[GS] Pillage Yield in GS

[Archon_Wing]

The mechanic is fine, there is a very simple solution for those who are afraid it can be abused: don't abuse it. Very simple isn't it?

Pretending something doesn't exist is not a solution. How will you tell your opponent to not use it? By your logic, if building a scout crashes the game, that's perfectly acceptable if you don't build a scout. And you can't stop the AI or other players from doing that.

Prevention is much better than the cure and the game hasn't been released yet. Not to mention that many players already pretend some mechanics don't exist to enjoy it. Let's not add more. The game already assumes the player is a fool for not going to war; this will just make it worse and closing your ears and going "lalallalala i can't hear you" is simply out of touch with reality.

 

[pgm123]

Lukewarm take: Pillaging absolutely needs to scale with era, but that doesn't mean it needs to scale perfectly; the exact scale needs to be tweaked.

 

[Victoria]

So why do you use Galileo or Darwin to gain science

a 1000 science pillage is certainly better than 4*250 because they reset each other, maybe they will change Daw & Gal

I expect GS is all about pillage.

If they scale from 25 then OMG, pretty much wrecked the game, CS are OTT but you can temper a game by removing the right ones, pillaging with the raid card would just be stupid and you know it. I hope to hell it does not work like this.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

If they scale from 25 then OMG, pretty much wrecked the game, CS are OTT but you can temper a game by removing the right ones, pillaging with the raid card would just be stupid and you know it. I hope to hell it does not work like this.

I'm quite sure the senior dev team (Beach + Shirk) said in the Sweden livestream that they looked at pillaging and thought it needed a boost, and that they wanting pillaging to be as strong throughout the game as it is at the start, where the science / culture yield equals about 1/4th of the a new tech / civic. Further, I believe they indicated that it will use the same scaling system as chopping to increase the pillage yield continually throughout the game.

When considering this, though, we also need to keep in mind that in the ancient era there are only a few improvements around to pillage. By the classical era, there are more improvements, some districts, and some Tier 1 buildings. By the medieval era, there's a lot more improvements, districts, and buildings.

In other words, the potential yields from pillaging already scales in the game, because the number of things to pillage scale. Scaling raw pillage yields with chops will now exponentially increase the potential gains from pillaging as the eras go on and the AI has a larger and larger infrastructure to raid.

If the AI is taught to pillage, this will make a peaceful Deity game more challenging, as the AI essentially colludes with itself to repair improvements for it's neighbours to pillage. This could potentially lead to the AI benefitting more from aggression that it does now.

In multi-player, it will presumably encourage aggressive play, as a war can pay for itself even if you're not able to capture an enemy city. I would guess it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to build an infrastructure in multi-player that could generate as much yield domestically as an aggressive player could generate from attacking. So those who dislike the concept of "turtling" will no doubt be happy that the scale has been tilted in favour of civs that fight aggressively.

 

[Victoria]

In other words, the potential yields from pillaging already scales in the game, because the number of things to pillage scale. Scaling raw pillage yields with chops will now exponentially increase the potential gains from pillaging as the eras go on and the AI has a larger and larger infrastructure to raid.

Yes yes yes!
This is a serious issue, if they have no playtesters that are professional pillagers they will not see how this can seriously rocket you rocketry. It also encourages ‘flip n pillage’ strategy.... so find a city, take it, make a bunch of mines on it, amd basically you can get 1k science per turn from it using that games strat.

 

[Ziad]

The war itself should generate the grievance. Further penalizing players for pillaging a tile or district would be akin to penalizing them for killing a unit or plundering a trade route.

I think grievances are based on actions taken during a war, not just the declaration.

Yes yes yes!
This is a serious issue, if they have no playtesters that are professional pillagers they will not see how this can seriously rocket you rocketry. It also encourages ‘flip n pillage’ strategy.... so find a city, take it, make a bunch of mines on it, amd basically you can get 1k science per turn from it using that games strat.

If they make it scale based on the target's era, this won't be an issue.

Regardless, if you're that far ahead of everyone else it's likely the world age will still be behind so you can't really abuse this as much as you claim. Definitely not to "rocketry" if most civs are still in the Renaissance era from all the pillaging you did.

 

[Victoria]

Regardless, if you're that far ahead of everyone else it's likely the world age will still be behind so you can't really abuse this as much as you claim. Definitely not to "rocketry" if most civs are still in the Renaissance era from all the pillaging you did.

If it scales based on the pillagers science/culture it is a snowball effect.

So for example, at T100-120 you are chopping a forest for 100 production, you are also pillaging a mine for 100 science, raid card=200 science... this is at a time you may only be on 50 science per turn.
At rocketry you are pillaging for 150-200 science per mine... per mine.

With flip n pillage you can normally get 5 mines up, it is not nice sums.

 

[gozon]

Mines and some other improvements should yield gold instead of science/culture and the yield should have a diminishing return if you pillage from a same city multiple times

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Doesn't bother me. It will be nice to take something out of the idiots who pick a fight with me that (presumably) won't get me labeled a warmonger.

 

[bbbt]

If they add this they should also make it like chopping where you can only get it the first time something is pillaged. Even across civs, so if another civ hits it first you get nothing. That might make it more interesting.

And they should dump the double pillage yield policy card, maybe make it part of Norway UA. Or maybe a dark age policy instead.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

I want to test this out when the expansion comes out, because I wonder if you can use pillaging to catch up to the deity AI without having to take a single city, or surpass them on science. While chopping is a little bit cheesy, pillaging (taking what others built) should not be as cheesy for the non chopping players. I almost never used the pillage policy card, but I will be using it often now I bet.

This will also be a good strategy to avoid having any warmonger penalty or grievances too. Most drama comes from taking a city. If you pillage their tiles instead and leave their cities, you cripple them and make big gains at the same time.

 

[Disgustipated]

So question for those well versed on war weariness. Does troops in foreign lands accrue war weariness? Can you just be at war for long stretches of time doing nothing but killing enemy troops and pillaging everything? If you are careful and don't lose troops (which raises war weariness) that is. Alex of course would be immune to this.

 

[Victoria]

Does troops in foreign lands accrue war weariness?

nope, weariness is only due fighting with more for death and more for being in foreign lands.
So... pillaging gives none but every time you attack you do.... in essence taking a city with archers will give more WW than with sword and ram because you do more attacks. It’s just not that nasty....
so killing all the enemy gives Them WW, then looting their lands starves them and makes them very miserable with larger cities being vulnerable and small cities being safe (another reason not to go tall) because you can only get as many minuses from WW as your amenity requirement.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I want to test this out when the expansion comes out, because I wonder if you can use pillaging to catch up to the deity AI without having to take a single city, or surpass them on science.

You can currently catch up to Deity AI on science pretty fast as long as you run international trade routes and projects. No conquest of AI cities required, just peaceful expansion to 8+ cities with a Campus and either CH or Harbour in each. It helps if you sell everything you can lay your hands, as that gives you the gold you need to buy what you want. The time saved by buying versus building adds up.

 

[acluewithout]

Who knows?

Maybe better pillaging means AI pillages more, means Human Player gets attacked more, means Human Player needs more defence, means Human Player needs to build Encampments, Forts, Anti-Cav and Walls, means ENCAMPMENTS, FORTS, ANTI-CAVE, AND WALLS ARE ACTUALLY WORTH BUILDING!!!! WOOT! WOOT!

...or, you know, maybe it's just broke as hell and @Lilylancer ends up winning science victories shortly after the Classical Age starts with 2 cities, one theatre square, and 4023 Knights.

Could go either way...

 

[Victoria]

It helps if you sell everything you can lay your hands, as that gives you the gold you need to buy what you want

This works for every strat and is one of the finer points to doing well. As long as you spend it.
It cannot be stressed enough, an amenity in your city is worth much less than 6 GPT normally. Open borders? sell it to everyone because they do not forward settle amd finally no longer sit on vital tiles.

 

[SxSnts9]

I must have been one of the few people who thought pillaging was already pretty strong. Late game I'd train up a bunch of cavalry and just go a-pillagin'. Oh what's that AI who is neck-and-neck with me in Science? You have 4 campuses with library and universities built and are too idiotic to actually fend off my feeble cavalry army? Well I'll just pop the Raid card into my government and go nab a bunch of science, gold and faith from you over the next 3-4 turns. Then whenever your walls get my guys low I'll just promote them or heal for 100 hit points by pillaging your farms or entertainment districts. Then when I'm done (or more often when I get bored with clicking guys around) I'll take your peace deal that grants me 45 gpt over the next 30 turns.

I am pretty worried that my choices with this update are going to be never actually have a chance at losing again or just stopping myself from ever pillaging as it's too unfair. But I will wait until the expansion releases before I pass final judgement. Hopefully it's not too much of a change.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

You can currently catch up to Deity AI on science pretty fast as long as you run international trade routes and projects. No conquest of AI cities required, just peaceful expansion to 8+ cities with a Campus and either CH or Harbour in each. It helps if you sell everything you can lay your hands, as that gives you the gold you need to buy what you want. The time saved by buying versus building adds up.

Well if you do it that way, you gotta be friendly with your neighbors for sure. No aggro passive aggressive a holes like Germany, Pericles, etc.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Well if you do it that way, you gotta be friendly with your neighbors for sure. No aggro passive aggressive a holes like Germany, Pericles, etc.

Yes. As with most of my posts, I'm simplifying because otherwise the "unless … thens …" would be brutal. You do have to expect a war or two early on (one's pretty much a guarantee). And if the only AI you know is the one attacking you, you can't start selling until you've won the war.

I don't think Germany, Pericles, etc., have any higher probability of attacking you than anyone else, though. I don't think any particular AI leaders have been given any preference towards attacking you, and if you're not attacking yourself and earning warmongering points, the AI also doesn't seem to attack you any more with bad relationships than they do with good relationships (except if you're friends or allies, but I avoid making friends as I'd rather see the AI do something). The prices they pay for items you sell them also doesn't vary with your relationship, so it doesn't really matter if they denounce you, as long as you have something to sell them that they want.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Yes. As with most of my posts, I'm simplifying because otherwise the "unless … thens …" would be brutal. You do have to expect a war or two early on (one's pretty much a guarantee). And if the only AI you know is the one attacking you, you can't start selling until you've won the war.

I don't think Germany, Pericles, etc., have any higher probability of attacking you than anyone else, though. I don't think any particular AI leaders have been given any preference towards attacking you, and if you're not attacking yourself and earning warmongering points, the AI also doesn't seem to attack you any more with bad relationships than they do with good relationships (except if you're friends or allies, but I avoid making friends as I'd rather see the AI do something). The prices they pay for items you sell them also doesn't vary with your relationship, so it doesn't really matter if they denounce you, as long as you have something to sell them that they want.

I guess the best way is
1. Settle City with a lot a mines(quarries, etc) and lots of opponents nearby, build some mines, bring some builders and knights, let the city be as low loyalty as possible. (Starvation, religion malus, etc.)
2. Once you get -20( or even -27 with starvation and diff religion) loyalty per turn, the city will soon become an independent city.
3. Pillage all those mines and capture the city back.
4. Fix those mines. You shall be quick since the city will flip in 2 turns.
5.Return to 2.

Such a city can be called a "science " city, for it is producing a tech every 3~4 turns.

You can build dozens of these "science" cities, making you research GDR in less than T100 I guess.

As well as "gold" cities, "faith" cities, "culture" cities. These are the best cities.