Defense and offense

[swilhelm73]

I was thinking while playing the other day, that Civ 4 uses an interesting model for comparing the value of offense and defense.

On the strategic level, defense is clearly superior. When someone invades your lands, they can't use your roads or forts, and they heal much slower. This makes it difficult in some cases to reinforce stacks of doom, and gives the defender, if he has cultural depth, several turns to organize his defense.

However, on the tactical level, offense rules. You can get some nice defensive bonuses from cities and terrain and you do get the best defender for each attack. However, the sheer fact that the attacker determines the fight order overwhelms this. You make have a bunch of good defense troops in a city with a high defense value, but given enough siege units or time, and you will lose...

This has prompted me to focus much more on active defense. When at war with a roughly equal foe, be prepared to attack their stack of doom in your lands, and then go after their cities...

 

[Sisiutil]

Whether you're attacking or defending, siege weapons are key to this game. Much is made on this forum and elsewhere--justifiably so--on their importance to capturing cities. But siege units are also the only way to deal with an invading enemy stack of doom; without them you'll sacrifice unit after unit against the automatically-chosen best defender (i.e. counter unit) in the enemy stack.

 

[Jerrymander]

But siege units are also the only way to deal with an invading enemy stack of doom; without them you'll sacrifice unit after unit against the automatically-chosen best defender (i.e. counter unit) in the enemy stack.

I think you mean Collateral Damage is key to eliminating enemy stacks. Chu Ko Nus have collateral, too.

 

[Derakon]

And as I discovered to my dismay in my previous game, cavalry (and some other mounted units) can deal flanking damage to invading siege units. So even if you can't stop the AI's stack, you can remove his ability to effectively assault your cities by destroying his siege.

 

[Sisiutil]

I think you mean Collateral Damage is key to eliminating enemy stacks. Chu Ko Nus have collateral, too.

Ah yes, that is what I meant. I don't usually play as China and often forget about the Chu-Ko-Nus. (Unless I'm up against them, in which case I think of them as Chu-K-OH NOES! )

 

[Jerrymander]

Well, there isn't really a compelling reason to play as China. Aside from the unique unit, which replaces a not often used unit to being with.

 

[Spectrite]

Well, there isn't really a compelling reason to play as China. Aside from the unique unit, which replaces a not often used unit to being with.

That and being the only Civ to start with Agriculture/Mining. The Pavilion can be useful for Cultural victories, too. But IMO, not an outstanding civ overall, especially given both leaders are Protective.

 

[swilhelm73]

Well, there isn't really a compelling reason to play as China. Aside from the unique unit, which replaces a not often used unit to being with.

Really? I build a lot more Macemen, but I like to include a few crossbowmen too - decent defenders if you didn't get feudalism yet, and they are a good counter to enemy Macemen. I guess less so if you don't go heavy on CR for the Macemen, but still.

 

[Derakon]

IIRC Crossbowmen are Macemen with 2 less base strength and 1 first strike. That's not a compelling tradeoff to me. They're earlier in the tech tree (but I tend to beeline bureaucracy), and they're probably slightly cheaper, but still not enough to make them really worth building.

 

[CajNatalie]

Derakon, you're missing something there... unit types.
A Maceman v Maceman battle is even.
Maceman v Crossbowman is in favor of the Crossbowman... the Maceman gets no bonuses and the Crossbow gets a bonus against the Mace.

So they're worth adding in a stack for defense against enemy maces and other melee, instead of leaving it to your maces, which you may want to preserve for attack.

 

[Derakon]

Oh, you're right. Good call, then. Maceman vs. crossbowman is 8 effective strength for the maceman vs. 9 effective strength for the crossbowman before promos/defense.

 

[CajNatalie]

If the crossbow is on the offense, I think the Maceman loses 50%, but I'm not entirely certain on the mechanics of the weird 'adjust only the defender' combat system. Anyways, this means counter-attacking a Maceman who's stepped outside of a city should be even easier for a crossbow.

 

[swilhelm73]

Oh, you're right. Good call, then. Maceman vs. crossbowman is 8 effective strength for the maceman vs. 9 effective strength for the crossbowman before promos/defense.

And ideally, your combat two X-bow is defending, not your combat one CR3 maceman. I hate losing CRs that way...

 

[bernlin2000]

It's certainly true that if you see a stack of doom coming, especially with siege units, it's in your best interest to not just pile a bunch of units into the city and hope for the best. As long as there's siege units that kind of passive defense is going to fail almost always (unless you have a overwhelming advantage over the attackers). I tend to especially station units that don't get defense bonuses anyhow (siege, mounted units) around the borders that face opposing empires. I don't like people messing with my improvements

 

[Jerrymander]

Really? I build a lot more Macemen, but I like to include a few crossbowmen too - decent defenders if you didn't get feudalism yet, and they are a good counter to enemy Macemen. I guess less so if you don't go heavy on CR for the Macemen, but still.

They're useful in niche situations but still not often used.

 

[pi-r8]

You'll see this a lot in MP games- two players will be at war but neither one can enter the opponents territory for fear of getting annihilated by seige collateral. You really need overwhelming force before you can go in.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

which is, of course, why china's UU is very cool, but not really all that practical. Great stack defense, good specialized city defense (especially if it gets the drill line, which cuts collateral damage)... but collateral damage only works on offense.

btw - how does the drill reduction of collateral damage work? with drill IV, you get 60% less collateral damage - does that mean that a cat (which can only cause you to drop to 50% of your HP) does no actual damage to you? Or does it mean that

 

[vicawoo]

I really like the system. The combat system could easily be terrible: axes could just overwhelm archers, or archers could take down an obscene number of axes. By giving archers a lower strength, defensive bonuses aren't so overwhelming, but archers have enough of a base bonus to defend well.

Good defenders can still be very cost effective, but you can throw enough weaker units that you can win one tech level down, just like RTS,

Late game static defense should grow much weaker with more numbers, and siege kind of compensates for that. Siege gives de facto area of effect, which should be nice, as in RTS it punishes hordes of weaker units, but it doesn't quite work out that way.

The siege/stack dynamic is probably the biggest flaw. Second is multiple move units, which I feel doesn't have a place in a turn base game. In RTS games, your slower unit can still chase the faster unit, so it won't be too far behind to help in fights. But in turn base games, you have complete initiative for all your turns, and the more turns you have the worse it gets. I can't think of a reasonable way of balancing it.

Edit: and there's no guarantee that civ V will get it "right" or "better". To me it's partially luck, and I won't be interested in a game with lots of bells and whistles if gameplay degenerates as badly as in civ 3.