City Defense with Single Defender

[Aeon221]

Really glad to hear that the Panzer General I knew and loved is the intellectual backstop for the combat system in the new Civ.

I am kind of worried about having one, and only one, defender in a city. It seems like either cities would be ridiculously easy to capture, or they'd be impossibly strong. Either way, it'd be impossible to reinforce the city while it's under attack -- and that's irritating.

Might be a good idea to give bonuses to city defenders based on what friendly units are adjacent, and maluses for each adjacent enemy unit (beyond the first one, of course). So, instead of cities being a one and done fight (or a series of units ramming into a stronger foe and dying), you've got a succession of fights to break or maintain a siege. Creates interesting tactical opportunities while still being intuitive enough for the casual player to figure out.

I'm also somewhat worried we'll end up with the focused fire nightmare of Civ3, where arty/planes ruled the day with their no risk engagement capabilities. Hopefully there will be some sort of limitation in place to make them less effective or difficult to spam.

I also hope we'll get to see some of the limited visibility terrain effects from PG, and maybe even some localized weather! Muddy terrain tiles, snow storms over a city preventing movement and suchlike could be very exciting.

All in all, extremely excited!

 

[Chalks]

Cities are able to defend themselves using defensive improvements that can attack at range, I think the idea is that you will not need any city garrison troops at all to defend cities although they will probably improve your ability to defend. I also believe I read that city defences will be affected by the size of the city.

 

[Aeon221]

Yes, I'm aware. However, there's a big difference between, say, walls that can attack at range and a giant stack of units garrisoned in a location that serves as a simultaneous defensive hardpoint and fast healing center. A huge difference, actually.

Sure, now the max number of attacks on a single turn is bounded by the number of squares within two moves of the city, but that's still a huge number of units. Up to 18, if I've got my hex math right, which I almost certainly don't. Plus whatever ranged units you can hit it with. So either you have a situation where it's extremely difficult to take a city without the max cap number of units (irritating attrition based gameplay) or defenders are a mere roadblock once you've gotten a decent sized force (boring gameplay).

I'd prefer a more organic alternative, such as the one I suggested in the OP, that allows for _supported_ cities to be resilient defenders, while still allowing attackers to make a significant dent in the defenses by taking out nearby friendlies and besieging the place.

I really doubt that Firaxis is moving away from having any defenders at all in the city -- that's just a poor plan all around. City defenses being impacted by the size/culture/development class of the city has been around for forever, and isn't really noteworthy.

 

[tom2050]

My theory is this: They have said a single unit can garrison a city. Cities have hitpoints, and certain improvements make a city stronger (probably increasing it's hitpoints).

This seems to suggest that if you garrison a city with a unit, the unit adds to the cities hitpoints. That is the way I would see them as doing it, instead of making it like Civ 3 or 4, where you attack the unit first, then attack the city next.

This would also suggest that if you garrison a unit in a city, it may not be able to leave for a period of time. Otherwise you run the problem of simply switching units every turn for garrison duty, and creating a trench warfare situation. Or if the unit has any damage, it may be stuck in the city.

My theory at least, makes most sense to me.

 

[...behind you!]

I don't think it will be much of a problem, in fact I think that a garrison of even a single unit will be very strong.

Since you only have one unit per hex, you cannot jump over a unit in front of you. You can switch places, but I can imagine that that pretty much uses up your movement. I also think that cities will have pretty decent defensive values depending on their size and improvements. And depending on their improvements they will be able to use ranged attacks. So taking over a city is going to take multiple units. You're going to need cannonfodder. In order to take a city you'll probably have to soften it up, especially if it has citywalls. So you will need to bring archers or artillery, those will be vulnerable.

This is were cavalry comes in. The defender will do anything to keep shooters away and attack them and the attacker is going to have a hard time keeping their ranged units save. Also, the defender has the added benefit that their units will heal faster on their own land and they might even be able to move faster on their own terrain (although I doubt it).

The defender will have more benefits, because they can entrench themselves before the attacker arrives and ranged units will be able to hide behind the city if they are pushed back. Ranged units combined with a shooting city means that the attacker will be weakened and if he doesn't bring enough units, he will fail. As a defender, the only thing you have to do is weaken the attacker enough to reduce their chances against the defensive value of the city. Put some melee units nearby to deal with their melee units and use your cavalry aggresively to keep away the ranged units and you will be able to defend yourself pretty well against a stronger attacker.

I like this system a lot more than the previous stack-of-doom rushing, because it will require a lot more tactical thinking. Every type of unit finally has an important use and you will actually need them. Resource limits and higher upkeep will also mean that you will have to make some hard choices on the type of units you build and it suddenly becomes a much more tactical and strategic game. Especially if naval warfare becomes more important, because that too will use up resources. You'll have to find a fine balance between army and navy (and later on air force).

 

[Gre_Magus]

Since we know that battles aren't the "all or nothing" proposition that the were in previous versions of the game, I imagine that a city (especially later in the game) will have enough hitpoints to survive several attacks. I also don't think "non-ranged" units will be able to attack through other units, i.e., even if a unit has two movement points, I don't think it will be able to attack if there is a friendly unit between it and its target. How did this work in Panzer General? So you'll only be able to attack a city with at most 6 non-ranged units, not 18 or whatever.

Plus, there's nothing stopping you from putting defending units between your city and the attacker. I think taking a city is going to be the "succession of fights" you're hoping for. The attacker is going to have to break through the line or ring of units protecting the city - all the while getting bombarded by the city's defenses - before it can attack the city itself.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think the idea is if Multiple units get in range of your city, it is lost (ie it is a road block)

Your units neeed to stop Their units from getting in range of the city.
You probably don't get benefits from the city itself (unless it is in range of the Attackers), but you Probably get benefits from being in your culture (better movement, healing, combat bonus)


Also attacks don't necessarily kill units, and the "City" acts like a unit, so it might be a decent "Road Block" as the defenders whittle away at it.

And while they are whittling away at the city, stuck at the road block, you can whittle away at them by attacking with your units.

 

[Aeon221]

Panzer General never had anything analogous to the cities in Civ -- the closest thing were VP locations, and the camps where you could spawn troopers. But troops were far more important targets than locations, and losing a location was never as important as losing a trooper.

As to the number of units that can attack in a given turn -- we know from articles that the base move of units is two hexes per turn, and that units can switch with an adjacent unit, which suggests to me that you can attack, swap out your dude, and attack again. Hence the figure of 18 plus units.

But even if you cannot do that, for whatever reason, you'd still be able to swarm the city with ranged units bombarding multiple times in the course of a single turn, without the ability to reply in kind.

Hence my fear that we will either end up with a situation where the unit in a city is strong enough to repel any reasonably sized force, or a situation where cities are something that can be walked over.

I'm also worried that we'll retain the tactically uninteresting element of Civ4, wherein any location that is not a city is not worth fighting over. In Panzer General, killing enemy soldiers was its own reward, as forces were limited and replacement was spendy. That said, CiV articles make it clear that unit construction will be much slower, and advanced units will be far more limited in production -- one unit per resource, etc -- which gives me hope that destroying the enemy in the field will be relevant rather than wasteful.

Now, the one unit per square does indeed mean that there are significant advantages to taking the sides of a city as is, and that's a good and healthy thing -- good bye unit stacking, ye won't be missed! But that doesn't mean we won't end up with the entirely unhealthy arty spam. I suppose I can only hope that CiV makes arty/archers weak, limited, slow moving and difficult to produce.

 

[dodobird]

If you manage to have 18 units, surround the city without any resistence, and all in a single turn. I dont think that would be any small feat with the new system and you deserve to take that city.

 

[_hero_]

From what I've read the designers want you to have to keep sometroops at your borders in case of invasion. Depending on how they handle roads it may not be hard to maneuver from one side of the empire to another. My guess is if travelling by land you want be able to do too much damage to someone who has kept some troops back without a massive force, but someone who has left themselves "undefended" with their entire army off invading, will fall very fast. To me this makes war much more fun. Have to be on offense and defense at the same time. In all the other civs you could have the majority of your troops attacking the AI and not have to worry much about defense. Worst case scenario the AI would invade your territory and you'd do a quick unit spam at home. Now you actually have to plan your invasions carefully and safely.

I still haven't figured out how a naval invasion might look, but I'm guessing you are going to want to have boats patrolling your undefended coasts to buy time to prepare for any invasion.

 

[Aeon221]

If you manage to have 18 units, surround the city without any resistence, and all in a single turn. I dont think that would be any small feat with the new system and you deserve to take that city.

And I agree with that.

What I'm worried about is a situation where that's the "only possible way" to take a city. In which case, the AI would never take a city.

Or a situation where getting that many units around a city is an instant win. In which case, the player could steamroll the AI with blitzes.

Neither one is acceptable.

 

[Perfxion]

The point is to have battles out in the field not in the city. Since most major wars were in the field side not in the towns them selves(for the most part), the made the new combat system where the cities are the prizes for winning the land war.

As for Naval, you NEED a navy. Not just two boats from beginning to end. But a full fleet of ships for protection.

 

[weekend_warrior]

1. Impenetrable city defenses or weak "road blocks"

It's been stated that a goal of Civ5 combat is to take the fighting outside of the citys. So while citys will defend themselves from marginal attacks, if 18 units have broken through your frontline (where the majority of your troops should have been), then expect that city to fall pretty fast.

2. Over-powered ranged units.

It's also been stated that archers will be very weak against melee units, so a force of archers (or any ranged unit) without a proper melee force would be easy pickings after they got off a few pot shots. Cannons and artillery on the other hand will be resource constricted, so you won't be able to spam those without neglecting other important units. And they're likely weak at defending too.