An idea for a new Fighting system

[moopoo]

Hey that's a cool idea. It would give me a reason to build Castles.

Cheers for the PS. Only problem is finding someone experienced enough that has enough time and interest to code this

 

[black baron]

i have time and interest, but I'm restricted by knowledge to xml

 

[Blood & Thunder]

Maye you can have roit police and the like defend within the city.

 

[black baron]

you could also bring back the guerrilla unit form civ3 and divide it in two as a urban and country guerrilla. the urban gets a bonus in cities and production doesn't stop or slow where as the country guerrilla would do the opposite yet have bonuses outside cities.

 

[moopoo]

I was thinking a Praetorian Guard unit / Royal Guard / Home guard unit would work well for that

It would also allow for America (Colonial Guard, Minuteman, something of that nature - a rifleman city guard unit) to have a unique unit with a bit more influence

 

[GoodGame]

I think it's a very interesting way to prevent city turtling, but it does create some problems with the city garrison promo and the units designed around it (archer-longbow line).

First thought: focus on a promotion that makes units popular to be in the city---that is a promotion that makes them the royal guard, the people's brownshirts, etc... that don't cause unhappiness in a city. The simplest solution is to make the City Garrision promo line do double duty that way. An adjunct change would be to make it expensely possible for any unit to get City Garrison--like maybe after Combat II, so even your melee troops could be city guards.
So basically if any unit lacks that promo and is stationed in a city, it causes a degree of happiness, even if it's the first unit (or maybe the second unit?).
That alone and it becomes harder to keep a city stocked full of units.

A second thought (and I've seen at least one mod do this)---make the defense modifiers of a city dependent upon the amount of surrounding tiles of the city. If an enemy owns more than one tile around a city, the defense of the city tile should be modified somehow. Not saying that that should count as some kind of free bombardment, but it should affect at least the bonus that culture, fortifying, and City Garrison provide. Actual castle-walls should still have to actually be bombarded.
That alone will cause a fight for control of the tiles around a city.


Third thought: allow a true blockade of a city on land, just as it occurs on sea (though perhaps less generously). If an enemy unit is adjacent to a city, it should block the city from working tiles that it has to travel through that tile to get to. Figuring out what's fair here will take some balancing, but if one civ can get a line of 3 tiles covered with units around a city, that should block the city from working those three tiles, and some more.
That will make sieges more deadly, and field battles more useful.

Fourth thought---make it possible to blockade enemy roads as supply routes. Not sure if this can't happen already. Usually I just cut them with horse units, but a blockade that gives gold and blocks resources (or even allows intermittent syphoning of resources) would be useful and force some battles in open ground.

Thus, the first change in my system - Having troops stationed in a city shuts down all production. Where will the troops go, you ask? two possibilities, i guess. One is to the countries borders, where they'll hopefully form lines (OMG! Trenches!). The other is that they'll just kinda be around, on the countries countryside.

Part two. If an enemy troop is adjacent to a city (ie within the 8 squares surrounding it), the city shuts down. Moreover, he seiges whatever side he happens to be on. with 4 troops (or 4 sets of troops) one could completely seige a city. any units inside a seiged city would lose a bit of health over several turns. the amount it stops at would depend on how many sides are covered - 10% for each side.

what do you guys think?

 

[black baron]

well since we're talking about blockades you might as well make something to disrupt the siege

 

[moopoo]

Seige disruption would just be to bring out and attack the seiging troops, wouldn't it?

@ GoodGame: I wasn't thinking of getting rid of the defence bonus of cities, or the need for artillery to knock 'em down. In fact, i think they should have the ability (especially late game artillery) to bombard buildings, such as destroying barracks, or ampitheatres, stuff like that.

I hadn't thought of cutting off supplies. they could cut off resources to make it unhappy and unhealthy - Thus, killing off people!!! true Seige!!! WOooooooooooooooo!

 

[moopoo]

My smelly little brother raised an interesting point: Amphibious attacks. As in, Declaring war then moving boats in before the enemy has a chance to summon a defence.

I had 2 ideas: The Sea mine. Enemy boats have a 50% chance of getting blown up when moving onto this improvement. The main problem with this is spamming, making it impossible to amphibiously assault. Also, it would only come in with, say, Military Science.

The Second Idea: Making one unable to amphibiously assault cities, either by making it a permanent rule, or by building a building (Military Harbour? Coastal Fortress?) or by having naval units in your city.

I lean towards having troop transports having to battle naval units inside the city, which are given bonuses by coastal defensive buildings.

 

[GoodGame]

Yes! It works perfectly when you 'siege' an island city by 3 triremes. No bread and no health bonuses = quick starvation. Something similar for land is needed.

I hadn't thought of cutting off supplies. they could cut off resources to make it unhappy and unhealthy - Thus, killing off people!!! true Seige!!! WOooooooooooooooo!

 

[lugaru]

Sounds a lot like Medieval Total War 2 with it's system... I wouldent mind seeing this put together.

 

[GeneralSpecific]

What I was thinking was maybe two unhappy faces per unit, so it may be worthwhile garrisoning one or two units in war time to keep enemy infiltrators and paratroopers at bay, but if you put even 10 units in a city, that could shut down a lvl 20 city effectively..

The thing is, shouldn't troops in a city during wartime make people happy?

 

[black baron]

Seige disruption would just be to bring out and attack the seiging troops, wouldn't it?

i guess so, i just through it out as a suggestion anyway

 

[moopoo]

@ Black Baron: Suggestions are good, I just thought you might have something different in mind

@ GeneralSpecific: I don't know. I wouldn't be too pleased about having to see troops outside my house at any point in time. Rather than make me feel safe during war time, they would concern me that they feel that troops need to be there.

@GoodGame: Would it be possible (this is directed at anyone, i guess) to A) change the blockade mission so that it cuts off resources and B) modify it to allow military units to do the same? That in itself would be, i think, a pretty good modification to Civ on it's own. It shouldn't be a huge stretch to teach it to the AI either.

 

[black baron]

there really isn't much to change if anything for counter-besiegement either attack with calvary to kill artillery or use artillery to do collateral.

like i said nothing if not anything to change

 

[King Coltrane]

this is a great idea i think! lets try to really develop it!

some thoughts:

regarding amphibious attacks and early game commando strikes... i think walls should make it impossible for an enemy unit to capture the city. realistically, the wall itself is what gave rise to the concept of a siege... armies couldnt break them down early in history so they had to starve people into submission. so i think that having a wall should make city capture impossible without siege equipment, say a catapult (or a siege tower/battering ram... new units?!)

however, i think that if there are overwhelming odds... like 5 units outside an undefended city (other than walls) then the city would have a 75% chance of flipping... that way you cant just build walls and be totally ok.

i also think that the duration a city can withstand a siege should be a function both of its size and connecting trade routes but i think this should work in an inverse kind of way... for instance: a small city should be able to withstand sieges longer (!) because there is less population to feed and they can ration better. with bigger cities there is a greater demand for food which can't be readily brought in due to the siege so there will be more widespread starvation and unhappiness... maybe even revolts! historically, sometimes cities let the besieges take the city so they wouldn't have to starve and be killed in the looting. but maybe we wouldnt want that... whatever. regarding trade routes... this should not be inverse... simply the more active trade routes, the less the effects of the siege would be. so even if you are besieged on land, your naval and air routes could still mitigate the effects.

re. troops causing happiness or not... i think we should bring the mobilization back from civ3... but in a slightly different way. instead of mobilization, i would call it "Martial Order" or something so that the troops dont cause unhappiness, but production and commerce should be reduced by 10% per military unit... the more defenders that have to be supported, the more unproductive your city becomes. if not in a state of "Martial Order" then troops do cause unhappiness at 2 per unit (sounds good right?) but production and commerce aren't affected.

I think more buildings should be added, like "Reinforced Gates" should give you +20% versus battering ram attack and "Ballista Towers" (with mathematics) and "Cannon Towers" (with gunpowder) could give defending units first strikes against attackers... say +2 for ballista, +4 for cannon, or something like that.

i think that in terms of combat the artillery you bring (cannons, trebs, cats) should be used first to "attack the walls" -- could be done the way it works now with reducing the defense percentage, except other units CANT attack until its at 0% or could represent the walls as a unit-- before other units can attack the city and its defenders. only after the walls are destroyed can the assault begin.

also the spy unit sould have a new mission "Open the Gates" or something which would be moderately expensive and obviously allow you to directly assault a city or capture an undefended one.

OK! thats plenty for now! i have to go to class!

 

[Grishnash]

Good idea, I like it....

 

[black baron]

for one i wouldn't say "not effect" production and commerce try directly effect.

as for the towers you can try doing like the coastal fortress from civ3 and make it automatically bombard passing enemy land units

 

[moopoo]

mmm... Nice to see this is gaining interest

RE KingColtrane (this may take a while )

Interesting idea about the walls. It'd certainly make them more useful (compare how often they're built in civ compared to real history: there is no comparison). I dunno tho, If there's noone in the city, there's noone in the city. hmmm. Anyone got an idea on how to penalise a player for not having someone there, while giving walls a use?

A Big city would have more food stored away. This could however give another (more appropriate/realistic?) use for the granary, in that they help against seige.

I'm beginning to think the purpose of the seige should be to cut off A) trade routes from the city and B) people from being able to work their land. So that if all 4 sides of a city are shutdown, the city hasn't got much chance (assuming defenders can't be brought in from elsewhere), Thus meaning troops should be fought before they get to cities.

In regards to your ideas to the buildings, I agree with you. However they shouldn't be considered akin to other buildings (I think). Instead, they should be very cheap add-ons to the initial walls (1 or 2 turns apiece, only buildable when you've already got walls)

I LIKE the spy Idea. That's a great idea.

 

[moopoo]

Just a note about the seige thing I mentioned above. I'll repeat it here

I reckon the point of the seige should be to A) cut off Trade routes. Both commerce and Resources, as this would create unhappiness and unhealthiness (and with it starvation) in a non-artificial, imposed way.

Part B) would be to cut population off from the square they are working on. As in, If there is a unit on a particular side of a city seiging you, you population cannot work the 6 squares on that side. This would further cause starvation and loss of money. However, the impact on production would not be as great, as population not working on a square, by default, become citizens, who add hammers. this means you may be able to pop out a unit or two to try and force back the seiging units.