Attrition in desert and snow tiles

[Ambassador]

I hope the developers will implement - or at least leave the possibility for modders - attrition in some tiles like deserts, tundra and snow. C-evo does that and the AI gets it. Of course, some civs should be exempt from it through UA promotions: on desert for Arabs and Mali/Songhai, on tundra for Russians, Mongols and Swedish.
The same way a mountain range like the Alpes or the Himalaya are a geographical barrier, deserts and tundra should work.

What do you think?

 

[Krajzen]

I'd be fine with it, if that attrition would be sensible (not too high and for example activating only after x turns in open desert far from other terrain) because bad attrition would mean deserts would feel like trap corridors you have to avoid at all costs :f

Imagine playing in North Africa (on Earth map) if all desert tiles had painful attrition. You'd basically could only travel through narrow coastal corridor of non-desert tiles and across Nile corridor. It would feel bad and be stupid.

Instead I'd prefer something like
>>DESERT TILE GIVES ATTRITION IF<<
*Land unit ends turn on it
*It neighbors only other desert tiles
*It doesn't neighbor river, oasis, sea etc

This way you could simulate deadly nature of Sahara/Arabian deserts/Australian deserts/etc without making them frustrating.

As for the snow, I'd however be fine with it always giving attrition, because 'snow' tiles in civ series basically mean polar regions, not winter seasons, and polar regions are even (much) worse than deserts; a lot of great civilisations have been born among deserts, but not a single civilisation ever thrived in polar areas.

 

[Ciarson]

for my point of view, attrition should not be limited to snow and desert.

in fact i think that attrition should trigger if we got too far from a city for too long (i.e. when you stop recieving supplies from that city).

let say that a city generate "supplies convoi" (kind of like the caravans), those convoi would have some range that would not be counted as "a given number of tiles from a city" but " distance that can be covered in X turn by a convoi moving at a speed of Y tile per turn". ( X and Y being values that could change with techs.)

therefore, building up the road network would increase the range of the convoi supplying your armies, but difficult terrain (like snow and desert) would reduce the capacity to supply those armies over long distance.

that would also make it possible to cut some hostile armies from their "supplies". To counterbalance that, the pillaging capacity could replenish the supplies of an army that ended up separated from it's supply line.

 

[Ikael]

I do agree that there ought to be some kind of atrition mechanism to these type of terrains, specially deserts, which have traditionally forced armies to change their tactics in order to adapt to them.

As to how execute this idea, I think that this could be a good model:

- Make it so units can't regenerate HP when placed in a desert tile. Deserts won't outright damage your units, and thus, you would still be able to traverse them. But this penalty would force you to employ fast hit and run attacks when fighting in deserts, since proacted siegues would leave your forces deeply compromise and with no place to fall back. This would also tie well with historical desert campaigns such as Rommel's

- You would need to have a special promotion so your units would be able to regenerate HP in desert / tundra tiles. This promotion, however, can't be acquired trought XP accumulation. Only units built in desert / tundra cities will be able to adapt to that harsh conditions.

 

[brianshapiro]

I think it would be great especially in scenarios that take place over a short timespan and have seasons. So, lets say you have a "war in Russia scenario", and it becomes winter, and everything turns to snow. That would be dangerous for your units, and you'd have to plan around it. Weather events like snowstorms and sandstorms would also help add to that.

As for the main campaign, yes, I don't see a problem with that either as long as its sensible. Units should also be probably be able to upgrade to deal with those terrains, and civs that started in those terrains would perhaps have an advantage in having the tech or buildings to upgrade units.

 

[brianshapiro]

Wasn't there attrition in jungles back in Civ3? The rationale being diseases..

 

[MosheLevi]

I have played some games that had penalties such as attrition (e.g. Rise of Legends).

The problem with these penalties is that they are NOT fun, only annoyances.
After all, playing games is about having fun.

One good example for that is the Ideology penalty in Civ 5.
I always get hit with that penalty late game and as much as 50 happiness points all in one turn.
So where is the fun in that?

So, IMO they should steer away from penalties such of attrition.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Wasn't there attrition in jungles back in Civ3? The rationale being diseases..

Yea, some random dice event that could halven your health if in deserts or tundra could work, but no attrition, or distance from city penalties, that is too much...