Pillaging War

[Promethian]

We talked about his in the general forum but now that this forum is here I hope we can add more. The idea of a pillaging war is to pillage their tiles and ransom their city back to them in the peace agreement. I'll lay out the full mechanics around this and explain why I think this is very much encouraged in the game now.

Pillaging a tile doesn't just heal the unit every time in Civ6. Only pillaging farms heals. Tiles with resources and districts give some resources based on what you pillage. I have seen pillaged luxuries give culture for instance (specifically citrus). This means there is more to gain from war than just taking over more territory.

We know the nature of warmonger penalties. We know of the diplo penalty for warmongering for declaring war, especially without a cassus belli. The warmonger penalty is increased for taking cities, extremely so when razing them. There is a reduction in the penalty for returning the city in the peace deal as well. This is important. It allows us to wage more wars without losing all diplomatic relations.

You don't actually truly own a city until someone gives it up in a peace deal. Also if you manage to get them to give up the city (I bet this is really hard on higher difficulty) they remember and hold it against you. There is almost an assurance they will regularly strive to reclaim the city. This leads into my next point.

We generally get to a point where we no longer want to war to expand. Partly because we want to build up at home. Partly because the micro load and turn time starts to really stack up. Pillaging war gives us something to do in this time and still get something for it. We get to slow down opponent progress, use our military and gain in resources from the pillaging and ransom.

My final point is to note that repairing districts that have been pillaged requires time spent on production. This means a pillaged city loses a lot of its output for a long time as those districts recover. Send fast units through the enemy's territory tearing up districts (Light cavalry have a real purpose!).

In the end I think pillaging wars are going to be a real thing. We get the fun of waging war without increasing micro load. Plus the target civ is set back a lot and you get a bunch of resources from the pillaging and peace deal.

 

[skyclad]

Yes, depending on how many units the AI have and how close together their cities are, this could be a great strategy. As you mention districts and improvments take time to repair so you dont want to hurt a city you will be keeping, but if you can return it for diplo boost and ransom possibly, pillagaging is a win-win-win. :evilsmiley:

 

[Zenstrive]

Well, this is nice idea. I just hope AI is not smart enough to do this.
Otherwise you'd be very punished in Deity, with their advantage in early military units.

 

[Promethian]

Well of Souls (and Marbozir's Scythia game) show the promotion upgrades for light cavalry. +1 movement, 1 movement cost pillage and attached units match the light cav's movement really stand out to me. Light cav will be able to really tear through enemy territory pillaging. Against a human player you are going to have to hold units back to keep light cav backdoor pillagers in check. Otherwise they will just eat some farms to heal and still have moves to pillage districts with.

The attached units match light cav movement is better than it seems at first glance. You can attach support units to the light cav to get the support where you need it quickly. Late game anti-air and medics are obvious choices here. You can also use the matched movement to speed boost settlers and builders.

 

[Landstander]

I'm looking forward to this. I haven't read much on Corps or Armies, but imagine taking a high-movement Army deep into enemy borders to pillage key improvements. The idea of attaching Support units to high-movement units is also very intriguing, assuming it works like that.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Well of Souls (and Marbozir's Scythia game) show the promotion upgrades for light cavalry. +1 movement, 1 movement cost pillage and attached units match the light cav's movement really stand out to me. Light cav will be able to really tear through enemy territory pillaging. Against a human player you are going to have to hold units back to keep light cav backdoor pillagers in check. Otherwise they will just eat some farms to heal and still have moves to pillage districts with.

The attached units match light cav movement is better than it seems at first glance. You can attach support units to the light cav to get the support where you need it quickly. Late game anti-air and medics are obvious choices here. You can also use the matched movement to speed boost settlers and builders.

Light cav in general seems more useful this time. With the terrain rules, catching and attacking people is _very_ difficult if they're trying to run off.

If you want to catch stray builders and settlers, horsemen are the way to go.

 

[Zenstrive]

With workers gone and replaced by limited use builders, repairing damages due to pillaging will truly cripple a civ.
With workers, in Civ V, you can savely stashed workers in cities then repair everything once the war is done.

 

[pholtz]

With workers gone and replaced by limited use builders, repairing damages due to pillaging will truly cripple a civ.
With workers, in Civ V, you can savely stashed workers in cities then repair everything once the war is done.

And you can do the same now. Stash a builder, just needs one more build, in a city to repair as needed.

 

[Zantetsuken]

This strategy is how I'll be playing my Sparta games, pillage for rewards, kill some units for culture, capture the city if you can and sell it back for some GPT or such, let them take the time to repair the damage and for your GPT to end and then repeat later (preferably let them convert a city or such for a holy war, or maybe a liberation war or such)

 

[Promethian]

With workers gone and replaced by limited use builders, repairing damages due to pillaging will truly cripple a civ.
With workers, in Civ V, you can savely stashed workers in cities then repair everything once the war is done.

A worker can repair normal tile improvements with a single turn. However the real hurt is going to come from the pillaged districts. They require that you rebuild them with production from the city. Considering everything the ideal pillaging war will be to claim a couple cities to lock down a nice ransom and roll through their territory with light cav tearing up the districts and tiles with bonus resources and luxuries. Farms heal the unit, the rest give resources to the pillager.

 

[Zenstrive]

This strategy is how I'll be playing my Sparta games, pillage for rewards, kill some units for culture, capture the city if you can and sell it back for some GPT or such, let them take the time to repair the damage and for your GPT to end and then repeat later (preferably let them convert a city or such for a holy war, or maybe a liberation war or such)

would this incur a big accumulated warmongering penalty on you?

 

[Big J Money]

On a slightly similar note, what about going to war simply to give your units XP? For later potential wars. Take 1 of every type of unit (ranged, light cav, etc) in the ancient era and start a war to level them up.

 

[Zantetsuken]

would this incur a big accumulated warmongering penalty on you?

Probably some yeah, early on I would get little to no penalty, and later I would try to only go to war if I have a Casus Belli (at this point I've probably obtained a nice little advantage with the aggressive start and culture on kills, plus whatever gold and such I get from peacing out) and using the liberation war to get liberator points to help alleviate some of the warmonger penalties, and hell, if I have a little warmonger penalty, who cares, Sparta thrives on that sorta life, and if they declare on me, well more culture for me

 

[Promethian]

On a slightly similar note, what about going to war simply to give your units XP? For later potential wars. Take 1 of every type of unit (ranged, light cav, etc) in the ancient era and start a war to level them up.

I will use a city state for just this purpose unless there is a cap on city state unit experience given like with barbarians. I also intend to do something similar with the Aztecs to milk a bunch of builders early game as well.

 

[Cyberian]

A human Scythia in multiplayer really seems a total nightmare. Pillaging everywhere with cheap horsemen and getting healed through pillaging as well as destroying units plus damage bonus against wounded.

I agree that war against CS for experience is probably pretty worthwhile.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

would this incur a big accumulated warmongering penalty on you?

Yes. Simply taking a city ups your warmonger penalty.

However you can declare ancient wars at no penalty, kill everything that moves, pillage all their tiles and then just walk away for pretty much zero warmonger penalty. (But scythia will still hate you for surprise war).

 

[Lord Yanaek]

I'm really really interested at the idea of non-expansion wars. It's something i already did to a very limited extend in CiV (with Aztecs or Celts) after the usual worker steal but it seems like 6 will make this a real valid strategy.

 

[Vincent55]

A human Scythia in multiplayer really seems a total nightmare. Pillaging everywhere with cheap horsemen and getting healed through pillaging as well as destroying units plus damage bonus against wounded.

Imagine; Scythia on one border, the Aztecs on the other and Norway lurking in nearby waters...

Makes me want to pick America as a pre-emptive strike.

 

[gcm4738]

Amphibious Marine War Elephants - The Varu Rush with India. The evidence is clear. Gandhi is the new Hannibal

 

[Promethian]

Amphibious Marine War Elephants - The Varu Rush with India. The evidence is clear. Gandhi is the new Hannibal

As soon as I saw them I wondered if their penalty stacked with more elephants. If the answer is yes then India has a chance at being another one of the early game military threats.