[Idea] Realistic City Siege

[Faustmouse]

So my idea was to keep the defense bombardment on them but add a change of dyiing while doing so. But this would not represent their "more damage the longer they survive".

As for the Siegeweapons building at enemy territory, could you use some code from the nomadic start? So you have a unit that is able do produce a siegeweapon every turn if it is on a forest/jungle/Bamboo Tile and get XP for doing so. It's promotions will give the Siegeweapons more XP or starting promotions.

 

[Nimek]

@hydro

What about dry moat, spiked moat and water moat
Do you plan to add/tweak them?

 

[Hydromancerx]

@hydro

What about dry moat, spiked moat and water moat
Do you plan to add/tweak them?

Yes, I just have not gotten around to making them yet.

 

[Nimek]

Updated first post

- Added tasks for Hydro and Thunderbird to be sure that changes will not be forgotten. (blue color)

 

[Thunderbrd]

Well... it wasn't what I SAID I was going to do earlier this weekend, but it WAS the next thing on my list (which I'm sorry I haven't kept very well updated online either...)

Updates

- Buildings Damage Units on Attacking the city mechanism

This comprises three new tags for buildings that are designed to use in tandem or none are all that beneficial. The three tags are as follows:

• MayDamageAttackingUnitCombatTypes: List under this tag the UnitCombatTypes that the building will potentially damage when they attack the city. The tag, when programmed is as follows:
  

  			<MayDamageAttackingUnitCombatTypes>
  				<UnitCombatType>UNITCOMBAT_MELEE</UnitCombatType>
  			</MayDamageAttackingUnitCombatTypes>

  Basically, this is the primary indicator that this building will potentially cause damage to an enemy unit (of the specified type(s)) that attacks the city with this building active in it. The damage, if inflicted, will take place at the very beginning of combat. The only shortsight on this is that the odds are not influenced by this possibility. I had some ideas as to how to tweak the odds and show it in the combat attack help hover but I figured Koshling might be able to see how that should be done far better than myself. And I kinda like the 'hidden' or potentially surprising aspect of this effect myself. Perhaps next weekend I can update the combat odds section for this effect.
  
  
• iDamageAttackerChance: The percentage chance the unit with the indicated CC(s) that attacks the city will be damaged. This is modified by the Attacking Unit's Dodge modifier when that starts coming into play more. Thus, units with a higher dodge value have a better chance to avoid this damage when attacking the city.
  
  
• iDamageToAttacker: The percentage of the total HP that will be inflicted upon the Attacker when the building successfully deals damage to him. This is modified by the Attacker's Armor value for when that starts coming into play more. The armor value directly reduces this damage.

This is to help us expand on our earlier discussions regarding city defenses, which I put up front on my plate just to get it all taken care of before moving on too far past that discussion. We'd talked about automated defense systems, murder holes, boiling oil etc and this is the result. It's been tested and works pretty cool. It now awaits Hydro and Nimek and others to more fully flesh out in use.

@Koshling, while I did not influence the combat odds in this effect, I DID develop tag AI for the buildings that would use them.

Figured I should mention this here for further discussions.

 

[Nimek]

iDamageToAttacker: The percentage of the total HP that will be inflicted upon the Attacker when the building successfully deals damage to him. This is modified by the Attacker's Armor value for when that starts coming into play more. The armor value directly reduces this damage.

Could you add a tag to ignore armor value. For example burning oil damages (burn) human and any armor dont protect against it - even iron shield gives nothing because oil is to heat.

@TB
I would love to see tags that i wrote in first post this thread. ReduceCityDefenseOnAttack that could be added to rams.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Could you add a tag to ignore armor value. For example burning oil damages (burn) human and any armor dont protect against it - even iron shield gives nothing because oil is to heat.

@TB
I would love to see tags that i wrote in first post this thread. ReduceCityDefenseOnAttack that could be added to rams.

1) Yes. Not a bad idea. An easy bool.
2) That's actually the next project on my list according to that list.

 

[Nimek]

@hydro


I think that Buildings Damage Units on Attacking the city mechanism should by added to traps line. Entire line should be tweaked

1 It is not realistic that when you sorunded the city on each site you get x% damage from traps during siege without city attacking. damege on surunding tiles should be removed.

2 iDamageToAttacker should be added to traps where for example mechanical traps will damage melee, throwing, archery, whelled, mounted but will be harmless for armored tanks etc.

 

[Faustmouse]

Spies are able to make a city revolt, reducing it's defenses to 0%. Even if the city has walls. Or high walls. Or a castle. Or literally EVERY defense structure existing! This is way to OP imho.
You don't even need a big stack of siege weapons, just a few spies.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Was beginning to wonder when someone would mention this... not sure quite how to balance that at the moment but yes... the way things are going is strengthening that spy ability several hundredfold.

 

[Koshling]

Was beginning to wonder when someone would mention this... not sure quite how to balance that at the moment but yes... the way things are going is strengthening that spy ability several hundredfold.

Slightly sticky-tape, but how about if we were to raise the cost of espionage missions against cities whose owner is at war (possibly and by some factor of how near the front line the particular city is). The rationale (rationalization anyway) is that in times of war and especially siege readiness the government forces/police/governors etc. will be paying much more attention and trying to regiment things much more than in normal times.

Another alternative would be for the state of revolt to not totally remove the defense effects of buildings, but just to reduce them somewhat (half?)

 

[Thunderbrd]

Maybe the revolt should ONLY take away the CULTURAL defense, but no amount of the building defenses?

 

[Faustmouse]

Maybe the revolt should ONLY take away the CULTURAL defense, but no amount of the building defenses?

If the city is revolting, I think they don't pay as much attention to the Drawbridge, the Gates etc than normal. So I think it's ok to remove it, too. I like Koshlings idea.

 

[Faustmouse]

I think this could be a bug with the "Units in City are X% less effected by Surround and Destroy" tag:

When I surround a city, my odds are even WORSE than when I don't surround it at all. This just seems wrong, you always have the edge over an enemy that is surrounded and can't flee.

A similar thing might happen to Hydro's bridges: They give the attacker X% less malus when attacking over a river.
What happens if units has the Amphibious Promotion? What if the X% is more than the 25% malus from the river? Will it add strength? The maximum should be 0% malus (and 0% bonus), so just like attacking without a river - probably less, since even the golden gate bridge is easier to defend than a plain area without any river.

 

[Yudishtira]

Slightly sticky-tape, but how about if we were to raise the cost of espionage missions against cities whose owner is at war (possibly and by some factor of how near the front line the particular city is). The rationale (rationalization anyway) is that in times of war and especially siege readiness the government forces/police/governors etc. will be paying much more attention and trying to regiment things much more than in normal times.

FWIW I like this idea. I would also like to factor in: War Weariness, morale (as it is progressively implemented) and some civics especially the military and border protection ones (but others too eg. a penalty for City States). Also the happiness status of the city and its stability if playing with Rev. (That's just off the top of my head, there are probably other factors to consider - I'm afraid). I suggest that while some [of these factors] would increase/decrease the cost of the mission, most would reduce (although some would increase it) the chance of success.

Consider also that an inexperienced (ie. unpromoted) Spy may only be able to reduce the defences by 100% max (or maybe less), whereas I've seen defences pushing 300%. Or that he may be unlikely (chance under 10%) to reduce the defences by more than that.

I realize that you can probably spam spies into a city so that no amount of nerfing will stop them. But if so that's a slightly different problem.

 

[Koshling]

I think this could be a bug with the "Units in City are X% less effected by Surround and Destroy" tag:

When I surround a city, my odds are even WORSE than when I don't surround it at all. This just seems wrong, you always have the edge over an enemy that is surrounded and can't flee.

A similar thing might happen to Hydro's bridges: They give the attacker X% less malus when attacking over a river.
What happens if units has the Amphibious Promotion? What if the X% is more than the 25% malus from the river? Will it add strength? The maximum should be 0% malus (and 0% bonus), so just like attacking without a river - probably less, since even the golden gate bridge is easier to defend than a plain area without any river.

D you have a save that illustrates the worse odds when surrounding? If so I can pretty easily take a look at what is causing it...

 

[Thunderbrd]

I think this could be a bug with the "Units in City are X% less effected by Surround and Destroy" tag:

When I surround a city, my odds are even WORSE than when I don't surround it at all. This just seems wrong, you always have the edge over an enemy that is surrounded and can't flee.

A similar thing might happen to Hydro's bridges: They give the attacker X% less malus when attacking over a river.
What happens if units has the Amphibious Promotion? What if the X% is more than the 25% malus from the river? Will it add strength? The maximum should be 0% malus (and 0% bonus), so just like attacking without a river - probably less, since even the golden gate bridge is easier to defend than a plain area without any river.

Now that it's been a while, I'm not sure where I may have tried or forgotten to try to establish a point where that cannot go past the baseline 0. I suppose it's possible if the city had more than 100% of this ability and a limiter wasn't established. There could also be a mathematical goof in the code somewhere.

Pretty sure that the Bridge was limited to that 0% though as I had a lot of similar thoughts when designing that tag.

Ugh... I'll never claim to be perfect guys! If you're taking another look at the coding Koshling, thank you. You may spot something else 'amiss' along the way - you're good for that! I always appreciate it when you look over what I do cuz you do spot failures to consider various things very well.

 

[Faustmouse]

D you have a save that illustrates the worse odds when surrounding? If so I can pretty easily take a look at what is causing it...

Sure, it's here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=12659398&postcount=104

Scroll down to the edit, it's the second one.

-Strange Odds is for 4b: See what odds you hae with different units, the heros, the Elephants, the Preatorians... Then move the Ballista Elephants around the city, so that on every tile around the city is one Elephant. Now check the odds again. In my game they dropped from 95% to 5%!

It's one of the two savegames attached.

Ugh... I'll never claim to be perfect guys!

I know, and making mistakes (if it really was your "fault") is normal with so much amazing code you write!

 

[Nimek]

@TB

1 Does your tags iDamageToAttacker works good now?
2 On what stage do you have ignoreArmor tag.

I added StackAid modcomp link to the first thread
so maybe someone will add it to todo list.

 

[Thunderbrd]

@TB

1 Does your tags iDamageToAttacker works good now?
2 On what stage do you have ignoreArmor tag.

I do have a few things I should do still. I want to give a bDamageToAttackerIgnoresArmor tag and a bDamageAllAttackers tag that will flesh out the set. The first, which I think is what your asking for, I haven't done yet (I get the opportunity to mod about a day a week right now.) And the second is to make it so that if the building would target all attackers regardless of their Combat Class we can designate that rather than a laundry list of CCs.

Koshling also pointed out a number of things to tweak... no problem. Will get to those this weekend too.

But the mechanism does work. You could begin planning out the uses of these tags in the meantime - within a few days here it'll be fully ready for use.

Let me ask you something: Would you ever feel it would be worthwhile to have differing CCs be damaged at differing rates on one building? If so I should restructure this considerably to enable that.