Declare Nationality is Permanent?!

[OzzyKP]

That sucks.

I have the Council of Esus and I've been building a big army in that city and with mercenaries to invade my friendly neighbor. But I didn't want everyone taking pot shots at my troops while they were sitting around amassing so I declared their nationality. Now that my army is on their border ready to move in I discover that I can't reverse it...

Lame.

 

[Silverkiss]

If you didn't want that, just had them stay in the cities. A hidden nationality unit do not count as so when whitin a city, if I am not mistaken.

 

[Blakmane]

That sucks.

I have the Council of Esus and I've been building a big army in that city and with mercenaries to invade my friendly neighbor. But I didn't want everyone taking pot shots at my troops while they were sitting around amassing so I declared their nationality. Now that my army is on their border ready to move in I discover that I can't reverse it...

Lame.

It's that way to prevent abuse. Think, otherwise you could declare nationality to gain temporary 'invunerablity' from enemy units, before reverting to attack (and then declaring to become untouchable again).

 

[Kael]

Well, that and the ai may be dumb, but if it sees your army there massing on its border its not going to be confused if they suddenly spray paint over their civ emblems.

 

[OzzyKP]

Oh well. Just messed up my plans.

 

[jonottawa]

Man, I built up a huge warrior army and massed them in my cities and I didn't want to get resources and technology and stuff and then I declared war on everyone at once and found out that when your warriors get killed, they stay dead.

Lame.

 

[OzzyKP]

While on the topic of hidden nationality, Shadows have some trouble with hidden nationality. The unit tries to move through cities, but can't without attacking the units inside.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I had a several ideas about improving HN a while ago (some for strengthening, some for nerfing). I don't remember all of them, but here are a few:

Strengthening:

HN units could take cities (even while at peace with the owner), but must raze them.

A shadow spell (and possibly pirates coves) could grant the HN promotion.

The declare nationality ability should not include the cancast(caster) or docast(caster) statements, so nationality can be declared right before attacking or after casting (and so that HN summons can declare nationality and still do something for those who do not have the summoning trait)

Possibly, HN units could be made able to attack your own units, so that you can convince other players that the unit must really not be yours. If this is added, there should really be a way to stop them from attacking friendly units when automated (perhaps automated-exploration units should just not attack at all, but just stop when they are near an enemy. Automated Scouts dieing when they stupidly attack stronger units is also kinda irritating)

weakening:

A sun sphere spell could remove HN from a unit, forcing the unit to leave your boarders. This might also hurt the diplomatic relation between the civs.

HN units (especially when attacking) could be caught (kinda like spies). The equivalent of catching but not identifying the spy would let them eject the HN unit from their boarders and would let them suspect the nationality. Usually this would give them a diplomatic penalty towards the units owner, but occasionally (especially when you attack an enemy right after leaving another rival's boarders) there suspicions would be wrong and the wrong civ would be penalized. The equivalent of catching them and discovering nationality would give a larder diplo penalty and force the HN unit's owner to declare war whether he wants to or not.

The chances of getting caught are much higher if you raze a city, if you have non HN units on the same tile, or if you attack directly from your cities/territory.

HN would not allow multiple attacks per turn while at peace (I assume you would fix this soon anyway)

 

[vorshlumpf]

Ozzy, there are several issues with HN units outstanding (though I'm not sure if the Shadow one you just mentioned has been reported). A HN unit will lose extra movement points when attacking (for instance, a spider with Mobility II can lose all movement points when attacking someone adjacent in the open). Attacking a city with multiple HN units selected gives you a stack attack. I think there's more, buried in one of the old bug threads. I'm assuming these will get serious attention during the Shadow phase of development.

 

[BeefontheBone]

The movement one has been reported - it's especially annoying with ships. Given that HN was implemented by Firaxis for BtS, I suspect it's pre-fixed (not prefixed heh) for the BtS version.

 

[OzzyKP]

Ozzy, there are several issues with HN units outstanding (though I'm not sure if the Shadow one you just mentioned has been reported). A HN unit will lose extra movement points when attacking (for instance, a spider with Mobility II can lose all movement points when attacking someone adjacent in the open). Attacking a city with multiple HN units selected gives you a stack attack. I think there's more, buried in one of the old bug threads. I'm assuming these will get serious attention during the Shadow phase of development.

Ah yea, I encountered the stack attack thing myself. I thought I had left that option selected by accident and didn't check it out. Good to know it is another wonky HN bug.

 

[jonottawa]

What precisely is a stack attack?

Edit:

Thanks for the answers below.

 

[Chip56]

What precisely is a stack attack?

Thats a option.
It means if you select for example 5 units and attack a city all 5 will attack the city without need for new orders.
But this doesnt mean that they attack at the same time only that after the first is defeated the next one will attack.

 

[vorshlumpf]

Yeah, it's a bit of a time-saver, but I'm too much of a micromanager to use it deliberately - the computer chooses the order in which your units attack, of course (strongest first, which sucks when you have weaker units that you want to use as cannon fodder before sending in your best).

 

[Sureshot]

ya i can never use stack attack, imagine a general in a battle sending in wave after wave of troops with their eyes closed, thats stack attack lol

in 0.23c its even worse tho, sometimes i send in 5 units as cannon fodder (the only time id consider stack attack) on 20% odds and find out ive done absolutely no damage with any of them.

 

[Chip56]

ya i can never use stack attack, imagine a general in a battle sending in wave after wave of troops with their eyes closed, thats stack attack lol

^^I consider it a useless option because if you really want to attack with the stack that one button on the numpad or one mouseclick more is much better than loosing a whole army because you accidentaly made a stack attack.

 

[onedreamer]

There is an advantage in using the stack attack option. When Firaxis implemented it they clearly had it in mind. After almost 2 years of Civ4, I'm still looking for it.

 

[kenken244]

the only good thing for stack attack is when swarming a unit with a bunch of exactaly the same units. like with privateers in that old civ 3 colinization mod

 

[onedreamer]

nope, even in that case it isn't good, because you can't predict the results. You might be luckier and want to stop the cannon fodder, or you might see that you're not helping at all and stop the slaughter in order to not present the enemy with free xp.

 

[OzzyKP]

The option is best used in MP when you have a strict turn timer and want to catch your opponent off guard.