Critiques of Unique Powers

[NitroJay]

Alright, I just played a quick game with the Aztecs... I declared war on Spain right away... Spain harrassed me with their navy, but they never landed troops. After a while of this, Spain got America to declare war on me and I began losing cities to them. Still trying to provoke Spain, I captured Havana. This was the first time I started to see Spanish troops, they tried to retake Havana, but failed. Congress came up, I wasn't invited, and Spain got Havana back. A few turns later, America razed my capital and I was exiled to Russia! I figure the experiment had run it's course and I quit the game... But I did come up with another question while playing: since America RAZED my captial, how can I retake it to come back to power? Would I have to build another city in it's place? Just curious. I have some saved games if they would be helpful on the Spain question, let me know.

 

[NitroJay]

I have never seen a british invasion of India

I've never seen it either, but playing as India, England always ask for (and gets) Mandalay through the congress...

 

[Rhye]

A few turns later, America razed my capital and I was exiled to Russia! I figure the experiment had run it's course and I quit the game... But I did come up with another question while playing: since America RAZED my captial, how can I retake it to come back to power? Would I have to build another city in it's place?

cool, finally a report about exile!
If the capital is razed, you can only escape if you capture a city built in that location.

 

[Blasphemous]

I'm hearing suggestions

I understand that getting Spain to hate the Aztecs is not the problem, but this just reminds me of the "We find your lack of faith disturbing" diplo hit idea for civs with no state religion. It would put a very realistic spin on relations with the civs that emphasize religion (like Spain).

As to exile, it doesn't sound extremely realistic that you can only make a comeback by conquering a city on that specific tile. Perhaps we should work out a slightly more complicated system of comebacks to make it more realistic and feasible.

 

[Blasphemous]

On a different subject, I'd like to bring up the Russian UP again. I'm playing an excellent UHV game as Germany, and in the one war I had with Russia so far I got the feeling that their UP works a bit too fast and furiously. It should mainly be a blow upon entering Russian land. It should still gradually eat away at units afterwards, but the real problem should be on the first turn when a unit enters the hostile climate. After a year or two whoever survives will be able to last it out, more or less. The way I propose doing this is to split the way the UP works into two things:
1. When a hostile unit crosses the land border into Russian lands, it immediately loses 10HP.
2. Every turn a hostile unit spends in Russian lands, it loses 2HP. If it is fortified, it only loses 1HP.
This will encourage a few bits of realistic behvior (at least in human players):
First of all, it will make sense to prepare logistically for the invasion. The only way we can do this right now is by encouraging landing units using naval transports instead of using simple land invasions. If the main blow landed by the Russian winter is only relevant when crossing the land border, it would make sense to plan ahead and land units using boats. The other thing it would encourage is being very careful with invasions and keeping most of your forces fortified while besieging the Russian cities. The game should reflect the fact that the Russian winter put a stop to generally effective Blitzkrieg techniques, which are actually encourage by the way the UP works right now.
I'm actually not completely clear on how it should all work out, and it's been a few days since my invasion of Sankt-Peterburg, but my impression was that the UP clearly worked too rapidly.

 

[Lobsterboy]

I've never seen it either, but playing as India, England always ask for (and gets) Mandalay through the congress...

I was playing a game as Persia, and had conquered all of India, Arabia, Greece, and Egypt. England asked for, and was given Delhi, which, as usual, was the Holy City for both Buddhism and Hinduism! At the time, it was probably my 4th or 5th most powerful city. Needless to say, I did not agree to such an outrageous demand!

(Not long afterward, all of India revolted right on the eve of my invasion of China. The latter collapsed, as transit of new troops through newly independent India took too long, and the Chinese seem to be able to manufacture units out of thin air!)

 

[Marmoteo]

An idea for the Egyptians would be to give them a religion at the start of the game. This religion could only expand on it's cultural borders. Monasteries or Holy Shrine not available for this Egyptian Polytheism. Also, the religion should dissapear if conquered by any civilization. This would give a chance to take advantage of building the pyramids and also would reflect the non-egyptian polytheism today.

Mind my crappy english.

 

[Surtur]

Well if we do that then Rome, Greece etc. also need a religion. I would prefer changing the Pyramid effect to "free Obelisk in every city", lower cost for Pyramids and remove Stonehenge from the game.

 

[Rhye]

Well if we do that then Rome, Greece etc. also need a religion. I would prefer changing the Pyramid effect to "free Obelisk in every city", lower cost for Pyramids and remove Stonehenge from the game.

it's already that way. Pyramids and Stonehenge effects are swapped

 

[OzzyKP]

Hmm. I just gave the Mongols a whirl with their new UP. It's a thousand times better than their old UP, but it doesn't capture the fear aspect of it as I thought it would. The game instead becomes a game of scouting for the biggest and/or best city to raze, setup all the units on each city and then attack and raze the selected city. It feels like chess rather than the 'surrender of be exterminated' attitude that would be appropriate. Although aggressive expansive in operation, it isn't what I thought it would be.

Were you unable to create - not a tally - but a system where it could create a chance of surrender based on the number of razings? Because that would (should!) capture it just right. It would allow them to rock up to a city and (effectively) demand surrender. The player would then be able to raze it full knowing that it will help with getting a future surrender regardless of distance. IMO - assuming it can be efficiently done - it would make it feel just right.

Yea I played the Mongols for the first time (in warlords) and it was a joke.

The Chinese had elephants - and lots of them - so I couldn't even hope to attack them (and when I tried I got ripped to shreds). So I reloaded and sent my units south and attacked and razed a barbarian city - Chengdu. Then I put my units by two Chinese cities. They didn't surrender, they just killed my units with their elephants.

What is the surrender area that razing a city will affect? Does it have to be a city from that civ? How does it work?


I'm also annoyed that almost no units flipped to me when I spawned, and no cities. Whereas when the Turks spawned when I was playing Babylon they took like 30 units from me. It was absolutely hopeless. Then I jumped ship when the Mongols spawned, but that was just as hopeless...

 

[Watiggi]

You can take out Japan in one hit (although I didn't bother to try it): Just go for the middle city, put a unit adjacent to each of the other cities nearby and attack the middle one, raze it and at the end of the next turn you should get all the other of Japans cities.

I would just love to see the 'keep a tally as you go' system - even at the expense of complicated processing time, just to see how it feels. Just need a way of keeping track of the cities surrendered vs cities razed and then use that as a way of modifying the chance of a city surrendering. Make it so that the city with a decent number of mixed seige and mounted units near it do the surrender or not thing - not just a single unit. Would be cool I think.