Border war with citadels

[CivTheGame]

Citadels can be used to steal someone's land without declaring war, but even when it was stolen from you and you declare war because of it, you can't simply take it back without capturing nearest city.

Citadels give significant defensive bonuses and in general they can create some immersion of positional warfare, but to fully represent their historical value of controlling strategically important terrain, they should be capturable.

For example:

When at war, your units clash with other Civ's units at the border. Eventually, you push them a little back into their territory, which lets you enter their near-border Citadels. If you fortify inside an enemy Citadel and stay there without dying for, let's say, 10 turns - it becomes your Citadel.

This kind of mechanic could nicely represent fluidity of war front and the historical importance of such heavily fortified places which were often fought over just to control some area around them.

Current Citadel mechanics are just too one-way and too often end up with Citadel-next-to-Citadel spam.

+++

Other possibility - Forts could have the ability to prevent stealing tiles around them. Because that should be one their main roles, right? I think it would change the childish Citadel scuffles for the better.

Or another possibility with new option in Trade Window - something called BORDER AGREEMENT. When Civ agrees to it, it can't buy or steal tiles of the other Civ and settle City closer than 7 tiles from other's city for like 30 or 50 turns.

 

[Bromar1]

Agreed, citadels need more counter play

 

[azum4roll]

It costs a great person to place one. It better not be so easily captured.

 

[Tekamthi]

If you fortify inside an enemy Citadel and stay there without dying for, let's say, 10 turns - it becomes your Citadel.

would this even work? i cant remember now, but doesnt the damage malus apply to enemy units both on and adjacent to citadel? or is it just adjacent?

even if its possible without being annihilated by the aoe damage, the ai would never accomplish this. needs to be simpler. imo the capture mechanism in the hex conquer mods is the best available compromise. they're pretty easy to flip in that mod, however

 

[CivTheGame]

Frankly, I don't know how it works from game mechanics point of view. What I have in mind is close to instant "building" a new Citadel in place of the existing one, so surrounding tiles are automatically claimed in that player's favor, as if he constructed a Citadel in the place of existing one.

I wouldn't say it's easy to stay alive for 10 turns when someone is actively trying to remove you from the tile. Also, wars don't always last several dozens of turns. In my experience, on average they last for about 15-20 turns, so it's not much time to capture a Citadel. It could be even 5 turns to capture, so it would become more exciting, almost like Capture The Flag. In one game playing Venice I went ahead with research, then gathered and prepared nice armies, and then simultaneously conquered two Civs with dozen cities both, all in about 5-6 turns. So, in time sufficient to completely wipe out entire Civs, I would'n be able to capture a single Citadel if 10 turns would be needed.

If implementing such mechanics is impossible, then perhaps it would be a good idea to at least give Forts the ability to prevent stealing hexes around them. I think it's very reasonable idea and it makes a lot of sense.

EDIT: Just got another idea. What if only Generals would be able to "capture" enemy Citadels? This idea could use existing mechanics, so when General would step onto enemy Citadel, he still would be able to construct Citadel by "replacing" the old one and gaining tiles as usual.

 

[azum4roll]

AI absolutely cannot handle the act of placing a citadel being a double-edged sword (you can lose tiles by doing so).

On the other hand, any ability to easily take tiles from others without a cost (e.g. having to capture a city) shouldn't be a thing. Otherwise why capture cities?

 

[Solic]

I think this introduces a lot of extra complexity without so much extra gain. Yes, you have to conquer the nearest city. Why would this be so different from trying to 'conquer' the citadel?

 

[Anarcomu]

Another idea :

• Whoever stand on a Citadel controls it and benefit from defense and AOE damage, regardless of tile ownership.
• This mean that you can take enemy Citadels, but you won't benefit from healing since it is still enemy territory.
• This also means that you must put a unit on it to actually use it, but if you plant a Citadel, you were gonna defend it anyway.
• To emphasize on the "capture for X turn" aspect, anytime a unit dies whilst on a Citadel (or fort, if we want to expand to that), the tile is pillage and its effect are null, but forts and Citadels can be repaired by workers of any player.
• This means that you will want to take the Citadel, it get pillaged in the process, and you then have to hold it until a brought worker repair it.

 

[azum4roll]

I think any of these suggestions only serve to make wars easier for humans, who are good with citadel placement and will never lose it to AI.

Meanwhile, AI currently prioritizes messing with their enemies with citadel placements more than for defense.

 

[CivTheGame]

I see. If it's really impossible for AI to handle any other Citadel mechanics, then perhaps it would still be a wise thing to do, that Forts could make hexes around them immune to Citadel stealing. It absolutely makes sense and shouldn't be hard to code, I guess.

Main benefit from it could be less frequent occurence of nonsensical Fort-Citadel structures compacted almost hex by hex on a small piece of territory.

Or maybe this tradeable option of border agreement, where after agreeing you can't buy other's tiles, plant Citadels less than 1 hex from other's border and settle Cities less than 6 tiles from other's Cities, because for x turns you won't be able to use the unit ability if requirements are not met.

 

[Tekamthi]

that Forts could make hexes around them immune to Citadel stealing

imo this is worth exploring. We discussed this in a past congress proposal round here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...itadel-placement-exploits-using-forts.689259/

it was a non-starter with no sponsor, though iirc it was a counter-proposal and there was not a full round of analysis put into it -- perhaps workshopping the concept pre-congress might yield better results

 

[balparmak]

I agree with azum in that what's been suggested so far would undermine AI (or would require complex rules for little benefit), but allowing GGs to recapture Citadels makes sense. It's a counterplay without devaluing the a ability too much. We'd probably need to talk about when the AI should do that first, but it shouldn't be that hard to implement

 

[CivTheGame]

We discussed this in a past congress proposal...

I see you had the same idea. The longer I think about it, the more reasonable it sounds. It would give the Forts an additional value of ability to guard important resources. Which is a thing Forts also historically did.

I'm not so sure yet about recapturing Citadels with Generals, but it also seems reasonable. If they can build them, then why not be able to take existing ones for themselves. Of course there is most important issue with making it work for AI. How to make AI consider if during a war it is better to use General for army support, or to use General to capture some random Citadel of various importance.

PS I'm mainly talking about Forts getting the ability to make tiles around them immune to stealing, but of course it should also apply to Citadels, as they are "upgraded" version of Forts.

 

[Siegfroh]

Concerning the capture of citadels by generals, one could perhaps implement that the general is expended on capture.

So capturing a citadel would equal building a citadel oneself, on the same spot.

Or a general could chose whether to destroy a citadel (the land without city radius becoming neutral), or to capture it and get expended.

 

[CivTheGame]

If General wouldn't be expended after recapturing enemy Citadel, you could just go from Citadel to Citadel and capture them one after another. It might add some additional layer to warfare, but it should be widely tested first, if this new micromanagement wouldn't be too annoying.

If it could work like spreading religion - for example, you could capture 3 Citadels before expending, maybe it would be OK for most.

But if you could do it infinite number of times, it would kinda change war methods and progress, because you would usually start wars with moving Generals into positions and capturing Citadels first.

It kinda makes sense, because wars sometimes begin like that - armies quickly try to take control of important military and strategic places first and then move forward.

 

[azum4roll]

It makes building a citadel potentially a bad idea since you may lose tiles that you otherwise would not, by letting it be captured.

 

[Tekamthi]

It makes building a citadel potentially a bad idea since you may lose tiles that you otherwise would not, by letting it be captured.

its the kinda thing that makes me think, if we can capture citadels, why not other stuff? and then we get to hex conquer mod

 

[CivTheGame]

But you could only lose a Citadel during war, so it's not such a big thing, I guess. And you could always recapture it back or gain some for yourself. Would add some new dynamic to warfare.

 

[azum4roll]

If you lose your citadel and all surrounding tiles, do you really think you can win the next war? You'd prefer to lose the city so you can take the whole thing back. It's easier than fighting with your enemies on your doorstep.

 

[CivTheGame]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can't enter General into closed borders territory without declaring war? From the start I assumed, you could only capture a Citadel during war or during peace but instantly declaring war.

Isn't it kinda the point of not losing Citadel, because of it's strategic military importance? Capturing them/defending them should be something like the first strategic step of positional war.