[GS] From a Chopper Game to a Pillager Game

[UWHabs]

I like pillaging scaling with game speed, but it's definitely way too strong. A few changes that make sense:
1. Pillage yields should scale with the target tech/culture level, not the pillager. It makes no sense if my tech is in the atomic era and I'm pillaging someone in the ancient era that I should get more science by pillaging them than they would get by pillaging me
2. The Raid policy cards should be changed. +100% is too much. Perhaps they should go back to having the 2 separate pillage cards, one for districts and one for improvements (and combining the 2 for the modern era), and each one should only be +50%
3. I like the idea of pillaged improvements being destroyed completely when you capture a city. Effectively costs you a builder per city you capture now to rebuild it, although a pain to rebuild if you end up capturing your city back. Maybe it should just be modified so that if you did not build the improvement in the first place, repairing still costs a builder charge?

Otherwise, the rate of pillage scaling just needs a complete rebalancing along with tech and production costs. It should increase as you go through the tree, but probably not nearly to the same point that it currently is. Although as always, part of the problem is when you are going through a war, there's not a lot of military policy cards that I'm interested in (once I've built my army), so it's just an obvious one to slot in, and doubling the rewards is definitely huge.

 

[craney1987]

A good player will no longer quickly take cities to stop them flipping, they will pillage all tiles first, take the city, repair everything, let it flip and pillage it again.
We will take every city from a civ but one, give all cities back in peace, then come back to that civ later with a light horse cheap pillage army and do it again.

By allowing the pillager to only gain benefit the first time a tile is pillaged I think could work

 

[Icicle]

We've gone from a game where I try not to chop because it feels cheap to a game where I try not to pillage because it feels cheap.

Please stop making me feel cheap fxs.

 

[Victoria]

Please stop making me feel cheap fxs.

Stop discounting yourself then

Here was my screenshot from release time, 378 gold from a pillage at T100 Without trying to be fast.
GS impressions/random observations thread.

 

[Sagax]

but the dev team wants pillaging to be powerful

If true, then I wonder why. Why should pillaging be that rewarding in the first place? Capturing a city where AI has already built the infrastructure for you was already a pretty good reward. Pillaging should only facilitate the city capturing, not be the means of sustenance for your empire. Unless you're Norway.....why didn't they just add this to Norway/Harald's UA (with lower numbers)?

Or they forgot about that little Raid military card. Something tells me that they will just nerf the card, rather than the base pillage numbers. Maybe this is the right way, I don't know - it is +100% to pillage yields, after all.

In my current Mali game, I pretty much ravaged the Khmer with pillaging, while simultaneously running away on other VCs. I don't even care about that 0-cost purchase interaction when every gold pillage gives enough for me to buy anything I want in the current era.

 

[Disgustipated]

My biggest thing with this is I want to try play by cloud multiplayer. But if I don't play this way and other people are, I will be at a significant disadvantage. I suppose the solution is to play that way. But I would rather they just balance this. I suppose if I have to, I'll just have a way I play singe player games, and a way I play multiplayer games.

So far I've only pillaged 1 tile in Gathering Storm (not including pillaging to restore health), and only because I had nothing better to do.

 

[Victoria]

Or they forgot about that little Raid military card. Something tells me that they will just nerf the card, rather than the base pillage numbers. Maybe this is the right way, I don't know - it is +100% to pillage yields, after all.

They must have seen the thread we raised on it, surely... we were facepalming and saying surely not.... now we are face rolling the game.

Yeah, multiplayer pillaging... ugh, gotta ban pillaging pffft!

This site has very good mechanics, they should be reading it.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

They must have seen the thread we raised on it, surely... we were facepalming and saying surely not.... now we are face rolling the game.

I believe the strength of pillaging was reduced from the first buff announcement through to GS release. The base yield was reduced and I think the scalar may have been adjusted, too, as originally each pillage was going to be equal to the same % of a current tech/civic throughout the game, and now it's scaling only with districts (i.e. each pillage represents a slightly smaller % of a current tech/civic over time ... though if you're well ahead in one over the other, then pillaging yields for the one you're behind in may actually increase as a % of base cost).

If true, then I wonder why. Why should pillaging be that rewarding in the first place?

One possible reason is that the AI currently gets nothing out of fighting. Boosting pillaging - if the AI is taught to use it - would mean some of the AIs wars won't be completely unproductive. I have my doubts that this was the dev team's thinking - they seem more concerned about the AI winning too quickly than the AI falling behind - but to my mind it's a possible positive to this change.

A second possible reason is that the change is intended to appeal to people who don't want to take cities, but still want to get something out of their wars, especially wars started by the AI. Some players responded positively to the pillaging buff when announced for this reason.

A third possible reason - the one I think likely most motivated the dev team - is that in developing the Ottomans and working on the Barbary Corsair, the dev team likely talked about ways to boost coastal raids that were different than Norway's current ability. Out of those discussions came the decision to boost raiding by increasing the strength of pillaging generally, without which the Corsair's free raids would seem too modest given how late the unit comes (unlike Norway's special, which is available from the beginning of the game).

 

[Lily_Lancer]

At least I didn't buy Beyond Earth... I knew that was just a cash grab and didn't like the idea.
I beat them that time saving some cash
So they are up like 20 to 1 on me. (over estimating)

Well, BE is better than Civ6 I think. Just turn on the option "land on the same time", and select every initial items randomly(these options put together are more like Civ in a normal Civ game) , and you'll enjoy it.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Well, BE is better than Civ6 I think. Just turn on the option "land on the same time", and select every initial items randomly(these options put together are more like Civ in a normal Civ game) , and you'll enjoy it.

I am sure your point is valid.
My problem is the story line.
I got into Civ because of the historical aspect.
I don't want to fight for intergalactic dominance.
I'll leave that to the Klingons.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I am sure your point is valid.
My problem is the story line.
I got into Civ because of the historical aspect.
I don't want to fight for intergalactic dominance.
I'll leave that to the Klingons.

Civ game is not historical. Even in the most real-world like Civ4 , the abuse of war elephants is not "historical", especially when you only need ivory to train war elephants.
It is more like "you decorate yourself with ivory, and you become a war elephant."

The resource reqs in Civ 5 and Civ6 are not real-world. Bombers burning aluminum bombers iron-made horses.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Civ game is not historical. Even in the most real-world like Civ4 , the abuse of war elephants is not "historical", especially when you only need ivory to train war elephants.
It is more like "you decorate yourself with ivory, and you become a war elephant."

The resource reqs in Civ 5 and Civ6 are not real-world. Bombers burning aluminum bombers iron-made horses.

Roger ... Out.

historical aspect.

 

[Architect]

I think the Raid card is really the problem. Make the Raid card make pillage only use 1 movement point. Give Harald the +100% bonus to pillaging at Military Training or just from the start of the game. Add to the Total War card the make pillage only use 1 movement point.

Make it so you can only pillage once per turn per unit if this is not how it is today.

Then the Raid card is still a good card, Norway is buffed all the way to total war where the game is likely over anyway and everyone else only gets the new non-raid level pillaging until Total War.

 

[VCrakeV]

I can resonate with the claim that Raid is the problem, but I don't think that nerfing it is all that needs to be done. I never noticed this much while playing, but in hindsight, I was getting high yields without Raid. Given, I was in the Atomic era, but I was getting over 300 on some pillages. Even at +50%, that's 450. It needs to scale slower... also, as has been noted, the yields should scale with the victim's progress, not the pillager's (imagine the colonial wars).

I don't expect to see much from Firaxis on this, but I imagine modders will save the day (as they often do when a game has problems).

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Pillaging has been abusive since release. Take the raid card out and it's still crazy. Before GS I could land on the moon before 1 AD. Now I can do it before 1000 BC using the Aztecs.

 

[WideCoast]

Think it was a change to make Norway better but also to encourage pillage wars.

Maybe the numbers could be halved and then Norway gets an update to allow them increased pillage yields?

Slightly less OP but keeps pillage wars as a tactic.

Maybe also have it so tiles and districts cannot be repaired for 10 turns after taking a city. So there is more of a decision between pillaging and conquering

I have a feeling if I would kill my friends they would be mad so I thought maybe I can just pilage them to set them back a bit, but oh boy .. I guess I wont be doing too many times then.

What are the disadvantages of getting pillaged?
Lack of amenities - > barbarians
Lack of food - > lose pop
Lack of prod - > everything takes longer +they need to repair stuff.
I guess they lose some science/culture and whatever districts I might pillage.
bankrupty? If so whats the consequnce?

 

[Victoria]

What are the disadvantages of getting pillaged?
Lack of amenities - > barbarians
Lack of food - > lose pop
Lack of prod - > everything takes longer +they need to repair stuff.
I guess they lose some science/culture and whatever districts I might pillage.
bankrupty? If so whats the consequnce?

For bankrupcy your units start magically disappearing.
Lack of food and Amenities can be -10 loyalty or more if you were happy/ecstatic before this

 

[WideCoast]

For bankrupcy your units start magically disappearing.
Lack of food and Amenities can be -10 loyalty or more if you were happy/ecstatic before this

So if I keep the card off my government and pillage once or twice I might not break the game and at the same time can cause some adversity for my friends nation?