Great General/Admiral buffing City Strength

[civplayer33]

Recently, the ability of Great Generals and Great Admirals to boost City Strength has been removed without any discussion. I was against this change and posted it in the October 23 thread, but without much response:

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On Github there is a discussion about whether GGs and GAs should (still) boost city defense (they currently don't, but used to for a long time). This was never properly discussed here and I think people just assumed that it was a bug when this feature was removed in the 10/23 beta (or maybe one before that).

Personally I always liked this feature and would like it reintroduced, as it allows managing defensive hotspots more easily and significantly increases the value of GGs and GAs, especially when playing a more peaceful, defensive game, where they would now mostly just sit around and eat maintenance without doing anything. It used to be, when distress was still coupled to city defense, that they even helped with Unhappiness but that is gone as well, obviously. The defense boost was never so great that I considered it to be absolutely vital but it certainly helped, especially since the human often has a number-of-units disadvantage against the AI and so the GG/GA helped keep the garrison alive longer against the onslaught of AI unit carpets.

From what I understand, @ilteroi thinks that it may be AI unfriendly and I concede that the human makes better use of GGs/GAs than the AI, as is the case with all other units as well, but it's not like the AI never puts their general in the city (in fact, I see this quite often). The biggest issue with AI and Great People in general, from my experience, is that they don't always bother to guard them; as I know that there is already code that does this for AI Settlers, maybe something similar could be used for Great People, as well: basically they should always end their "turn" on a tile where one of their own units is.

So ultimately I would like this feature to be reintroduced; if need be, the AI can get a bonus to how quickly it gets a GG/GA or that bonus increased if they already get something like that.
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Now that City Strength has been nerfed further, there have been people saying Cities may be a bit too weak right now (but also people saying they think it's good); I believe that reintroducing GG/GA buffing City Strength a bit, as was the case before, would be a good compromise. It should be a small, flat boost, which would help mostly in the earlier Eras for those Civs that have earned a GG/GA and kept him around instead of planting Citadels / getting Luxuries.

Previously only two people responded (one for restoring the boost, one against), so I hope that more respond now.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

As you said, if the city strength changes stay as I believe they should, it only makes sense to have them (GG/GA) add a bit of strength while garrisoned. The AI shouldn't have trouble executing this concept and It brings flavourful practicality for gameplay.

 

[Coffee Monopoly]

I've played the game for a while and never even knew that they gave bonus defence, nor considered that they might. Until I saw people talking about the change. Seems unintuitive to me.

 

[civplayer33]

Seems unintuitive to me.

The idea is that they help coordinate city defense and thus increase efficiency, which increases efficacy since the amount of available "resources" doesn't change.

 

[pineappledan]

I prefer that they don’t increase city defense, but you knew that. It is enough that they improve the efficacy of defending garrison and armies; I see no need to have them augment cities directly.

 

[documental]

I've had a great many games I would've considered a lost cause in Classical/Medieval if not for having one of these. In fact the great general is what most allows me to ignore military (huh?) and snowball into the mid-late game drunk on infrastructure.

Huge nerf to peaceful play

 

[lunker]

I'm more in the "don't care" camp, but I liked the feature because it was kind of cool.

 

[JohnnyNT]

I liked that feature, would be nice to see it back. Just another mini layer of tactical gameplay.

 

[bigcat88]

I want this future back only if AI can handle it properly. Always loved this future!

 

[JLazeZ]

I rather they don't add it back but replace it with something else. Like bring back happiness when garrisoned or be maintenance free during.

It better follows the recent changes where if you want to defend your city, you have to at least invest in some units.

 

[ilteroi]

i'll see what i can do ... after all it' s christmas time

 

[Asterix Rage]

Yes, but in a different way (please elaborate below).

+15XP to newly built Units

 

[pineappledan]

There's a promotion table that gives +% production in a city to unitcombats. It wouldn't require any new code to make Generals increase land unit production by 10% and GAdmirals increase naval unit production by 10% in a city.

 

[ilteroi]

Yes, but in a different way (please elaborate below).

+15XP to newly built Units

i like the idea, but it's quite AI unfriendly ... right now city production choice is purely local, the xp bonus from generals would introduce empire-wide dependencies ... not saying that's a bad thing but it's a big change.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

After playing some more with weaker cities, I have to change my vote and say that I don't believe this feature has to be reintroduced. It would probably allow you to cheese the AI's early game when you could neglect military or walls on what should be vulnerable cities. It also would add another tactical layer for the AI with regards to GG/GA placement, and we all know how the AI already tends to make some questionable moves concerning leaving GG/GA's occasionally exposed.

 

[civplayer33]

After playing some more with weaker cities, I have to change my vote and say that I don't believe this feature has to be reintroduced. It would probably allow you to cheese the AI's early game when you could neglect military or walls on what should be vulnerable cities. It also would add another tactical layer for the AI with regards to GG/GA placement, and we all know how the AI already tends to make some questionable moves concerning leaving GG/GA's occasionally exposed.

Now that Heroic Epic doesn't give you a GG anymore it became significantly harder to get a GG in Ancient/Classical without early war, however, so it's unlikely that you can ignore walls and military and still get that GG for extra defense at all (also remember that the boost only happens when there is a unit garrison in the city to begin with, as well); the only other way would be to get really lucky with CS barby camp quests or manage to build Great Wall, which I would both consider to be significant enough achievements to justify that boost. Furthermore, we're talking about a rather small boost here (3-5 points), which doesn't exactly let you neglect military completely; GGs can't teleport so you need military to be able to move him around safely and 3-5 extra defense is the equivalent of settling on a hill vs. flat land so it's nice but won't make your city invulnerable.

Another way to look at it: it's the difference between having a spearman and a swordsman garrisoned in the city, at best (since now garrisons determine minimum strength), unless of course you have walls, but then we'd be talking about a scenario where, unlike your statement, the player clearly did invest in defense.

 

[ilteroi]

Now that Heroic Epic doesn't give you a GG anymore it became significantly harder to get a GG in Ancient/Classical without early war [...]
Another way to look at it: it's the difference between having a spearman and a swordsman garrisoned in the city, at best [...]

so if it's no big difference, why bother implementing that feature at all?

 

[civplayer33]

so if it's no big difference, why bother implementing that feature at all?

You're twisting my words and committing a non-sequitur fallacy: just because it isn't a huge boost doesn't mean it isn't worth implementing.
Why does settling on a hill give a marginal defense boost; shouldn't that be scrapped, too, by your logic? Why is a swordsman stronger than a spearman at all? It's just a small difference, throw it out! I think you see the problem...
Just as small differences in unit strength are meaningful, small defensive boosts can be meaningful, too.

And my argument wasn't that it's negligible but that it is small enough that it doesn't allow you to ignore military and defenses, as the Great Leader suggested.

 

[ilteroi]

You're twisting my words and committing a non-sequitur fallacy: just because it isn't a huge boost doesn't mean it isn't worth implementing.
Why does settling on a hill give a marginal defense boost; shouldn't that be scrapped, too, by your logic? Why is a swordsman stronger than a spearman at all? It's just a small difference, throw it out! I think you see the problem...
Just as small differences in unit strength are meaningful, small defensive boosts can be meaningful, too.

And my argument wasn't that it's negligible but that it is small enough that it doesn't allow you to ignore military and defenses, as the Great Leader suggested.

no worries, i was just playing the devil's advocate

 

[Stalker0]

Why is a swordsman stronger than a spearman at all? It's just a small difference, throw it out! I think you see the problem...
Just as small differences in unit strength are meaningful, small defensive boosts can be meaningful, too.

Just noting that those small differences are magnified on cities because of the amount of hp involved. For unit combat, such a difference might involve a few extra attacks. For a city, it could be 5-6.