Are citadels going to be worth building?

[Ihmemies]

In http://www.gram.pl/upl/news/120100809162522.jpg it looks like citadel is on hill.

Because it has 2 prod and citadel doesn't have any production modifiers?

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

don't forget the flanking bonus, having friendlies around the citadel will increase the defensive value even further.

On the historical note, and not wishing to hijack the thread - I wonder how effective the maginot line would have been if Belgium hadn't capitulated like it did.

Belgium capitulated because the Germans had pierced the line with an airborne spearhead and were poised to essentially raze the country if there was further resistance, but were more interested in Paris. The line was broken, and irreperably so, before the Belgians surrendered.

 

[moksheebs]

come choke me!!!

oh there will be chokes a-plenty in civ v, on the earth map in greg's second playthrough video,greg's japan has control of africa. france is setting up near middle east and the only land way in is through the sinai, only 1 hex. unless nappy's deploying his forces through the seas (by embarking the units), he'll have to face greg's citadel situated just one hex away from sinai.

 

[Palance]

Sadly, it looks like Forts and Citadels can NOT be built on hills.

Source?

 

[Ihmemies]

Source?

Probably the manual, which is one big fail in reliability

 

[falloutboy14]

Don't forget that if your choke-point is water, the opposition can just embark and go around it, unless you have the navy advantage. Depending on how often you can get a GG, I wouldn't mind making a maginot line. Even if it only covers 50% of your border, that allows you to stick 3-4 units behind them, & then use the bulk of your force to cover the other 50%.

Regarding that 2H live video, I'm a little concerned that France didn't just use embarkment across the Red Sea. Seems like poor AI planning if they just ram their face into the citadel wall.


on other notes, I'm curious to see a Paratrooper & bomber spam strategy. With paratroopers able to drop 5 tiles away, that should be enough to reach the nearest city. And with bombers or short bombardment beforehand.

We'll have to see how the mechanics of the system work (whether anti-aircraft or fights have a direct impact on paratroopers, but at the very least, paratroopers will be good to kill the enemy artillery.

 

[Tennyson]

Depending on how often you can get a GG, I wouldn't mind making a maginot line. Even if it only covers 50% of your border, that allows you to stick 3-4 units behind them, & then use the bulk of your force to cover the other 50%.

I've been thinking, if I have an unused frontier, even without Great Generals I can set up forts in a checkerboard pattern (what's the hex equivalent of a checkerboard?) to store some defensive units, each 2 hexes away from each other. In the event of a surprise attack, they'd have to either defeat the forts or slow down from zone of control.

If I have extra worker bandwidth, and need a place to store my army when it's idle, well, why not? And if I do get into an active defensive war, a citadel supported by nearby forts could be very useful indeed.

 

[Pragmatic]

Source?

p. 220.

Fort & Citadel both have "Can Be Built On" terrains of "Grasslands, Plains, Deserts, Tundra, Snow."

(So do all the GP-built structures.)

 

[Pragmatic]

Probably the manual, which is one big fail in reliability

Pretty much, yeah. I should have prefaced my comment with that qualifier.

 

[Olleus]

Every 3 tiles would work for the cherkboard strategy.

The question is, are you willing to build forts where you could have farms, mines, trade posts or lumbermills. But yes, I could see this being a valid strategy, as you have nothing else/nowhere else for these units to be. Would work specially well as Rome.

 

[Cyberian]

I am not really sure how to use citadels.
Imagine this situation:



The enemy is in the north you are in the south.

Tile 8 in the Center is a citadel and your front tile
all tiles including and below 7,8 and 9 have roads.

The good part is when you place a strong melee unit on 8 noone can really go past it unharmed, because they lose their movement when going round and then take damage the next turn.

But:
Ranged Units are able to Fire on the citadel from tile 2 (for example a big ugly trebuchet). After it is weakened the enemy just takes the citadel.

So you normally need a horse unit with movement 5 to go and strike Tile 2 and retreat back to your road network. Or has anybody any other suggestions.
Please be advised that there is no point in placing units on tiles 4,5 and 6 since the citadels has to be your front tile and the enemy would just attack the side units then. So please refrain from doint it.

Any ideas?

 

[Tennyson]

Every 3 tiles would work for the cherkboard strategy.

The question is, are you willing to build forts where you could have farms, mines, trade posts or lumbermills. But yes, I could see this being a valid strategy, as you have nothing else/nowhere else for these units to be. Would work specially well as Rome.

Yeah, that's what I meant by 'unused' frontier, such as a desert area bordering an enemy. Otherwise, if a city is viable, putting a city in the same spot and using it's bombard ability would trump setting up forts.

 

[Le Roi Soleil]

Regarding that 2H live video, I'm a little concerned that France didn't just use embarkment across the Red Sea. Seems like poor AI planning if they just ram their face into the citadel wall.

According to Greg, Napoleon had already tried that (in play leading up to the video), but Greg said he was able to pelt Napoleon's units with arrows on the way across (I don't think units can embark and land on the same turn - at least that seemed to be the case with Greg's units as they crossed the Red Sea), and Napoleon eventually decided to abandon the tactic. It doesn't seem like an obvious AI issue to me. Greg controlled the entire Saudi peninsula and had the benefit of a friendly city-state pumping out units at the bottom of the peninsula. We also know that Napoleon conquered another civ in the meantime, so it may be that he was just keeping Greg bottled up in Africa while he did his business elsewhere and teched up to industrial weaponry. The AI certainly didn't have problems handling the artillery once he had it.

 

[Olleus]

Depends how the enemy is formed up to attack.

The best way of attacking it, as far as I can see, is siege in tile 2 and spears in 1 and 3. If you move a cavalry unit from 7 11 or 9 to kill a siege in 2, its life would be forfeit (assuming either less than 5 moves OR that it kills the siege and moves into its tile).

Therefore if you are content to sit with a melee unit in 8, with other units behind in 10, 11, or 12 Then I would move a siege into 2 and spears/pikes/rifles into 1 and 3, with archers in -2, -1, 0. I would then happily sit there bombing your citadel into oblivion. The only way you can stop me is by scarifying a cavalry unit. If I'm attacking, I assume I have a production advantage and can keep this up. In this scenario, the best thing you can do is just rotate melee units inside the citadel every 2 or 3 turns and the battle is a stalemate (will go into this further).

If however you decide to move a cavalry unit from 11 to 8 and kill 5, and bring support units into 7 and 9 to hurt my spears in 1 and 3, then we're fighting on open ground and you're getting no benefits from the citadel. If you bring archers in 7 or 9, then they can be killed with a hit and run cavalry attack, finishing in tile 1 or 3 (the spears there can be told to move back for 1 turn - the cavalry there will to just as good a job in defending the siege in 2).

In the stalemate scenario, I can wait until the turn before you rotate the melee unit in the citadel out, then bring in archers into 1 and 3 to do additional damage before rushing the citadel with cavalry from further back (or the side - assuming this already ridiculously long choke point doesn't stretch out for ever).

 

[Celevin]

I am not really sure how to use citadels.
Imagine this situation:



The enemy is in the north you are in the south.

Tile 8 in the Center is a citadel and your front tile
all tiles including and below 7,8 and 9 have roads.

The good part is when you place a strong melee unit on 8 noone can really go past it unharmed, because they lose their movement when going round and then take damage the next turn.

But:
Ranged Units are able to Fire on the citadel from tile 2 (for example a big ugly trebuchet). After it is weakened the enemy just takes the citadel.

So you normally need a horse unit with movement 5 to go and strike Tile 2 and retreat back to your road network. Or has anybody any other suggestions.
Please be advised that there is no point in placing units on tiles 4,5 and 6 since the citadels has to be your front tile and the enemy would just attack the side units then. So please refrain from doint it.

Any ideas?

Well there's a couple interesting upgrades that can stop that. There's a specifically anti-ranged upgrade that means you take less damage from ranged, and with a citadel you can always park a medic behind. Obviously without some sort of front line it can't hold up an army, but it's a good place to retreat to, heal, then head back in afterwards.

 

[Tennyson]

Siege unit on the citadel, supporting units (cavalry, perhaps) on 7 and 9, and a medic on 11. If the medic is another siege unit, you'd get double whacks on anybody who charged the citadel.

 

[Olleus]

Siege unit on the citadel, supporting units (cavalry, perhaps) on 7 and 9, and a medic on 11. If the medic is another siege unit, you'd get double whacks on anybody who charged the citadel.

Even with the +150% defence, a siege unit in a citadel will still get taken down by two cavalry units charging in from, say, 0 and -2. Whats they break onto the citadel, they can raze it (or half-raze it - so it no longer gives benefits). Sure, those two cavalry units may die, but thats a small price to pay for rendering the works of a great general useless for a long time.

 

[Cyberian]

Siege unit on the citadel, supporting units (cavalry, perhaps) on 7 and 9, and a medic on 11. If the medic is another siege unit, you'd get double whacks on anybody who charged the citadel.

I thought of that too. But when comparing strength values I saw that usually siege units have 30%-50% of the value the melee units have. So what I would do is to weaken the citadel Siege unit with a Mounted unit and then move a strong melee unit on it capturing it with not minimum HP lost. Then move supporting units on 4,5 and 6.

 

[Venereus]

Think about Greg's chokepoint. In Civ IV having a Fort or a City in the one tile passage would've been ideal. In Civ V, that one tile is better left to be occupied by the enemy, so you can bombard them one unit at a time. Greg's Citadel was well placed because it would take care of any units that got throught, even some coming from the sea.

 

[Tennyson]

Well, if you put infantry on 4 and 6, they can be pounded into dust from beyond the citadel's range.

You could put defensive units at 7, 8, and 9 and siege units behind, but I think that pretty much guarantees that they will be rushing the citadel pretty often.

Truthfully, I don't mind a siege unit being bait; they're normally cheap to replace. I don't know what the effect of a unit taking the citadel is.