City combat strength after renaissance era needs to get a closer inspection & revision.

[SuperNoobCamper]

Hello.
This is something that has bothered me for a while, in renaissance era the city CS -not the ranged attacks- feels really weak compared to the contemporary units especially naval melee units which makes defending against the initial naval attacks extremely difficult even for a human player, i'm not talking about a water city in the middle of the ocean, i mean a main land coastal city with 2 or 3 water tiles.
Things start getting evern worse with the introduction of 60 CS ironclads which makes city defences a joke and arsenal don't really add enough CS to make up for the huge spike in power the units get starting in industrial era.
I would like to see the CS of arsenals, military bases and probably constabulary revised just because how effective naval melee against cities at this point in the game.

 

[Omen of Peace]

Yes, it's been mentioned by several people (myself included) in the beta thread.
Now to see if the powers that be hear us. Perhaps you could add a poll to this thread to get a sense of what forum goers think?

 

[tothePAIN]

Either nerf navy cs or boost city cs. Otherwise, its just too frustrating.

 

[danymatrix]

righT

Hello.
This is something that has bothered me for a while, in renaissance era the city CS -not the ranged attacks- feels really weak compared to the contemporary units especially naval melee units which makes defending against the initial naval attacks extremely difficult even for a human player, i'm not talking about a water city in the middle of the ocean, i mean a main land coastal city with 2 or 3 water tiles.
Things start getting evern worse with the introduction of 60 CS ironclads which makes city defences a joke and arsenal don't really add enough CS to make up for the huge spike in power the units get starting in industrial era.
I would like to see the CS of arsenals, military bases and probably constabulary revised just because how effective naval melee against cities at this point in the game.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Either nerf navy cs or boost city cs. Otherwise, its just too frustrating.

Well, nerf navy cs. If you just boost city CS land combat becomes unbearable.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Yes, it's been mentioned by several people (myself included) in the beta thread.
Now to see if the powers that be hear us. Perhaps you could add a poll to this thread to get a sense of what forum goers think?

I took break for a couple of weeks and have not checked the forums for a while but at least it's not just me having trouble if have too many coastal cities /finding the game too easy if i emphasize on navy.
Ironclads and corvettes are one of the worst offenders IMO, people talked about how unfair stealth are bomers for ages but they are not even comparable to how naval melee dominate the game starting in the Renaissance era after the last changes to city CS/RCS.
I have no clue why ironclads start with a siege promotion at all, not that removing it would solve the issue but it's very questionable

 

[Stalker0]

I just want to note, it was only a few months ago that the CS numbers were higher than they are now....its not like naval got a sudden bump in strength, CS numbers were lowered. That's when these concerns started. In the previous version before the city combat changes, I had no issues with a city holding its own against ironclads.

 

[Cokolwiek]

Well, nerf navy cs. If you just boost city CS land combat becomes unbearable.

This. Besides: how many major cities were successfully taken or destroyed by a naval operation alone? I study military history and besides New Orleans during American Civil War, or La Rochelle during French Wars of Religion (not quite), I cannot think of any. Any naval bombardment is obviously limited to few miles from shoreline, and even during WWII when allies had massive, several orders of magnitude advantage in naval power over Japan or Germany, it was unthinkable to just sail to Hamburg or Tokio and bomb it to hell. It is not so simple, and ironclad or battleship is remarkably expensive weapon in steel, in crew-training, in time to be built, compared to a few pieces of land-based artillery which can sunk it from the shore. Of course, gameplay should come before realism, so it should be possible to take city with navy only, just not so annoyingly easy as now.

 

[Stalker0]

This. Besides: how many major cities were successfully taken or destroyed by a naval operation alone? I study military history and besides New Orleans during American Civil War, or La Rochelle during French Wars of Religion (not quite), I cannot think of any. Any naval bombardment is obviously limited to few miles from shoreline, and even during WWII when allies had massive, several orders of magnitude advantage in naval power over Japan or Germany, it was unthinkable to just sail to Hamburg or Tokio and bomb it to hell. It is not so simple, and ironclad or battleship is remarkably expensive weapon in steel, in crew-training, in time to be built, compared to a few pieces of land-based artillery which can sunk it from the shore. Of course, gameplay should come before realism, so it should be possible to take city with navy only, just not so annoyingly easy as now.

The issue with that thinking though is that Navy in Civ 5 already has a very limited role. The game does not model the intricacies of trade and troop movements that make naval control such a vital economic asset in war. WWII, the German U boat attacks in the Atlantic sunk huge amounts of war supplies for England, providing a critical early advantage for Germany.

That is only represented in the game in small ways....so a navy's contribution to city taking is magnified.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I think there's a world of difference between making navy useful and making peaceful players completely avoid any coastal cities as a guaranteed waste.

WWII, the German U boat attacks in the Atlantic sunk huge amounts of war supplies for England, providing a critical early advantage for Germany.

What advantage? It provided nothing, starving Britain was beyond any German reach (data below), and the British forces were confined to their island for at least several years. Had Hitler not allowed 300,000 British troops to evacuate from Dunkirk (counting on peace offer from London) U.K. would be without any ground forces. And still that number, even tripled, was nothing in comparison with 5,000,000 battle-tested German forces. I suggest you read some good book about the Battle of Atlantic or generally economic aspects of the war. "Why the Allies won?" by Richard Overy is widely acclaimed book and a decent introduction to the topic.
In general only ten percent of allied shipping was lost due to German submarine warfare and surface commerce raiding. The British had no problems supplying Montgomery in Africa, forces in Italy, and colonies and dominions around the world. The myth of devastating U-boats is not backed by war records, data and discarded by new generation of historians (like many WWII myths of clean Wehrmacht, or mindless hordes of Soviet troops, over who Germany held consistent substantial numerical advantage during first half of the world, and who basically won the war, and the West feared them until 1991). They just wanted some excuse for continuing phoney war until June 6th, 1944. Which again, was the only real option, considering how expensive and large scale naval invasions are in order to not to be a butchery like Gallipoli was. And Churchill who was personally responsible for the Gallipoli Campaign knew this best.
And WWI U-boat campaign? "Between May 1917 and November 1918 (the height of U-boats numbers), a total of 1,100,000 American troops were transported across the Atlantic in convoy, and only 637 of them were drowned as a result of German attacks."

 

[Stalker0]

I think there's a world of difference between making navy useful and making peaceful players completely avoid any coastal cities as a guaranteed waste.

There is, and if you return to my previous posts, I have been a strong supporter of change. But I believe the change is on the city side, not the navy one. The naval strengths have been what they are for months and months, and they have been fine. What changed were the city numbers, that's why coastal cities are falling like paper. Make some adjustments to increase City strength back up...and navies will fall into their proper place once again.

I've been test driving a change to the Arsenal to make it +24 CS....and I have had good results. Navy attacks do decent damage but no where what they do now, and I am able to hold cities with proper unit support. It also hasn't meant that land forces can't take cities....yes its harder for them but still quite doable.

Again I am pushing for a return to a previous state in the game when these things were not problems. We don't need a new direction, we know the old path works.

 

[Cokolwiek]

Again I am pushing for a return to a previous state in the game when these things were not problems. We don't need a new direction, we know the old path works.

Okay, I see your point, I agree, but I am just a little lost. There have been so many version and while a month ago cities were falling like houses of cards, two months ago (IIRC) we had cities-of-marble-and-steel edition, impenetrable without massive losses. I don't know what are you referencing really. And right now I really feel that land forces have good balance when it comes to besieging which +24 CS on arsenal would shake up once to ridiculous levels, this time on land.

Maybe we can do it half-half. Increasing a CS +12 for example, and nerfing naval sieges somewhat but not totally. And increase hp recovery! If city was built by you.

 

[azum4roll]

Before all these we had high CS but low RCS cities. I'd like to see those back, with slightly higher RCS.

 

[Rosete]

I don't think the issue with cities CS is very concerning. With proper land unit support, you can easily defend most coastal cities. The AI, even on deity isn't very aggressive in directly attacking cities unless they have an overwhelming force. If your cities are getting sacked by ironclads most likely you have no navy or have insufficient land forces to scare off the AI.

I observed that most of the time the AI just park its navy outside of your cities and take pot shots here and there.

I don't think there should be balance changes at this point in the mod. I think balance changes should only be reserve for something outrageously game-breaking unbalanced. I think reducing balance tweaks allow room for the players to innovate around difficulties. Instead of having the dev playing balance wack a mole every patch. The changes for each patch should be focused on stability instead.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I don't think the issue with cities CS is very concerning. With proper land unit support, you can easily defend most coastal cities. The AI, even on deity isn't very aggressive in directly attacking cities unless they have an overwhelming force. If your cities are getting sacked by ironclads most likely you have no navy or have insufficient land forces to scare off the AI.

I kind of agree with this. The games I've seen where people are getting cities taken by ironclads are those where their navy has been eliminated - usually because they are fighting against multiple enemies and are significantly outnumbered. I think a big part of the reason this is happening is the recent diplo changes that have large negative modifiers for building wonders. Recursive has taken feedback on that and adjusted the modifiers so that the next version is less likely to recreate this situation. IMO it's worth waiting for the next beta and testing the changes that are already in the works.

 

[azum4roll]

I don't think there should be balance changes at this point in the mod. I think balance changes should only be reserve for something outrageously game-breaking unbalanced. I think reducing balance tweaks allow room for the players to innovate around difficulties. Instead of having the dev playing balance wack a mole every patch. The changes for each patch should be focused on stability instead.

It was balanced a few months ago, except the damage calculation for city attacks was way off. It became imbalanced after we fixed the calculation so we should try to balance it again.

 

[Asterix Rage]

The changes for each patch should be focused on stability instead.

 

[AndreyK]

I think that CS for cities and their health should be made significantly higher, also siege units must be buffed and also by not a small number. As is they do sometime less damage to cities than regular units, so I almost don't build them until cannons/artillery and don't have any problem taking cities. Especially when you get swordsmans/longswordsmans.
Now it's very easy to take cities, especially with navy. I play in immortal, only domination victory (will move back to deity).
I think things as now - are in favor for players, as they better at war, I don't go straight for conquest and continue it only because of diplomacy&happiness. As soon as I take 1-2 cities all AI gets unhappy/guarded, even when AI is first to declare wars, so it becomes hard to negotiate with them. Buff to cities strength will be good for AI and general balance.

 

[Patee]

I don't think the issue with cities CS is very concerning. With proper land unit support, you can easily defend most coastal cities. The AI, even on deity isn't very aggressive in directly attacking cities unless they have an overwhelming force. If your cities are getting sacked by ironclads most likely you have no navy or have insufficient land forces to scare off the AI.

I observed that most of the time the AI just park its navy outside of your cities and take pot shots here and there.

I don't think there should be balance changes at this point in the mod. I think balance changes should only be reserve for something outrageously game-breaking unbalanced. I think reducing balance tweaks allow room for the players to innovate around difficulties. Instead of having the dev playing balance wack a mole every patch. The changes for each patch should be focused on stability instead.

Well, I would disagree with that. At the moment situation looks like that ppl going tall/peaceful etc. are avoiding settling coastal cities. Even when you have a decent navy but not dominant (as this is very often impossible on Emperor and especially above) and proper land support all you can do is to reclaim city that you just lost. But I would not call that proper defending. My observation is that AI in this patch has no problem with taking cities only with navy with no land units.

Combination of nerfing navy vs cities plus maybe increasing healing rate for cities may solve the problem.

(Sorry for mistakes, not a native speaker).

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I kind of agree with this. The games I've seen where people are getting cities taken by ironclads are those where their navy has been eliminated - usually because they are fighting against multiple enemies and are significantly outnumbered. I think a big part of the reason this is happening is the recent diplo changes that have large negative modifiers for building wonders. Recursive has taken feedback on that and adjusted the modifiers so that the next version is less likely to recreate this situation. IMO it's worth waiting for the next beta and testing the changes that are already in the works.

I actually like the aggressive approach of the AI in the current beta, i think changing the negative modifiers to alleviate an issue created by CS number is just bandaiding and i don't think HCW intention to change them is influenced by this topic at all.



As stalker said i think this particular issue started to show up after the one sided change to city CS but not naval melee units that -across the tech tree- have stronger CS than their land melee counterparts.
It's unbalanced how a 20ish CS is supposed to withstand a 40 CS -38cs?- Corvette or a 30ish CS city is supposed to withstand a 60 CS ironclad?
Taking into consideration how all water tiles cost only one movement point to navigate and the base movement points for corvettes are 5 makes settling costal cities an actual risk if you don't intend to have an overwhelming navy which in my experience is extremely difficult on immortal and sometimes even on emperor.