Better Starving Strategy

[RoboPig]

In Civ 3, when an enemy unit enters your territory a citizen labouror may not work that square. So you can starve a city down to a town which would make it lose it's defensive bonus. So if i took 8 units and placed them around
a city this is what would happen.
1= City
2=Unit
3=Square worked by Citizen
3 3 3 3 3
3 2 2 2 3
3 2 1 2 3
3 2 2 2 3
3 3 3 3 3
I think in civ4 that outer ring of Citizens should dissapear since ther's no way they can transport their goods to the city with all those enemy troops in the way.

 

[searcheagle]

I think it could be more effective if citizens could not work the square adjactent to the unit either. It would tilt the benefit away from the defender. And I agree with you, the workers shouldn't be able to go through the other units either.

 

[rhialto]

Agrteed seacheagle. I have long wanted military units to exert a zoc against unarmed civilians at the very least.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

There should instead be a Siege option once your unit is next to a city. If you siege the city it will be surrounded by your troops and more or less cut of from any food or trade.

If it is a costal city you should have to blockade their harbor to complete a siege.

For each turn all units would suffer a hit point penalty (down to one point) and the city would loose a citizen if there is no food left.

If the besieging army has any siege equipment, such as catapults there should also be a chance to destroy a building or do additional damage. Also, units inside besieged cities should not be able to heal at all.

 

[searcheagle]

I would just include the siege abilities in the fortifications. No reason to complicate things cause they both serve the same purposes. These would also disrupt trade routes and resources which hopefully will be more important.

 

[rhialto]

If the besieging army has any siege equipment, such as catapults there should also be a chance to destroy a building or do additional damage. Also, units inside besieged cities should not be able to heal at all.

There's no need for a spcial rule. This is called the bombard attack.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

There's no need for a spcial rule. This is called the bombard attack.

You might think so, but that rule should be tweaked and units such as catapults and trebuchets should only be useful in sieges. During ancient times large war machines was never used in the field. The same rules should apply to fortified units or units in forts.
Bombard should be removed and added as a bonus to any attacking unit if they are backed by a ranged unit.

Sieges of cities are not the same as plundering the countryside, also you should not need to divide your army to surround a city, a city is not that big.

When you ravage the countryside, I also don't think that you should actually destroy roads or irrigations, just make them stop function for a few turns. Perhaps there instead would be a chance of some population reduction in the nearest city

All terrain in units ZOC should be affected by plunder, and some money awarded to the unit depending on the terrain. Actually this was a big reason for making war, plunder the countryside and cities might pay for the war.

 

[InThane]

When you ravage the countryside, I also don't think that you should actually destroy roads or irrigations, just make them stop function for a few turns. Perhaps there instead would be a chance of some population reduction in the nearest city

Don't forget the Roman sacking of Carthage, where they sowed the earth with salt so that nothing would grow there again - I don't think that should be represented as "loss of production for a few turns..."

 

[Kayak]

You might think so, but that rule should be tweaked and units such as catapults and trebuchets should only be useful in sieges. During ancient times large war machines was never used in the field. The same rules should apply to fortified units or units in forts.
Bombard should be removed and added as a bonus to any attacking unit if they are backed by a ranged unit.

This is true. In fact most siege engines were built on site after the seige started. Maybe instead of an actual weapon in acient times a seige engineer should be produced. They would travel to the siege and create the weapon there similar to a worker creating an outpost, or constucting it similar to a fortress.

Back on topic. I think starvation should be an atrocity in the modern era. Think how nations would react to any power that did something like that now.
It would be marginally permisable in a Stalingrad situation possibly. In the ancient age, well anything goes. It was a brutal time.

 

[rhialto]

Hmm, the sanctions against Iraq were effectively starvation, when you consider that a disproportionately large number of children died during that period. But only NGOs (which governments were remarkably able to ignore) objected.

Regarding seige equipment - you're right. These were historically built on site. But I think this is one area where realism can take a back seat.

 

[Kayak]

Good point, but it can be argued that the reason that those people died was not the sanctions per se, but the fact that a meglomaniac madman diverted much of the aid to a small segment of the population. This is still not the same as deliberately surounding a city and not allowing aid through. Civilians were let out of Falluja (spelling?) before it was turned into rubble. Not doing so would be sick, even what did happen was pretty sick.

 

[rhialto]

Kayak, I'm not talking about the Iraq wars (either of them). I'm talking about the 10 years of sanctions in between. During that period, 500,000 more children than was statistically expected died. You can blame it on teh government diverting aid if you like, but even medical supplies were banned as part of the sanctions. Pencils, that staple of schools everywhere, were banned because the graphite lead could theoretically be taken and used in weapons.

Saddam's government can take part of the blame, but the sanctions did most of the work. And most governments agreed it was a good thing.

 

[Kayak]

Right the wars are separate cases. The question is what's the alternative? The whole situ is hideously complex with a LOT of self interest involved.
On topic (sightly) why not make AA siege weapons immoble, but emphasize combinations of units such as spear/archer/horse? It would be a harder slog that's true, but thats RL for you, it was like that. Projection of power in the AA and MA is too unrealistic currently.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The major problem with Siege Warfare in Civ is the time scales involved vs the standard turn length!
Truth is that, in ancient and Middle Ages, turns are 20-50 years in length, and yet the longest siege I ever heard of was Troy, which lasted 10 years!!
Some way of doing Sieges 'in turn' would probably work, but I am at a complete loss as to how this could be done! Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kayak]

Truth is that, in ancient and Middle Ages, turns are 20-50 years in length,

Don't let Trip see this, you'll be in for another rant.

It depends on how you look at the turns. Some do look at then as you say, others see them as just turns/years. I have trouble with the 50 years/turn thing. It's not like the ages start in the correct time frames anyway.

 

[one_man_assault]

Gulliver Im not discrediteting your theory but they should do something similar to what Rome Total War did....if a unit is by it self or grouped and one tile away from an enemy city they can hold it in siege. No one can go in or out unless the unit or group that is holding the city in seige is defeated by a force or leaves on their own power....then depending of the size of the city it will starve out in a set amount of turns....

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I realise that turn lengths, in years, are kind of an abstraction (as Trip says), but those lengths are part of the 'immersive' nature of the game-making you feel like you are a real part of history (wheras a mere turn 1, turn 2 etc approach just wouldn't do it for me!) So, though I definitely feel that realism should give way to gameplay, there MUST be a way to make sieges work from both a realism and gameplay perspective!

I think the solution could be to make 'Siege Warfare' an extension of normal warfare, with the object of the 'attack' being the city rather than the troops inside it.
Essentially, if units fortify near an enemy city, in such a way as to create 'siege conditions', then when it comes to the combat step of the players turn, siege combat will be initiated.
Certain units gain a natural bonus (or penalty) to their attack strength for siege purposes, and other 'units' grant attack/defense bonuses to units for seige purposes (this goes for units in the besieged city as well). Certain city improvements will also give defense/attack bonuses to units inside the besieged city.
Basically, a city will have a 'Hit Point' value based largely on its size, population and location. Each combat 'pulse' the besiegers will get a 'siege attack' which will do either (a) nothing (a miss), (b) damage a unit, (c) cause a civilian death (d) destroy a city improvement/wonder or (e) reduce the 'Hit Points' of the city. The defenders will also be able to counterattack each pulse. Between each pulse, a morale check is made against the current 'hit points' of the city-varied by happiness, ethnic mix, distance from the capital, and government/religion factors-to determine if the city surrenders to the besiegers. Clearly, however, if all a city's defending units are killed then the besieging unit which scores the kill moves into the city and conquers it. Also, if all of a city's population die, then the siege continues until any defending units are killed or forced to retreat, which will allow the besieging army to take control of an empty city!
Hope that makes sense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

Hmm, if any defending units die, then teh attacker wins anyway. And if all civvies die, the city is razed anyway, so there's nothing left to take.

My main gripe against having a separate game mechanic for seige is that it is essentially making a seocnd combat system in parrallel to the open field combat system, which creates extra balancing issues, not to mention eating into design time.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Howdy Rhialto. I think you may have misunderstood me:

1) If all defending units die, then I can see the units moving into the defenseless city-but you will suffer from greater resistance than if you 'broke' the city's morale first.

2) I am hoping for a differentiation between a 'physical' city and its population. In this context, if you kill all the civvies, then the city remains (at whatever size it was at the time of entry), but is essentially empty. Of course, such a city is totally unproductive, but you could theoretically move parts of your population into the city to fill it up.

3) The mechanics would not be that different between siege and field combat. The reality, historically, is that most invaders (and defenders) PREFFERED to fight in open combat, but often the defenders were forced to retreat to the relative safety of a city. Rather than risk an all-out attack on a city (especially a large one) most leaders simply would attempt to break the will of the defenders via a siege. My model simply reflects this fact. In many regards, it would act as a standard battle, except that in every 1 in 5 combat pulses (roughly) you will damage either the citizens, the city buildings or the 'city' itself (in the form of its morale). Each unit in a siege will most likely be better at 'hitting' one thing over all the others!

Hope that made sense!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[searcheagle]

Thats an interesting idea- add some form of city morale other then the happy-content-unhappy. I'm not sure how it would be implemented then.