The siege of the city is a really long process and the often captured city is in extremely poor condition. I would suggest increasing the chance for buildings to be captured from 66% to 75% or 80%. It's not fun to capture a city on 300-350 turn and then spend 50 turns, only to restore its production and scientific capacities, defensive potential, even buying every building that requires more than 1 turn for buildings. Especially in the case of capturing city-states - it takes a lot of turns to raise a city to a good level.
Anyone else feels like capturing city is hard and boring?
- Thread starter aandrzej
- Start date
In my experience taking the actual cities isn’t too bad once you can get your units in position, especially if you can kill the garrisoned unit.
The slog is fighting through the AI’s bottomless well of troops to be able to do that in the first place. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve killed a garrisoned unit with my last 1 or 2 attacks thinking I will be able to make real progress next turn, only for the AI to replace it with a new full health garrison the very next turn and I get no time to really hammer an undefended city. Or thinking I will whittle down the AI’s army so I can safely move in my siege units only to see them endure 500 years of 4-1 losses still with no visible attrition.
The slog is fighting through the AI’s bottomless well of troops to be able to do that in the first place. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve killed a garrisoned unit with my last 1 or 2 attacks thinking I will be able to make real progress next turn, only for the AI to replace it with a new full health garrison the very next turn and I get no time to really hammer an undefended city. Or thinking I will whittle down the AI’s army so I can safely move in my siege units only to see them endure 500 years of 4-1 losses still with no visible attrition.
youngsteve
King
I think sieging down cities is in a good place & certainly wouldn't like to see them get easier to siege. Agree, about more buildings being saved though. The easiest method late game is either to puppet them or even raze them & replace them with a modern settler which gets many bonuses. I think the biggest problem with capturing cities at the moment is how useless puppets are compared to just annexing them.
On a seperate issue, one of my biggest complaints is how the AI seemingly abandon their cities, & garrisons go out attacking & get killed. The AI should automatically always keep some unit in the city. Preferably a ranged one.
One turn represents multiple years anyway
Rick Drayson
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2020
- Messages
- 74
High ai level
+ terrain
+ INABILITY TO STACK UNITS AKA FOCUS ATTACKS
Ruins late game warfare. A 20 wide front stacked four units deep takes hours to resolve .
+ terrain
+ INABILITY TO STACK UNITS AKA FOCUS ATTACKS
Ruins late game warfare. A 20 wide front stacked four units deep takes hours to resolve .
tsmith7163
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 110
Good point-- I still don't think sieges should be easier though.
I definitely recommend balparmak's Reduced Military Supply mod for VP. It decreases the amount of health given to defensive buildings by 50% and decreases the combat bonus of defensive buildings by 20%. It also makes it much harder for the computer to spam units.
As a counter to spamming units, can try this:
1) significantly reduce the impact of the number of citizens and cities on unit supply. Also reduce the possibility of exceeding the unit limit.
2) reduce the damage of units.
3) increase the cost of units in hammers and gold - this is necessary to avoid the removal of wounded units and the rapid production of new ones.
4) reduce the cost of guided missiles, but at the same time reduce their damage. Now a missile cruiser costs 2400 hammers, a missile 1200 - a strange ratio and very expensive for a one-time thing that is also intercepted regularly.
5) bombers and fighters do not require changes, since land and sea units have an promotion that significantly blocks the possibility of using aircraft - aircraft receive a lot of damage when they try to attack.
In total this will reduce the number of units, but each unit will live longer and be more valuable. We will have to produce a lot of guided missiles - but this is not a problem, cities sometimes have nothing to build.
1) significantly reduce the impact of the number of citizens and cities on unit supply. Also reduce the possibility of exceeding the unit limit.
2) reduce the damage of units.
3) increase the cost of units in hammers and gold - this is necessary to avoid the removal of wounded units and the rapid production of new ones.
4) reduce the cost of guided missiles, but at the same time reduce their damage. Now a missile cruiser costs 2400 hammers, a missile 1200 - a strange ratio and very expensive for a one-time thing that is also intercepted regularly.
5) bombers and fighters do not require changes, since land and sea units have an promotion that significantly blocks the possibility of using aircraft - aircraft receive a lot of damage when they try to attack.
In total this will reduce the number of units, but each unit will live longer and be more valuable. We will have to produce a lot of guided missiles - but this is not a problem, cities sometimes have nothing to build.
tsmith7163
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2009
- Messages
- 110
I politely disagree-- I like the slog of units. It makes it more difficult, tactical, and requires more resource/unit/promotion management, supply/gold/location management even if you have 1 level of advanced tech units or especially if the terrain is bad. The game I'm playing now is the best one ever and I've been playing for years- it is actually still competitive in modern (immortal) and I have upgraded Berserkers ( which are awesome) and I have to use all their special abelites - which is much more engaging- now some of this is because of the choices I made- like I don't try to conquer everyone just for the sake of conquering them to win-- but it has been great and one things that makes it great is it is much harder to just roll over the AI then I've seen in the past.
ShakaKoftheZooZ
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2020
- Messages
- 2
I'd have to agree. The main problems here are how long it takes to capture a city and the payoff of it. When was the last time someone used catapults in the classical era (aside from unique civilizations in that era, of course)? Currently, taking cities requires a few dozen cannon shots (we don't even talk about tradition cities) and if you fail to capture ONE city, you've pretty much lost the war already. There have been many propositions, but if I had to choose something, it'd either be buffing catapults, reducing the effectiveness of defensive buildings, reducing enemy production the lower HP it gets, OR increasing the capture chance of buildings. Of course, these also apply to the player, so this is quite a dilemma in itself.
It is enough to remove the limit for siege weapons at half speed in enemy territory. Now it's just a pain. Catapults and cannons in practice are unable to maneuver hectares of enemy territory, unable to help their own infantry, as they are lagging behind. What is the difficulty in allowing them to move normally? Siege weapons break in 1-2 hits and will be easily destroyed if they move ahead of their infantry.
Cities are easier to storm with archers than with catapults, but this is absurd.
Even with cavalry, assaulting a city can be more effective, as cavalry has a March and a heal during active operations. Although climbing a horse on a wall is not the easiest thing to do.
Cities are easier to storm with archers than with catapults, but this is absurd.
Even with cavalry, assaulting a city can be more effective, as cavalry has a March and a heal during active operations. Although climbing a horse on a wall is not the easiest thing to do.
Siege weapons do not have the CS bonus to the unit's body. There is only a bonus to attack.
For archers and skirmishers, each advance of Accuracy and Barrage gives +10% CS to the body of the unit and it is easier for him to survive melee attacks or shelling.
In practice, it is now very difficult to evacuate a cannon that has received damage - for example, there was an attack by a knigh, the cannon will lose 70-80% of: health and can only move 1 tile. Before the advent of heavy artillery (base attack range = 3), the role of siege units is very minor and often comes down to simply defending their territory or as a garrison of cities. Because if you enter enemy territory as a siege unit, there is a good chance that the unit will die there with all the accumulated experience, making 1-2 shots at best.
Accuracy and Barrage only give +10% ranged CS. They never defend better against melee.
Siege units will also be more resistant to ranged once the proposal is implemented.
qwerty4429
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2021
- Messages
- 13
It is the opposite, at least for current modpack I am using, not sure if any of them change the promotions. Ranged units get +RCS, and Field promotion of siege units as well. But the Siege promotion gives +CS, not the RCS. Still, AFAIK, for ranged defense your RCS applies, so as long as your cannons and ranged are on frontline, they will tank with RCS. CS only matters vs attacks from the city itself.
And yeah, land conquering is just a pain. Naval melee have much easier time, since they have insane amount of CS + the insane bonuses. 3 upgrades, and you have 40 +95% CS monster corvette at 125 HP versus 40 CS cities, and if you manage to get several of them, it is a dealbreaker for me.
100% agree with this. There is nothing more satisfying than cracking the enemy line, getting your siege units in place and crushing the city into rubble.
I have ~1,000 hours in Vox Populi and I've only played for Dom victories, I don't think taking a city should be any easier, war already isn't that difficult (unless you are behind in tech/production).
I agree, you can get stuck in "forever wars", especially on higher difficulties in medieval+. The trick I find here is to concentrate your best forces in one sector, use their overwhelming DPS to break the battle-line (typically by doing enough damage to force an enemy retreat) and then using that positional advantage to crack a poorly positioned city, which usually then allows you to open up more positional advantages via flanking.
Making a quick peace can really help with this if you're too bogged down. Peace out with them, take as much money as you can. Use the ~15 turns to build offensive roads and re-position your best troops against the target city, re-declare and blitzkrieg the city with elite forces while the enemy scrambles to reform their line.
I would like to be able to gift a captured city to a city-state if the distance is no more than 10 tiles, including across the seas and oceans. It will be very interesting to have a strong CS in the game, able to control a significant territory or a wide strait.
Any city can be sold (gifted) to an empire with which we do not have a denunciation. You can not capture any city, but reduce the defense to 0 and wait for a few turns until a unit of the neighboring city-state reaches it. But, unfortunately, CS units sometimes make attacks in an unfortunate sequence and do not capture the city. The gift option will simply remove the unnecessary wait for the CS unit to arrive at the target.
Gifting a city to a city-state will allow these CSs to become mini-empires. CS will have a slightly better chance of remaining independent until the very end of the game. AI will declare war on them more often, as declaring war on CS is completely different from declaring war on the Great Empire.
Any city can be sold (gifted) to an empire with which we do not have a denunciation. You can not capture any city, but reduce the defense to 0 and wait for a few turns until a unit of the neighboring city-state reaches it. But, unfortunately, CS units sometimes make attacks in an unfortunate sequence and do not capture the city. The gift option will simply remove the unnecessary wait for the CS unit to arrive at the target.
Gifting a city to a city-state will allow these CSs to become mini-empires. CS will have a slightly better chance of remaining independent until the very end of the game. AI will declare war on them more often, as declaring war on CS is completely different from declaring war on the Great Empire.
I am with the others that I feel like taking cities is fine but the unit churning is annoying and pretty boring. I have no problems with fighting huge armies of units but the AI being able to produce 4-5 units per turn with XP buffs that make them as good as the units you've had since the ancient era makes it not fun. Feels like there should be a steeper penalty for letting units die. Otherwise there's no real satisfaction in killing enemy units.
I will say the supply cap reduction modmods help with this immensely. Then at least if the AI loses the units on its front line you can make progress inwards, start pillaging, etc.
I will say the supply cap reduction modmods help with this immensely. Then at least if the AI loses the units on its front line you can make progress inwards, start pillaging, etc.
I don't think punishing the AI harder for losing experienced units is a good idea.
The AI is SO BAD at keeping high level units alive (every time I see an AI juggernaut unit it dies very fast, and not just against me).
I do however think the rewards for capturing a city should be improved, the yields are currently extremely anemic in mid to late game.
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