Policies

[mitsho]

Regarding Spoils of War, I don't want to reopen the whole discussion, but I just played a "late-game" game, meaning an industrial start (which btw. should be supported more). Out of curiosity, I took SOW towards the end of the game and found it incredibly silly, that my jet fighters who just bombed a ground unit into oblivion, returned home with bags of gold in their airplanes... ;-)

Thus, another way to weaken might be to take away if the kill is made by an air unit (the very least) or bombarding units, it this is possible (I doubt it?). From a realism point of view, Naval Units could keep it. Would this however change the balance of the various unit types?

 

[Txurce]

Regarding Spoils of War, I don't want to reopen the whole discussion, but I just played a "late-game" game, meaning an industrial start (which btw. should be supported more). Out of curiosity, I took SOW towards the end of the game and found it incredibly silly, that my jet fighters who just bombed a ground unit into oblivion, returned home with bags of gold in their airplanes... ;-)

Thus, another way to weaken might be to take away if the kill is made by an air unit (the very least) or bombarding units, it this is possible (I doubt it?). From a realism point of view, Naval Units could keep it. Would this however change the balance of the various unit types?

I don't see the point of differentiating between kills, since your tech edge entitles you to however you get whatever you get. But I do agree with the overall point that SOW seems to do significantly more than finance a war machine.

 

[mitsho]

I wasn't really thinking about balancing, just found it really silly that I could bomb something, for example with a nuclear bomb, and then get "spoils of war". I wouldn't take that radioactive stuff back ;-)

 

[Ahriman]

but I just played a "late-game" game, meaning an industrial start (which btw. should be supported more).

I disagree with the idea that the game should be balanced around late-era start. Doing that messes up a whole lot of stuff.

The early policy trees should also be weaker than the late ones. You should be rewarded for investing in the late-game trees. One of the problems I think is that the late-game trees have been left relatively unchanged while the early game trees have been boosted.

I don't think it's a good idea to differentiate between what kind of unit adds the killing blow. A kill is a kill.

 

[Txurce]

I wasn't really thinking about balancing, just found it really silly that I could bomb something, for example with a nuclear bomb, and then get "spoils of war". I wouldn't take that radioactive stuff back ;-)

Have you received SOW with a nuke? I didn't think you could, so sometimes drop them in strategic mode (where you don't get SOW).

 

[mitsho]

I just had to try it out and no, you don't receive SOW when nuking. Either the command is a different one from regular bombarding. And the nuklear bomb also kills differently, i.e. not always... Still, my point stands, SOW is silly when thinking modern Airwarfare ;-)

@ahriman, I didn't call for a balancing of the later starts versus the Ancient one, just a bit of making them a bit more viable, like allowing more ruins or just in general adding more space in at first. The biggest weakness with these starts is that there is simply no infrastructure, so the first 10-40 turns is "modern" cities with no roads inbetween them. Plus, the wonder race gets somehow crazy, as you can start building them right away... But I don't think there's an easy way to solve that, nor should it be a task for this mod, it was just a sideways comment. Maybe there's already a mod out there trying to improve this?

 

[Thalassicus]

Nukes don't have the regular animation, and Firaxis didn't call the "combat animation ended" event for nukes, so it's impossible to detect when they're used.

SOW is silly when thinking modern Airwarfare ;-)

When supply lines and factories are bombed in war, would you say it gives an economic advantage over the opponent?

 

[mitsho]

No, they give an economic disadvantage to the enemy, not an advantage for yourself! Which is simulated by the destruction. Bombing enemy factories doesn't fill your treasury... I got the impression so far that SOW is more about plundering which for example the Americans didn't do in Iraq ;-) Guess they didn't max out Honor....

 

[Thalassicus]

A loss for an enemy is often the same as a gain for ourselves. The US became a prominent world economy in the 1950s in part due to the destruction of European infrastructure. One example of economic warfare by aircraft was the fire bombing of Dresden and other cities in WW2. SoW is an abstraction of many economic factors in warfare, only one of which (the most obvious) is capturing supplies, factories, and equipment.

 

[Txurce]

A loss for an enemy is often the same as a gain for ourselves. The US became a prominent world economy in the 1950s in part due to the destruction of European infrastructure. A classic example of economic warfare by aircraft was the fire bombing of Dresden. SoW is an abstraction of many economic factors in warfare, only one of which (the most obvious) is capturing supplies, factories, and equipment.

This is a good argument. Obviously SOW means something very different today than it did 2000 years ago. If we choose to apply it with modern-era warfare, then there's no reason to limit it to land units.

 

[Questdog]

A loss for an enemy is often the same as a gain for ourselves. The US became a prominent world economy in the 1950s in part due to the destruction of European infrastructure. A classic example of economic warfare by aircraft was the fire bombing of Dresden. SoW is an abstraction of many economic factors in warfare, only one of which (the most obvious) is capturing supplies, factories, and equipment.

Actually, Dresden is a bad example of bombing for economic reasons as there wasn't much that helped drive the German war machine in Dresden. The bombing there was more about vengeance, it seems. (And also there was not much left to plunder after the operation, though Edgar Derby found himself a teapot and was shot for it....)

Also, there have been books written arguing whether the general bombing of Germany had any real effect on the war economy, especially considering the enormous losses suffered by the US Eighth Air Force. (The consensus seems to be that the bombing of oil refineries was the one target that provided good returns on the investment. At the end of the war, Germany could still manufacture all the equipment it desired, though could not find the fuel to run many tanks or airplanes.)

 

[Questdog]

This is a good argument. Obviously SOW means something very different today than it did 2000 years ago. If we choose to apply it with modern-era warfare, then there's no reason to limit it to land units.

Actually, it seems to me that plunder on the high seas was much more common per combat than plundering on land in olden times. It is, of course, the reason for the existence of pirates (who still linger on, in fact, while Viking-style plunderers have ceased to exist).

 

[Seek]

Out of curiosity, Thal, what determines the gold from pillaging? It generally seems pretty paltry. If the gold from pillaging was boosted instead of (or, with a serious nerf, in addition to) the unit kill mechanic it may feel more realistic to many people. Indeed this would also make for more decision making, because (1) it may put your units out of position (or encourage you to build more mounted or recon units) and (2) if you're going to take a city it's usually better *not* to pillage tiles so you don't have to spend a lot of worker turns repairing them.

 

[Ahriman]

Be very careful about pillage rates, or you can end up with a serious exploit.
If I raze a city, then its improvements all stay around, outside anyone's territory. Start stacking up worker rate improvements (the Liberty civic, pyramids, etc.) and you can repair a tile in a single turn (or two). So, with 1 worker and 1 military unit, you can get quite a bit of cash by repeatedly pillaging and repairing. The higher the pillage yield, the worse this is.

 

[Txurce]

I would really enjoy the feel (and balance) of what Seek proposed, but Ahriman raises a valid point. There no way to limit pillaging gains to enemy territory, right?

 

[Ahriman]

There no way to limit pillaging gains to enemy territory, right?

That mostly works, but it does stop you from pillaging a road outside enemy territory that connects two cities.

The other problem with boosting pillaging is that the human player is likely to be far better at using this than the AI. The AI hardly ever pillages. So this ends up advantaging the human player.

Another possibility; let pillage in enemy or neutral territory, but give gold only if it is within enemy territory.

 

[Questdog]

I can't recall ever seeing the AI pillage any tiles, other than Barbarians.

 

[Seek]

I can't recall ever seeing the AI pillage any tiles, other than Barbarians.

I wonder if this can be modified in the flavor values. Pillaging outside of enemy territory may also be moddable, we'll see if Thal can do it (he's done plenty of "impossible" things before!) Tbh, I have never pillaged an improvement outside a civ's territory - does it still yield gold?

 

[Ahriman]

I wonder if this can be modified in the flavor values.

My guess is that one should be very careful before forcing AI units to pillage.
It could easily backfire; the tactical unit AI is bad enough at winning battles already. I could imagine disasters if you could pull enemy units even further out of position to pillage, or if they pillaged instead of attacking.
I think forcing the AI to pillage should probably only be done as part of a serious comprehensive tactical overhaul, which I'm guessing will require source code access.

Tbh, I have never pillaged an improvement outside a civ's territory - does it still yield gold?

Yes. Hence the exploit potential.

 

[Txurce]

I can't recall ever seeing the AI pillage any tiles, other than Barbarians.

I've seen it on multiple occasions, but it's certainly not a common tactic.