Get rid of SODs

[TheMeInTeam]

So, your point is that expanding is good sometimes.....

But I never said otherwise

I just said , and will continue saying , that expansion is only good until a certain point, and any further expansion above that point normally will lead to atleast a forced downsizing of the governement structure later, or even a complete breakdown, for a large number of independent reasons. That is what happens in RL ( otherwise there would be a worldwide real empire now ) and that is exactly why the "expand, expand and expand some more" strategy is not fail-proof as you said.

This, unfortunately does not happen in any of the civilization games ( except in the Civ IV "revolution" related nods ). Too bad....

Governments function in many ways like any business firm. Agency costs are very real and certainly there is no "discipline of the market" for a governing body the same way as a typical firm.

As such there's only so much a government can do. Until it becomes more effective to run a worldwide empire, it's impractical. Technology has helped to date though ----> notice that the large countries have sustained that size quite well relative to a lot of history. Does anyone really feel that to be because we're more conscientious? I find it easier to buy the argument that governance is organized better and policed more effectively.

Anyway, in civ terms it makes sense that a lot of hefty early expansion bears costs. Although it's harder than in civ III, ICS is actually possible in civ IV, even on higher difficulties. They just added an element to balance it and make it more challenging: maintenance.

Siege eliminates some of the SoD consideration, or at least makes it less viable to use for invasions. However, collateral may not be punishing enough...or maybe not distributed between unit classes appropriately. It sure is hard to balance that.

The only weapon in civ IV I've seen that effectively ends the practical usage of SoDs is the nuke. You do NOT want your 60 unit SoD getting hit by 2 tacticals or something. That would be very, very bad. Too bad there's no realistic earlier-era equivalent (with effects less drastic of course).

 

[MosheLevi]

The only weapon in civ IV I've seen that effectively ends the practical usage of SoDs is the nuke. You do NOT want your 60 unit SoD getting hit by 2 tacticals or something. That would be very, very bad. Too bad there's no realistic earlier-era equivalent (with effects less drastic of course).

Collateral damage with NO unit limitation for number of units that suffer collateral damage should do the trick.
If siege weapons are changed to inflict collateral damage on 20% of the units in a stack, then 12 units will suffer collateral damage in a stack of 60 units.
In addition to that, if siege weapons have special promotions available to them to increase collateral damage to 25% and then to 30% (for number of units) then even more units will be affected.

This change alone will eliminate the HUGE SoD’s from the game.
It will then be more wise (and strategic) to divide one huge SoD to 3-8 smaller ones in order to reduce the effectiveness of collateral damage.
This will cause the game to play out more like Chess.

 

[Hail]

Unless you're playing one-city challenge...

I do think that Civ needs to be balanced better such that half a dozen cities of size 6 support as strong or stronger a civilisation that thirty cities of size 1 or 2.

is it no so?

That is a rather good idea; effectively turning stacks into armies, yes ?

yes. a general is a unit. once built, units can be assigned to him.
depending on whether he is attacking or defending, he will gain a bonus in the appropriate category for the dominant unit class of his units.

 

[Argetnyx]

definitely played a lot more civ III than most of the civ IV people ( I still have it installed btw ), and with no offense to you, Argetnyx, I probably played more time Civ III than you. And, sorry, I definitely forgot the anarchy form unhappiness in civ III.

I am sorry, my mistake. With a join date of 2006, you probably have played more of Civ3 than me.

This all discussion between me and Argetnyx is mainly about RL. It started with post #82 with Argetnyx calling history and RL to the discussion in support of a affirmation from which I disagree ( and said why in the subsequent posts ). If we want to discuss mecahnics.... well, IMHO conquering the world should be hard, people should rebel against tyranical or foreign governements , governors should be corrupt, greedy and sometimes ambitious enough to try to be the Sultan instead of the Sultan. It would definitely make the game more interesting than the "get more prod bases, make more stuff, kill more stuff, win" aproach so common this days in the "strategy" games . Remember that the box of both civ III and IV says that the objective of the game is to make a civilization that stands the test of time, not to make a civilization capable of zerging the rest.....

Nicely done... What you say is true, but that doesn't mean to tone those approaches down. If somebody wants to play that way, let them; don't tell them that they can't because some players don't want to. That being said, other directions should be encouraged at the same time.

 

[rysmiel]

is it no so?

Not sufficiently.

I do think the only long-term way of defeating REX as a necessary part of all winning strategies is to tilt game balance even more in favour of big cities being exponentially more useful than smaller ones.

 

[r_rolo1]

I am sorry, my mistake. With a join date of 2006, you probably have played more of Civ3 than me.

Nicely done... What you say is true, but that doesn't mean to tone those approaches down. If somebody wants to play that way, let them; don't tell them that they can't because some players don't want to. That being said, other directions should be encouraged at the same time.

I'm not saying, and never said, that there should be a hard limit to the empire's size. What I said is that if a game has a positive revenue as lower limit of the city utility, as it has in both Civ III and IV, it will mean that that conquering will get easier as more you conquer, in complete contradiction of what happen in RL. I also want that Conquest is possible in game, but I want that conquering the world gets harder as more land you have to govern, and that is only possible if, after a certain level of overstreching, the medium revenue of getting a new city is negative . If you want to conquer the world, try it, but know that you will have to pay for it......

 

[deanej]

Indeed. Civ 4 tried to do this with city maintenece, but failed because once those cities start to grow even a bit, the money made from specialists and/or cottages is more than enough to pay for the maintence, especially with courthouses.

Perhaps an exponential maintence system is needed to discouraged rapid expansion early on. Roads could reduce this maintence, as could techs like radio and computers, as well as the internet. This is also somewhat realistic, as it was difficult before modern times to manage large empires, especially with overseas colonies. Rome never really had a large amount of control of far away provinces like Brittania, for example. And England always had a hard time with its American colonies; it didn't even attempt to govern them until the French and Indian War (which is why Americans reacted so badly to stuff like the Stamp Tax (which people in England had been paying for years by then); they were used to governing themselves). It's why England never gave them representation in parliament - with a round trip of months between England and the colonies, it was impossible to do at the time.

 

[frekk]

Collateral damage with NO unit limitation for number of units that suffer collateral damage should do the trick.
If siege weapons are changed to inflict collateral damage on 20% of the units in a stack, then 12 units will suffer collateral damage in a stack of 60 units.
In addition to that, if siege weapons have special promotions available to them to increase collateral damage to 25% and then to 30% (for number of units) then even more units will be affected.

This change alone will eliminate the HUGE SoD’s from the game.
It will then be more wise (and strategic) to divide one huge SoD to 3-8 smaller ones in order to reduce the effectiveness of collateral damage.
This will cause the game to play out more like Chess.

Except that collateral damage is already limited in this fashion. I think that a maximum of 6 or 8 (I forget) units can be affected.

 

[Zeiter]

I just said , and will continue saying , that expansion is only good until a certain point, and any further expansion above that point normally will lead to atleast a forced downsizing of the governement structure later, or even a complete breakdown, for a large number of independent reasons. That is what happens in RL ( otherwise there would be a worldwide real empire now ) and that is exactly why the "expand, expand and expand some more" strategy is not fail-proof as you said.

This, unfortunately does not happen in any of the civilization games ( except in the Civ IV "revolution" related nods ). Too bad....

Bingo. I've now come to the conclusion, after playing with revolutions, that revolutions are an essential game mechanic, just as much as specialists, city maintenance, trade routes, or anything else you might think of. Not just for the realism factor (although that's nice), but mainly because of the interesting gameplay choices it confronts you with. Expansion is still important...it's just even more nuanced before. Your new city doesn't have a trade route connection to the capital? It was conquered on a far-off continent? The peace settlement left this new city of yours surrounded by foreign culture? You have non-state religions in this city? Good luck, at best it will be like the U.S. trying to hold onto Vietnam.

Collateral damage with NO unit limitation for number of units that suffer collateral damage should do the trick...This change alone will eliminate the HUGE SoD’s from the game.
It will then be more wise (and strategic) to divide one huge SoD to 3-8 smaller ones in order to reduce the effectiveness of collateral damage.

Bingo again. The way I've implemented this for my own games is to gradually increase how many units are targeted by collateral damage per each era's siege weapon:

Catapults: does collateral to 4 units
Trebs: " 2 units, but I gave trebs a much larger city attack bonus, so that trebs now function more like can-openers.
Bombards (wolfshanze unit): 6 units.
Cannon: 11 units
Artillery: 16 units
Mobile arty: 23 units

So you can still use SOD's during the ancient and medieval eras, but once you get to the industrial period with cannons and arty, trench warfare along a front with stacks split up becomes much more attractive.

Likewise, I increased flanking collateral to give offensive SoD a counter, aside from counter-siege....

Chariots: Does collateral to 4 siege units
Horse archers: 6
Knights: 10
Cuirriassiers: 12
Cavs: 15
Gunships: 24

And it works! By the modern era, SoD's get decimated, way before tactical nukes come into play. Mini-stacks of about 5 units become the way to go for both sides.

 

[Hail]

Not sufficiently.

I do think the only long-term way of defeating REX as a necessary part of all winning strategies is to tilt game balance even more in favour of big cities being exponentially more useful than smaller ones.

agree. maybe start by removing the free city tile?

I'm not saying, and never said, that there should be a hard limit to the empire's size. What I said is that if a game has a positive revenue as lower limit of the city utility, as it has in both Civ III and IV, it will mean that that conquering will get easier as more you conquer, in complete contradiction of what happen in RL. I also want that Conquest is possible in game, but I want that conquering the world gets harder as more land you have to govern, and that is only possible if, after a certain level of overstreching, the medium revenue of getting a new city is negative . If you want to conquer the world, try it, but know that you will have to pay for it......

something similar can be achieved if happiness where tied to corruption and corruption was tied to distance from capital. this will prevent huge ancient empires, but in the modern age, civs should be able to be enormous.

 

[Camikaze]

Goodness gracious! My internet dies for one week and this thread gets over 100 posts!

Hmm, expanding is the strategy, being larger is the goal...

Fine, other than the small countries that are locked in by much larger countries. Did getting bigger help the United States? Britain? How about Russia? France? China? Prussia and Germany? All of the current world powers got to their position not by watching the world pass by, but by expanding their borders and defeating enemies.

The goal is not to be larger. That is just a strategy commonly used in order to achieve a goal, which in modern times would be to improve the standard of living of the population, and in non-modern times, would probably be to fill the coffers of the ruling elite.

The instances you listed all had goals other than pure expansionism, and the strategy to achieve them was expansionism. The United States of America wanted to be able to move back the frontier, gain more wealth, etc. This was achieved through expansionism.

Britain wanted to become richer, have a further spread influence (in order to become richer), etc. This was achieved through expansionism.

Russia, IIRC, wanted to gain access the vast farming lands of the east, and eventually wanted to expand into resource rich Siberia and Manchuria, in order to gain wealth and power. This was achieved through expansionism.

France, like Britain, had the colonial wealth and power aim. Achieved through expansionism.

Prussia wanted to expand in order to become the clear leader of the Germanic States, in order to create a German nation, through which, you could argue, greater economic benefit could be attained, both through enhanced military and industrial power.

Germany expanding in World War One was an extension of this aim, and in World War Two, was in order to facilitate the economic prosperity of the German people, with the conquered Slavs as slaves.

So, what is the common link? Economic benefit. So, it would make more sense to tie things to economics than expansionism. And what better way of doing so than to make expansionism only possible in situations in which a real economic benefit can be attained. Which, of course, is a very small number of situations, and, in the long run, an even smaller number. So, in order to do this, SoDs would need to be restricted.

 

[Argetnyx]

AAA! Splitting that up into more than one paragraph will be much easier on the eyes.

What you say is true, though.

 

[Hail]

in civ bigger is better. the more cities you have, more units you can hoard, faster research, and more gold. i can't think of any one situation in civ where expansion would not be beneficial. even more so if weaking your foes where to count as beneficial.

i think that increasing the of siege units and having bombardment destroy city's buildings and reduce city size and the number of units effected by collateral damage will do the trick of killing of SoD's. it may also force the fighting out of the cities.

 

[Argetnyx]

Like Civ3, artillery units should not have any attack or defense at all. They can be captured when caught without an escort, making the game much more accurate. Anyway, who ever heard of an artillery battery attacking a city? They are supposed to bombard, not attack. I don't know why they took the ability out in civ4 (a really stupid thing to do), but artillery units should be able to bombard units, even if they are not in a city (also like Civ3).

 

[deanej]

The reason combat happens in the cities in civ is that, unlike in RL, if you control the city you control the countryside, and you can't control the land without the cities. Also, the AI doesn't know any method of defense other than "keep all units in the cities and pray".

 

[Camikaze]

The problem is that that strategy of 'hope and pray' is the most effective, particularly when you have defensive bonuses (unless you are against a stack entirely consisting of catapults). There needs to be some sort of incentive to come out and attack, because being mercilessly slaughtered when I could hide behind my walls just doesn't appeal to me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Like Civ3, artillery units should not have any attack or defense at all. They can be captured when caught without an escort, making the game much more accurate. Anyway, who ever heard of an artillery battery attacking a city? They are supposed to bombard, not attack. I don't know why they took the ability out in civ4 (a really stupid thing to do), but artillery units should be able to bombard units, even if they are not in a city (also like Civ3).

It was an attempt at balance, as as of yet, siege hasn't been balanced. It isn't in civ IV and it sure as heck wasn't in civ III.

How often were siege units captured perfectly intact in real history anyway? I'm betting it's happened, but not a 1:1 rate where it ALL gets captured . Competent armies might self-destruct weaponry rather than letting it fall into enemy hands, too.

Anyway civ III allowed for virtually limitless shelling of a city to the point where no unit defending it was viable. Civ IV forces at least some attacker attrition rather than a moving (and if large enough indestructible) deathbeam...but as you say it's not particularly plausible, and it shares the fundamental issue: in anything remotely resembling tech parity (we're not talking about cavalry vs longbow walkovers), siege > all in both civ III and civ IV. I forget whether siege could hold off other siege in civ III making it a #'s game, or if it was just like IV in that initiative would win the day...but either way siege did NOT control field battles in real life until very late in our relative history. That catapults or trebs do anything in the field at all, let alone decide the victor, is quite the interesting aspect of civ .

I'd like to see a system where siege picks a random defender (with other siege "intercepting" similar to current air interceptions - so like civ III in this sense), and where it also retains HP and can be killed (it certainly can and has in real life) ----> I'd also like to see civ IV's flanking system play a role.

The bombardment has to be tuned correctly though, so that it isn't useless nor is it the only viable offensive attack.

 

[Argetnyx]

Anyway civ III allowed for virtually limitless shelling of a city to the point where no unit defending it was viable

If you have all the artillery in the world, then yes. since I don't, no.

I'd also like to see civ IV's flanking system play a role.

Way too tactical if you ask me.

The bombardment has to be tuned correctly though, so that it isn't useless nor is it the only viable offensive attack.

In Civ3, it is useful, but not essential. In civ4, it is useless and annoying.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you have all the artillery in the world, then yes. since I don't, no.

Way too tactical if you ask me.

In Civ3, it is useful, but not essential. In civ4, it is useless and annoying.

My point on arty is that you need a fixed # of it, and then it's good basically the entire war without any attrition at all. I find that neither realistic nor balanced. If you say it isn't essential, I'll take your word for it, I didn't make it into high level play until civ IV. It's not essential in civ IV either actually.

Flanking isn't exactly a difficult concept. The mounted troop wins, siege takes damage. I don't see how that's any more or less tactical than a bombardment mechanic, and it helps keep siege in check.

As for you how feel about siege in civ IV, whether it's annoying or not is a matter of opinion (maybe I'd like to see it matter slightly less though), but saying it's useless is flat-out wrong.

 

[r_rolo1]

Bombarding in civ IV is useless ( I somewhat agree on the annoying, especially in BtS while in pre-gunpowder times )? ..... Now it is my time to ask if you ever played Civ IV.... Borbardment is in the core of Civ IV warfare, probably even more than the collateral damage