GEM idea for attacking cities

[glider1]

Thanks for being open minded on the barbarian fix.

There is something that totally kills the proposal however. Those players that like to exploit the AI can move their settlers to their favorite spot and fortify them without settling. Because of 1UPT no-one else can settle there except perhaps on the adjacent square.

I'll try not to get onto the topic of relaxing the overly strict 1UPT rules
Cheers

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

how does that kill the proposal? if you want to exploit the AI there's many other ways. you can't keep cheaters from doing what they like

 

[rhammer640]

I agree I dont think that kills the proposal at all. Maybe it would be worth creating a separate thread with all the results we have found up to now and start a larger discussion about including it. I think the pros far out way the cons as a fix for now until we can get access to code.

To be honest the human almost never lost settlers/workers to barbs anyway, it was almost always the AI so it really doesn't change much gameplay wise except to make the ai much more competitive.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

my opinion is that since we have to do with a cheating AI for challenge, we might as well help the AI where it REALLY needs it so we can lessen their cheating ( i.e. difficulty level ) .

it's not good for gameplay imho to have barbarians act the way they do know if we know that most players ( every non human player in fact ) struggle with it, it just feels unfair. if the rules can be tweaked a little bit to make sure that everyone gets the hang of it, it's definitely a step forward.

fall from heaven for example had a couple game options that when enabled allowed the AI to ignore a couple gameplay restrictions that the human could easily grasp while it struggled with. this was excellent as it improved challenge a lot without need to give the AI mad handicaps.

all in all for such a minor behaviour tweak to one element of the game the outcome is definitely worth it. a lost settler early on is a huge negative snowball.

 

[Dunkah]

And from what I understand, (perhaps someone can set me straight), is that the non-capture mechanic is just a flavor right? It is still possible that the Barbs capture your civilians.

Who has the production to pump out a bunch of settlers that are just going to stand around anyway? might as well just settle them!

 

[mystikx21]

To be honest the human almost never lost settlers/workers to barbs anyway, it was almost always the AI so it really doesn't change much gameplay wise except to make the ai much more competitive.

It does mean I'd be slightly less likely to set a unit on a hill until my city gets there, thus slightly increasing the likelihood that there's a barb camp to go mine for XP... but that's about it.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

in a nutshell the tweak means: barbs do not TARGET civilians and they are more focused on pillaging than vanilla ( yeah it's AI flavours )

which means that if for example your juicy worker is sitting on that juicy iron mine of yours, then he WILL get eaten as the barb wants to pillage that mine really bad.

in my experience this barb behaviour is actually more fun for the player, who has a really easy time moving workers out of harm's way anyway.
otoh keeping your lands from being pillaged does need at least a minor effort ( use your units to kill the invader asap ) .

 

[rhammer640]

i agree, defending from pillaging is much more a pain (in a good way) then moving a worker out of the way. Makes early defense much more necessary especially on those big culture cities working tiles too far to be defended by the city!

 

[glider1]

I'll post the fix as a separate thread, yes I do agree it's a change for the better.
Cheers

 

[Ahriman]

This all sounds very promising. The only downside I can see is that the AI isn't very good at repairing its improvements for some reason, but losing improvements is almost certainly less painful than losing workers or settlers.

 

[ShmooDude]

I got a (unique?) idea that might help the city siege game (though I don't know how easy it'd be to code).

Give melee units an ability similar to the Hawaiian UU that decreases the combat strength of adjacent cities (probably 10%). Would have to be stacking for this idea to work (Haka War Dance doesn't stack).
At the same time increase the base combat strength of cities by 10-20%.

This would dramatically increase the value of melee units on a city siege as well as give industrial era and on melee units a better role (since the "archers" from that point on are all 1 tile range + have strength equal to their ranged combat strength).

 

[Thalassicus]

And from what I understand, (perhaps someone can set me straight), is that the non-capture mechanic is just a flavor right? It is still possible that the Barbs capture your civilians.

It works with tiers of priority. The AI always chooses higher tiers over lower tiers when two options are available (to my knowledge). I think it randomly rolls 50/50 when two tiers have an equal value. This basically means barbarians choose targets in this order:

1. Kill military
2. Pillage
3. Damage military
4. Camp defense (1 per camp)
5. Kill civilians

Details are in the spoiler.

Spoiler :

High, medium, and low: combat odds
Destroy: kill in 1 attack
Attrit: deal some damage

Gem:

30 escort civilian
17 destroy high unit
16 destroy medium unit
15 destroy low unit
14 captured civilian to safety
13 capture city
12 pillage
12 attrit high unit
11 attrit medium unit
10 attrit low unit
10 camp defense
10 blockade resource
9 damage city
8 civilian attack​

G&K:

30 escort civilian
16 destroy high unit
15 destroy medium unit
14 destroy low unit
13 civilian attack
13 camp defense
12 captured civilian to safety
10 attrit high unit
10 blockade resource
9 capture city
8 pillage
7 attrit medium unit
6 attrit low unit
5 damage city​

 

[Ahriman]

I have found it possible to lure barbarians away from their camp, which lets me swoop in with a scout and take out the camp while suffering much lower damage than I would normally take - and leaving a barbarian unit around to go bother nearby AI players.

 

[Thalassicus]

The tier system Firaxis uses is absolute, so we've got a choice between that "lure away" behavior, or barbarian archers never attack from camps. The AI does not consider the context of unit class, terrain, or nearby units in deciding to stay or leave a camp. It will be better once GEM:Armies rolls around and we have more of an incentive to attack the barbarians instead of luring them.

 

[Ahriman]

The tier system Firaxis uses is absolute, so we've got a choice between that "lure away" behavior, or barbarian archers never attack from camps.

Ok. The system with luring away/attacking from camps is better than the purely passive system, on balance.