Please, Stop pillaging!
- Thread starter Colossian
- Start date
War is not supposed to be clean. The AI does not expect to win, so its strategy is usually to make as much pain for you as it can. Pillaging is part of that. Sending units to attack your undefended territory (instead of defending against that monster army bearing down on its own cities) is another.
What's your problem? You don't like them pillaging your land, or you don't like your allies pillaging your enemy's?
Either way, pillaging begets gold. A couple pillages of a town (down to hamlet) can easily bring in 40 or 50 gold. Of course, if the AI could FOCUS on taking cities, that would be even better. Might actually WIN the war, but taking (not razing) too many cities could also be expensive in maintenance.
Either way, pillaging begets gold. A couple pillages of a town (down to hamlet) can easily bring in 40 or 50 gold. Of course, if the AI could FOCUS on taking cities, that would be even better. Might actually WIN the war, but taking (not razing) too many cities could also be expensive in maintenance.
kristopherb
Protective/Charismatic
i ve found you get more gold in the long run (if its settling army )if you don't pillage cottages and hamlets,pillageing metals is the expectoin.
TyranusBonehead
Bound & Determined
Pillaging is an easy way to knock your score down. I keep extra troops on hand to attack troops/barbs entering my towns' boundaries, so I can prevent pillaging.
Frankly, I love to pillage when I'm on the offensive. Especially taking roads out.
Frankly, I love to pillage when I'm on the offensive. Especially taking roads out.
Lars_Domus
Say No 2 Net Validations
When I wanted out of a war without completely exterminating my enemy, pillaging would quickly force a plea for peace, offering me everything but the kitchen sink for mercy 
With the new vassal state feature I'll have to rethink that tactic a bit, but I think pillaging might also be effective in forcing a capitulation.
I still find that the though of having my precious infrastructure wrecked is the only thing that makes me think twice about starting a war, but as long as I have a large enough army to keep a handful of mobile units to defend my territory I find I have nothing to fear.
Besides, pillaging is an excellent way to cripple a neighbour while you tech ahead.
With the new vassal state feature I'll have to rethink that tactic a bit, but I think pillaging might also be effective in forcing a capitulation.I still find that the though of having my precious infrastructure wrecked is the only thing that makes me think twice about starting a war, but as long as I have a large enough army to keep a handful of mobile units to defend my territory I find I have nothing to fear.
Besides, pillaging is an excellent way to cripple a neighbour while you tech ahead.
DigitalBoy
Emperor
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2006
- Messages
- 1,347
If you're having a serious problem with enemies pillaging your land, that means your army's not big enough and you're hiding behind the walls of your city. If you don't like them pillaging your countryside, train some more units and take the fight to them.
The AI's get confused when to pillage or not. If they're planning on occupying a city, they shouldn't pillage its tiles. If they're planning on razing the city, or they know they won't be able to defend it from a counterattack, then they should pillage everything in sight.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
A lot of the time the AI isn't planning on taking any cities anyways, they have War settings where their primary goal is to pillage, ie just to weaken you, at minimal cost to them.
Hadrean
Hi, how are you?
Pillaging is fun! You get money when you pillage your enemey's improvements.
Worst pillaging I ever experienced was in a game as the Germans, right around the era of knights, swordsmen, catapults and so forth. I had recently been at war with the Persians (who declared on me) and successfully fought them off and secured some new land. The Persians had been unable to do much damage to me, and the battles were in the far south of empire anyway, while my core cities were far in the north.
Anyhoo, not long after peace with Cyrus, Tokugawa declared war on me. We shared a sizable border, so it was hard to keep all towns thoroughly defended. On top of that, he came over the border with a massive army of two and a half stacks of doom. One stack laid siege to one of my core cities, while the other stack split up and began pillaging the hell out of my territory. Due to the pillaging, my eastern cities were cut off from the rest of the empire, and I could not reinforce them. I lost one of my core cities and had to spend all my resources just to stem the tide. The war was so long, that my counter-attacking units had gone from horse archers and axemen to mostly musketmen, cannons and cavalry. All told, about half of my developed land was pillaged into nothing before I was strong enough to counterattack and destroy the pillagers. It crippled me and easily set me back dozens of turns in development.
Is it a viable tactic? Yes. Is it realistic? Not really. Only in modern warfare would you really run into military units which would routinely be capable of going hundreds of miles beyond the front lines into enemy territory just to pilage and destroy infrastructure... and even then, for ground units it's essentially suicide to go into an area without supply lines and no easy path of reinforcement.
Perhaps an answer would be to make units deep in enemy territory (perhaps 5-10 tiles inside enemy territory and completely surrounded by enemy territory) to begin to take attrition damage... which might start slowly and then become higher as the turns go on without line of reinforcement. This would help prevent enemy units from pillaging their way across the countryside for several turns while you struggle to fortify your besieged cities. It would also enforce more realistic warfare in that an opponent could not cripple you with utter destruction from pillaging without ensuring that they are conquering towns as well to provide supply lines to sustain those pillaging units.
Anyhoo, not long after peace with Cyrus, Tokugawa declared war on me. We shared a sizable border, so it was hard to keep all towns thoroughly defended. On top of that, he came over the border with a massive army of two and a half stacks of doom. One stack laid siege to one of my core cities, while the other stack split up and began pillaging the hell out of my territory. Due to the pillaging, my eastern cities were cut off from the rest of the empire, and I could not reinforce them. I lost one of my core cities and had to spend all my resources just to stem the tide. The war was so long, that my counter-attacking units had gone from horse archers and axemen to mostly musketmen, cannons and cavalry. All told, about half of my developed land was pillaged into nothing before I was strong enough to counterattack and destroy the pillagers. It crippled me and easily set me back dozens of turns in development.
Is it a viable tactic? Yes. Is it realistic? Not really. Only in modern warfare would you really run into military units which would routinely be capable of going hundreds of miles beyond the front lines into enemy territory just to pilage and destroy infrastructure... and even then, for ground units it's essentially suicide to go into an area without supply lines and no easy path of reinforcement.
Perhaps an answer would be to make units deep in enemy territory (perhaps 5-10 tiles inside enemy territory and completely surrounded by enemy territory) to begin to take attrition damage... which might start slowly and then become higher as the turns go on without line of reinforcement. This would help prevent enemy units from pillaging their way across the countryside for several turns while you struggle to fortify your besieged cities. It would also enforce more realistic warfare in that an opponent could not cripple you with utter destruction from pillaging without ensuring that they are conquering towns as well to provide supply lines to sustain those pillaging units.
Todd Hawks
Warlord
- Joined
- Nov 13, 2005
- Messages
- 228
Considering the AI isn't very good at taking and holding city, it can only hurt you by pillaging and as such I'm strictly against reducing it.... there'd be no (well, less) challenge left.
If one can't prevent the AI from pillaging, one deserves to be pillaged.
If one can't prevent the AI from pillaging, one deserves to be pillaged.
Garand, your attrition idea would be nice; I would like it, but I've been a wargamer since the 1970's. To the mass market appeal of Civ, it would be a calamity; people would be screaming at Firaxis (and you!). But the AI would never have a clue as to how to manage or avoid attrition.
Besides, you eventually destroyed those Japanese invaders, didn't you? Perhaps it worked out okay, in the GRAND scheme of things, the long-term/large-scale/abstract "wholeness" of it all.
Besides, you eventually destroyed those Japanese invaders, didn't you? Perhaps it worked out okay, in the GRAND scheme of things, the long-term/large-scale/abstract "wholeness" of it all.
pillaging is a double edged sword. for example, i was cathy in a war with monty and we clased outside St. Petersburg. my pre cossak army was owned by monty's numbers however, monty wasnt strong enough to take the city he kept pillaging put i kept stalwort and waited it out. the moral is: so long as you can live withou some local resources, keeping the city is the main objevtive.
If there are no enemy forces to interdict them (as it seems there wasn't in this case), then it is historically common for forces to penetrate deep into enemy territory, in any era. Especially in ancient eras, when the only supply the troops require is food, which can be obtained from local populations. History is replete with such situations. Take Hannibal's invasion of Italty for a start... Hannibal was not strong enough to take major Roman cities, but the Romans were not strong enough to meet him in the field (and when they did, they lost), so Hannibal spent decades skulking about the Roman backwoods, pillaging and raiding smaller towns, mostly without any resupply whatsoever from Carthage.Garand said:
Garand said:
It is realistic though. Huge amount of pillaging have gone on all throughout history, it's just the objectives have changed. Throughout history most pillaging has been for personal gain, rather than to weaken the enemy. The vikings did it, the Mongolians did it, all the civilisations that superseded the Romans did it. Heck.. the English and French fought dozens of wars where the only goal was to pillage the crap out of the enemy lands.
Todd Hawks summed it up best
Todd Hawks said:
