Firaxis, if you're listening.. :rolleyes:

[poom3619]

but more importantly it eliminates the damage melee units take when attacking cities.
.

That's... make sense. I am now can't help thinking that melee unit attacking city is soldier ferociously charging at building, totally expect to destroy it and hurt himself in progress.

The city without garrison is technically undefended, and even in less literal thinking, I wonder if city full of civilians and handful garrison will hold out long against enemy army without assistance.

 

[Galgus]

(In truth it reduces the damage to 1, since I don't know how to fully remove it.)

I view the city's bombardment as sufficient representation of the city's defensive weapons.

I agree that a city without a real military presence would not stand long against a real army.

 

[Barathor]

Here's some stats from an older thread if anybody is interested:

Did they raise city defense in a patch or something?

Rocket. Battery.

At +18 strength (+23 with quest added), it's quite a combat strength boost to cities early on. Then the Defense Perimeter adds another 10 strength plus a heap of HP. Also, tech modifiers and population modifiers remain the same between BE and BNW, but base city strength is 20 in BE and only 8 in BNW.

Here's some more comparisons for a clearer picture:

Marine: 14 + 2 attack (if chosen) = 16
Swordsman: 14

Brawler: 24 + 10 if alone = 34
Musketman: 24
Rifleman: 34

Artillery: 20 + 2 city attack + 6 city attack (if chosen) = 28
Catapult: 8 + 16 city attack = 24

Gunner: 14
Composite Bowman: 11
Crossbowman: 18

Rocket Battery: 125 p / +18 s (+23 s*) / +15 hp
Walls: 75 p / +5 s / +50 hp

Defense Perimeter: 150 p / +10 s / +40 hp (+50 hp*)
Castle: 160 p / +7 s / +25 hp

Both defense buildings added together:
BE: +33s* +65 hp*
BNW: +12s* +75 hp*
(Also, Walls[5] + Castle[7] + Arsenal[9] + Military Base[12] = 33 = Rocket Battery[23*] + Defense Perimeter[10] )

As said, with the both of these buildings available fairly early, it's like having walls and castles up -- actually, it's even better than that.

So, you were attacking walls and castles that have a much higher strength (in BE) with Musketmen (Riflemen*), catapults, and something a little better than composite bowmen.

Also, I would prefer a bit more shifting towards greater city health instead of city strength. It would be nice to have to whittle away at a city's great health for longer, where melee don't get as damaged attacking it and weaker units still have some impact instead of being useless to the high strength. Also, city bombards can't obliterate siege or ranged with very high strength ranged attacks.

You'd have time while your city is getting hammered, but an army to protect them would be more important.

Also, like Galgus, I believe it's a little lame to have melee units wait around a city before charging in for the finishing blows. Thematically, it may work for a game like Civ, with melee units waiting for catapults and archers to bombard a walled-in city, but maybe not so much in Beyond Earth.

 

[kipwheeler]

Maybe you should read some texts about Omaha Beach to get a grasp of how much defense a coastline can add to a position. If your defensive position is a floating structure in the middle of an ocean, then there's no defensible position at all.

I agree with Ryika here--not so much by way of the Omaha Beach analogy, but more along the lines of floating structures *sink*. They are particularly vulnerable to both torpedo-like weapons underwater and rocket/missile-like weapons from aerial assault. Defenses built on land can "dig in" to use cheap earth as barricades against all explosives except bunker-busters. Plus, defenses built on land don't start taking on water and drowning soldiers after one good shot.

 

[omniclast]

Galgus, the issue I see with reducing melee damage to 1 is the free unit kills you will get from taking cities. It means a unit garrisoning in a city will not be able to defend itself when it's being attacked; if the city is low health then a Xenotitan will die the exact same as a t1 marine.

If I were playing this mod I obviously wouldn't be dumb enough to put strong units in cities, but the AI still will. And I already find it pretty cheesy to lure the AIs big strong units into low-health cities so I can kill them without taking much damage.

Now, if the unit could evacuate to an empty tile, this issue would be resolved, but I'm not sure this can be modded in with just XML. I know there was such a mod for Civ5.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Cities aren't really "too strong", they just scale really stupidly. Early on, cities are relatively easy to take (aside from Capitals, but I think that's a good thing), then there come 2-3 really strong defensive buildings that push cities into territory that no reasonable land-army can take at that point and during the later stages of the game city defense becomes really weak, because there are no additional defensive buildings and the scaling from population is just silly.

The two early defensive buildings make it very strange when I see posts from new players saying they die too easily in the early game.

It is far too much and too easy a jump. Once I saw a large Civ with all their cities at <30 strength, so I moved right in to attack. In the few turns it took me to cross their territory all their cities were now +80 strength.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

It doesn't take much imagination to assume that it's easier to barricade a city that is built on land than it is to barricade a city that is built in the middle of an ocean.

I'm a little surprised you can capture ocean cities at all. A large bomb dropped in a land city will leave a big crater, but there's still plenty of foundation for the city to stand on, i.e. the whole continent. A man made, movable island would break apart under similar attack.

 

[Halbbruder]

I mostly agree with Ryika on city defence, in that it scales very strangely. The highest city combat defence I've had is around 160 in late game.

In early game, the figure is around 20-30 without defence buildings. I don't mind if it's reduced by 5 but I strongly disagree with the suggestion that a marine should 2-shot a size 1 city.

Here are some tweak ideas to consider for city defence and siege:
- increase city attack bonus for missile artillery or their base strength and add a trait that increases missile artillery range by 1.
- health should determine the HP of cities + HP regen. Lots of negative health should make cities really squishy with up to -50% HP and regen. Positive health increases it by maximum +25%.
- reduce the defence bonus from some defence buildings to make sure it scales properly.
- Better defence scale for population, to encourage people to go tall.
- Buff the national security project that boosts city defence and HP in capital to include all cities depending on number of spies in HQ.
- city defence could be determined by surrounding environment when set up. Reduce hill defence bonus for cities by around 2-3. Maybe even reduce base city defence as well. Add 2 defence bonus for each hill within 1 tile of a city excluding the hill it is on. That way, plain cities become easier to take and hilly cities harder to take, as it should be.
- buff domes to increase city defence as well as HP
- a level 3 spy operation to weaken city defence temporarily.

By mid game, city defence should not be able to reach 60-70 that early with defence buildings, reduce it to around 40-45.

In late game, city defence should reach around 130 or so city defence with some effort required. You do need to remember at this stage, people will be more advanced, orbital lasers and such will be used, +1 range for most ranged units, etc.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Are people forgetting that this uses REALLY advanced technology it's not just a raft floating around.

 

[Galgus]

Galgus, the issue I see with reducing melee damage to 1 is the free unit kills you will get from taking cities. It means a unit garrisoning in a city will not be able to defend itself when it's being attacked; if the city is low health then a Xenotitan will die the exact same as a t1 marine.

If I were playing this mod I obviously wouldn't be dumb enough to put strong units in cities, but the AI still will. And I already find it pretty cheesy to lure the AIs big strong units into low-health cities so I can kill them without taking much damage.

Now, if the unit could evacuate to an empty tile, this issue would be resolved, but I'm not sure this can be modded in with just XML. I know there was such a mod for Civ5.

Short of a being hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded the unit would still get some shots off before the city could be taken.

Ideally players would try to guard cities from being attacked on too many angles, and use their own armies to repulse them before they could be taken.

(Losing a city is a serious blow, after all.)

If cities are falling en masse, it really doesn't matter whether or not a handful of units fell with them: the war is a loss.

They still have the advantage of protecting ranged units so they can shoot off some bombardments, and I think them dying when the city is taken is fair with that in mind.

 

[oldag07]

I am sure this goes against some sort of forum rules, and I am not trying to start a flame war. Please take off the "rolls eyes" part of the title of the thread.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Beastfeast]

I've just had a thought, having compared Civ 5 new cities to civ BE new colonies. I just started up Civ 5 and new cities appear to have 7.5 strength, or thereabouts. Civ BE new colonies have about 20 strength ( please correct me if I'm wrong about that). Thats about 2 and a half times more. This lends Civ BE to a more defensive style of play, which in my view makes for a less dynamic early game. Remembering Alpha centauri the early game was much more precarious, partly because cities weren't like fortresses.

The units combat strength in Civ 5 aren't that different, but the city strength in BE is much higher. Perhaps the city strengths should be more equal and fortifications adjusted to compensate.

*edit* To emphasise this point a pop 1 BE city (str 20) has about the same combat strength as a Civ 5 pop 1 city with a castle and walls (about 19.5!). In a sense you get free defences for no extra cost in BE.

 

[Barathor]

I've just had a thought, having compared Civ 5 new cities to civ BE new colonies. I just started up Civ 5 and new cities appear to have 7.5 strength, or thereabouts. Civ BE new colonies have about 20 strength ( please correct me if I'm wrong about that). Thats about 2 and a half times more. This lends Civ BE to a more defensive style of play, which in my view makes for a less dynamic early game. Remembering Alpha centauri the early game was much more precarious, partly because cities weren't like fortresses.

The units combat strength in Civ 5 aren't that different, but the city strength in BE is much higher. Perhaps the city strengths should be more equal and fortifications adjusted to compensate.

*edit* To emphasise this point a pop 1 BE city (str 20) has about the same combat strength as a Civ 5 pop 1 city with a castle and walls (about 19.5!). In a sense you get free defences for no extra cost in BE.

Yup, check out the stats I've posted above.

 

[nimling]

If you're familiar with Civ MP, then you should know that cities NEED to be stronger in order to not become death traps.
If anything, early defense techs should be cheaper and the AI should prioritize them more.

Teaching the AI to capture cities efficiently is a bit harder due to 1UPT, though they seem to get that spamming gunners and some rover/armor is the best way to do it.

Seriously though, fix 1UPT and city strength/HP can be rationalized with that in mind.

 

[Galgus]

If you're familiar with Civ MP, then you should know that cities NEED to be stronger in order to not become death traps.
If anything, early defense techs should be cheaper and the AI should prioritize them more.

Teaching the AI to capture cities efficiently is a bit harder due to 1UPT, though they seem to get that spamming gunners and some rover/armor is the best way to do it.

Seriously though, fix 1UPT and city strength/HP can be rationalized with that in mind.

Alternatively, create a default combat bonus in friendly lands to help armies defend.

I wouldn't mind a more health / less inherent defense approach to cities though.

1UP works for the most part IMO - it's biggest problem is that the maps feel small on anything but the highest settings.

I wouldn't necessarily mind a two unit per tile system, though.