Better Starving Strategy

[Aussie_Lurker]

Its quite simple really, Searcheagle-a % based system would work best. over 50% means that the people are increasingly happy and loyal. Under 50% means that the people of that city are increasingly unhappy and disloyal! Each 'hit' on city morale could essentially decrease happiness which, in turn, would increase the chance of the city surrendering to its besiegers.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker

 

[rhialto]

Howdy Rhialto. I think you may have misunderstood me:


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.

This is BAD. Certainly, there are times this has happened historically, but essentially, this is wiping out the natives are replacing them with your own people, which is also popularly known as genocide (whether that is the correct term or not is irrelevant, its the popular imagination). Having that as an intentional option is fair enough, but to give the potential to do this by accident leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Seriously, Rhialto, the chances of doing this would be INCREDIBLY slim-unless the town was incredibly small-and even then it is far more likely that the defenders will be defeated and/or the city's morale will be broken and they will surrender! Although I said it was a 1 in 5 chance, I can accept that the morale, improvement and unit damage would each be far more likely than population death. For the average unit, I would probably break it up as:

Civilian Death: 1 in 10.
Improvement Destruction: 2 in 10.
Unit Damage: 3 in 10.
Morale Damage: 4 in 10.

As I said in my previous post, some units might be better at doing one over the other. So, as an example, a catapult might have a 4 in 10 chance of causing improvement damage, 2 in 10 chance of damaging units, 2 in 10 chance of killing civilians and 2 in 10 chance of damaging morale. Also, though, you must remember that improvement destruction and civilian death can also lead to morale loss indirectly, so making the city much more likely to surrender!
Please understand, Rhialto, I am still nutting things out as I go, but I DO believe their should be a difference between a city and its population!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[rhialto]

I just feel that wiping out a city population by accident should not be possible. It puts teh player in the poisition of committing genocide. I don't mind it being in there as a conscious decision by the player, but having the random number generator make the player commit atrocities is not right.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, I am happy enough to have it that, as a city's population declines, the chances of a 'hit' killing any more civilians becomes increasingly smaller, such that it is completely impossible to kill the entire population by chance. You could, however, whittle down the population greatly via sieges which will, in turn, significantly reduce the city's morale-making surrender much more likely!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Trev]

The ideas in this thread relating to starvation, morale decreases, unit, city damage etc seem to suggest that attacking units need to be given extra advantages, I disagree and believe that in the interests of game balance defenders need to have considerable advantages to avoid rapid military defeats following a surprise assault. Also in real life the sieging armies would be vulnerable to attack from reinforcing units sent in to battle from elsewhere and therefore rarely succeed in real life. Most sieges are lifted well before success is obtainable in reallife situations by counterattacks, support from allies etc.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Ahhh, but Trev, I am a strong proponent of the 'everyone moves, then everyone attacks' turn structure.
With such a structure, players from the besieged nation would have an opportunity to move units from nearby to break the siege. Also, in my model, defending units in a city would have a counterattack each pulse (which can be boosted by certain improvements and units types), meaning that a besieging army can be forced to retreat during the siege! This would, therefore, make sieges a very difficult and dangerous prospect, but one which could yield great dividends on occasions!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Kayak]

I'm not sure about the "city pulse" idea, like rialto says it would be just one more combat mechanism added into the game. I think that there should be a chance that the city would surrender to the besiegers regardless of what you/the ruler would want. This would not mean overall peace, it would just be that one city. This chance would increase over the time of seige as population starved. The advent of nationalism would affect this chance, and so would perhapse the attacker's reputation.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Kayak, thats my whole point behind making sieges an extension of the combat system. This way you COULD lose a city due to sieges, regardless of your desire, it would just be difficult because of the fact that a besieging army would have to contend with either (a) being attacked by the units of the defending civ coming to break the siege and (b) being attacked by the units WITHIN the besieged city.
I am also thinking that, during the combat phase, you might only have a limited amount of 'pulses' (think of a pulse as a single attack/counterattack phase by all units on both sides) in which to force a surrender before the next turn begins.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.