Early game city attacking changes v34

[JosEPh_II]

One more unequal example, my units keep getting archer bombard damage being adjacent to the city, but my archers can not hurt the defenders. And upon the rare occasion I get a Green result (vs Red No Damage) there is No Damage reported or inflicted. But the Inside defenders get more XP!

I just reached Classical Era and I have "starved" the city down to size 4. But there are still over 15 units still inside that city, 8 Composite archers, 3 TW, 2 Obsidian Spear, 1 Obsidian Mace, and 1 Javelineer, plus a GP. Seems the healers were all in the last excursion.

So it would seem that this might be my best shot at taking this city. But I'll have to round up some more of my forces that have been chasing/fighting units from Pacal's other 3 remaining cities.

I've provided a screenshot of the current turn.

JosEPh

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Units should only be getting XP if they kill something either when attacking or defending. Someone must die.

Exceptions to this are when an animal is subdued. Siege engines should get exp when they destroy defenses or seriously damage an enemy unit. Story Tellers when they remove turns of revolt and other specialised units when they do something.

I have not seen cases where a combat unit get exp without killing a unit.

 

[Rwn]

I have not seen cases where a combat unit get exp without killing a unit.

Also withdrawal with Fight or Flight.

 

[JosEPh_II]

If the city archer defenders can "bombard" and cause damage to my units outside the city, then it should also be that my archers can cause damage to units inside the city. Not the case it would seem. Cause if I could reduce their str with an archer "ranged assault/bombard" (whatever you call it) I'd then attack en masse.

JosEPh

 

[Noriad2]

So basically the only valid strategy to take a city is to make a stack big enough to take a city in one turn. Anything else will just give the enemy more XP. And whether that is possible depends on the tech level (assuming that the AI and the player go up in tech at roughly the same speed).

At some tech levels, the defenders have the advantage of having access to strong defensive units, at other tech levels the attackers get a boost by having access to strong offensive units. So at some tech stages you play turtle and develop your economy, but when a new offensive unit becomes available, you can plan a conquest. Sometimes you need to bring five times as many attackers as there are defenders, plus means of lowering the defense bonus of the city. Not always an easy task but often doable with enough preparation and investment. And patiently waiting for the right moment.

Success happens when opportunity meets sufficient preparation. Which means that success depends both on preparation and finding opportunities (which means espionage, continual scouting and situation evaluation)

 

[JosEPh_II]

Basically yes.

Before you attack a city in Preh, Ancient, and Early Classical Eras you must pillage the entire city tiles, completely surround and cut off all re-inforcements and after reducing city defenses to 0% (if they have Any city defense left especially above 20% you will most likely fail). Then you attacking force must be at least 10 to 1 attacker vs defenders. Plus you better have a 2nd wave ready that is equally as large as the 1st.

In that screen shot I could sacrifice every unit I have there and still not take this now starving/seiged pop 4 city (that was originally a pop 8, that made it to pop 10 before I pillaged everything).

This is why I try to avoid early warfare since April of last year. It's a futile effort. But this time I got Dowed and I thought, let's have a go Pacal.

To fill in some more info, the 1 city on the lake just NE of Uxmal is where I wqas 1st headed with my army. For some inexplicable reason Pacal pulled Every single unnit from that city. So I walked a horseman in and claimed it. As you can see it's been just as much of an uphill battle to get the tile around it to revert to my culture (I do not use Minimum City Tile Option, it's impo totally illogical).

The other 3 cities were frontier and had no walls or just palisades that i was able to overrun and I razed them because I was financially pressed as it was from having to have such a large Army. Pacal's 3 other cities besides Uxmal are size 12 to 21 now.

I may give up this war and offer peace because now I'm getting CTDs, non repeatable at 1st but now have a savegame and Minidump in the Bug thread. This game could be over now if alberts2 is not able to check it out.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

I love Noriad's take on that.

A few thoughts...

*It IS easier to ready troops for weakening raiding runs if you're on Fight or Flight. But it shouldn't be mandatory for game balance.

*It is good that it's extremely challenging at the beginning of the game to take a city. It keeps it from being too easy to get a steamroll going so early you can't ever get to the later eras.

*However, it does sound like it's a little too difficult at the moment. Perhaps one of the problems lies in the extreme tech prerequisites for city attack promos. Maybe loosening those would help a lot. Also... do archers still have that ridiculously overpowered +50% city defense?

 

[JosEPh_II]

Iirc it's either 25% or 50%. Game CTD'd on me at the moment, savegame is in the Bug thread if you want to look see.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Iirc it's either 25% or 50%. Game CTD'd on me at the moment, savegame is in the Bug thread if you want to look see.

JosEPh

I won't be able to right away but I'll try to fit it in over the weekend if it hasn't been addressed.

Yeah, imo that's way too high.

I suggest the following and hope someone who is working with XML sees the vision in a way their forebearers did not:

*Reduce Archer city and hill defense down to like 10%. That's what Swords have as a bonus to attack so it seems more balanced, no?

*Add an amount of city defense % bonus to the mace line of units equal to the city attack bonus they get so they are a little better at facing melee city attackers than archers are (unless those happen to be axes.) I think you'll find it becomes more interesting to have mace units in the game this way. (Make sure to add the city defense AI to them during this process.)

This will make it so you have a melee and a distance version of city defenders. In the long run vision I can point out a few things that can be done after this step is taken.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I wasn't meaning for you to fix it. But more for you to look at it especially around Uxmal and see the promos of the defenders vs what I have available.

But If you can't you can't so don't sweat it.

JosEPh

 

[Noriad2]

Basically yes.

Before you attack a city in Preh, Ancient, and Early Classical Eras you must pillage the entire city tiles, completely surround and cut off all re-inforcements and after reducing city defenses to 0% (if they have Any city defense left especially above 20% you will most likely fail). Then you attacking force must be at least 10 to 1 attacker vs defenders. Plus you better have a 2nd wave ready that is equally as large as the 1st.

I respectfully disagree. Pillaging is of no use in conquering a city, given that that should be done in 1 turn, and the presence of your units only makes the AI want to put extra defenders in the city.

I have destroyed several empires at deity/nightmare/large map in the first three eras. The first good attack unit is the Spiked Clubman. Make 15-20 as soon as possible, and you can usually take a city (before tribalism). Aside from culture units, the next good attack unit is the elephant rider (str 7) which becomes available at the end of the prehistoric era. Finding Elephants and horses is of course of paramount importance, either as map resource or as subdued herd. If you really can't find one near you, trade for elephants or horses with a neighbour AI, build the national elephant/horse trainer in your military city, then build a herd yourself and settle it there.

But to attack successfully you need lots of units, and a promotion or two helps a lot also. There is a minimum amount of attacks you need to do before the defense crumbles. Before you reach that minimum amount, you will feel you are just scratching the enemy, and throwing away your forces for nothing, until he has weakened enough and then only a few extra units will destroy the enemy utterly. How many you need to break the defense is something you learn from experience. And patience is key. If you are not sure you will be victorious, withdraw your army and wait for a better opportunity while building more units. Even better: place your army near another enemy city, hope that he will send the bulk of his defenders there, and then suddenly attack the city you really wanted.

It is strongly recommended to make a dedicated unit production city. Choose a city surrounded with lots of good food and hammers tiles (hills) and power up its economy as hard as possible, with buildings and wonders that give bonuses to unit production and to XP for new units. Use captives and food/hammer merchant units (made in other cities) and herds to boost the city production to the limit as fast as possible. Give it all military bonus buildings, from stables to bamboo armor to poison crafter to bandit hideout. Settle your Great Generals there. But don't waste resources on money buildings, or resource manufactory buildings. That is what your other cities are for. Fortify several storytellers (preferably built in other cities) there to boost education for the bonuses. So when you finally do get access to good offensive units, and need to churn out an army you have the means to really pump out units at an astonishing speed.

 

[Faustmouse]

Sieging a city could add a building to it that will slowly weakens the own units inside the city and slow their healing over time. They starve, they ran out of materials to fix their weapons / armour, they probably get wounded by an angry mob of starving and revolting citizens... therefore you can try to just surround a city and wait till they are weakened enough.

 

[JosEPh_II]

I respectfully disagree. Pillaging is of no use in conquering a city, given that that should be done in 1 turn, and the presence of your units only makes the AI want to put extra defenders in the city.

I have destroyed several empires at deity/nightmare/large map in the first three eras. The first good attack unit is the Spiked Clubman. Make 15-20 as soon as possible, and you can usually take a city (before tribalism). Aside from culture units, the next good attack unit is the elephant rider (str 7) which becomes available at the end of the prehistoric era. Finding Elephants and horses is of course of paramount importance, either as map resource or as subdued herd. If you really can't find one near you, trade for elephants or horses with a neighbour AI, build the national elephant/horse trainer in your military city, then build a herd yourself and settle it there.

But to attack successfully you need lots of units, and a promotion or two helps a lot also. There is a minimum amount of attacks you need to do before the defense crumbles. Before you reach that minimum amount, you will feel you are just scratching the enemy, and throwing away your forces for nothing, until he has weakened enough and then only a few extra units will destroy the enemy utterly. How many you need to break the defense is something you learn from experience. And patience is key. If you are not sure you will be victorious, withdraw your army and wait for a better opportunity while building more units. Even better: place your army near another enemy city, hope that he will send the bulk of his defenders there, and then suddenly attack the city you really wanted.

It is strongly recommended to make a dedicated unit production city. Choose a city surrounded with lots of good food and hammers tiles (hills) and power up its economy as hard as possible, with buildings and wonders that give bonuses to unit production and to XP for new units. Use captives and food/hammer merchant units (made in other cities) and herds to boost the city production to the limit as fast as possible. Give it all military bonus buildings, from stables to bamboo armor to poison crafter to bandit hideout. Settle your Great Generals there. But don't waste resources on money buildings, or resource manufactory buildings. That is what your other cities are for. Fortify several storytellers (preferably built in other cities) there to boost education for the bonuses. So when you finally do get access to good offensive units, and need to churn out an army you have the means to really pump out units at an astonishing speed.

I will have to also respectfully disagree with your disagreement on the main point.

As for the rest of your synopsis, that's good advice for a beginner. But even there I have exceptions.

Some history and background; I've been playing and testing StrategyOnly's Mods since his NWA days when Rise of Mankind was in it's 1.x stages. StrategyOnly started NWA because Zappara added REV into RoM and SO didn't like it same as I didn't. So he invited me to try his Take on Rom called NWA. And I did. But also I and others pestered Zappara enough that he agreed to make Rev an Option instead of becoming a default base to RoM. That is why REV is still an Option today in C2C.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sieging a city could add a building to it that will slowly weakens the own units inside the city and slow their healing over time. They starve, they ran out of materials to fix their weapons / armour, they probably get wounded by an angry mob of starving and revolting citizens... therefore you can try to just surround a city and wait till they are weakened enough.

Completely agree that simply cutting off trade is not enough to represent the penalty, particularly to besieged troops who would weaken over time behind the walls. But how would we do this? Even from a coding perspective, determining a 'cutoff' status would be difficult.

 

[Rwn]

Completely agree that simply cutting off trade is not enough to represent the penalty, particularly to besieged troops who would weaken over time behind the walls. But how would we do this? Even from a coding perspective, determining a 'cutoff' status would be difficult.

Maybe make a resource that is only supplied by the palace; if the city doesn't have this resource (meaning that it's disconnected from the trade network due to road pillaging), units will slowly lose strength?
Of course there would be some issues to tackle: how to avoid this in new cities (force the player to build roads before the city?) and how to avoid the city maintaining connection to the trade network through rivers (I'd say it's OK through coast since you can blockade a city IIRC?).

 

[Toffer90]

Or add a temporary -10% to heal to the tile where a batlle has taken place that goes away after the battle smoke clears. (What's the smoke effect after a batlle called anyhow?)

I find the real problem is that healing properties are too extreme at the moment, and the AI almost always choose self heal promotions because of it. 90% of all AI units in my game has self heal III which makes them heal, a lot, every turn, even when their not standing still. Self heal is so OP that an axeman that is merged two sizes up can heal from 20% →100% in a matter of 2-4 turns (without an dedicated healer) while at the same time moving and attacking weak units to get the occasional "heal after combat" effect. Quite the dreadnought; and who needs healers and doctors, when you can self heal.

Suggestion:
Either make the self heal II-III promotion unlock later in the tech tree or remove can heal while moving and reduce heal after combat from 20→10%

 

[JosEPh_II]

If I had blown up my screenshots you would be able to see what Toffer is saying. At 1st I didn't recognize theses promos because the tiny little icons are almost unreadable for me. But when I put a screenie in to Paint I could see they almost all had multiple healing promos. Hence my reference not only for the Healers stationed in the city but the disease property influence. And now it comes out that the whole Heal promos have been magnified and amplified like all the other Promos. It's Just Too Much.

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Or add a temporary -10% to heal to the tile where a batlle has taken place that goes away after the battle smoke clears. (What's the smoke effect after a batlle called anyhow?)

I find the real problem is that healing properties are too extreme at the moment, and the AI almost always choose self heal promotions because of it. 90% of all AI units in my game has self heal III which makes them heal, a lot, every turn, even when their not standing still. Self heal is so OP that an axeman that is merged two sizes up can heal from 20% →100% in a matter of 2-4 turns (without an dedicated healer) while at the same time moving and attacking weak units to get the occasional "heal after combat" effect. Quite the dreadnought; and who needs healers and doctors, when you can self heal.

Suggestion:
Either make the self heal II-III promotion unlock later in the tech tree or remove can heal while moving and reduce heal after combat from 20→10%

The smoke after battle is a bug option that is usually off by default. I'm not sure how effects can be built into it but you'd think it could be. Unfortunately I found it caused some game delay to play with the option on.

Strange that the Self Heal is that powerful. The healing adjustments are pretty minimal. What is it, 2 or 3 hp more healed per rnd for each lvl? However, extending Heal while moving to IV might be a good idea. But understand that the reason it was set to 3 was so that early hunters and recon could achieve this effect, so another option might be to make a whole additional promo option that requires Self Heal 3. Reducing the whole heal after combat values across the board on that promotion line sounds like it would help. That's a fairly untested tag and might be taking place more often than intended somehow. When it does fire, it only heals the unit as much as it could in a given round in that space and CAN therefore soak up a use of a local healer for the round.

Still, the actual combat benefit of those promos is pretty minimal and would not begin to compare to even a simple Combat promo so it could be a weakness if taken in lieu of better options there - it's when they are getting so many that it creates excess and when you are really in a strong defensive position that it really get's powerful.

I was also thinking that it might be good to reduce the base heal values a bit. Currently it's 5 hp/ rnd in enemy territory, 10 in neutral, 15 in friendly and 20 (total) in cities - and that's a base. Thus even without any buildings or unit based healing support etc... a city will heal just about any unit in 4 rnds. This doesn't leave much room for add-on values.

Perhaps 1 for enemy, 3 for Neutral, 5 for Friendly and allow cities to be unmodified by anything but the buildings and units there might make it more interesting.



I had been meaning for disease and poison afflictions to be injected into this structure at some point which would really represent that problem that units holed up in cities can have. If they are experiencing diseases spreading through their ranks it would weaken them over time. Additionally, strategies like launching dead bodies into the city with catapults and such could begin to have more meaning.


Also... to say that healing promos have been amplified is actually not entirely true. Especially in the first era where the maximum amount of healing you can muster from promos both on a supporting healer and self would not amount to the same healing bonus that one healer with +10 healing bonus from 2 healing promos had before these adjustments.

 

[JosEPh_II]

T-brd when I say amplified I'm meaning that if you build a unit in a city that would normally only get say 2 promos, you can take any regular promo and then instead of getting Just One healing promo you can get 2. In a city that gives more than 3 promos you can get all 3 healing promos Plus 2 more normal promos.

These healing promos should not stack right out of the gate. But they do.

Unfortunately Unlimited XP plays a role in this. I thought I had it unchecked, but it's playing like that Option is on.

Look I know that you feel your promos and therefore your work is being "picked on". But this is just really finding out how these ideas and coding of yours works and what is not quite right Yet. All coding needs testing by more than just the Modder, no matter how good the Modder may be.

And unfortunately not ever mod that is put out is desired by everyone. You know this as you made your work all Options, so far. There are still players that come to C2C that still do not want to play the Prehistoric Era even though that is the base for the Whole mod by SO's design. So too are there long time players that are not interested in many of the Options this mod provides. Unfortunately 1st impressions do go a long way and are hard to overcome.

JosEPh

 

[Toffer90]

The smoke after battle is a bug option that is usually off by default. I'm not sure how effects can be built into it but you'd think it could be. Unfortunately I found it caused some game delay to play with the option on.

Too bad, it's a nice effect that decreases plot yield after battle. How much of a delay are we talking about, I might have to reconsider using it myself.

Strange that the Self Heal is that powerful. The healing adjustments are pretty minimal. What is it, 2 or 3 hp more healed per rnd for each lvl?

Self Heal III gives +15% heal in friendly territory, +12% in neutral and +9% in enemy territory. I don't like that it is amplified in different territory, and think it should be +9% heal no matter where the unit is.

However, extending Heal while moving to IV might be a good idea. But understand that the reason it was set to 3 was so that early hunters and recon could achieve this effect, so another option might be to make a whole additional promo option that requires Self Heal 3.

If anything it should require "Self Heal I" and "Hunter II" promo. Hunters and trackers are already quote strong and I think that the fact that they sometimes must stop to rest makes them more interesting and balanced units, don't forget that they will probably be attacked by an animal while healing anyway so it's not like they have to stop hunting. I would much rather see an early can heal while moving promo unique for recon units as their task is, at least more than anyone else, to be mobile and never stop moving.

Reducing the whole heal after combat values across the board on that promotion line sounds like it would help. That's a fairly untested tag and might be taking place more often than intended somehow. When it does fire, it only heals the unit as much as it could in a given round in that space and CAN therefore soak up a use of a local healer for the round.

I would suggest 4-8-12-16 %. (what is it now, 5-10-20-40?)

I was also thinking that it might be good to reduce the base heal values a bit. Currently it's 5 hp/ rnd in enemy territory, 10 in neutral, 15 in friendly and 20 (total) in cities - and that's a base. Thus even without any buildings or unit based healing support etc... a city will heal just about any unit in 4 rnds. This doesn't leave much room for add-on values.

Perhaps 1 for enemy, 3 for Neutral, 5 for Friendly and allow cities to be unmodified by anything but the buildings and units there might make it more interesting.

I would try out 2-4-6-8 first and rather reduce other sources if needed.

I had been meaning for disease and poison afflictions to be injected into this structure at some point which would really represent that problem that units holed up in cities can have. If they are experiencing diseases spreading through their ranks it would weaken them over time. Additionally, strategies like launching dead bodies into the city with catapults and such could begin to have more meaning.

Good Idea, perhaps we could introduce cow slinging catapults that increase disease, not in the city directly, but at the tile it's on. ^^ I could make the special effect (flying cow) for the mission if anyone knows how to call unique animations for missions.