Partisans take to the hills!

[TheMeInTeam]

Wouldn't partisans be more effective / realistic if they emerged up in the boonies, away from military installations that any invading force would beeline for and where they could easily be corralled and destroyed?

Yes, but they're an abstraction that doesn't make sense on the 10 year/turn type scale, or even a 5 year/turn type scale. In practice they'd be an arbitrary brake on an aggressor hitting someone who is underprepared. The game doesn't abstract minor policies on the scale of individual cities lasting for 3 turns, so why should the game abstract partisans?

 

[thecrazyscot]

It's still a defense mechanism that reduces the risk of leaving yourself exposed. Civ 5 had more than enough of that junk with just the too-high base strength of cities.

We're not talking about Civ 5

It might make sense in Civ 6 appearing out of the encampment if the city center were taken. But if the encampment were destroyed prior to taking the city center, no partisans appear. Would represent surviving local defense forces heading for the hills.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We're not talking about Civ 5

It might make sense in Civ 6 appearing out of the encampment if the city center were taken. But if the encampment were destroyed prior to taking the city center, no partisans appear. Would represent surviving local defense forces heading for the hills.

Unless civ 6 has a crazy divergent year-turn scaling from previous titles, it doesn't matter which civ we're talking about; partisans don't make sense and never did from a design standpoint. You get silliness like "50 years of partisans fighting", when normally you'd abstract them as "cities give a defensive bonus" or "city attack" rather than trying to model them as armies appearing from nowhere.

Levels of abstraction should be somewhat consistent, otherwise mechanics wind up being surprising/jarring.

 

[thecrazyscot]

Dunno why the year-turn scale seems so important to you as virtually everything in the game is absurd when you take that into account. You're just arbitrarily choosing things which don't "fit" and ignoring the fact that the rest of the game doesn't fit either and never has.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Dunno why the year-turn scale seems so important to you as virtually everything in the game is absurd when you take that into account. You're just arbitrarily choosing things which don't "fit" and ignoring the fact that the rest of the game doesn't fit either and never has.

That's not true. Most things in the game get a really high level of abstraction in nod to said turn/time scaling.

That's why I pointed out that partisans are more similar to city-level policies lasting for 3 turns. It makes more sense just to give defenders an advantage in the first place, rather than creating a specific model for one way defenders had an advantage for a short period of history under specific conditions.

The proposal itself is arbitrary. Asking why it needs special modeling is not.

 

[thecrazyscot]

I disagree that it makes more sense to just give defenders an advantage. Wars lasting hundreds of years don't make sense...units taking decades to build...buildings taking decades...anything that's actually "on" the map doesn't fit the time scale, at least until 1 turn = 1 year, and even then it still doesn't make sense. Why does it take a year to move 2 hexes?

Partisans existed in past Civ games, so it's an existing mechanic - the proposal isn't arbitrary. I've been replaying Civ 2 the past few weeks and partisans were an excellent mechanic. They were weak enough that they didn't pose a real threat to your invading army, but they could slow the attacker down by pillaging roads and forcing the attacker to take them out in order to eliminate ZOC issues.

Guerrilla warfare has been an integral part of defense against a superior attacking force for hundreds or even thousands of years.

 

[poundjd]

-jeff

 

[poundjd]

Partisans were an amazing mechanic in II and could create enormous problems if you started conquering too many cities too quickly. I remember several times I found myself absolutely swarmed with the buggers in the middle of a campaign.

Partisans were never meant to defend the player as they only appear after you've lost your city. Against any well-armed invader, they can only try and slow them a bit, or pillage roads to prevent quick reinforcement of the enemy. If you're relying on partisans for defense, you've already lost the war.

We're not talking about Civ 5

It might make sense in Civ 6 appearing out of the encampment if the city center were taken. But if the encampment were destroyed prior to taking the city center, no partisans appear. Would represent surviving local defense forces heading for the hills.

I disagree that it makes more sense to just give defenders an advantage. Wars lasting hundreds of years don't make sense...units taking decades to build...buildings taking decades...anything that's actually "on" the map doesn't fit the time scale, at least until 1 turn = 1 year, and even then it still doesn't make sense. Why does it take a year to move 2 hexes?

Partisans existed in past Civ games, so it's an existing mechanic - the proposal isn't arbitrary. I've been replaying Civ 2 the past few weeks and partisans were an excellent mechanic. They were weak enough that they didn't pose a real threat to your invading army, but they could slow the attacker down by pillaging roads and forcing the attacker to take them out in order to eliminate ZOC issues.

Guerrilla warfare has been an integral part of defense against a superior attacking force for hundreds or even thousands of years.

I agree they were an annoyance when attacking too much!!!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I disagree that it makes more sense to just give defenders an advantage. Wars lasting hundreds of years don't make sense...units taking decades to build...buildings taking decades...anything that's actually "on" the map doesn't fit the time scale, at least until 1 turn = 1 year, and even then it still doesn't make sense. Why does it take a year to move 2 hexes?

Partisans existed in past Civ games, so it's an existing mechanic - the proposal isn't arbitrary. I've been replaying Civ 2 the past few weeks and partisans were an excellent mechanic. They were weak enough that they didn't pose a real threat to your invading army, but they could slow the attacker down by pillaging roads and forcing the attacker to take them out in order to eliminate ZOC issues.

Guerrilla warfare has been an integral part of defense against a superior attacking force for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Resource depletion and forced wars ending are "existing" mechanics too. Existing mechanics are not necessarily good mechanics.

If you want to slow an attacker by pillaging roads and forcing ZoC issues, then take a unit and pillage the road.

 

[thecrazyscot]

True, just because a mechanic exists in a past iteration does not mean it's good. However, in my opinion, partisans were both fun and well-implemented, and I'm obviously not the only one who thinks so. You disagree, which is fine, though I don't find your reasons for doing so compelling or coherent.

 

[Cuneiform]

Ok, I'm going to resurrect this thread because I think given the Instant Razing of cities option we now have in Civ6, that it's crying out for a bit more of a penalty for doing this.

If you or the AI already have a big military advantage, then quite frankly an extra warmongering penalty just doesn't cut it in my opinion.

I think razing a city should generate some Partisans based on your Casus belli and also the size of the city, maybe 1 Partisan for every 4 population would be a start. They would spawn in the most defensive terrain available within 3 tiles of the razed city.

Given the progressive nature of warmongering penalties from the Ancient Era onwards, this is something that perhaps would only start to appear in the Industrial Era. That would allow the Partisan unit to be a variation on the Ranger unit which also appears about this time.

If on the other hand the attacking Civ simply elects to annex the city, then no Partisans would appear and only the regular warmongering penalties would apply.