Pillaging

[al_thor]

The AI loves to pillage, and that's okay, as I do a fair amount of it myself, especially if I don't plan on capturing the area (why pillage and THEN capture and have to rebuild?)

But, I have a serious problem with the pillaging action, and I'm sure that this has been mentioned before, but.....It should take longer than 1 turn to pillage an improvement. It takes what - like 8 or 10 turns to build a plantation? Pillaged in one turn. Even a simple road - takes 4 turns to build, one turn to pillage.

I propose a change to Pillaging. The time that it takes to pillage should be longer. I don't know if it should be something like one-half the turns as it takes to build (so 2 turns to pillage road, 4 or 5 for plantation). I suppose that the 'stack pillage' could still be used (2 units pillaging a road could do it in one turn, etc).

One other thing about pillaging. It seems that a unit can still pillage AFTER using all of it's movement points. What's up with that? That just makes it even worse.

Yes, I know that things like a Town take multiple turns to pillage, and that's great (can you imagine if the AI could pillage your towns COMPLETELY in just ONE turn? There would be some irate people!!). I'm asking for this same kind of thing for ALL improvements.

What does everyone else think?

 

[Frostyboy]

What about Cities? Even a City of size 20 takes 1 turn to raze? That bothers me.

Destroying things takes normally shorter time than destroying things. How many turns didnt it take to build your unit taht was killed in a moment?

No, an improvement shouldn't take lots of time to pillage. If you don't protect your land you derserve some punishment, and pillaging for money has been a good new effect in Civ4 as you can make profit of war without having to take down whole cities.

Regarding the movement points, that should be a bug after my opinion and shouldn't be there if it was on purpose.

At least you can only pillage one improvement at a time compared to CivIII where it was all at once.

 

[Efexeye]

It makes sense to me that pillaging only takes one turn- it's a lot harder to build something up than it is to tear it down...

 

[MattJek]

What about Cities? Even a City of size 20 takes 1 turn to raze? That bothers me.

This definately needs to be fixed IMO

 

[al_thor]

Sorry. I just don't agree. Takes like 10 turns to build a plantation. Only 1 turn to totally and completely DESTROY it? Not realistic or fair. I don't mind the roads and mines so much, but farms, wineries, plantations, etc just have to take longer to pillage.

 

[Bob1475]

Other than you "want" it to take longer to pillage I have not seen a good argument. There seems to be an argument about what is "fair" i.e. it took me ten turns to build so you should not be able to destroy in one turn? I would put this in the "fun" gameplay category. If it upsets so many people that they don't want to play then it should be fixed.

However, from my viewpoint it is very realistic and forces you to not only build but to defend your improvements. How long did it take the hurricane to destroy New Orleans vs how long it took to build it? (Please no political discussion here!). Bombing and destroying a factory in one turn vs building it in 20? That is just life (or war) and you need to deal with it. It adds balance. Sure it hurts when your improvement is pillaged - it is supposed to hurt!

I'm not much into pillaging as I am more interested in conquering and want to keep those improvements for myself. However, when I am in defensive war I will definitely pillage to keep the enemy production and research down.

 

[MattJek]

Sorry. I just don't agree. Takes like 10 turns to build a plantation. Only 1 turn to totally and completely DESTROY it? Not realistic or fair. I don't mind the roads and mines so much, but farms, wineries, plantations, etc just have to take longer to pillage.

Id want only 2 turn max for more advanced improvements like plantations or mines. Like efexeye and bob1475 said, its a lot easier to destory something than to build it.

 

[Efexeye]

Sorry. I just don't agree. Takes like 10 turns to build a plantation. Only 1 turn to totally and completely DESTROY it? Not realistic or fair. I don't mind the roads and mines so much, but farms, wineries, plantations, etc just have to take longer to pillage.

A construction company can build a skyscaper in, say, 6 months.

A demolition company can bring it down to the ground in about 2 weeks.

That's all I'm saying...are you saying you don't LIKE that pillaging is one turn, or that it doesn't make sense? It makes sense to me!

 

[Lucas87]

yeah but the demolition company is at least being careful about how they're destroying it. If you didnt care what happened to the surrounding area and just wanted to ravage the whole land you could destroy buildings a lot faster. I must say the pillaging takes a lot of getting used to. At first glance, I thought civ4 was a really defensive game, but pillaging is really powerful so you really have to fight in the fields and guard your borders as opposed to just your cities. It is frustrating that starvation is so rapid once it starts. It takes a while to go through whatever excess food you have at the first level, but then it loses a population every single turn until it has sufficient food. Plus, naval units appear to have an area of effect restriction of use of water squares which is really annoying. I think in terms of gameplay it works decently, but before you figure it out and take a less turtling approach you get ravaged. A town can go from 8 gold 1 hammer to 5 gold no hammers in 1 turn and require 40 turns to grow back. So you have to be a little more proactive in your defence. If you dont want to have to build that plantation or quarry again you should defend it. What I don't like is that in the first turn of war the AI can just pillage stuff before you can react. Since there are no zones of control of any sort protecting your borders entirely is impractical.

 

[al_thor]

A road "runs through" a tile. A farm/plantation/winery take up the whole tile. They are larger, more complex operations, but a single unit can TOTALLY destroy them in one turn? It just doesn't make sense.

Yes, yes, yes. I am fully capable of understanding that my resources must be protected. Blah, blah, blah. But when an AI suddenly declares war, sends in several Horse Archers, who then proceed to pillage AFTER having already taken their alloted 2 movement points, it's a little difficult to defend. If your response is: "Well then you should keep a defensive unit in those tiles at all times when bordering the AI" then don't bother responding, as that is not the point. My point is it should take 2 or more turns to TOTALLY demolish some of the more complex improvements. You don't agree, that's fine, but don't offer me tips on Defense 101. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of my defenses, thank you very much (I can win 75% of the time on Monarch, standard settings.)

 

[Innawerkz]

I have to agree that 1 turn isn't too much for MOST things to be destroyed. These are YEARS that are passing by - no matter how deceptively quick it feels simply pressing the NEXT TURN button. In the earlier stages of the game, decades are passing by at a time. With the exception of well established cottages/towns and of course, full fledged cities above X population, everything should come down in one turn. There is, at best, a spattering of workers and small encampments/settlements to tend to these lands so resistance would be minimal.

On the flipside, I'd like to imagine that a soon-to-be-destroyed city would plague the offending nation with insurgents & guerilla warfare which would slow the demoliton of their homes. I am aware that the revolt time symbolizes this during capture, but is it not fair to assume that the same dissent would slow the destruction, too? Maybe for not as long, but might allow the recapture of the city within a small timeframe of 2 - 3 turns?

Of course - having never officially destroyed a city in real life, I am not entirely sure how long it would take, but the minor grace would add excitement for me to defend or recapture as far as the game is concerned.

 

[TCGTRF]

I think that both the final destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War and the final conquest and enslavement of Israel by the Assyrians took well less than a decade, and those were entire countries.

Carthage, of course, had its land sown with Salt to even prevent crops from being raised on the site, and the area claimed by Israel was resettled by the Assyrians with people from elsewhere, similarly to the population shifting that Stalin did with his minorities.

TomTrumpinski

 

[Riff Raff]

Takes like 10 turns to build a plantation. Only 1 turn to totally and completely DESTROY it? Not realistic

Sure it is. You just need some flammable materials and a few guys with torches to burn your plantation to the ground. It doesn't really matter how long it took you to build it. Destroying it is much much easier.

 

[Invisible Rhino]

What gets me is that it takes one turn to burn down a huge city, but four turns to burn down a town. I guess thats balance over realism, I'll take that.

But I'd also like to see towns fighting back when people try to burn them down. Especially if certain improvements were built, such as underground networks etc.

 

[Red Boxer]

Another option would be to have pillage be an improvement, which would lay over top ALL over improvements. It could reduce food/industry/gold by 3 or so, and cut movement by some degree. It would take a turn to build. It could then be 'cleaned up' by workers (and guys from the UN) in a turn or three, and everything is back to normal.

Fast war effects, and relatively quick cleanup to the country-side

 

[Innawerkz]

I think that both the final destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War and the final conquest and enslavement of Israel by the Assyrians took well less than a decade, and those were entire countries.

Point taken: However, you have to agree that having a lone [insert random unit] entering into a city that is populated by millions would have a difficult time torching/detonating at will.

I think maybe I'm simply too attached to the idea of being able to 'save' your city at the last minute from total annihilation.

 

[calyth]

Yes, yes, yes. I am fully capable of understanding that my resources must be protected. Blah, blah, blah. But when an AI suddenly declares war, sends in several Horse Archers, who then proceed to pillage AFTER having already taken their alloted 2 movement points, it's a little difficult to defend. If your response is: "Well then you should keep a defensive unit in those tiles at all times when bordering the AI" then don't bother responding, as that is not the point. My point is it should take 2 or more turns to TOTALLY demolish some of the more complex improvements. You don't agree, that's fine, but don't offer me tips on Defense 101. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of my defenses, thank you very much (I can win 75% of the time on Monarch, standard settings.)

Face it, as part of war, things will be destroyed. If the AI's going to land some Horse Archers and pillage once they're there, they'll do it. You're more than welcome to do the same to the AI anyways. There's simply no immunity from destruction when there's a war. I can't remember who said this, but "war is cruelty."

 

[Charles 22]

Other than you "want" it to take longer to pillage I have not seen a good argument. There seems to be an argument about what is "fair" i.e. it took me ten turns to build so you should not be able to destroy in one turn? I would put this in the "fun" gameplay category. If it upsets so many people that they don't want to play then it should be fixed.

However, from my viewpoint it is very realistic and forces you to not only build but to defend your improvements. How long did it take the hurricane to destroy New Orleans vs how long it took to build it? (Please no political discussion here!). Bombing and destroying a factory in one turn vs building it in 20? That is just life (or war) and you need to deal with it. It adds balance. Sure it hurts when your improvement is pillaged - it is supposed to hurt!

I'm not much into pillaging as I am more interested in conquering and want to keep those improvements for myself. However, when I am in defensive war I will definitely pillage to keep the enemy production and research down.

I'm with you on this. This gets back to the railroad problem of the earlier Civ's, you know, where people would argue that it shouldn't take just one turn to go completely across the map, and yet, at the same time, each turn was taking at least a year. If the turns were bi-weekly there might be a reason that instant travel might not make sense. And now, this, pillaging. Each turn is at least a year again, right, so surely in that time even entire cities can be razed. To me, even the towns should be destroyed in one swoop, or at most two, because this encourages a weaker player to resort to realistic partisan tactics. If everyhting is taking multiple turns to destroy, there surely is very little case to be made for small bands to go out and try to start some trouble.

 

[Sidewinder00Q]

My beef with the rail wasn't that you could cross the map in a turn, my beef was that after you were done with it, you could immediately attack. I've always felt that using a Rail movement should be a strategic move, Defensive only. It wouldn't have taken much to add a "SR" button that said, ok, you can use the railroad/road now, but if you attack while in SR mode, you get hit with a big attack penalty.

As for pillaging, yes it takes one turn to do it, and that is how it should be. Nothing is indestructable, Sherman torched much of the Confederacy's food supply in relatively short order while marching on Atlanta. What I think should have been put in, was that replacing said improvement should only take about half the time it normally takes, even if completely destroyed, much of the infrastructure and land clearance is still there. Ever notice how if you stop building/chopping a tile, you can come back and finish the project at a later date, with all the progress from your previous attempt still there? Why can't that be noted with a pillage? One turn pillages the improvement, but with the base still there, second turn pillages the entire square. (scorched earth)

 

[Colossian]

This definately needs to be fixed IMO

Already fixed, "No City Razing" Option.