Another thread about capturing cities..
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Ahriman
Tyrant
To do a percentage modifier to puppetI must add a stackable
building to the city. Any idea for a name? Right now it's just called the "puppet modifier."
We already have a building for puppets, the governor's office or whatever it is called, that gives -1 science per pop and so forth.
Why not combine all the puppet effects into the same building??
Ahriman
Tyrant
Ok, but if razing creates 3-4 units per turn for the enemy, then it isn't ever going to be worth doing, and particularly not to raze multiple cities at once, so we're back to a point where razing is weaker than than now.
Hardcoding diplomacy like this seems very artificial.
I don't think that would work gameplay-wise, it would be too inflexible. Part of why the current system works is because, with enough happiness, you can compensate for the penalties. There is something you can do, and you can prepare for it beforehand (by building happiness through buildings and policies).
I'm not convinced that genocidal razing is a purely military matter that has no impact on your ability to maintain order in your empire. Historically, it was rare. Even if a town was sacked, that didn't involve destroying it utterly and wiping out the entire population.
Suppose for example that someone invaded the US. They captured the cities on the east coast and installed puppet governments, and started advancing inland. They capture Chicago and initiate a genocide, slaughtering the entire population.
You don't think that would make it more difficult to maintain order in New York and Boston and Philadelphia?
Ahriman
Tyrant
I didn't miss it, but perhaps I don't understand what it means in this context.
Is it not possible to give +0.2 happy per pop and -1 science per pop and -25% culture and -25% gold and -25% production in the same building?
If you wanted a name for a *puppet* building that was only present in puppet states, I would have it be something like:
Imperial Advisor, Viceroy, Local ruler, Local governor or something like that. The name should indicate that the building is related to puppet status somehow.
A few things:
There's a couple of unprovable assumptions being thrown around:
- Razing a city means killing everyone in it. Not necessarily true. You could pretty much just march everyone out of town in a massive displacement
-Causing some manner of death and destruction in some other country is going to make your own citizens less happy. There are plenty of historical examples of both, so I think any mechanic which forces our populace to all have bleeding hearts and wartime chastity belts regardless of situation is frustrating.
There's a couple of unprovable assumptions being thrown around:
- Razing a city means killing everyone in it. Not necessarily true. You could pretty much just march everyone out of town in a massive displacement
-Causing some manner of death and destruction in some other country is going to make your own citizens less happy. There are plenty of historical examples of both, so I think any mechanic which forces our populace to all have bleeding hearts and wartime chastity belts regardless of situation is frustrating.
Pretty much what you said. Happiness cannot be given in percentage or per pop because it is not a yield or even a fake-yield like culture.
As for names, as I mentioned earlier:
In every non-occupied non-puppet: City Council
In every occupied city: Provisional/Military Council
In every puppet city: Provincial Governor
Puppet city stacking happiness: Garrison
Ahriman
Tyrant
You can march them off somewhere else without most of them dying?
Hardly a common historic occurrence. And where do they go, in-game?
You are interpreting happiness too literally, and you are also assuming that all of your cities contain only "your" citizens.
Consider the example above, for example:
Why do we need an extra building in a non-occupied non-puppet city?
Why do we need a building in occupied cities (there are already default penalties).
These dummy buildings are already confusing; they are ok in puppets in part because you don't see them much, because there isn't much point in spending time looking at viewing puppet city screens because you can't change anything. But adding extra dummy buildings to non-puppets? Why?
Ok, lets look at the other 2 Ancient Era finishers.
1) Tradition gives you +15% food in every city. Wow, that is immensely powerful, probably the best finisher in the game.
2) Liberty gives you a maintenance free building in EVERY city for the rest of the game. A building which will provide defense, +2 production, an engineer slot, and the potential for +2 food (left side Tradition). Wowzers, talk about bang for your buck!
So, what I am proposing could possibly be the best finisher in the game, if it wasn't for the fact that there really isn't a reason to go into Honor unless you plan on doing some serious warmongering. There is literally no benefit to a Science/Culture/Diplomatic civ to taking any policies in Honor, there are much much better picks in other branches.
Now, lets look at my first attempt at Immortal Domination. I went with the Mongols, who have hands down the best UU in the game. I picked up Chivalry right around turn 100, and immediately set about repelling the armies of an invading Ghandi. My UUs made quick work of his army (as they should) but here is where I literally almost quit VEM. With a happiness buffer of about +15 (about as good as it gets for any civ without Notre Dame/Eiffel Tower) I took his cap and the 2 cities along my border, for a staggering happiness hit of more than 50 unhappy (putting me at -35 happy). So what, Im supposed to sell a 20 pop city thats directly on my border to another civ that I'm going to have to go to war with? No thanks.
So, in this scenario using my suggested policy change, we're looking at a net difference of about +18-20 happy (leaving us still markedly below the -10 point). I think this would be acceptable taking into account the changes to pop growth and lowered resistence times. (Although to be perfectly honest I'd be a lot happier with something like -40%)
Considering all the % modifiers we give to civs everywhere else in the game, I dont really see this change as being particulary game breaking.
But hey, you never know till you try it
Wow it seems I have a lot to say about this... 
If people aren't happy with a direct base modifier, and if its possible to code, we could do something like, for every unit stationed in an occupied cities radius that city receives -10% happiness, or something like that.
yap
If people aren't happy with a direct base modifier, and if its possible to code, we could do something like, for every unit stationed in an occupied cities radius that city receives -10% happiness, or something like that.
yap
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
(delete)
Ahriman
Tyrant
Please see my previous comments on this, for example http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10884326&postcount=65
I'm unconvinced that the engineer slot is a good design choice.
It also isn't fair to say that the finisher gives you all these things, because the production benefit is part of the benefit from another policy, and because getting this free from the finisher means that you can't get the benefit again for a small hammer cost.
This doesn't make sense to me. How does the fact that you go into Honor because you intend to conquer mean that it is somehow ok for Honor to have the most powerful finisher in the game?
This is totally wrong. There are huge benefits to science win and modest benefits to diplomatic win from going into Honor, because Honor helps you win wars, and winning wars weakens other civs.
You don't win a science victory just by having lots of science, you win a science victory by being the first person to get to the victory condition. So if you significantly weaken any other players who might beat you to a science or culture win by conquering their cities and so reducing their culture/science output, then you increase your chances of winning.
Similarly, if you invade another player, take some cities and destroy their economy, they'll have much less gold to spend on city states for a diplomatic victory (and if you liberate some city states that will boost your diplomatic win.
Very, very often in a warmongering-oriented game I will end up winning by science victory (because I slaughter any other tech leaders, and sell/give cities to weak civs).
On what version?
In this scenario, we are talking about +18 happy from just 3 cities, and possibly much much more over the course of the game.
Keep in mind that a *powerful* happiness policy gives +3 happy per city, and that usually requires specific buildings. What you are talking about could easily give double that or more.
There are no % happiness modifiers on the order of 33%.
The biggest % happiness modifier in the game is India's UA, which gives -20% happiness from population, and is very, very powerful.
So with 1-2 at the time of razing it's too easy. With 3-4 per turn it's too hard. That implies that there is a middle ground that makes razing the desired difficulty only constrained by excess military power rather than excess happiness. Which is pretty much my desired position.
Doesn't have to be hardcoded, just an extremely negative modifier. I only mention the civs of various philosophies as I feel like the French are going to have more of a problem with a bit of rampant destruction than the Mongols.
Precisely, it's a terrible idea, that's the point. It's just a more extreme version of what we have now. Happiness is much less flexible than military might especially at specific tech levels. There are times when it is simply impossible to generate sufficient happiness to take a 20+ level city and not be catapulted into severe and unrealistic negative happiness levels. It's not a matter of preparing, it's a matter of possibility.
I think we're in agreement that razing should not be necessarily easy and that the player should be required to expend resources and time accounting for it. I just think those resources make more sense being military rather than using the klugey and abstracted happiness mechanic for something that it doesn't make sense for.
In general I don't feel that the military is sufficiently involved in post-conquest issues. It's somewhat ridiculous that I can shell your city, kill a good chunk of your populace, march in, but once I lock a few of you up and buy a stadium then all's forgiven! (Provided of course that all my other cities have stadiums first) To use your example below, occupying New York City should be hard. It should require a dedicated military occupation force to prevent and occasionally put down armed revolt during the resistance process. Capturing a city should slow down conquest by tying up military units and making counter attacks easier not by making the citizens back in the capital who should be extremely happy about our successful military ventures go on strike.
Empire wide happiness does a good job for representing the escalating bureaucratic, morale, and infrastructure problems that come with running a large empire. It's great for standard cities that were built naturally or have long since been assimilated. But it is a poor tool for representing the focused and specific unrest that comes from a city or civilization being conquered via military force.
It is or is not depending on the philosophical outlook or your society. For a modern western democracy? Definitely a frowned upon social issue. For feudal era crusaders, ancient Aztecs, or WW II era fascists/communists? It was either not up for public debate or implicitly accepted and so the limiting factor was desire and ability to do so. Or in other words the player's will and current otherwise unoccupied military power.
I think it would be fairly simple propositions if they were also shattered and burned out lifeless husks. But I'd agree if they were instead previously captured. I think adding a happiness penalty during razing to captured but not fully assimilated cites would be perfectly reasonable. In that case you have citizens whose conduct and opinions you do care for being made unhappy and so happiness is a reasonable penalty.
Ahriman
Tyrant
That sounds to me like too much infrastructure is kept. All the culture buildings, all the happiness buildings, all the food buildings, all the science buildings? This means that puppets for example will still potentially add to your science. I think that this would be a very very large boost to warmonger strategies, probably too large.
How exactly does the status quo work?
I wasn't talking specifically about % happiness modifiers, I was talking about the abundance of % modifiers you can find for every other quantity in this game. Production, science, gold, and food.
In the interest of keeping the possibility of this alive, say we kept the -33% happiness modifier, and instead decreased the production by said puppeted cities, would this, in your mind, be a balanced and acceptable change?
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Thank you for the Viceroy and Town Watch name suggestions. "Town Watch" is less ambiguous with normal unit "garrisons." 
The options available to modders in the files are:
building. A 12
pop city gets 12*0.25=3 stacks of a +1 building to simulate -25% from population. It's not identical but close enough. A separate building from the governor is required because we don't want the other governor effects multiplying when stacked.
Dummy buildings are necessary because we cannot directly alter the game core's happiness calculations.
Any significant changes along these lines would require changes to the AI in the game core only Firaxis has access to.
The options available to modders in the files are:
- flat + in one city
- flat + in all cities
- + per population in all cities
- percentage -% in all cities
building. A 12 pop city gets 12*0.25=3 stacks of a +1 building to simulate -25% from population. It's not identical but close enough. A separate building from the governor is required because we don't want the other governor effects multiplying when stacked.Dummy buildings are necessary because we cannot directly alter the game core's happiness calculations.
Any significant changes along these lines would require changes to the AI in the game core only Firaxis has access to.
Right now:
Food Buildings /Garden - 66% chance to keep
Gold - 75%
Science - 66%
Happiness - 100%
Production/Sea - 66%
Culture - 0%
Resource specific (Mint/Forge/Monastery) - 0%
Stoneworks - 66%
Defense - 0%
Military Training - 0%
Natl Wonder - 0%
World Wonder - 100%
Food Buildings /Garden - 66% chance to keep
Gold - 75%
Science - 66%
Happiness - 100%
Production/Sea - 66%
Culture - 0%
Resource specific (Mint/Forge/Monastery) - 0%
Stoneworks - 66%
Defense - 0%
Military Training - 0%
Natl Wonder - 0%
World Wonder - 100%
Thank you for the Viceroy and Town Watch name suggestions. "Town Watch" isn't ambiguous with normal unit "garrisons."
The options available to modders in the files are:
Since the one-city varieties of unhappiness or population/percentage based happiness are not available, I work around it with a stackable flat +
- flat +
- flat +
- +
- percentage -
Dummy buildings are necessary because we cannot directly alter the game core's happiness calculations.
Any significant changes along these lines would require changes to the AI in the game core only Firaxis has access to. It wouldn't know to expect units to pop up around the city. This is why I have the current partisans appear at the capital, instead of the captured city.
Thal, I would suggest the following:
We add a new tag to the Buildings.xml to the tune of IsGovernment. I will add a Government Buildings section to the CityView so these will display above the buildings and wonders. The one exception will be the Palace, which we can add the tag to as well, just for aesthetics. The Town Watch buildings can be given the BuildingAddition tag so it will be a subdivision of the Viceroy or whatever.
One problem - the stacking building will only show up once through current visual methods, so either a moduserdata variable would need to be loaded where the instance is told to repeat creation X times if BuildingClass[building].NoLimit = true.
Ahriman
Tyrant
Happiness is a totally different kind of resource to the various yields. Just because there is a +33% science building doesn't mean that a -33% unhappiness building would be balanced.
No, -33% unhappiness from any policy is inherently broken. It is too dramatic an effect.
* * *
Ok, I think I understand. So a size 28 city is going to have 8 buildings added (7 happiness buildings plus the governor's office). This is ok, as long as the town watch building still only shows up once visually (if you view a puppet) but has a x7 message or tooltip somewhere.
* * *
So, the net effect of the proposed change is +34% to food buildings, -75% to gold buildings, +34% to science buildings, +34% to sea buildings, +100% to culture buildings, +100% to military training buildings, +100% to national wonders.
Rather than the proposed changes, I would shift the 66% ones to 75% or 80%. That seems like a more modest boost.
So let's take example to the logical end in Civ5. Your Milistanian Civ invaded America, and puppeted NY, Boston and Philly. Then they took Chicago and started to raze it. Their happiness plummeted too low, fairly enough it "costs" more happiness to raze. So what does the Milistania do? Quickly they set aside funds to construct theaters and stadiums all around their offshore homeland. And lo and behold, the entertainment so provided put the conquered American citizens all across the Eastern seaboard at peace of mind, nevermind that their compatriots at Chicago are being systematically genocided by the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And you call that "Reasonable mechanic"
While I wholeheartedly support making puppets cost in money more than happiness (right now puppets are massive cash cows), I think razing would still be far better off following a military logic: Razing doesn't cause unhappiness, but every point of population killed causes (about) one unit to spawn at enemy capital. The mechanism is already there: CS unit reward queue. Tweak units per population genocided to suit.
Or you could have units spawn in squares around the conquered city instead. Instead of 1 per turn, it could be a random amount say between 1-4 every so and so many turns. That would force the conqueror to keep a heavy garrison at the razing, or be surprised badly from behind if just coasting along to conquer more. If XP farming is issue, maybe it's possible to tag these units barbarians, and to not give money from prof army?
That would suit the above example much better, too. Regardless of those stadiums at Milistanian homeland, the Milistanians need to shoot to death the Americans who raise insurgency against them due to their people in Chicago being massacred.
If your military beats the other guys military, then you should be able to kill them, theaters be damned. Genociding can then cause the other guy to be given another army. If an enemy army isn't a big enough obstacle for world conquest of your army, well, then you need to play at harder difficulty when the other guy has a bigger army. Theaters aren't the "reasonable" solution. Oh, and units recruited / pop genocided should depend on difficulty, too, I guess.
A military insurgency mechanism to razing, as opposed to happiness hit, would be an order of magnitude more interesting in "preparing and planning for it for it", let alone realistic.
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