city conquest a negative?

[Babri]

Conquest victory is going to be really tough for India ; Double unhappiness from no. of cities.

 

[GhostWriter16]

This is an interesting topic, not sure we can do it much justice with what we know now. There certainly seem to be a few overarching design goals in mind though:

-The developers definitely want to reduce the steamroll factor in the game. In previous civ games, a quick war with large advantages could result in taking out a dozen cities/a civ in not so much time. With the new 1upt system possibly resulting in lots of defensive/"trench" warfare and other game mechanics, fast conquest seems to be something they want out. In fact, I would say this is even somewhat of an unfortunate necessity, given that they've created some other game mechanics that could result in rather imbalanced wars, specific focus on capital cities and how domination victories work and so on.

-The entire motivations for warfare and diplomacy are seeming shakier, we couldn't really say for sure, but I would also guess they are aiming for more limited warfare, and on the AI side of things, removing general overbearing belligerence. Instead of multiple civs getting into wars for hating each other, as is common in previous civ games and especially civ4 with factors like religion, the purpose of war may be more limited. I'm not sure "fighting over just resources and border tiles" is what I'd really want but maybe it works for some.

Lastly, one thing that's been somewhat missing from previous titles but could actually be somewhat around here is distinctions in the type and effects of combat fought. Expanding options for pillaging/raiding enemy lands, and razing versus occupying cities, is a good thing, as is increasing the importance of levied/militia/drafted troops as opposed to standing armies on the defensive side. Making the city itself a defender is actually a rather elegant solution I do like for the system. It wouldn't have worked in civ4 or non 1upt but I always favored the idea of encouraging more specific, "garrisoned" units in peacetime and all, and cities defending themselves and the results of actual city capture/occupation in civ5 seem to provide some good choices.

I think this sums it up.

IRL War for total conquest was an Ancient thing and doesn't happen anymore, however it should be possible in CiV. However, 1UPT makes a lot of changes and until we get the game we won't know 'em all.

 

[Babri]

The system in Rise of Nations for conquest was quite good. Once you lost your capital you've to take it back in a certain time otherwise you'll loose the game & all of your cities will be handed over to the enemy. In ciV it could be implemented like take your capital back in 25 turns or so.

 

[AriochIV]

I always assumed that conquering the capital of an other civ gives you instant capitulation.. would make sense to me. The capitulated civ builds then a new capital.. Well, that would explain the pic

That would be nice, but I have been under the impression that Civ V doesn't have a Vassal system.

 

[Semmel]

That would be nice, but I have been under the impression that Civ V doesn't have a Vassal system.

I haven't seen any information on that either. But I can't imagine a game where you have enemies that can't give up the moment they realize their defeat.

 

[City Raider]

I don't think conquest of cities is going to be all that limiting. Luxury resources are good empire wide, as are happiness buildings. You can build happy buildings in your capital (or core cities) while you acquire more cities. Maybe you even conquer more happy resources.

I think the bigger limitation is going to be the actual size of the army you can field since strategic resources have limits and defeated armies aren't necessarily killed.

I think it is still going to be beneficial to get as many cities as possible, even for India. I can't think of any Civ where this wasn't the case. More land is almost always better. Obviously the game has dealt with over expansion in different ways throughout the years, but it always comes down to more land is usually better (or easier to win).

I'm a peaceful builder type and you can with with smaller empires, but its usually is much easier to win with 30 cities compared to 15.

 

[Gre_Magus]

The penalty for conquering cities or growing to fast has always been an interesting thing in the Civ games. Up through Civ 3, the penalty was corruption, right? Each new city over a certain number (and certain distance from your capital) was more corrupt and so had a bigger penalty to production and commerce, but conquering or building new cities never affected the old ones. It was only with Civ 5 and the arcane city maintenance cost that we got the counter-intuitive situation where having more cities in many cases was worse than having less. The happiness system in Civ 5 seems to take the place of the city maintenance cost - having more cities increases unhappiness rather than costing gold. But there will be the cost of building maintenance...
In any event, Civ seems to be designed to reward the player who hits the sweet spot of growth, not the one who just grows and conquers as fast as possible.