Balance Guardian

[zup]

Yes it is about the bonus of 2 defensive strength for the capital's garrison. I feel it is wrong somehow. It is supposed to keep civs alive through the early barbarians, right? And to discourage warrior rushing. Granted, it makes warriors pretty much immune to anything spawning early on. So it accomplishes its primary function.

There are side effects however. It makes capitals untouchable even later in the game. Playing the Khazad against Balseraphs, I was unable to take their capital, defended by archers with bronze weapons, even after I bombarded down their defensive bonus and brought down the archers' strength with a massive barrage of my trebuchets. The city was on a hill though, maybe that made the difference between difficult and impossible. I was using axemen with iron weapons, promoted to city raider 3. But there was nothing I could do, even after using loose formation (Castra Legionis) to get a 30% bonus against the archers. My axemen were at full strength. Not even superior numbers helped. Perhaps assassins could have killed off the weakened defenders. but I did not have poisons.

Rather than use the current palace guardian promotion, could palaces just grant a defensive bonus for the city? 50% or maybe even more? Early on, there's nothing that can bring it down, but once siege weapons (or magi) take the field, a capital is just like any other city. It should still keep civs alive through the early game.

 

[Opera]

I have to agree. For the funny part, I was thinking of saying something along those lines on the minor requests thread. I always felt that the Palace Guardian promotion was too much. I'm not an agressive player but I feel that if a warrior rush is a viable strategy sometimes and it isn't possible at all here. Does it really helps survival? Even if it does, I would really like survival to be earned rather than given. Maybe just let the first strike bonus and cut the defensive strength.

 

[Jabie]

How about Palace Defender giving a small defence boost (+10%) and an additional boost (+20%) vs Barbarians?

 

[Ahwaric]

Palace guardian was supposed to be a counter to early barbarian attacks. With it, you still can have hope of survival, but expansion is as hard as it was.

Extra +% defense from promotion would act directly oposite t what you propose - would have stronger effect on later units. That is why it is +2 strength - much bigger impact in early game than in late.

I have never had problems destroying civ because of it. True, it is harder, but if you reduce civ to just the capital it will not survive. And I think capital should be special, and fiercly defended. That is less thing of defenses, but of national unification to defend it.
Without the promo, there is no difference between the capital and other cities.

But I will think of changing the promotion a bit. How about just +1 strength and some (25% ?) city defense bonus?

 

[zup]

If it gives the city a fortification/defence bonus, it can be brought down by siege weapons, so it is only a problem later on if you neglect to build some. I'd note that at least my trebuchets were innately capable of using enemy roads and could buy mobility I and I assume catapults are no different. The base FFH issue of 'siege weapons are too f-ing slow to use' does not apply.

 

[Wauthan]

Hmmm... Personally I would vote against the idea of nerfing Palace Guard. I agree with Ahwaric the promotion never slowed down my conquests, only making it require a bit more effort then usual to take the capital. If anything it's a tremendous boon for the AI to help it survive into the early game. Orbis can by pretty darn brutal right from the start.

Perhaps an example would help? I recently played a game as Mechanos, immortal epic, and started out on a small island right next to the Balseraph. Didn't take long before I was starting to get "cultured in" and without open borders war was inevitable. It took almost 60 turns but I still managed to take his capital with nothing but axemen against archers.

He had four archers with bronze weapons in his capital and two smaller cities with two archers each in them. I grouped my 6 warriors into three groups and sent them to pillage. My first 3 axemen made a beeline for the weakest city and took it out. Lost 4 warriors to counterattack from the capital. I forgot a unit keeps the palace guard promotion even when it leaves the city. Then followed around 20 turns of mutual attrition as the Balseraph sent out 5 hunters that took out a total of 6 axemen. When I had managed to produce 8 more axemen I took out his second city. With a stack two times larger then the defenders there were no more counterattacks. I pillaged all the tiles around his capital and retreated. As predicted he sent two archers away with a settler, easily taken out. Repeated pillaging (AI workers build like crazy) and retreated, again taking out an escorted settler. Had a total of 12 axemen and launched my first attack on his capital. 3 axemen survived and took out 3 archers. Each axeman gained two levels. Retreated, attacked another escorted settler (guarded by his most experienced archer, stroke of good luck ).

Last attack was 8 axemen against 2 archers which left 4 axemen standing. Total time around 60 turns. Put me really behind the rest of the civs in terms of technology and expansion. But I had my own island and plenty of resources. Won the game by turn 560 through conquest.

As you can see it is possible to win in a pure "brawl" with just one type of units. It does take a lot of time and patience though. The key is to not loose your momentum, which is very easy since Orbis so greatly rewards turtling and building. It's often tempting to push towards victory in a hurry simply because you feel that your civ is starting to lag behind. Or you are simply bored of a war that seems to go nowhere and start to make pretty foolish decisions (like breaking down a large stack to pillage faster, which means the AI will start picking them off). Once your momentum is broken it's very difficult to regain it. Orbis is less like a game of chess then it's like a game of go. The one who controls the most territory wins, not the one with the most units.

Sorry, this post got fairly long winded.

 

[Pohlmann]

i had a game with khazad, starting in snow and hills. the only exit from my mountains was occupied by amurite culture (their capitol). with 6 or 7 highly promoted axemen + bambur + catapults i had no chance capturing their capitol which was defended by 6 or 7 archers. in fact i didnt even kill a single archer.

palace guardian is the only reason i stopped playing orbis again because its just stupid that u need to outnumber the enemy 3 or 4 to 1.

its just unfair that EVERY single unit gets +2 def. with 10 warriors no attack can be successful.

change it that only 2 units get the promotion (prevents being overwhelmed by barbs but still its possible to take a capitol)

 

[Jabie]

Palace guardian was supposed to be a counter to early barbarian attacks. With it, you still can have hope of survival, but expansion is as hard as it was.

Extra +% defense from promotion would act directly oposite t what you propose - would have stronger effect on later units. That is why it is +2 strength - much bigger impact in early game than in late.

I have never had problems destroying civ because of it. True, it is harder, but if you reduce civ to just the capital it will not survive. And I think capital should be special, and fiercly defended. That is less thing of defenses, but of national unification to defend it.
Without the promo, there is no difference between the capital and other cities.

But I will think of changing the promotion a bit. How about just +1 strength and some (25% ?) city defense bonus?

+1 Str feels better than +2 and brings warriors more into line with T2 units. As the main purpose was to prevent the onslaught of Barbarians, it might work better if the %age bonus was Barbarian Defence instead of City Defence.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

palace guardian is the only reason i stopped playing orbis again because its just stupid that u need to outnumber the enemy 3 or 4 to 1.

Actually, it's realistic and flavorful. It ussually took far more attackers to take down a heavily walled/deffended city then it took deffenders to deffend it. For that reason alone I like it, although I absolutely DESPISE the mazatl after an.... Incident.

 

[Opera]

Actually, it's realistic and flavorful. It ussually took far more attackers to take down a heavily walled/deffended city then it took deffenders to deffend it. For that reason alone I like it, although I absolutely DESPISE the mazatl after an.... Incident.

What incident?

While it's true, I think bringing 4 warriors to counter 1 is a bit much, especially when you don't warrior rush, the AI having time to create more warriors... Bringing 12 warriors to take a 3 warriors defended city is a bit much IMO. It's flavorful/realistic, yes, but maybe it could be toned down to adapt to the game. +2 early on is very difficult to overcome. This is why I think +1 could be better.

 

[Pohlmann]

this game is meant to be fair, not realistic. on high difficulties the ai gets a high production bonus which is the only thing that prevents them from being overwhelmed early. but with high diff and palace guardian an ai capitol cannot be taken.

and its clearly flavorful to lose a game because the enemy capitol is blocking your only way out of your mountain region ...

 

[zup]

Actually, it's realistic and flavorful. It ussually took far more attackers to take down a heavily walled/deffended city then it took deffenders to deffend it. For that reason alone I like it, although I absolutely DESPISE the mazatl after an.... Incident.

Heavily walled == defensive buildings (palisade, walls, citadel, wall of stone, some wonders)
Heavily defended == many garrison units, preferably highly promoted archers and stuff

My original suggestion is to make the capital even more heavily walled, from the very turn it is created. That is, to make palaces into another defensive building. That's 24 total buildings to edit iirc. A palace probably has walls of its own and you'll have to take the palace too if you wish to boast you conquered the Bannor capital.

As to why did I suggest this change? It is very simple really. You bring in some siege weapons and mighty walls are not so mighty anymore. Perhaps walls go down too quick, but that's another issue. But palace guardian is so insane that it is impossible to take capitals with reasonable losses even after you siege them. Come to think of it, a lowly palisade gives most defenders 'wall defender' promotion too. If you worry about your capital being taken, build one.

I'm heading out to lunch, I'll see about the palaces after that.

 

[zup]

And as promised, I changed the palaces myself. Every palace gives a 50% defensive bonus to the city they are built in, except Infernal palace which already had 25%, I made it give 75%. Furthermore, no palace gives out palace guardian promotions. I have tested if it works and it does. But be warned, I may have created new balance issues.

Attached is the CIV4BuildingInfos.xml file, zipped to cut down dl size. Please tell me if there are any issues with it.

 

[Ahwaric]

I think that palace guardian is less about walls and towers but more about people (including civillians) doing everythin to defend the capital.
Like Moscov in WW II. I think Laningrad and Stalingrad got part of it too, bearing symbolic names.

For simplicity, bonus from palace is best. But I would like to keep the spirit, too.
So perhaps +% to city defense from the promotion? It would work in city only, plus you would not be able to counter it with one more siege engine.

So:
+50% city defense
or
+1 defense strength +25% city defense

I prefer the second one, but please tell me what you prefer. Own proposals are also allowed

Note: I use the editor for buildings so the change is easy. ALso, It goes from xlsm to xlm, so I will not use the file.

 

[Wauthan]

I prefer your latter suggestion. Percentage bonus is very strong in the late game and fixed bonus is strong in the early game. Lategame fighting is epic enough as it is I think and a fixed bonus would help the AI deal with the occasional "Hero" barbarians spawned by dungeons.

 

[Jabie]

My preference is for number 2, though I'd still change the City Def bonus to Barbarian Defence instead.

Another option presents itself. Upon creation of a Palace a civ automatically receives two Palace Guard units.

Palace Guard.
- National Unit: Max 2.
- Requires Palace to build.
- Build cost - Dirt cheap, say 10 Hammers.
- Upgrades to Palace Guard II, III and IV. (Or cooler sounding names)
- Zero maintenance cost.
- Starts with Heroic Defence I, Held (cannot be removed) and Guardsmen.
- May use all weapons.

 

[zup]

I think I like Jabie's idea. In the end I am not perfectly happy with my solution, it needs further refinement to be viable.

I believe patriotism is a silly idea so I don't agree with 'defending the capital at all costs' mentality for my civilians.

And as for not countering the capital bonus with siege weapons, I guess we want the opposite. I indeed want to nullify it by midgame.

 

[medusa001]

I also agree. It's a nice feature but has a few unwanted side-effects.

What about...
1. Limiting it to warriors/scouts.
2. Do not allow it to stack with copper/iron.
3. Expire after turn X or population X, a larger city is hard to defend.
4. Allow it to be overcome/negated by city raider.

Just some random thoughts.

However, I will say... I love this mod-mod.

 

[Breez]

Another option would be to have the palace grant +0/+1 and the Defensive Promo (doubles your Fortification bonus) to units in the city.

End result is the same as your +1 25% bonus, but lets it ramp up a tad more slowly so newly built units are not quite so dug in right off the bat.