Early Game Tradition Capital Strength - A Poll

[Stalker0]

Since we have debated city strength lately, I came across an excellent "upper end" situation that I think is a good example to get the communities take on.

The question is: Is this the right strength for an early Tradition capital, too little, or too much? I have noted a poll.

Here is the situation. I have Immortals with Drill II + Great General + the Immortal's Defense bonus attacking Venice's capital. Venice has walls, an archer garrison, and the Tradition's policy that allows cities to do extra damage.

1) The city does ~38 dmg to the Immortal (based on the actual dmg in game) + 11 from the archer, for a total of 49 dmg per round.

2) Next up we have our Drill II + City Assault Immortal. In this case the city is doing ~17 dmg to the Immortal + 11 from the archer. For a total of 28 dmg per round.

3) Third on the list is a chariot archer with accuracy I in open terrain (so it gets its skirmisher bonus). The city does 100 damage (so the archer is killed automatically).

4) Last up is our catapult with Siege I. This takes 33 dmg from the city.

The simple poll question: What do you think about those damage numbers from a Tradition capital?

1) The right amount of damage
2) Too much damage
3) Too little damage

 

[Cokolwiek]

I think it's reasonable and don't think there are any real balance issues here. Spearmen alone, even unique, shouldn't be able to take the walled city by themselves. Much less tradition capital. 28 damage to front line unit seems just about right. 33 to catapults is also on the spot.

 

[kawyua]

looks like you are not even close to being able to take venice's capital. I can empathize with your frustration to go post about it, too. you'll probably need like 6 immortals, 4 catapults and a great general to have a chance to conquer venice. tradition cities man, they hurt so much for that early in the game. the massive extra health on cities, comp bows by mathematics, and to top that with tradition policies, its impossible man. Seiging with trebuchets is impossible too when a city like that has castles. only until like cannons that you can possibly take that city.

sorry, I just had my own flashbacks to my own frustrations trying to rush cities early since the april patch. To answer your question, i also don't really like how a city like that can solo my armies. I've just had to accept that its for the best, but yeah early rushes in classical feels pretty much dead in the water. I've experienced things like a tradition ottoman forward settling me with 6 drill promoted and city assault around, then in the 2 turns that it takes to allow me to full surround they use there production to build a wall and sit a unit in it. its so painful ;_;

 

[andersw]

On the one hand its a bit much since its immortals with exp but it is a walled capital so on second thought I think its ok.
How would the immortals do if you'd gone cover first instead of drill?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I think tradition capitals are -by design- harder tot and you should be very well prepared to take it as well as accepting that you might lose some units to the city defenses.
My only issue with city CS right now is Naval melee units after renaissance era doing insane amounts of damage to cities.

 

[Stalker0]

looks like you are not even close to being able to take venice's capital.

Ultimately I did take the capital. Was quite a lot of work, but it was taken. Immortals double heal with medic 2 is quite powerful, just just had to keep cycling and cycling until the city fell.

This poll isn't meant to be a "rant", just a scientific data point. Since Drill Immortals somewhat represent the strongest early game city rush you manage, its a good data point to get feedback on. We have changed city CS a decent amount in the last few months so I wanted to see where things stood at the moment and whether the community thought it a "good place".

 

[tothePAIN]

It's in a good place. You were able to take the city but it was tough to do, vindicating the choices of both players.

Ideally, you'd have swords with city assault.

I think naval units vs cities is off again but I haven't gotten to test it yet.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

I voted right amount, but considering your testing with immortals and have a GG present, then I'd say 38 might be a bit high for a standard strike (taking into account the unit also has drill ll). I also don't think a chariot archer should be one-hit in that situation.

 

[amateurgamer88]

For one of my playthroughs, my Longswordsman with just Cover I and Drill II took 31 damage from a Byzantium Tradition capital that only has walls (1:26:36 of the video here). Unless this is a rare occasion, that's a bit ridiculous when units that advanced cannot take hits that well.

 

[vyyt]

I voted it's too much. Yes, it is frustrating and unfun to siege when you have to constantly rotate melee (and based on terrain, your siege are often in the way), but I, personally, find being sieged even more troublesome. I remember I was 2-shotting enemy longswordsmen and 1-shotting heavy skirmishers in one of my previous games, it was too easy to repel an enemy siege.

I think we will never find a consensus, when some people want to remove the city attack altogether, while others want to have it strong enough to repel invasions almost without a standing army.

I would not mind setting a fixed strength for each defensive building and I believe the cities should not be dealing more than 20 damage to promoted contemporary units.

 

[pineappledan]

Does Venice have its St Mark’s Basilica up? That also gives city defense

 

[Cokolwiek]

If you I would to propose anything for those who consider it too much I would propose decrease in city ranged strength a bit, with increase to base city hitpoints and defense. It would be much smoother to siege. It's balanced now, but it could be a tad better if cities wouldn't be able to take siege weapons down themselves but taken a while longer to fall.

 

[azum4roll]

What if siege units get an extra +25% defense against cities on top of Cover I?

 

[Kim Dong Un]

I'm still trying to imagine some type of system / modmod where city attack is disabled and instead replaced by attrition relative to which ring invading units finish their turn on. It would have to be small and incremental in order to not make siege impossibly grueling, and it'd probably have to be paired with the removal of healing penalties in enemy lands, but defensive buildings would adjust how attrition damage is dispersed among attackers, with damage decreasing over distance. City defense and hp #'s might even have to be slightly lowered in this system, but I'm intrigued to see if something like this would work:

E.g.,

• city without walls = units directly adjacent to city take 5 damage per turn
• with walls = adjacent units take 10 damage per turn, units in second ring take 5
  
• with castle = adjacent units take 15 damage per turn, seconds ring takes 10
  
• with arsenal = adjacent units take 20 damage per turn, second ring takes 15, third ring takes 10

The same could be applied separately with water tiles:

• with lighthouse = adjacent takes 10
• with harbor = adjacent takes 15, second ring takes 10
• with minefield = adjacent takes 20, second ring takes 15, third ring takes 10

The numbers may look daunting at first (a unit adjacent to a city with an arsenal, losing 20hp per turn while not healing, would still last 5 turns if untouched by defending units), but on top of the aforementioned better healing, you'd have to also consider that none of your units would be getting singled out anymore for 30+ damage by defending cities - damage would be consistent across the board!

You could even play around with the numbers more and incorporate other features into the system: Red Fort could bump damage by 5 per ring (with arsenal now = 25, 20, 15), while tradition's bonus strength could then be implemented by reintroducing healing penalties (or outright disabling healing for invaders, which could be a cool update to a civ's UA) to enemy units that are within 3 tiles of the capital.

Maybe it's a crazy concept, and it's something I know has almost zero chance of coming to fruition, especially at this stage of the game, but figure I'd throw the idea out there again for others to scrutinize.

 

[vyyt]

@Kim Dong Un , yep, I would not mind something like you propose. It is simple, transparent and there are no complicated calculations.

A thing to note - the units would be taking the same damage regardless of their strength (= a GDR and the spearman standing next to it, which you have been keeping for 4000 years as the Royal Honorary Guard would die at the same rate), correct? Possibly reduced by promos?

 

[azum4roll]

They won't die at the same rate, since the GDR has 150HP

 

[JamesNinelives]

If you I would to propose anything for those who consider it too much I would propose decrease in city ranged strength a bit, with increase to base city hitpoints and defense. It would be much smoother to siege. It's balanced now, but it could be a tad better if cities wouldn't be able to take siege weapons down themselves but taken a while longer to fall.

I agree. I've feel cities should be strong defensively but not kill stuff quite as well as they do sometimes. I think in this case being a tradition capital - especially Venice's capital the numbers in this example are OK. But in other cases, e.g. some random city the AI settled and managed to get walls up super quick it can feel a tad too strong.

 

[Stalker0]

This isn't a thread to post "solutions" just get peoples thoughts. So far the poll is pretty split, so there may not be any solutions needed.

 

[CppMaster]

This isn't a thread to post "solutions" just get peoples thoughts. So far the poll is pretty split, so there may not be any solutions needed.

Not really. About a half think that damage is ok, other half think it's too much, so on average, based on just that, it should be less.

Also brainstorming solutions won't hurt and may help when there would be a need for a change. For one, I like the idea of reducing slightly damage done by cities and improving their defense or HP.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Sure. I think the example is OK, but that damage from cities in other cases might be too high. I think it's notable that very few people have said 'damage should be higher'.

If the discussion is going away from the subject you are interested in Stalker, that's OK. It may have been unclear what the bounds of the discussion were intended to be though.