City Conquest Rules

[Leoreth]

There has been some discussion around the rules around conquering/razing cities, as well as the annoyance of losing city buildings when one of your cities is temporarily captured by an enemy, or secedes/flips and has to go through another conquest when you retake it, destroying even more buildings.

I think the building destruction rules really are at the heart of this. They have not been changed since the base game, where cities changed hands more rarely, and these consequences were put in place to hinder an expanding civilisation. Conversely, in RFC many central mechanics (spawns, respawns, secession from instability, even some barbarian invasions) rely on cities changing hands often. Setbacks can happen more often, but that also means that if you manage to reverse setbacks, you shouldn't be further punished for that. Therefore the conquest rules are a poor fit for DoC and should be changed.

When talking about this, we should also take related game system such as converted culture into account here, and integrate them into the rules better.

I'm just going to throw out some ideas for improving this interaction here, so that we can discuss their consequences and how much they would improve the problem. They're not really mutually exclusive most of the time, so I could eventually decide to include any combination into the game.

1. Fix base rules, if applicable

If I recall correctly, the base game already has a rule for not applying building damage if you retake a city that you had previously controlled, but I am not sure. It could be that the way DoC converts culture (on flip or after conquest) makes the game think you aren't the previous owner. I will look into that.

If that's the case, it would deal with most of the problems around retaking flipped cities.

2. Building damage should depend on bombardment

I have seen it suggested that siege bombardment, not city conquest should cause building damage. I'm not sure how realistic it is for most of history (i.e. before Artillery and Bombers), but more importantly I think just doing that would be even more frustrating because you could successfully defend a city but still lose buildings because the enemy is bombarding you with catapults.

On the other hand, the remaining city defense could play a role when the city is actually conquered. If a city is conquered with high remaining defense, less buildings would be destroyed, reflecting that it was conquered using less drastic measures. This could also introduce additional tactical decisions whether you should bombard a city or not.

3. Building damage should be applied over time

We already have a "transitional" time after conquering a city, which is the number of turns it is in unrest. Rules could be changed that the consequences of conquest (lost buildings and population) are only gradually applied during these turns, or after it is over. This gives the opponent some time to retake the city and avoid some or even all of the damage. A rule like this would be especially useful against surprise attacks that are abusable by players and annoying when the AI does it.

Razing a city could make use of similar rules: the city goes into unrest for a number of turns equal to its population, and loses a population point every turn. This makes razing much harder, unless it's a small city or the enemy is truly powerless to stop you.

4. Different options when taking cities with different trade offs

Right now, conquest also gets you the city (duh), some gold and converts local culture, at the expense of some turns of unrest and building damage. It would be cool if there was more choice about what the trade off between these effects would be. For example:

Sack the city: yields additional gold compared to now, converts as much culture as currently but also removes some additional owner culture (resulting in a higher share for you), longer unrest time, more buildings are destroyed. Maybe: surrounding units receive one turn of healing, non-state religions may be removed.

Install a new governor: yields somewhat less gold compared to now, converts as much culture as currently, same unrest time as now, somewhat reduced building damage.

Spare the city: costs gold and leaves owner culture unaffected, same unrest time as now, almost no building damage.

Maybe as a fourth option:

Raid the city: Less gold than the above options, slight building damage, shorter unrest. City is returned to the owner and units retreat to the closest city (or transport).

This would give a cool option to simulate e.g. Viking, Turkic or Mongol raids without forcing you to keep the territory or raze the city.

In general having these decisions would require prioritising different goals: cruel options give more cultural and territorial control, benevolent ones leave more buildings and therefore economy intact.

5. Emphasise garrison requirements more

This isn't really a solution in itself but synergises well with some of the other ideas. The basic idea is that even now, a city with a lot of foreign culture requires some garrison units or it will flip back to that civilisation. Right now I don't think that mechanic is strong enough to be a consideration, but it could be tweaked to that effect, in particular while the city is still in unrest.

That would actually require an invading civilisation to keep a segment of its army in a newly conquered city to avoid it returning to their enemy, instead of plowing through their territory at full strength.


That's all I can think of so far, thoughts/feedback/other ideas welcome.

 

[ozqar]

Here's some thoughts on what c/should happen when you successfully capture a city:

1) Agreed that sieging should be a factor in determining how many buildings are destroyed.
2) Building damage occurring over time only makes sense when the city is having prolonged unrest after capture, but chances of this happening should decrease when there's military presence of the conquering army.
3) I think there should be more options allowing you to keep, liberate, and leave the city (see below)
4) In the options below, I refer to diplomatic penalties and bonuses, these would be from third parties and accentuated depending on the closeness between the third party and the two civs in question (are they allies? share religion?)
5) I think the civics system should have a higher role affecting cultural ownership of cities and that cultural ownership should play a more prominent role, eg., affecting unrest periods, chances of militias showing up against the attacker, and enabling options on how to handle the new city.
6) Many of the options below include possibility of militias from the defending civ popping up against you. I think that the chances for this should increase when the surrounding terrain is mountains, hills, and/or forested.

City remains with original owner

Available in later eras under any civics, or in earlier eras for civs with shared religion or with some percentage of the attacker's culture in the city:
- Spare the city (do nothing): Yields no gold, very low chance of building destruction, no population losses, very small diplomatic penalties, no cultural changes. Attacking units remain outside the city, city remains with original owner. Very small chance of militias to pop up and defend the city.

Default option, always available:
- Raid / Sack / Pillage: Yields high amount of gold, very low chance to destroy buildings, medium-low chance of losing population points, creates small diplomatic penalty, slight transfer of attacker to defender culture in the city (if applicable). Attacking units remain in position (outside the city), city remains with original owner, small chance for militias from original owner to pop up in surrounding areas. Subsequent raids decrease gold, increase building destruction chance, increase diplomatic penalties, and increase chance for militias to pop up. There can be two options with different damage/yields intensity, like pillaging for low yield and light damage, and sacking for high yield and heavy damage.

Only on earlier eras, for specific civs, or with totalitarian & similar civics
- Burn: Yields high amount of gold, high chance to destroy buildings, creates high diplomatic penalty, high chance of losing population points, very high transfer of attacker to defender culture (if applicable). City remains with original owner, attacking units remain on their tile, medium chance of militias popping up.

City is destroyed
Only on earlier eras, for specific civs, or with totalitarian & similar civics
- Raze and disband: Yields high amount of gold and 100% chance of militias popping up against you, creates high diplomatic penalty. City becomes ruins if it had a substantial population (ie, more than 2) or is just cleared if population was low (ie, 1 or 2).​

City becomes a third party
Available from... middle ages onward? Perhaps after some tech
- Liberate: Yields zero gold, very low chance to destroy buildings, very low chance of losing population points, creates diplomatic bonus. Attacking units can retreat or remain in city (not sure), city becomes independent or gifted to friendly civ (vassals, neighbors, or previous owners), some defending units appear, small chance some of your units will join the city as independent or with its new owner.
- Vassalize: Yields medium gold, low chance to destroy buildings, low chance of losing population points, creates small diplomatic penalty. Attacking units can retreat or remain in city (not sure), city becomes a new civ (perhaps only available when there's a historical civ in the area with an available slot).

some defending units appear, small chance some of your units will join the city as independent or with its new owner.​

City becomes part of your empire
If attacker has no culture in conquered city:
- Occupy city: Yields medium amount of gold, medium chance to destroy buildings, medium chance of losing population points, creates medium diplomatic penalty, medium transfer of attacker to defender culture in the city (resentment, if applicable). City incorporated to your empire, but with long-lasting unhappiness, medium chance for militias from original owner to pop up in surrounding areas. Fortified military units in the city create additional happiness (ie, to quell the unhappiness). City can eventually become a normal city when unrest and original culture are gone.

If attacker has medium to high culture in conquered city:

- Grant autonomy: Same as above but better diplomatic outcome, culture shifts in benefit of defending culture, low to medium chance for militias to pop up. Fortified units provide additional (but less than above) happiness. City joins the attacking empire but the civ can not define production queue (or make any changes within the city screen, only see status). Period of unrest determined by civics and existing culture ratios. City will afterwards provide commerce and science to owner at a decreased rate (ie, higher maintenance costs?), culture built in the city counts towards the original culture of the defending civ.​

- Integrate/Reintegrate: Yields very low gold, very low chance to destroy buildings, low chance to lose pop points, creates small diplomatic penalty (or small bonus if city is returning to original owner within X turns of losing the city), no transfer of culture (in either direction). City incorporated to your empire, will function normally after period of unrest is over. Period of unrest determined by civics and existing culture ratios.

City becomes town​

If attacker has medium to high culture in conquered city AND the city is close (within two or three tiles) or another city owned by the attacker, AND city population is low (ie, 6 or less?)
- Incorporate as minor settlement: Yields very low gold, creates small diplomatic penalty. City becomes village or town (depending on pop).*

* This last option is a low-cost option to remove cities in unwanted locations, but it should be somehow reversible in case the original owner takes it back and wants its city.

 

[Leoreth]

too ... much ...

 

[ozqar]

It's just ideas, take what you want, and it's not that much actually. Look:
Survival outcome: City survives, city becomes town, city is destroyed
Ownership outcome: Remains with original, becomes independent, incorporated into empire to different degrees (from vassal to fully integrated)
Consequences: Affects profit (gold yields), city costs/damage (buildings and pop), perception (culture and diplomatic relations), retaliation (militias, unrest)
Determining factors: Perception (original culture), If previously sieged

Just with many combinations.

 

[Enyavar]

Yeah, there are lots of ideas around. I take it that we're still brainstorming, like I did in the other thread today.

Like I wrote already, players should not get all the options all the time, stuff should be dependant on situations: City size, city religion, state religion, your civics, maybe even the enemy civics, the culture you already had in a city, the city history (did you capture/raid the same city before, has it had many ones before), your own stability. Not all of that is relevant at the onConquest event but it could be.
Btw, a huge change would be that you can't view the city anymore before you decide, so there should be information available which buildings/gold/culture amounts you get with which option.

I know that not all despots razed/sacked all their conquered cities, but the 'lenient' options like establishing vassal civs or sparing the City from pillaging, should not be available to despots. Vice versa the "civilized" governments can't go roughshod on their enemies without a massive public outcry.

Rome is famous for razing carthage (I can hardly think of other cities that were deliberately razed!) and for sacking Jerusalem. Vikings raided Cologne repeatedly. Saladin spared Jerusalem but the crusaders pillaged there. America didn't raze Berlin, or Baghdad: instead they spread culture and created a vassal. Same goes for British company in Indian conquests.
And Russia got Krim with a spy/marine surprise coup, but the same attempt in Donezk caused a Partisan uprising.

 

[Leoreth]

Let me reiterate that I want to keep things simple and comprehensible. Also the goal here is not to introduce new concepts because they are neat, but to address a specific problem.

 

[hnrysml]

One of the most enduring things in city conquest throughout history is deportation, and thus I would add some element to the gameplay that represents this.

 

[cmakk1012]

Allow me to throw in my support for a “liberation” mechanic too. It wouldn’t even be that complicated—just the option to make a conquered city an Independent one. It would get rid of the effort of having to find some other civ to gift a terrible city on another continent...

 

[Enyavar]

—just the option to make a conquered city an Independent one. It would get rid of the effort of having to find some other civ to gift a terrible city on another continent...

Try alt+F1, and release your city, that's already possible.
What is discussed here is, among other things, luberating your city to a "new" (resurrected) civs that becomes your vassal. Like you destroyed the Inka and want to directly liberate the SA cities to your colonial Peru.

And because that feature would, again, favor human players, and is potentially OP, I can understand if it's not coming. Nice as it would be.
The decision is obviously Leo's, for all the suggestions. A simple transparent solution that just adds a few more options in the "What do you want" decision is just as fine if it's easier (to code, to explain, to understand) . If people already have problems to understand which civics and regions enable/prevent slavery, my idea about tying the options to civics is impractical.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Let me reiterate that I want to keep things simple and comprehensible. Also the goal here is not to introduce new concepts because they are neat, but to address a specific problem.

On capturing a city:

Raze it
-Diplomatic and stability penalties, and the city's gone
-Lots of loot

Sack it
-Smaller diplomatic penalties, possibly stability bonuses depending on civics
-Lots of loot
-Defender keeps the city, but it revolts for a few turns and some or all units inside are unable to move for the duration
-Treated like conquest for the AI, if possible, so that you can push them towards talking to you or even capitulating
-Buildings more likely to be destroyed

Conquer it
-Some loot, little culture change, mostly how it is now
-Buildings less likely to be destroyed


And one additional feature: The option to have settlers settle in one of your own cities, converting foreign culture, adding all the buildings you get on founding a city, and a bit of population.

Alternatively, but this is getting a bit too complex and Civ4:Col-like, add wagons that can transport food. But that's a pain to micromanage without Colonization's automated trade routes feature.



Edit: This makes conquest a lot less painful, since it's more about adding to your empire, and allows civs like the Vikings or the US to get rich by invading other civs without making permanent gains.

 

[KeeperOT7Keys]

instead of bombardment I think destruction can be related to the units dying in the city (either only defensive units or both), that would be less frustrating I guess; and still kind of represents the defence of the streets / blocks which is a common reason for destruction of cities.
Bombardment is of course a more realistic approach, but I would be pissed quite a lot if some bomber plane was destroying my factories (and I would abuse it as a player).

This one gives you the choice of retreating/surrendering the city, if you don't want it to be ruined.
This can also lead player to seek field battles instead of current stack of doom sieges.

 

[1SDANi]

instead of bombardment I think destruction can be related to the units dying in the city (either only defensive units or both), that would be less frustrating I guess; and still kind of represents the defence of the streets / blocks which is a common reason for destruction of cities.
Bombardment is of course a more realistic approach, but I would be pissed quite a lot if some bomber plane was destroying my factories (and I would abuse it as a player).

This one gives you the choice of retreating/surrendering the city, if you don't want it to be ruined.
This can also lead player to seek field battles instead of current stack of doom sieges.

Perhaps bombardment first reduces production from the current build and requires you to be at 0 production to destroy buildings? That way you can't just pepper enemies and destroy entire buildings.

 

[Enyavar]

And one additional feature: The option to have settlers settle in one of your own cities, converting foreign culture, adding all the buildings you get on founding a city, and a bit of population.

THIS part! SO much!!!
(has nothing to do with conquest rules but would be g r e a t. At first glance people might feel this is just wasting a settler, but from renaissance forward it would have beneficial effects. It's currently more lucrative to raze indigenous cities and resettle the exact same place as colonial Spain, for example. But by putting a settler into the conquered place, keeping these cities will be worth it, again.

This can also lead player to seek field battles instead of current stack of doom sieges.

Players, yes. But not the Artificial UnIntelligence. Show new ideas to the AUI, and watch it make a hash of them.

 

[Tigranes]

Settlers settling in captured city and adding buildings is the most brilliant idea. Very realistic and balanced if we teach AI to use it...

 

[Edmund Ironside]

SOI has the option to massacre non believers, maybe this would be an option when conquering a city (though if sacking is being added it might start becoming too many option).
In terms of collapsing, wouldn't it be better that some of the outer cities declared independence rather than a total collapse (at least at first). This would be more historical, generally collapse of empires started this way.

 

[Ani Taneen]

2. Building damage should depend on bombardment

I have seen it suggested that siege bombardment, not city conquest should cause building damage. I'm not sure how realistic it is for most of history (i.e. before Artillery and Bombers), but more importantly I think just doing that would be even more frustrating because you could successfully defend a city but still lose buildings because the enemy is bombarding you with catapults.

On the other hand, the remaining city defense could play a role when the city is actually conquered. If a city is conquered with high remaining defense, less buildings would be destroyed, reflecting that it was conquered using less drastic measures. This could also introduce additional tactical decisions whether you should bombard a city or not.

3. Building damage should be applied over time

We already have a "transitional" time after conquering a city, which is the number of turns it is in unrest. Rules could be changed that the consequences of conquest (lost buildings and population) are only gradually applied during these turns, or after it is over. This gives the opponent some time to retake the city and avoid some or even all of the damage. A rule like this would be especially useful against surprise attacks that are abusable by players and annoying when the AI does it.

Razing a city could make use of similar rules: the city goes into unrest for a number of turns equal to its population, and loses a population point every turn. This makes razing much harder, unless it's a small city or the enemy is truly powerless to stop you.

Could building damage be applied to culture somehow? With higher conqueror's culture = lower building damage? I think that would make sense that cultural difference leads to a harder transition. It may also fulfill this request:

One of the most enduring things in city conquest throughout history is deportation, and thus I would add some element to the gameplay that represents this.

I also want to take issue with one idea,

Settlers settling in captured city and adding buildings is the most brilliant idea. Very realistic and balanced if we teach AI to use it...

Personally i like the idea of using settlers, however i feel that both the player and Ai could benefit from having a bonus to building over city ruins. I feel like also, using settlers on a captured city should cary a heavy happiness penalty.

 

[Visard]

I would really like that the rules for destroyed buildings to be deterministic instead of probabilistic.
Because its a really big difference, if you conquer city with a forge, factory and levee, instead of destroying them.

Example rules for normal conquest:
1. All military buildings are destroyed.
2. If state religion, then all non-state religion buildings are destroyed.
3. All buildings which produce only culture(and specialist) are destroyed (monument, theater, estate, ...)
4. The most expensive building is destroyed.
5*. Conquered buildings lose their culture output(until reconquered), like wonders currently but also libraries, baths, weavers, universities,...

* And there could be a project to convert the buildings(not wonders) to your culture, after you control 50% of city's culture.
It could cost half the combined hammers of the buildings affected.

 

[JHLee]

In terms of stability:

The current stability mechanics are quite acceptable to me (except when I am playing as Japan; so hard to survive after conquering China!), but there could definitely be aome improvements regarding the razing penalty.

I like placing cities in optimal locarions, and I like to remove cities that get in the way, so this is a major issue to me.
The best way to raze a city with monimum penalty is to contain and starve the city to small pop, and then kill it.
Or you could liberate & conquer the **** out of the city if it is in nobody's core.
Either way that is not ao much different from real-lofe massacres.
Perhaps the 'razing' mechanic should be changed so the city is disbanded over some time instead of being destroyed instantlyand the player recieves less instant penalty.


In terms of population:
There were several times when I collapsed becaise I researched a tech right after conquering historical cities.
Cities such as Athens or Thebes often have high pop, and population doesnt decrease too much from conquest.
IMO the decrease in population after conqiest should be bigger.

In terms of buildings:
-Growth/health buildings should have low chance of being destroyed. Because IRL conquerers will probably want their new cities to have those kind of infrastructures.
-Same applies to hammer buildings.
-Culture buildings should have a higher chance of being destroyed. Cause they would often be pillaged IRL.
-Same goes to religious buildings.. but only if they are of a different one from the conquerer's state religion.
-I see no reason why science buildings should be spared, so they should probably have a high chance of destruction as well.
-Trade and gold buildings: very first to be pillaged. High chance of being destroyed.
-Defense buildings: Walls and castles should be have a higher chance of being destroyed if captured by a civ with Gunpowder/Firearms.

I didnt think thoroughly in balance perspective about the buildings part. There would probably be a better idea.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, about the destruction chances ... I agree with the suggestion to remove the random element. It should at least be possible to limit the impact of randomness. Right now every building that can be destroyed has an individual chance of being destroyed. The rules of probability mean that the most likely outcome will be the destruction of a medium amount of buildings but there are edge cases where very few or very many buildings will be destroyed, both of which is undesirable. Maybe it's better to determine the number of buildings (or amount of hammers) to be destroyed first (plus some moderate random element if desired) based on the buildings in the city, and then apply this to the buildings based on some sort of priority list like above.

I'd also like to bring this rule into relation with the "gold left to plunder" counter for the city, first because it makes sense, and second because then it "remembers" that the city had recently been pillaged and that there are in turn fewer buildings left to damage.

 

[JHLee]

One thing we have to keep in mind is that we dont want to encourage building a city and then granting independence only so that you can come back 200 years later and keep all the buildings the independents have built there. (i.e. Russia)