Nox Noctis

[onedreamer]

so how do you deal with the fact that you can't defend (and yes I mean defend, not attack) improvements once the wonder is built ?
Since the wonder forces you to always attack, even if perhaps you play a defensive civ, it seems to me that it does more harm than help.

 

[Demus]

High withdrawal units, or units with marksman (shouldn't be a detour, the religion is in the mounted tech tree, and the religion's most powerful unit is the shadow ). Abuse the fact that the attacking opponent can't counter attack to your assassins, horsemen and mages

 

[Sarisin]

I mentioned in another thread that I stopped building this Wonder even if I founded CoE.

It really destroys my perimeter-based strategy of defense. I like to station units outside of my cities on terrain that gives me a bonus and lets me see more.

I get killed when units, mostly barbs, with multiple movements like Wolf Riders and Chariots zip right by me.

You really have to micromanage your defense IMO with Nox Noctis and that is one reason I say, 'no thanks.'

 

[onedreamer]

my thoughts exactly. This is another supposed "feature" like the guardsman promotion that does more harm than help, because being this a strategy game, any "cool" feature that forces you to take a certain major strategy is bad for the gameplay.

Demus, your suggestions are exactly those I asked to avoid, why should I take an offensive stance in my territory, especially since this looks like a wonder which should improve defense ? It is also a quite inefficient strategy since you will need many more units than normal to defend your lands. Since you mentioned them, I should note how having access to Shadows is completely useless when all your units can benefit their same feature (invisibility).

 

[odalrick]

Don't build the Nox Noctis unless you want the benefit. I like Nox Noctis precisely because it aids my active defence of my homeland. It lets me use many, many fewer units than a static defence.

Why on earth would you want to defend when you can attack for twice the experience and less risk?

why should I take an offensive stance in my territory

Because it's your territory. You have every advantage.

 

[uberfish]

I never put static defenders on improvements anyway so it's purely beneficial. Everything rebuilds quickly except for towns, and you can't exactly defend every town. I put all units on defensive duty inside cities because it takes much longer to rebuild buildings that got destroyed in a city capture.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

On top of that, you can rebuild improvements while the enemy is still in your territory too. Personally I like using Nox Noctis combined with Radiant Guards/Rathas, so I can trap enemy stacks in place while I whittle them down. Preferably on top of deserts

 

[onedreamer]

Don't build the Nox Noctis unless you want the benefit. I like Nox Noctis precisely because it aids my active defence of my homeland. It lets me use many, many fewer units than a static defence.

Why on earth would you want to defend when you can attack for twice the experience and less risk?


Because it's your territory. You have every advantage.

2 statements are simply wrong:

1- when you defend from a stack, you can use less units than when you attack, since you need one unit per attack/kill (unless blitz) while in defense the same unit can kill more than 1 enemy unit.
2- when you attack you run greater risks than when you defend unless you are using an assassin or another clearly offensive unit, and even in these cases, it depends. Surely, the absolute statement that attacking is less risky is wrong.


But the most important question is why am I forced on the offensive stance and can't choose the defensive one. Civ is a strategic game and you should be able to choose between different strategies and not be forced into one.

 

[Fafnir13]

Only build it once you've got access to mages and the like who can do % damage to the stack. They can wander around willy nilly without any care for their own safety, blasting the helpless stack as it blunder through your lands. Once their weakened, it shouldn't be a problem for your beefier units to take them out. Assassins are also great as they can snipe the catapults and whatnot without worry about reprisals.
Other than that, I completely agree that Nox Noctis does more harm then good. Any sort of traditional warfare just becomes unmanageable once you throw out the option to defend.

 

[odalrick]

2 statements are simply wrong:

1- when you defend from a stack, you can use less units than when you attack, since you need one unit per attack/kill (unless blitz) while in defense the same unit can kill more than 1 enemy unit.

When a stack defends, only the units in that stack counts. When you attack a stack in your territory, with only basic technology, all units within four tiles can attack. Mounted units can attack form even further. With Engineering all unit within six tiles can attack. If you want to defend by defending, you'll need large stacks all over.

2- when you attack you run greater risks than when you defend unless you are using an assassin or another clearly offensive unit, and even in these cases, it depends. Surely, the absolute statement that attacking is less risky is wrong.

When attacking you chose the attacker, the defender never gets to chose. So, if you are not prepared to lose a unit 20% of the time you won't attack at 80%. There is no similar option for defenders.

I more often lose high level units when defending than attacking, because the option of sacrificing a low level unit just doesn't exist.

The higher risk when defending isn't about losing a unit, it is about losing a valuable unit.

But the most important question is why am I forced on the offensive stance and can't choose the defensive one. Civ is a strategic game and you should be able to choose between different strategies and not be forced into one.

It's sad but, in my opinion, defence is woefully underpowered in Fall from Heaven II. If every unit in the game got +100% defence, it would still be underpowered.

This isn't unique to Fall from Heaven. Vanilla Civilization suffers from the same imbalance, though not quite to that extreme. In fact, it is pretty much universal in all games.

As it applies to invisible units though, unless you accidentally conquered Nox Noctis from the enemy, you made the conscious choice of building it with a Great Prophet. Complaining that you are forced into an offensive stance after that is sort of like complaining that you can't run a solid specialist economy after building only cottages.

 

[Zechnophobe]

2 statements are simply wrong:

1- when you defend from a stack, you can use less units than when you attack, since you need one unit per attack/kill (unless blitz) while in defense the same unit can kill more than 1 enemy unit.
2- when you attack you run greater risks than when you defend unless you are using an assassin or another clearly offensive unit, and even in these cases, it depends. Surely, the absolute statement that attacking is less risky is wrong.


But the most important question is why am I forced on the offensive stance and can't choose the defensive one. Civ is a strategic game and you should be able to choose between different strategies and not be forced into one.

Attacking *is* less risky with Nox Noctis, because you do not get counterattacked, and get to pick the attacker.

As to answer your most important questions: No one is forcing anything. If you get a great merchant or great prophet, you choose whether or not to use it to build the Wonder.


I don't get it though, just about the only reason to get Deception tech is to found the Nox Noctis. That and the Undercouncil are why you would even have the option to build this wonder. Why would you get the tech, and do it before anyone else, only to then be unsure of the value of what you got?

 

[Sarisin]

I don't get it though, just about the only reason to get Deception tech is to found the Nox Noctis. That and the Undercouncil are why you would even have the option to build this wonder. Why would you get the tech, and do it before anyone else, only to then be unsure of the value of what you got?

Hey, when you research Deception you get that HN Nightwatch that you can use to pick off units wandering through your territory, and, more importantly spread CoE to the city you will use to build your Shadows so they can get the masking spell.

And, please, let us not forget the opportunity you get with this tech to build the Hero of Heroes...the Trojan Horse!

As I mentioned before, despite the other reasons for researching Deception I never build Nox Noctis. If there was a way you could activate and de-activate that invisibility feature for your guys I would in a minute though.

 

[Demus]

i'm seriously hoping for forts/castles/citadels to reveal units fortified within them. Not only would this give you an added reason to build those improvements, it would allow you to still defend your borders

 

[Mailbox]

I think they might show the units inside them if they're marked as "bActasCity".

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, mark them bActasCity and naval units can move onto the tile and all units will be visible on the spot.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Won't that also allow them to harvest resources? And doesn't that make them sorta broken? (I don't recall the specifics, to be honest).

 

[Mailbox]

It allows them to harvest resources and allows naval travel. Neither of these are huge problems but the raw mana and mana it would allow forts to harvest could be "broken". The reason Kael ended up removing it is that people kept reporting that boats on land was a bug and the mana thing.

I liked it when forts acted as cities (and edit it back to the way it was myself) because the garrison promotions were huge for defense and allowing them to keep city defenders as a front line defense. Maybe there could be a block for building forts on mana and perhaps bActsasCity could be blocked from providing naval movement?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I really wish that ActAsCity could be broken up into several tags, one for combat purposes, one for resources, one for acting as canals, and one as being an airbase.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I agree, I miss the forts acting as a canal and being able to provide resources. sometimes you have a resource on a chokepoint and a fort seems like the most reasonable choice, but you have to choose the mana issue could be solved by making forts not buildable on mana nodes I guess, not sure if that's as easy at it sounds though. this would be a good suggestion for FF... *pokes xienwolf*

 

[onedreamer]

Attacking *is* less risky with Nox Noctis, because you do not get counterattacked, and get to pick the attacker.

The main risk factor in a fight is weather you will win or not, and after that how easily you win. If you win, you won't have to worry about counterattack.

As to answer your most important questions: No one is forcing anything. If you get a great merchant or great prophet, you choose whether or not to use it to build the Wonder.

Ok, if you like to make silly points just to contradict me, that's fine. The point here is that this is a religious wonder, that like all other religious wonders grants +1 gold per city with its religion. Now, no other religion wonder forces you to adopt a combat strategy, and I think that the fact that Nox Noctis does it, isn't an intended concept.

I don't get it though, just about the only reason to get Deception tech is to found the Nox Noctis. That and the Undercouncil are why you would even have the option to build this wonder. Why would you get the tech, and do it before anyone else, only to then be unsure of the value of what you got?

Exactly that is my question. Where's your answer ?