Pillaging

[Mmmm Butter]

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?

I agree. (10 chars)

 

[Frostyboy]

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.

Absolutely!
It's a shame how fast cities - the keystones to the game are torn apart so fast. I think at least one turn / one unit per population would be in order, so for 8 units to raze a 16 city would take 2 turns.

Still this is Genicide - to kill a whole city - it's like Nuking or Holocaust, and still has not that much of an impact on the diplomacy. WHY?
And the AI seems eager to raze cities...

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Want a real life example of city razing , with a reason behind it?

"In January 330BC, Alexander reached Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid empire. Three months later he destroyed the palace, because he was not yet sole ruler of the Persian empire, and it was too dangerous to leave the enormous treasures behind, where his enemies could recapture them..The Palace of Xerxes seems to have received a special treatment, because it was damaged more severely than other buildings; it has been argued that the Greek soldiers in Alexander's company had their revenge for the destruction of Athens in 480 BCE...It was the wealthiest city under the sun and the private houses had been filled for a long time with riches of every kind. The Macedonians rushed into it, killing all the men and plundering the houses, which were numerous and full of furniture and precious objects of every kind. Here much silver was carried off and no little gold, and many expensive dresses, embroidered with purple or with gold, fell as prizes to the victors. "


Source:- National Archaeological Museum, Naples

 

[robaughjr]

How about increasing the amount of turns it takes based on the unit? Ex: It would take a warrior 3 or 4 turns to pillage a mine whereas modern armor would still take 1. Makes it more realistic since warriors would be using clubs and picks to destroy it while modern armor would be using high explosives.

 

[cairo140]

I do concede that town and city pillaging should take a few turns...

But to those who stubbornly insist that pillaging a plantation/farm/mine/whatnot should take more than 1 or 2 turns, I ask this...

Name me ONE real-life example that takes at least half as long to tear down that it did to build up.

 

[shadow2k]

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.

Those aren't single units, they are armies of units. That one turn also equals years upon years, depending on what speed/age you are in.

I understand it doesn't seem fair that it takes so much longer to build it than destroy it, but that's the nature of life. From the Twin Towers, to the destruction of the Ancient Cities, Civilizations, and World Wonders...things always take longer to build than destroy.

I don't think they should be able to pillage after using up all movement points, but I'm not so sure that's intended. It takes a movement point to pillage, so it seems odd that they'd allow this with no movement points left.

 

[stagtown]

The entropy of the universe is always increasing.

 

[Charles 22]

How about increasing the amount of turns it takes based on the unit? Ex: It would take a warrior 3 or 4 turns to pillage a mine whereas modern armor would still take 1. Makes it more realistic since warriors would be using clubs and picks to destroy it while modern armor would be using high explosives.

That's not worth the trouble of switching how it works, because the warriors' day is primarily in the ancient, when turns are taking 20X faster than the modern. Surely warriors can raze in 20 years, no?

 

[Charles 22]

I think the pillaging with no points remaining isn't correct. You ever see a horse archer move two hexes and then pillage? No, it appears to be screwy when mobile units move once and then pillage, because it doesn't display it pillaged a lot of the time until you get your turn. If it doesn't work, as claimed, then it sure ought not to be working for me then, because I have cavalry, and I have done the following:

1. moved one hex and pillaged
2. pillaged one hex, then moved to another and then tried pillage again (no go).
3. moved two hezxes and tried pillage (no go).

 

[Mmmm Butter]

I do concede that town and city pillaging should take a few turns...

But to those who stubbornly insist that pillaging a plantation/farm/mine/whatnot should take more than 1 or 2 turns, I ask this...

Name me ONE real-life example that takes at least half as long to tear down that it did to build up.

I'm nitpicking, but I'd say a quarry could be an example. As far as I know, to build a quarry, you really just need to dig a real big hole in the ground, and make a way to extract the rock. To destroy a quarry, I guess the only way would be to fill the hole up, and destroy the machinery, if it were a modern quarry. Filling the hole could take longer than digging it, I think, since you'd have to bring dirt/etc from somewhere else.

This is a tough thing to implement into the game though, fairly, I think. For instance, it takes a real long time to get a town, in the game, after starting with a cottage. And it takes 4 turns to pillage it to nothing. But, realistically, it shouldn't take more than one turn, imo... in reality, all it'd take is destroying/enslaving the residents, and burning it all to the ground. Of course it'd be quicker to do that with a small village, but it still wouldn't take very long.

That said, I still think pillaging should take a little longer. Not as long as it takes to build what is pillaged, but longer than the one turn it takes, for gaming purposes.

Edit: @cairo - The riddle in your sig, I think I got it! Is it marriage?

 

[Plug]

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

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

And terrorists can bring them down in 2 hours! so imagine what a tooled up military machine ready for war can do! probably bring a skyscraper down in less than two minutes.

 

[White Elk]

I agree with Rand al-Thor. Some improvements should take longer to pillage than others. In my current game I've been pillaging after razing cities. I think the speed at which I can pillage improvements is to high. Destruction only might be one thing, but gaining gold from these pillages seems a bit powerfull to me. I feel like I'm capitilizing on an exploit but I'm unwilling to leave them because I don't want a new city moving in to an intact infrastructure.

Perhaps a mod can be made that gives us two options.. a one turn destroy and a two or more turn pillage? Also I think improvements destroyed on the fly should perhaps take less time to rebuild, while improvements pillaged (material hauled off site) should require the full time to rebuild. Map size and game speed should be considered when determining the speed of destruction just as it effects the speed of building.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

I think an idea for gameplay is that maybe you could have different "levels" of pillaging. You could have a one turn pillage that wouldn't give as much gold (representing just burning it to the ground), or you could have multiple turn pillaging that would pay out more gold total, but take long, and you would have the risk of being attacked and only getting partial gold.
But, overall I think pillaging is effective. cIV is so defensive based (between stack chosing best defender and huge defensive bonuses), pillaging gives the attacker a good counter balance.

 

[Colossian]

That said, I still think pillaging should take a little longer. Not as long as it takes to build what is pillaged, but longer than the one turn it takes, for gaming purposes.

I agree with you.
BTW, How about this one?

"No Pillage" Option.