Big Issues with city defence/defence buildings!

[Nutteria]

I still think that on later eras(example post refrigeration) Citys should get more HP.Its only logical.Not to mention there is a need to further increase a given City HP from nearby food resourses(eg sheep/fish) and/or from buildings like hospitals and such.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I already posted my thoughts, but they were very poorly worded. So:
I think the defense buildings should not boost the city itself, but the units in the city cultural area. This way the building will be both useful and warfare will be still unit-based.

 

[Nutteria]

I already posted my thoughts, but they were very poorly worded. So:
I think the defense buildings should not boost the city itself, but the units in the city cultural area. This way the building will be both useful and warfare will be still unit-based.

That does sound interesting btw

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

I still think that on later eras(example post refrigeration) Citys should get more HP.Its only logical.Not to mention there is a need to further increase a given City HP from nearby food resourses(eg sheep/fish) and/or from buildings like hospitals and such.

But by the time of refrigeration siege warfare is obsolete!

Modern cites should fall easily if not garrisoned ancient and mediaeval cites however should really put up a fight.

 

[pi-r8]

What really irratates me is that I can't understand what city strength even means. It's not combat strength, because my strength 9 city is apparently weaker than a warrior(strength 6). It's definitely not ranged attack strength, because it does much less damage than my archer (ranged strength 6). It seems like city strength is basically cut in half for purposes of combat.

 

[Creepy Old Man]

Before the game was released, the developers were hyping the advantage of cities defending themselves. And, given the high maintenance cost of units, we can't put units in every city. So clearly cities are *supposed* to be able to defend themselves long enough for the cavalry to arrive.

But they don't.

City bombard does 1-2 damage. This is stupid and useless. Bombard should do significantly more. (Incidently, in globaldefines.xml is CITY_RANGED_ATTACK_STRENGTH_MULTIPLIER = 40. Changing this increases the damage city bombard does. However, it screws the AI over royally, as they AI still sends a handful of weak troops to capture CSs, but now looses them all.)

From longswords on (and perhaps earlier) you don't even *need* siege units to take undefended cities. I use siege to take out enemy units, but once the units are gone, two longswords can take out a city in two turns. Or riflemen/infantry/whatever later on.

So if two longswords land on a coastal city without warning, the defender has two turns to get reinforcements in to save his city. *This* is where the problem lies.

Improved city bombard damage would help, if the AI were adjusted.
Improved city regeneration helps a little. (Same xml file - CITY_HIT_POINTS_HEALED_PER_TURN = 1)
I'd like to see two new buildings available:
If I build a "garrison house" (maintenance 1) then the unit maintenance of any army garrisoned in the city is free.
If I build "emplaced seige" then the city bombard range is increased to 3.

Another option is to bring back the draft. As it is, I tend to keep enough cash on hand so that I can rush-buy a unit in any threatened city. Having the draft as an option would allow more flexibility.

 

[player1 fanatic]

What really irratates me is that I can't understand what city strength even means. It's not combat strength, because my strength 9 city is apparently weaker than a warrior(strength 6). It's definitely not ranged attack strength, because it does much less damage than my archer (ranged strength 6). It seems like city strength is basically cut in half for purposes of combat.

Combat rating is combat strength, although some factors that apply to units don't apply to cities. No bonus on terrain (open or rough), no fortification bonus, etc...

Also, city ranged attack strength is 40% of it's city strength. Which is ok early, but really weak in late game.

 

[Jediron]

cities should not bombard to begin with, that's a basic design mistake to begin with.

 

[pi-r8]

Combat rating is combat strength, although some factors that apply to units don't apply to cities. No bonus on terrain (open or rough), no fortification bonus, etc...

Also, city ranged attack strength is 40% of it's city strength. Which is ok early, but really weak in late game.

so how come the enemy warriors seem stronger than my city? Is it just because they have a lot of promotions?

 

[player1 fanatic]

I don't know, I can't see combat chances for AI attack (but I can for my own attack on cities).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The Military Base would be a good one to give cities Range 3 with.

In general taking the defense values of buildings, and say doubling them should work well.

 

[Ahriman]

Also, city ranged attack strength is 40% of it's city strength.

Do we have a source for that? [Is it what you see from combat report when bombarding a city? I haven't thought to check.] It would explain a lot.

The Military Base would be a good one to give cities Range 3 with.
In general taking the defense values of buildings, and say doubling them should work well.

I agree with the core point that city defensive buildings are underpowered.

I like the idea of the military base giving +1 bombardment range, and I think increasing the strength bonuses from the buildings is needed, but doubling might be too much. I'd start with 50% and test that first.

[Foolish question, does Universal Suffrage 33% bonus stack with city defenses - so a strength 21 city with +9 from defensive buildings getse +7 or +10 from Universal suffrage?]

Also, we need to be careful with these kinds of changes, that we don't boost the human player even more; we need AI changes so that its less easy to declare war on the AI, lure them into your territory (where you get all kinds of bonuses; city bombardment, oligarchy etc., mobility on roads so you can move and shoot with siege units).

 

[whomybuddy]

That's why you need range to kill all those foolish spearman getting into you territory. Siege with physic research does 10 dmg to spearman (1shot kill LOL). They'll be dead be4 able to hit your wall. Only horses can do it with 4 movement. Don't reply on wall defend too much. Reply on siege weapon in city and good tank in front or horses to kill the siege weapon and run away backward.

 

[AriochIV]

I generally don't build city defenses, because they never get used. If your army is defeated, they won't save your city from being taken. The resources are much better spent on units.

 

[automator]

Training units for defense > building defense buildings

Yes indeed.

Walls, Castles, etc give that initial bump to withstand a little more damage, but you should never rely on the city itself to hold off an attack, especially if that attack includes seige weapons.

I had a recent game where I VASTLY out-teched Catherine when she decided to play the belligerant against me. She moved in with some cannon, muskets and crossbowmen against my cities that had a defensive strength in the 30s/40s. If I'd relied on the cities to keep it up, even with walls and castles and a Kremlin, I'd have been saying goodbye to my productive citizens. So I mobilized my units ... picked off the seige and ranged units. After that, her melee units had nothing going for them and I was able to destroy them too.

Lesson learned: city defense will probably clobber the stray melee attacker. But if your enemy is bringing ranged/seige, you better have some units out there to beat back the attackers.

 

[JamesBonedOO7]

The idea when you're at war and they roll in siege units is not to sit there and turtle with your city. You have to have UNITS of your own which you arrange in a line (ideally with your own siege units behind your front line) which you use to repel the invasion. If you're losing cities this easily you obviously just don't have a big enough military to defend your civ.

And it is the STRENGTH not the HP that determines the outcome of battles. I'm sure you know that both a warrior and a tank both have just 10 HP but put them in a battle and the tank will not take damage. It's the same thing with a city, but they have twice the HP and they should have more strength than a single attacking unit (they always do for me, just keep up with tech).

The big thing is not relying on cities alone in war, but your units.

 

[Pantastic]

The idea when you're at war and they roll in siege units is not to sit there and turtle with your city.

They don't need to roll in siege units, 2-3 infantry units take down a city in 1-2 turns. You can't afford to make a line of units backed by siege units around the entire border of an empire on any of the moderate to high difficulty levels, but you'd have to to have that to be able to defend every city. Having a city hold out for a few turns so that reinforcements can arrive is not 'turtling' in the usual sense of the word.

It plays into the 'an adequate defense is a good offense' problem, where if you actually have enough units to mount a reasonable defense you have more than enough to launch a big offensive and take down that civ preemptively.

 

[JamesBonedOO7]

They don't need to roll in siege units, 2-3 infantry units take down a city in 1-2 turns. You can't afford to make a line of units backed by siege units around the entire border of an empire on any of the moderate to high difficulty levels, but you'd have to to have that to be able to defend every city. Having a city hold out for a few turns so that reinforcements can arrive is not 'turtling' in the usual sense of the word.

It plays into the 'an adequate defense is a good offense' problem, where if you actually have enough units to mount a reasonable defense you have more than enough to launch a big offensive and take down that civ preemptively.

They have to declare war on you first, which should give you enough time to mobilize your units. Furthermore, you should see their units around your borders when they are preparing to attack you.

 

[AriochIV]

It plays into the 'an adequate defense is a good offense' problem, where if you actually have enough units to mount a reasonable defense you have more than enough to launch a big offensive and take down that civ preemptively.

Yes, this is part of the one-dimensional nature of the game. You WILL be attacked eventually, and if you have enough units to survive this attack, you have enough units to conquer the attacker once he's blown his wad. You can choose not to counterattack, but that just means the attacker will build up his army and do it again.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yes, this is part of the one-dimensional nature of the game. You WILL be attacked eventually, and if you have enough units to survive this attack, you have enough units to conquer the attacker once he's blown his wad. You can choose not to counterattack, but that just means the attacker will build up his army and do it again.

Which is why significantly more powerful city defenses might hinder that.

The attacker won't have wasted all his city defenses.... and might be more reluctant to attack you if Your city defenses were powerful (however, more of an AI issue)... but also AI v. AI issue, City defense help to avoid runaway AIs.

In general I would go with 2x to at least city defense buildings. And then give siege a bigger anti-city bonus to compensate.