GEM: Land Armies

[Calavente]

well regarding walls and swords and catapults.
Normally, a city with walls should be impenetrable to melee units...if defended a bit.
however, cats didn't do much against cities... save three things :
-breaking the wall/dungeon in enough places the melee unit can rush in
-breaking the morale of the population (but mostly not of the defenders).
-breaking random buildings so the city becomes rubbles and it becomes much costly to bring it back after the siege so the council-men are pushed into surrender, expecting that being too tough a nut would be worse than surrendering for the cities prosperity.

so IMO, cats breaking city health to 0 is strange
cats being good against cities without wall is strange.
cats having a malus against walls is strange.
melee not suffereing malus against a city with wall would be strange.

maybe make it that
-melee good against cities
-city walls greatly improve defense against melee/ranged but not against siege
-city walls are costly in terms of maintenance at least.
-city walls can't be bought by gold (or it takes a few turns) (indeed, 3/4th of a wall.. is like no walls at all).
-cat/siege can destroy the walls
...

any other ideas ? (I liked cIV's way of enabling cats to be much more efficient at destroying city defense than at killing units)

 

[mitsho]

I think gameplay trumps realism in that regard, though I do agree with your points. Do you have a detailled idea for a system that fulfills your points?

On the other hand, I'm very curious how the new patch will affect the Land Armies part of GEM. Apparently, now pillaging grants 25 health to the pillaging unit and the AI should pillage more often and retreat when it's losing more health by bombardment than it's gaining by fortified healing.

That might be a buff to melee units sieging a city, but it mainly buffs fast units that can move after pillage (Vanguards?). Maybe we can change it so that melee units gain more health than other units? But I guess, we need to play it first before knowing

[An other very interesting change in the patch notes is that they add a Holy Palace kind of wonder named the Grand Temple... though to be fair, the heal-after-pillage is something that I have not seen in any mods, am I right?]

 

[Calavente]

well..
I would have thought such system as below :

-wall are expensive to maintain or expensive to build but give a huge HP bonus but a malus against siege (that compensate somehow the HP bonus) ; give a bonus to internal siege or ranged or gunpowder units. (no free-wall policy ... maybe a "no maintenance for wall policy?)

-catapult attack is "low" (as city with walls already have a malus against them) but maybe it could be arranged so that 2cats together destroy city HP quicker than HP is gained back (not by much but a bit) for same-era cities.



Further refinements for walls :
walls come in tier... having an efficiency only for cities of a give size (you know the walls don't grow with the city, don't you?; each time the city grows you have to build a new one.

-palissade (size 1-7),
-town walls (size 5-12),
-city walls (size 10-17),
-city fortifications (size 15+)
-Vauban Fortification : any size, obsolete all other, works against gunpowder units; very expensive in maintenance;

each tier can depend on a different tech.
Each tier brings HP/ %defense only to city of the adequat size,
each tier brings increasing cost and increasing maintenance... + remove the preceding tiers but
for balance :
mostly the same impact on City defense : same % defense for garrizoned units and roughly same HP boost (in relative strength) : 20% of 100 HP is +20HP while 20% of 10HP is only +2HP).
(I put the size-range overlapping so you can work on next tier with anticipation).

that system might be a bit complicated... but it would simulate that walls increase protection but only when you invest in it... and that cities that out-grow their walls... lose its protective use.


further refinements for siege :

- AND/OR : give siege units a camadery-like promotion to surrounding non-gunpowder melee units:
cats give +10%(stacking) against city with walls and (or +0.5str, stacking)
trebs give +20% and (or +1str, stacking)

if promotion stacks, you'll get at max 5 of them on a melee unit that approaches the city... and more generally 2 to 4 as you'll need space or a corridor to have multiples melee units able to attack the city. (it evens simulates that siege units can have an effect from 2 tiles away).

canons give +10% to help the tiny swords... but canon should by themselves be able to attack cities efficiently (and they by-pass walls don't they?).

--> thus siege units are more useful than swords when attacking cities with walls but less efficient than swords when the city is without walls.. and multiple cats can boost/help swords to take the city more easily.

 

[mystikx21]

On the other hand, I'm very curious how the new patch will affect the Land Armies part of GEM. Apparently, now pillaging grants 25 health to the pillaging unit and the AI should pillage more often and retreat when it's losing more health by bombardment than it's gaining by fortified healing.

That might be a buff to melee units sieging a city, but it mainly buffs fast units that can move after pillage (Vanguards?). Maybe we can change it so that melee units gain more health than other units? But I guess, we need to play it first before knowing

[An other very interesting change in the patch notes is that they add a Holy Palace kind of wonder named the Grand Temple... though to be fair, the heal-after-pillage is something that I have not seen in any mods, am I right?]

The heal on pillage/increased pillaging are interesting. Will have to see how they did it, but it's a step toward the mod. That's always encouraging. (Ditto the Holy Palace/Grand Temple. I've had that working in my test wonder mods for a while now).

Retreating may or not help much. It depends if they can carry forward attacks anyway when they should or if their units get blasted apart while they try to run away without doing very much now.

Heal on pillage might be something that could max at a certain point (25 sounds fine) but be effected by unit strengths/era? That way vanguards would have their advantages for pillaging from move after pillage promos, but wouldn't gain as much as melee/mainline/mobile units?

 

[Dunkah]

I think that if you make healing from pillaging that sieges will become a piece of cake.

Currently I have a unit that becomes the sacrificial unit. I get my units ready to attack then try to get them all into position on one turn. (Best case scenario). The city (and garrison) attacks one of my units. Whichever unit that is goes on Heal orders until the siege is over to try and buy a couple of turns worth of attacking from all of the other units.

If that unit can grab a 25 point heal each turn (plus some gold from the pilliage and make the city suffer from not having that resource), that would make that sacrificial unit process that much better.

I'm not convinced.

I would love to see city attacks ballanced. Calavente's wall idea is cool but seems too complicated and would probably not be used much.

We need to include melee ships in the discussion as well. I had an enemy Carrack this weekend who was damaged to the point it was in the red, drive into range (and sight)... do 136 points of damage to one of my recently puppetted CS cities (str 24 I believe)... then drive out of range and sight still alive. Then came back the next turn and captured it.

 

[mystikx21]

That's the patch change more so than a GEM change. I think it's worth experimenting with, if the AI is to use pillaging more often itself, and if its to be kept, it would need some balance adjustment. The question would be whether it helps the AI, much as the retreat decision would be questioned.

But, I'm not sure it was a desirable change in and of itself. As mitsho implies, it's not like the modding community did anything of the sort for balance. Maybe that's lack of imagination or maybe it's because it's not a great idea.

A better case could be made for having city-attack bonuses also provide the city defence bonus than for heal on pillage.

Melee ships I slightly nerfed in my naval balance, at least prior to the submarine era. Carrack would still be doing a lot of damage to that city at 30 instead of 35, but probably not 136 points, plus take more damage itself.

 

[Dunkah]

I didn't even see the patch until just now. Looks awesome.

So Ok if the AI is going to pillage more then I guess it's even.

 

[mystikx21]

AI was already pillaging more in GEM. So I don't know if it will come out even to give it more benefits to do so. We'll have to see. (And it's not out yet that I can tell, it just has a vague "fall" release).

I'd rather their units be harder to kill than my units get more benefits from pillaging.

 

[Dunkah]

ignore

 

[Stalker0]

After a few more games, some thoughts about later game warfare.

Airborn/Infantry/Marines - Right now Airborn are pretty tough units with a lot of upgrades (which they tend to have at this point, especially for the AI). They tend to be able to hold out against air attack, navy bombardment, and infantry attack. They aren't unbeatable by any stretch, but you get a lot of defensive bang for your buck.

I like the division between infantry and marines right now. Marines are stronger, but slower. I found both very useful in my most recent games, just in different ways.

Overall I think Airborn should have 2 speed (and once again remove the speed bonus for vanguard units). Then you have a nice distinct difference in mobility. Airborn have airdrop, marines have good naval attacks, infantry have the best ground speed.

Helicopters - I find that the AI just doesn't build enough armor to justify them which is why I think they need another niche. One idea would be to give them a free medic promotion. This is to symbolize one of the primary uses of Helicoptors towards the korean and vietnam war eras of American history, where helicoptors were often used to airlift soliders to army hospitals.

Guided Missiles - I think they need just a bit more range and a reduced maintenance cost.

 

[Stalker0]

I want to suggest that we increase the warriors strength to 9.

Right now I'm finding that warriors are not doing that well against archers, even ones in the open field, and we have all discussed how weak early rushes are right now. I think giving them a 9 strength would alleviate some of that problem.

I don't think this requires a change to the sentinel. I found their ignore terrain promotion so incredibly useful in the early game (before heavy road use) that I would still definitely build them.

I also want to see swordsmen get a boost as well. What I'm seeing right now is that a city with a garrison in it is simply mowing through swordsmen. I cannot attack a city with them as that will kill them all the quicker. Mainly I rely on catapults to do all the damage until the last round when I make a quick attack with them, until then they just soak damage...and not even that well.

I might suggest one or more of the following options:

1) A raw strength increase
2) An increased city bonus
3) Gain the cover bonus for free to help against archer garrisons and later composite bowmen.

 

[Stalker0]

A couple more suggestions:

1) I was wondering if the siege promotion could be given to melee units as a tier 1 promotion instead of tier 2? Early game this would allow some of the early rush that has been lost and make melee units more useful in general. Later once armories are in game then the change effects nothing so its a specific change to help the early game.

2) I think Artillery's melee strength needs to be lowered. I'm all for a powerful long ranged unit, but if I get a dragoon in range I should be able to flatten it. Right now even unprotected artillery are still pretty durable.

3) Having now gotten to play a fully land based war game, I'm going to say that cities are too strong right now...at least a city with a ranged garrison. The city and its garrison can one shot units very easily, and it can take a lot of siege to take even a moderate city with proper defenses.

 

[Dunkah]

Problem with having weaker cities is that they fall to the AI early on.

It's one of those things like which would you rather have: a weaker city that falls easily to humans and AI's can't take, making the game super easy or a City that is tough to take making the game playable?

With the crappy AI there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. Hopefully with the dll someone can actually make the AI play better.

 

[redleaf]

I think that Calavente's walls idea is good as long as it can be made to appear simple.

Manually building many different wall improvements is tedious due to micromanagement but also is a mess in terms of opportunity cost -- having to build so many similar structures to maintain a growing city's defense (no one goes around building a new kind of barracks every era ). The burden of defending a larger city with walls can simply be mimicked with a higher maintenance cost.


Option A:

Walls provide a city health bonus and a combat bonus against non-siege units when defending. The combat bonus should be additive (+5 combat on defense?), not multiplicative.

Result: siege units would be more important for attacking a city than other units. Non-ranged, non-siege units would comparitively not be very useful at any point in the conquest of a walled city, though.


Option B (preferred):

Walls add a second HP scale alongside city HP. Walls also add a defensive combat bonus against non-siege units as in Option A. Siege units damage split over city HP and wall HP (possibly equal split); all other units only reduce city HP. Naturally, once the wall HP is depleted, its combat bonus is lost.

Result: Walled cities are well defended against all units until siege units breach the walls. City power could be generally lowered a bit; anyone wanting to secure a city can build walls.

Historical tid-bit: Hannibal hovered about the walled city of Rome but couldn't feasibly attack it before receiving siege equipment from Carthage (it was actually never sent due to Roman tampering with Carthaginian elite, resulting in the survival of Rome and Hannibal's last, possibly half-hearted, stand at Carthage before the city's complete destruction by the Romans).


Possible maintenance cost (if needed):
pop 1-3 (<21,000): 0 gpt
pop 4-10 (<610,000): 1gpt
pop 11-16 (<2,352,000): 2gpt
pop 17+ (>2,787,000): 3gpt

 

[Thalassicus]

Welcome to the forums redleaf!

I'm just not sure that it should be feasible to rush an enemy capital in the early game.

I mostly agree - I feel all non-Hunnish civilizations should be limited to pillage-wars in the Ancient era. Capturing capitals can take place once we get Catapults in the classical era. (Wow alliteration! ) I think successfully capturing a capital in the ancient era makes the game too easy afterward.

In the unmodded game the huns can take normal cities with one battering ram and one warrior in the early game, capitals with two rams. This is their play style - early rush on two or three close civs.

I see the Huns as the one (and only) exception capable of knocking out enemy capitals in the ancient era. Huns should be able to kill one capital with rams, but not two, since by the time they reach a second civilization the enemy should have teched beyond their rams. I think a ranged defense bonus for rams is a reasonable way to improve their effectiveness.

I then reloaded and gave myself an additional four battering rams, and re-attacked the city with SIX battering rams and FOUR warriors.

I designed the game so a combined-arms force is more powerful than relying on 1-2 unit types. I suspect you could have captured the city with a medic present. I'd attack with something like 3 rams, 2 archers, 1 warrior, and 1 medic scout. It's easy to get a scout to level 2 from barbarians in the early game. All our units should have at least 1-2 promotions before attacking enemy cities.

Helicopters - I find that the AI just doesn't build enough armor to justify them which is why I think they need another niche. One idea would be to give them a free medic promotion. This is to symbolize one of the primary uses of Helicoptors towards the korean and vietnam war eras of American history, where helicoptors were often used to airlift soliders to army hospitals.

I think this is an interesting idea.

I was wondering if the siege promotion could be given to melee units as a tier 1 promotion instead of tier 2?

I'd be okay with this. I had considered it in the past.

 

[Ahriman]

Playing 1.79, a few thoughts.

I'm finding the AI's city attack bonuses just feet too gamey. It's a bit absurd how much damage is done to cities. A ~40% health swordsman attacking my size 3 city with walls (I'm about to enter medieval era - this city was strength 9) did 180 damage in a single attack. Composite bowmen deal ~45 damage. The city attack does ~10 damage in ranged attacks. Basically, cities are almost totally unable to defend themselves or even slow down the AI significantly. I think this is a shame.
I'd cut the bonus back, maybe to 25% as a starter.

The Liburna is too effective. I'd consider dropping the strength further, and increasing the cost so that it is at least as much as a trireme. But then put back access to the naval city-attack promotion line. You should be able to choose whether to specialize in anti-ship promotions or anti-city promotions.
Carracks too - 60% of the price of longswords?

Unit upgrade costs are still too high. 150 gold for warrior to swordsman?

Any chance opportunities can be turned off as an option? They can be quite unbalancing in the early game in terms of giving extra workers and such.

 

[Bernd-das-Brot]

Combat is very fun and strategic in the early/mid part of the game. To conquer a city without heavy losses requires thinking about the best way to attack and use the terrain of the attacked city.
Where to place the siege units? Where to put the defenders for them? The difference of the terrain makes every siege unique in some way.

But with artillery and range 3 plus indirect fire it gets really boring. Put the artillery out of range of the city, place one cover-promoted unit in a wood before them and the city is done. Boring!

I am surely not the only one feeling that way as it was earlier discussed to give cities a range of three (via Arsenal or such). I don't think range-3-cities are a good idea either.
But what about reduce artillery to range 2. It would still have the big advantage of indirect fire and of course the higher strength than cannons.
In addition it could be as strong against land as against cities, because after the change from crossbows to gatling gun, there is no real ranged anti-land-unit.

I would suggest something similar for rocket artillery. It gets higher strength and a mobility advantage, because it does not need to set up. Range 3 is not needed in addition. Without the ressource requirement for rocket-artillery modern warfare gets easy and very boring.

 

[Naeven]

I agree Artillery is probably to strong, but I kinda like the range on them tho, it's one of those things that changes the combat style to Modern times.
I'd like to see 3 range city on military base, Arsenal is probably to early. I never liked that my defending city unit in modern (Artillery) have 1 more range than the city itself. However I could see indirect fire for the city on Arsenal.

I agree Artillery could hit more equally hard on infantry, but I already think it hits hard enough
So removing the VS city bonus might be a good start to nerf it.
I also could see Artillery requires oil, and that we spawn slightly more oil per zone instead.

 

[mystikx21]

Reducing artillery range would put a premium on the air war. Where the Ai is generally bad. I think extending the city range is a sensible compromise to start as it would reduce both BBs and artillery slightly (more if the city has artillery garrisons). I think it also helps the AI deal with cluttered units for movement to have an extra ring to shoot from. The actual problem is the AI trips over itself when moving.

Cities already have indirect fire style attacks by default.

I don't think resource requirements on a tree that doesn't have any is a great idea. We could reduce the innate siege bonus and boost the anti unit one to balance but I'd rather see if the AI can handle the range effects.

 

[mitsho]

Why is the AI bad with the air war? That one is easier to manage than ground units (no congestion issues). I'd rather up the upkeep costs than do a ressource requirement either, due to the points mystikx21 points out. One point against extending the city range is that it literally makes the whole battlefield a seige place, since cities now can reach anywhere. Would need to be tested though...

I got the impression that the early Air units of G&K were supposed to be the counter against Artillery which in my mind would mean to move them a bit around so that they're in a similar place as other counters?