Making the Cavalary Tech-Path more interesting

[Grey Fox]

Play against the Hippus, and you will be forced to war in the field, or you wont have any towns/mines and farms left.

 

[QES]

Play against the Hippus, and you will be forced to war in the field, or you wont have any towns/mines and farms left.

Raiding and pillaging is a very powerful tactic, yes. But it still doesnt get you cities, It helps long term, but not short. The AI never surrenders city in diplomacy from being besieged and radied to death. Even if they are crippled.

If this changed, i guess the whole of the raid tactic would be more important. Also, if the AI focused on this tactic, giving up a city should be somehow reasonable.

-Qes

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Also a BIG issue i have in the game. It is rare for battles to be fought outside cities. I finally had one very satisfying war with the elves when i was playing the cabalim. Almost every fight took place outside of cities (it was also realatively early game). I won through attrition and razing of citys with bambur. Dwarf v Elf. (I was runes). But most games i play, one or the other side simply awaits a siege, either offensively or defensively. The seiger gets wittled at, until its unable to take the city, OR it takes the city. But there are very rarly Army V Army IN THE FIELD combat. Which is primarily where cavalry shine.

I second everything you said. Including the part about having now idea on how to make it better. All I can say is that decreased city defense bonuses (or city defense bonuses that extend into the workable radius) would encourage the defender to go fight the attacker on their terms. However, it's also worth noting that if the defender awaits a siege passively, the attacker can send cavalry out to raze the heck out of their improvements. But this is not a good strategy when you're going to take the city and those improvements anyway.

 

[Grey Fox]

Raiding and pillaging is a very powerful tactic, yes. But it still doesnt get you cities, It helps long term, but not short. The AI never surrenders city in diplomacy from being besieged and radied to death. Even if they are crippled.
-Qes

Well wars arent always fought to destroy a civilization, but to gain an advantage. And while raiding doesnt give you a city, it can give you an immense advantage. Especially when it comes to commerce/research.

 

[QES]

Well wars arent always fought to destroy a civilization, but to gain an advantage. And while raiding doesnt give you a city, it can give you an immense advantage. Especially when it comes to commerce/research.

I agree, but there is a problem in comparisons.

If i spend the effort and materterial on a war, I may in fact trounce my enemy's lands and pillage the day-lights out of them. But that minor monetary gain doesnt equal their pain. THe fact that I hurt them is the "major benefit" - UNFORTUNATELY, this doesnt help in comparison to other civs. My war has cost me (usually) more than I've gained. Only through the taking of cities (land) do i eventually benefit from a war. This is why when you fight defensively, the goal is to raid quickly and sue for peace, it cripples the enemy and you stay where you are. But if your looking to make gains, gains not against your current enemy but on the whole of the scoreboard, your going to want a prize for your victories. This means cities. War is inherantly entropic, i know that. And it should be. But because of the nature of wars for gain, there is 0 reason to start a war unless you think you can take and keep cities. Starting a war to pillage is only done out of spite, never out of gain. And if you happen to capture some cities - you raise them because it hurts the enemy more. (I HATE it when the AI razes my cities. Its perfect.)

Still, trying to "save" your lands from pillaging, just ISNT as important as keeping your cities, which give you the PREMISSION to build those improvements. If improvements were Harder to build, more important to protect, then maybe wars would be found outside of cities. But even someone who's crippled, has his workers safe in his/her cities, just waiting to come back out and quickly rebuild.

-Qes

 

[Grey Fox]

Maybe they should get lowered cultural gain over tiles where war is fought? (So you could flip tiles by lowering its culture by invading that terrain)

"If improvements were Harder to build, more important to protect, then maybe wars would be found outside of cities."

So you dont think 50+ turns of investment in a Town is worth protecting?

 

[QES]

Maybe they should get lowered cultural gain over tiles where war is fought? (So you could flip tiles by lowering its culture by invading that terrain)

"If improvements were Harder to build, more important to protect, then maybe wars would be found outside of cities."

So you dont think 50+ turns of investment in a Town is worth protecting?

Compared to the city that grants me access to that tile? Absolutly not. Towns can be rebuilt, cities generally are FAR harder to rebuild/recapture. Plus towns grow, so they're usefulness expands. A worker taking just a few turns to return that tile to useful status is very short indeed, and while its not at "full capasity" its never worth leaving my well fortified city to protect a town, EVER.

Cause at the end of the day, A dead unit cant protect anything. IF my unit will live in the city, but die out protecting the town, why send him to protect the town? I'm gonna lose that town anyway, and if i sent a unit to protect it, im losing the unit as well.

It has to be a military advantage to protect tiles more than cities. Elsewise its more of a tactical necessity to sit behind your walls.
-Qes

 

[Grey Fox]

I'm just saying you should need enough military to protect both your important tiles and your cities. (I always try to protect Towns and Resources)

It's espesially important for me atleast during the beginning of the game, versus barbarians (usually) to protect my cottages/villages/towns, so I can reach the religion and techs I want in time. (And even more so in MP)

But yes, of course, cities are more important, and a war isnt really worth it if you dont take a city. But pillaging is better then nothing, especially in multiplayer (which has become what I play the most nowadays, for some reason).

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Just playing the devil's advocate here...

Compared to the city that grants me access to that tile? Absolutly not. Towns can be rebuilt, cities generally are FAR harder to rebuild/recapture. Plus towns grow, so they're usefulness expands. A worker taking just a few turns to return that tile to useful status is very short indeed, and while its not at "full capasity" its never worth leaving my well fortified city to protect a town, EVER.

If you have an inferior army, then you must sit and take whatever pillaging and capturing the enemies can manage. If you have a superior force, then you can afford to lose them to protect your improvements.

Likewise, if you only outnumber your enemy slightly, you want to send in some cavalry to pillage the heck out of their improvements before suing for peace (good vs. Mansa Musa in vanilla Civ, as he'll Space Race to victory unless you slow him down). If you greatly outnumber them, then you want to build a bunch of berzerkers and heavy attack units to take the cities without bothering to pillage, as you'll be owning those tiles soon enough.

If you don't expect to lose any cities, it's in your best interest to defend what tiles you can, keeping in mind that a cunning enemy can take your cities out from under you if you aren't smart about leaving some city defenders behind. If you're in a close war, though, it is better to turtle in your cities.

 

[QES]

I'm just saying you should need enough military to protect both your important tiles and your cities. (I always try to protect Towns and Resources)

It's espesially important for me atleast during the beginning of the game, versus barbarians (usually) to protect my cottages/villages/towns, so I can reach the religion and techs I want in time. (And even more so in MP)

But yes, of course, cities are more important, and a war isnt really worth it if you dont take a city. But pillaging is better then nothing, especially in multiplayer (which has become what I play the most nowadays, for some reason).

Multiplayer is something I avoid, because i know that once i do it, ill never play against the AI again (something ive run into alot). So I'm focused on the Single-player style. Also keeps Chalid busy.

But you're right about it being important. My style is VERY different, i like maintaining a minimal army until i get restless, the using attrition to win.

I never protect my improvements, and often early game against barbarians, i neglect improving the terrrain, and concentrate on expansion. Then i look inward once i feel confident that barbarians wont touch the area. I never have a large army unless I'm up to no good, and in general i like to run a effecient/tight empire. Bulky armies mean money. As I'm also very efficent, losing improvements doesnt become a big deal, as Any one plot isnt necessary for my development (other than strategic resources).

Raiding is a VERY effective defensive war technique, as it takes the fight out of the opponent, but offensively, you WANT those improvements after you take the city - not very effective.

This is all to say, that there must be more of a militaristic reason to be out in the field than behind city walls IF its possible. There should be an advantage to meeting the enemy in the field if the sides are roughly equal. Seiges occur when the sides are unequal.
-Qes

 

[QES]

Just playing the devil's advocate here...


If you have an inferior army, then you must sit and take whatever pillaging and capturing the enemies can manage. If you have a superior force, then you can afford to lose them to protect your improvements.

Likewise, if you only outnumber your enemy slightly, you want to send in some cavalry to pillage the heck out of their improvements before suing for peace (good vs. Mansa Musa in vanilla Civ, as he'll Space Race to victory unless you slow him down). If you greatly outnumber them, then you want to build a bunch of berzerkers and heavy attack units to take the cities without bothering to pillage, as you'll be owning those tiles soon enough.

If you don't expect to lose any cities, it's in your best interest to defend what tiles you can, keeping in mind that a cunning enemy can take your cities out from under you if you aren't smart about leaving some city defenders behind. If you're in a close war, though, it is better to turtle in your cities.

That last bit is exactly what im talking about "If you dont expect to lose cities," Its usually rare to expect to lose cities, and I only generally lose cities when expected if im VASTLY out forced. Everything else was a suprirze "in my back door" move. So either im getting crushed by a vastly superior force, OR i missed something. As it is, it therefore becomes standard procedure to assume that I dont know all of what is going on, and keep things in my cities "just in case". Whats this? I see an army on the rise.... well i could leave my city, but i dont know what else is out there. More than ONCE i've left to defend some tile or another, and some unit swoops in behind to take my city. Lesson here? NEVER leave the closest city. Bring units from OTHER cities, if you must, but never the cities that are in any way close to the opposing force.

-Qes

EDIT: Im not leaving them undefended, just less defended.

 

[Sareln]

The Rapid Calvary Response Force is also useful for large empires assaulted on both sides ( a diplomatic disaster to be sure). I find I don't need it that often, but I tend to maintain a calvary core in the center of my empire as a quick response force.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

If the sides are equal, I'm thinking that the attacker is going to want to pillage all he can in the field (as he can't hope to take the city with an equal force to the defenders) while the defender is going to try to stop him from doing that. Seems that it works something like that in Civ IV.

Edit: ah, slow posting strikes again. Seems I'm a bit behind...

 

[jafink]

I agree with Qes about emphasizing combat outsidee of cities, and i think i have an idea as to how to implement it. War Weariness (WW). The current WW system is very unsophisticated, and seems to only be affected by how long the war lasts.

My suggestion is to give many different Penalties to WW based on how the war is going. I dounbt that Roman citizens ever got unhappy about the wars that rome was involved in. This is because they were so successful, and the wars that they fought made them into the greatest empire on earth.

I think that there should be an immediate +2 unhappiness if there is an enemy unit within you borders. This would not increase according to the number of units. This penalty would encourage you to use your army to push the invaders out of your territory.

There should also be a penalty if your towns get pillaged. Possibly +1 unhappiness for every 4 cottage improvements pillaged. Each level would count as 1 towards this total, so that if a town is pillaged completely there would be +1 unhapiness.

 

[loki1232]

I like it. That would also simulate the refugees from the towns causing discontent.

But will the ai understand it?

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Seems like that might be a bit harsh. If I'm losing an early war, then suddenly my cities are down to size 3 and I don't have enough to make a counter-invasion force. Plus, it encourages people to just sneak one of their units into the AI's borders to penalize them. It does nothing to make it more beneficial for the attacker. Instead, it just weakens the defender considerably. Whatever happened to the populace rallying for the benefit of the war effort?

 

[QES]

Seems like that might be a bit harsh. If I'm losing an early war, then suddenly my cities are down to size 3 and I don't have enough to make a counter-invasion force. Plus, it encourages people to just sneak one of their units into the AI's borders to penalize them. It does nothing to make it more beneficial for the attacker. Instead, it just weakens the defender considerably. Whatever happened to the populace rallying for the benefit of the war effort?

I think it would be cool if towns could be "self razed" to produce units. Maybe only in nationalism. But then cities wouldnt ahve to suffer as much, and there'd be a natural purpose to be "in the field".
-Qes

 

[Uberslacker]

A small multiplicity of ideas:

How about a point of unhappiness that is created everytime the city itself is attacked?

The increased unhappiness would have a duration tied to your civics, militaristic choices such as conquest: 1 turn, something like pacifism: three turns etc.

On that note, perhaps only those with mercantilism suffer unhappiness when commerse is lost to pillaging. An aristocratic government might be unhappy with farms being pillaged.

What if everytime you lost a unit within cultural boundries, the nearest city picked up a point of unhappiness or if the loss was within a city limits the penalty is two points. The penalty could last for a certain amount of time or could be tied to an event; when all enemy units are pushed out of the city limits/ cultural boundries, when war with that culture is ended etc.

Perhaps all these things don't directly provide unhappiness but just speed up general war weariness.

If you really wanted to get detailed, a city that isn't yet connected to the empire's trade network doesn't provide war weariness for the empire when it is ravaged by orcs because nobody else knows about it. (We'll just side step how you found out about it so quickly. )

 

[Sureshot]

i think the best way to get a lot of out of city battles (though i personally do a fair bit of in-borders-out-of-city battling since you get more xp for attacking than defending) is to have units that are cheap to make, weak, and cost no maintenance. Since then you could field tons of them just to slow your enemy down, and use up their attacks (a unit without blitz can only attack once, so if you had a bottleneck you could field tons of these uits there and the enemy would take a long time just killing all the units lol).

Personally I think this cheap weak unit should be macemen. A maceman is supposed to be easily and cheaply trained but not as good as a highly trained unit. It'd be great if in the mid game civs were able to field tons of free maintenance cheap units to really push the wars into the field.

something like:
Macemen
4
1
No maintenance
No bonuses (they're not specially trained)
Can be drafted
Same cost as Warriors or even cheaper and can be built with food without conquest.

That way even axemen would be stronger, but macemen come later and would provide greater numbers.

 

[eerr]

i think the best way to get a lot of out of city battles (though i personally do a fair bit of in-borders-out-of-city battling since you get more xp for attacking than defending) is to have units that are cheap to make, weak, and cost no maintenance. Since then you could field tons of them just to slow your enemy down, and use up their attacks (a unit without blitz can only attack once, so if you had a bottleneck you could field tons of these uits there and the enemy would take a long time just killing all the units lol).

Personally I think this cheap weak unit should be macemen. A maceman is supposed to be easily and cheaply trained but not as good as a highly trained unit. It'd be great if in the mid game civs were able to field tons of free maintenance cheap units to really push the wars into the field.

something like:
Macemen
4
1
No maintenance
No bonuses (they're not specially trained)
Can be drafted
Same cost as Warriors or even cheaper and can be built with food without conquest.

That way even axemen would be stronger, but macemen come later and would provide greater numbers.

the biggest cost would be war wearyness from all the deaths of their people?
it kinda makes sense....
and it makes the orthus axe an extremely diserable weapon