate some extra unhappiness.

So an average city that produces 16 base (before building bonuses) and has 7 tile improvements would deliver about 270 - 350 based on this formula.

The only problem I foresee is that the player could simply sack the city and then click "raze city" that same turn if they planned on razing it to begin with. One solution could be to block the raze city button after the city is sacked for at least several turns to avoid an exploit.

I think this would add a really interesting decision when capturing cities, and would make raiding enemy cities for gold a more viable tactic.

Just an idea. Decisions like these with strong risks/rewards really add some great moments to a game.

EDIT: I just realized that messing with the puppet city option could have implications for a Venice player, so maybe it's better to add it as a fourth option.

 

[Babri]

Sounds interesting, and sack could also reduce city size to half while the occupation/annex option would mean a more peaceful approach with little gold as plunder but less damage to buildings/population.

 

[Delekhan]

Or maybe sacking creates an extra partisan unit at the defending Civ's capital. That'd make the choice even more interesting.

Though 50% instant population loss sounds a bit rough for the defending civ... Maybe 25%... after all, the raze city option only reduces pop by 1 per turn.

 

[Thalassicus]

So basically... we choose between short or long-term rewards? Immediate plunder with high devastation, or keep intact for longer gain. It sounds like an interesting choice. I think it's feasible, shouldn't be too hard, and I can code the AI to do it.

 

[Babri]

So basically... we choose between short or long-term rewards? Immediate plunder with high devastation, or keep intact for longer gain. It sounds like an interesting choice. I think it's feasible, shouldn't be too hard, and I can code the AI to do it.

Yes, just like we have CS alliance (long-term) Vs CS conquest (short-term). This will also make early conquests more viable (especially for AI) because right now early economy is quite a burden for early warmongers due to emphasis on trade routes & removal of gold from river & coasts.

 

[albie_123]

Since annexation is pointless at the turn of city capture (It's always better to puppet), maybe we could have the options to Puppet, Sack and Raze, and only after resistance do we get the option to annex.

What I'm confused about is what happens to a sacked city afterwards. Does it behave identically as a puppet city?

To be honest, I think I'd prefer to see this as a Hun UA, but, I suppose it's cool for everyone to be able to do it.

 

[Delekhan]

To be honest, I think I'd prefer to see this as a Hun UA, but, I suppose it's cool for everyone to be able to do it.

That's actually an awesome idea. Everyone can sack cities, but maybe we can make the Hun UA so that they get triple from sacking a city or pillaging improvements. It would certainly fit them historically, and would be loads of fun to play. Certainly more useful and interesting than faster city razing.

As for what happens to a city after sacking, it could have a longer resistance period (double?) and an extra 2 - 3 unhappiness while it's under resistance. After that it becomes a normal city. And maybe if we want to take it further, sacking a city creates an extra partisan unit in the defending player's capital.

It depends on how Thal wants to implement it

I always say simple is better.

 

[albie_123]

I always say simple is better.

I agree, which is why I think the sacking should be the bad thing in and of itself. In other words, we should balance the sacking so that we don't need to give extra unhappiness or a longer resistance. The negative comes from the fact that you've now lost every building in the city along with all improvements.

Here's how I see this feature possibly working: Sacking gives immediate gold based on the non-road improvements around the city and the buildings present inside the city (and maybe a bonus from wonders). The trade off is that a percentage of these improvements are now pillaged and that no buildings are left present in the city. After the initial 'sacking', the city behaves in all ways (happiness, yields, etc.) as a puppet.

Now a really incredible Hun UA would be one where razed cities are also sacked.

 

[Delekhan]

The negative comes from the fact that you've now lost every building in the city along with all improvements.

This is fine with me, the city should lose almost everything when it gets sacked. It's having its wealth and infrastructure plundered, after all.

But as it is now, even occupying a city "peacefully" causes lots of buildings to go up in flames. Maybe balance it so more buildings survive regular occupying/puppeting?

So and = few buildings lost (maybe 20%)

While Sacking a city = 60% - 90% of buildings lost

That'd be a pretty stark difference to consider.

 

[albie_123]

In GEM, more buildings survived conquest. I'm not sure if this is present in-game yet but enough usually survived that there would be a big difference between having them and losing them all.

Incidentally, this is an amazing idea overall, that is historical, tactical and fun all in one. I'm already really looking forward to trying it out.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Could a political/cultural/relationship hit against you be implemented if you sack a city with some amazing Wonders and/or Great Works or Artifacts?

Like when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Global opinion of you takes a massive blow.

 

[Delekhan]

Could a political/cultural/relationship hit against you be implemented if you sack a city with some amazing Wonders and/or Great Works or Artifacts?

Global opinion of you takes a massive blow.

I thought about this myself. It would definitely be realistic, but to be honest negative diplomacy modifiers are already prevalent enough. Another one may throw the whole system into chaos and trigger the global Denouncing-Merry-Go-Round so many players despise.

I didn't think about Great Works though. I'd say keep it simple, and leave that unchanged when a city is sacked. The reward should be straightforward: Instant that the invader can use to make their army bigger or build up their home cities.

 

[albie_123]

I don't think it's possible to add diplomatic modifiers. There's also no need to alter the way Great Works function in conquest.

 

[xInVicTuSx]

I want to say that if you get the Iron Curtain tenet you can annex a city right off and get the same amount of unhappiness as if you puppeted it because the free courthouse is built instantly without waiting for the resistance to end first. I like it alot because it lets you blitz much better than having to wait to buy the courthouses.

 

[stackpointer]

An additional penalty of sacking a city could be a city population loss since the population loss when taking a city has been reduced/removed in CEP. The population loss combined with (temporary) additional unhappiness, longer resistance/razing period, auto-pillaged tiles, and the destruction of all the buildings would round out the effects quite nicely.

This way you can make sacking a city a natural extension of both puppeting or razing it. I tend to pillage all the city tiles when they plan on puppeting a city to keep the city from growing and a population loss would work nicely with that too. I also sell the buildings of a city while it's being razed to the ground so that would help out with razing plans as well.

I don't think it's possible to add diplomatic modifiers. There's also no need to alter the way Great Works function in conquest.

I believe diplomatic modifiers are done in the DLL as Putmalk has done in his Civ IV Diplomacy Features Mod. Although, if you are in a war and taking cities you are already getting warmongering penalties as seen here.

 

[albie_123]

An additional penalty of sacking a city could be a city population loss since the population loss when taking a city has been reduced/removed in CEP. The population loss combined with (temporary) additional unhappiness, longer resistance/razing period, auto-pillaged tiles, and the destruction of all the buildings would round out the effects quite nicely.

I'm not sure I see the point in all of the negative effects - if we can balance the amount of gold gained, then the additional unhappiness, longer resistance and population loss won't be necessary.

While it may seem more realistic (although the concept of city conquest is already very abstracted in-game) to have these negative effects, they don't particularly add anything to the short-term gain / long-term loss dichotomy we want with sacking a city, it just makes the short-term gain harder to deal with. Possibly population loss is the exception here but I don't feel it really adds anything to the mechanic.

That's why I'm in favor of only having permanent negative effects that have to be fixed over time by the player (improvements and buildings) and not having temporary negative effects.

I believe diplomatic modifiers are done in the DLL as Putmalk has done in his Civ IV Diplomacy Features Mod. Although, if you are in a war and taking cities you are already getting warmongering penalties as seen here.

Ah, okay. Good to know - but still beyond the scope of CEP Basic.

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, I like that. Another related UA could be "population of sacked cities gets moved to your own cities" creating a 'tall' homeland and a lower puppet empire. Would fit with the Assyrians f.e. if we remodel how much science they gain?

Loss of buildings and everything seems enough, no temporary maluses needed imho. Also no diplomatic penalty, the loss of infrastructure is probably enough of a setback already. So we get as options

• Puppet the City (peaceful, no yields gained, can annex or raze immediately afterwards)
• Sack the City (bloody, substantial yield gains, but loss of buildings/improvements, must wait to annex or raze afterwards) <-- good if you may lose the city again quickly (or in the very late game?)
• Raze the City

This means that cities you want to annex get puppeted and cities you want as puppets get sacked. I'd love for some very strong "unique" barbarians to appear at some times (warlords with +250% vs. cities) that sack your cities (but don't take them over).

 

[albie_123]

As I see it, sacking the city is good for when a conquest victory is imminent or relatively soon.

The only problem I see with this system - wouldn't it be smarter to sack a city before Razing it? Sure, you have a few turns of unhappiness, but that's not too hard to deal with and the gold is almost certainly worth it.

 

[Ahriman]

The only problem I see with this system - wouldn't it be smarter to sack a city before Razing it?

Precisely. You get more gold *and* it takes fewer turns to burn the city down. I think raze vs puppet is already sufficient. I don't think we want to make conquest too profitable, particularly when we already have systems for city state and Civ UA city capture (Assyria) that give instant bonus on capture.

 

[mitsho]

The only problem I see with this system - wouldn't it be smarter to sack a city before Razing it? Sure, you have a few turns of unhappiness, but that's not too hard to deal with and the gold is almost certainly worth it.

As I have understood it, you wouldn't be able to raze right away. If you sack the city, you'd need to keep it as a puppet for x turns (or can't raze it at all anymore). Otherwise yes, it'd be the modus operandi to first sack and then raze a city.