Cities too hard to conquer

[Ortega]

Dont you think that cities are a bit too hard to conquer in CivV?
i think city defence should be much more depending on how much you support its defence with building and units. havent you encountered that AI places a city right next to you and even when city is new it requires now a massive army to be eliminated?
In history there are many examples to blitz conquests where an empire was busy doing somthing else and got cought with its "pants down" and lost significant territories.

A few suggestions:
1. make ranged defence pending on specific building construction like walls. (base arrows to require archary)
2. each era upgrade (arrows-> catapult stones -> rockets) requires an additonal building (walls-> castle -> military base)
3. city without garison unit to be much more weaker than today (power bar).

what do you think?

 

[Mr. Grieves]

Dont you think that cities are a bit too hard to conquer in CivV?

No. If you actually use siege weapons, any undefended city is a goner. City defense is already highly depended on the defensive buildings in the city. Any warmonger laughs at the sight of a large city without walls. The arrows, stones and missiles are just a cosmetic thing that changes by era. The same kind of weird logic that causes Great Generals to speed around the map in Jeeps, well before combustion has been invented.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Dont you think that cities are a bit too hard to conquer in CivV?

Yes. For two reasons :

1) Sometimes, I say sometimes, every city of a given civ are way better defended than your bigger ones, even if they don't even have walls and are new. I don't understand.

2) I like the feeling to march over an undefended city quickly, a la Civ2(/3?). Either it was a deal of one trivial battle only, or, better, no battle at all. I liked especially this sound of ranger against the ground when you took a city in Civ2. It was thrilling and purely extatic !

 

[Bulldog Bats]

I agree with Naokaukodem. In prior versions, it was not assumed that the city was defended (yes, for Civ III as well). The defense of a city was based upon what unit you left in the city. That is more realistic, and more fun. In Civ V, I only keep one or two melee units around to mop up after the ranged units reduce a city defense to 0. Even if all I have is an antiquated unit 99% injured, he can take the city at that point.

 

[Digidragon]

Cities in general aren't too hard to conquer if the war is executed correctly. But I have to admit certain cities A.K.A the really strategically placed city or the really lucky spawn are annoying to deal with, as normally I wait until I get flight, by then I would have some oil, bombard the crap out of the city and Zerg rush the city with a bunch of melee units to try and capture it.

Can't see the city? Spies

 

[isau]

I think the real issue is that melee troops and ships take way too much collateral damage for attacking on their turns. They pay for their actions with their own HP, and way too much of it. This greatly reduces their usefulness and turns everything prior to Navigation into a bow and crossbow fest.

 

[Sharples]

Seige Units are designed to take cities out, they get 200% bonus when taking cities out. Can go to 250% if you get the 50% bonus against cities.

I don't think cities are overpowered, in Vanilla they're certainly not, but in BNW they're more balanced.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

There's been way way too much emphasis on the archer line on the forums. Follow that advice and ignore siege equipment and cities would seem hard to take. Comp bows are better than catapults but trebuchets trump crossbows when taking cities. Starting in the medieval era youll want to bring two or three siege units every time and cities fall pretty quickly. Use your bows on units, melee as meatshields and siege equipment on cities, pretty simple.

I like that it takes effort and planning to take a city. That's why we play strategy games isn't it? To strategize?

 

[Vitruvius]

Cities are easy to take as humans but i cringe whenever i see ai unable to take any of my cities. I would like cities to be weakened so i actually need an army to defend.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[Arachnofiend]

The problem with siege weapons is that they're far too weak on the defensive. A city on a hill with walls+castle can OHKO a trebuchet. The use of siege weapons relies on AI stupidity, with them focusing on the injured melee unit rather than the much more easily killed (and more dangerous if left untouched) siege unit.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Vitruvius - that was my point - in prior versions, the city had no defense on its own. Unless you had a unit in there, you could just walk in and take it. And of course, with certain governmental systems, like democracy, it caused unhappiness to have to quarter an armed unit.

 

[GoStu]

The problem with siege weapons is that they're far too weak on the defensive. A city on a hill with walls+castle can OHKO a trebuchet. The use of siege weapons relies on AI stupidity, with them focusing on the injured melee unit rather than the much more easily killed (and more dangerous if left untouched) siege unit.

Yeah, there's few feelings worse than watching your catapults get turned into splinters by a city ranged attack before it even gets a hit in.

I think if Seige Units could use some of that +200% defensive strength against ranged attacks that'd be a big start (or at least came with Cover promotions). For balance they could have their base defense weakened so that a melee unit can come chop it into little bits easily.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

The problem with siege weapons is that they're far too weak on the defensive. A city on a hill with walls+castle can OHKO a trebuchet. The use of siege weapons relies on AI stupidity, with them focusing on the injured melee unit rather than the much more easily killed (and more dangerous if left untouched) siege unit.

I know what you mean. I've never liked the fragility of siege equipment after the G&K reworking. It's like they should have been given an offensive str and defensive str rather than just melee and ranged. Still, since that AI stupidity is there to take advantage of, the current set up works. If the AI were ever improved they'd definitely have to do some work on siege equipment, that's for sure.

Catapults were decent in vanilla. They're pretty much junk compared to comp bows now but trebs are decent and you pretty much need cannons in the Renaissance if a city has a castle.

 

[Ortega]

another idea would be to limit the city bombradment range to 1 hex and upgrading with time/buildings.
i usually leave my cities without any units for defence unless i have neighbours like Shaka..

 

[Redaxe]

Or make metal casting or a similar placed tech in the tree give catapults 1 extra attack/turn so they can keep up with comp bowmen

 

[cinattra]

Vitruvius - that was my point - in prior versions, the city had no defense on its own. Unless you had a unit in there, you could just walk in and take it. And of course, with certain governmental systems, like democracy, it caused unhappiness to have to quarter an armed unit.

Oh yeah... I remember that.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

It does seem kind of silly that all cities of the same size have the same basic military defense.