kumquatelvis
Prince
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2007
- Messages
- 310
Having played a lot of games of FFH2, I'm come to rather dislike the city attack promotion. First off, it's very, very powerful. Three promotions and even middling units can destroy a well defended city (especially if the AI is trying to defend). It's so powerful that I've mostly stopped using it because it makes me feel guilty, like I was cheating. True, taking that promotion instead of combat means that you don't defend as well, but somehow that's rarely been a problem (especially if you diversify your army). Second, the promotion is nonsensical. I can just imagine the following conversion:
Commander: Units, get ready to attack!
City Attacker: No problem sir. We'll crush them without mercy.
Commander: Excellent. Charge on my mark. Ready, set, m...er, what's this?
City Attacker: They appear to be opening the gate. Yes, they've left the city, and are now standing out in the open field.
Commander: The fools! They're defenseless without their, er, defenses.
City Attacker: Um...about that. I've never actually fought someone who didn't have several feet of stone to hide behind. I mean, what do you do when they're just out in the open like that? It's kinda scary really.
Commander:
I see two options for change.
a) Instead of giving you a bonus against defenders, city attack would allow you to ignore a percentage of the defense bonus. This means that promoted units would have little no penalty attacking cities. The promotion would be worthless to an army with a lot of artillery (magic or mundane), but it would also allow for armies that didn't need to make use of said artillery.
b) Remove city attack entirely. This would make taking cities somewhat difficult, but to compensate catapults and cannons could be improved (mages don't need it). For starts, engineering or machinery could allow siege units to take the mobility promotion (or to just start with it for free). Thematically you could also argue that they should get raiders instead of mobility. After all, wheeled units are great on roads, but not so much off in the wilderness.
Commander: Units, get ready to attack!
City Attacker: No problem sir. We'll crush them without mercy.
Commander: Excellent. Charge on my mark. Ready, set, m...er, what's this?
City Attacker: They appear to be opening the gate. Yes, they've left the city, and are now standing out in the open field.
Commander: The fools! They're defenseless without their, er, defenses.
City Attacker: Um...about that. I've never actually fought someone who didn't have several feet of stone to hide behind. I mean, what do you do when they're just out in the open like that? It's kinda scary really.
Commander:
I see two options for change.
a) Instead of giving you a bonus against defenders, city attack would allow you to ignore a percentage of the defense bonus. This means that promoted units would have little no penalty attacking cities. The promotion would be worthless to an army with a lot of artillery (magic or mundane), but it would also allow for armies that didn't need to make use of said artillery.
b) Remove city attack entirely. This would make taking cities somewhat difficult, but to compensate catapults and cannons could be improved (mages don't need it). For starts, engineering or machinery could allow siege units to take the mobility promotion (or to just start with it for free). Thematically you could also argue that they should get raiders instead of mobility. After all, wheeled units are great on roads, but not so much off in the wilderness.