Possible wierdness of captured water city territory

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I don't think you can attack cities with another city.. believe me.. I tried. in Civ 5 if you place cities close enough it's not possible to shoot at them with another city.

Then it would be even more cheesier if it is possible to mod cities to move as close to 2 tiles away from the enemy city. Place an artillery inside the city and you still can attack with your city, but the enemy is not able to counterattack with his city (unless he has ranged units inside his city too)...

 

[Minor Annoyance]

There's an agreement and a wonder that increase city bombarded range. I think having one city per game under specific circumstances that can bombarded another city is limiting enough to keep it from being crazy.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

A city that's standing in my way is a city asking to be conquered.

I actually already knew that cities can't move into range of each other for a while, so I had some time to think about that and honestly: It's a bit boring but necessary, the exploits (putting 2 cities next to each other for double-strength and easy re-capture?) and the silliness would just be completely awkward.

In the end though.. it does put into question what city movement is really good for to be honest. Aside from cheesy "nonsense-strategies", what exactly is the actual benefit of moving cities? You certainly can't move your cities into safer waters because there will probably be your other cities. You can't really use them offensively, because at minimum range they're still out of range of the other city. The more I think about it the more it seems to be a new mechanic "just to be a new mechanic".

Well I don't think you can found cities in the deep ocean... but you can Move them there with an early tech.

Yeah, I was kinda hoping to turn a city into an enormous dreadnought.

Well it can still be an (almost) unsinkable carrier (and I believe there is a Possible 4 range upgrade in the SABR)

 

[omniclast]

Well, I think water cities you capture should be automatically and immediately razed. (Or "scuttled")

 

[Ryika]

Well I don't think you can found cities in the deep ocean... but you can Move them there with an early tech.

But that's not an advantage of moving cities, that's just a restriction added to the game. You could as well just allow Cities in deep ocean right from the beginning and that "advantage" wouldn't need to exist.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Here's a thought. We're assuming that the sanctions relations setting blocks trade with your cities. If it also blocks trade through your territory, then painting oceans could hamper trade.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But that's not an advantage of moving cities, that's just a restriction added to the game. You could as well just allow Cities in deep ocean right from the beginning and that "advantage" wouldn't need to exist.

You could say that about any mechanic.
ie tech web is there because you aren't allowed to build all units/buildings immediately, whats the point?

 

[omniclast]

There was an interesting reveal related to this today. When you are "painting" tiles with moving water cities (that's what they call it) you can paint OVER territory other players have previously claimed via painting. So you can actually move your cities through water tiles your opponents have left vacant, and they will become yours instead.

They've also said (and in the IGN stream earlier this week they also said) that the limit that water cities can move to is 2 tiles away from one another. Today they made it sound like you won't be able to paint over territory that is within 2 tiles of an opponent's city. So that could explain what would happen if you take a city that previously painted territory a new city is in -- you'll get everything up to 2 tiles away from the second city, which "belongs" to that city.

Re: bombard range, there is currently a wonder that increases city bombard range, I think the Ballistic LEV or Mass Driver, one of those ones nobody gets. There are also definitely buildings that increase anti-satellite bombard range past 2 tiles, theoretically I think it can actually get up to 5 tiles -- but they don't actually work because the city attack icon doesn't light up unless there's something in range within two tiles. I lost an MP game because of this and got pretty annoyed.

If they added an agreement that increases city attack range then they may have fixed this bug, but frankly if they didn't notice it the first time with the Ballistic LEV I don't imagine they will this time either.

 

[Maximus_Light]

I wish someone would mod it in so we could try it out in this expansion...

Also, here is an interesting albeit broken idea: Give the Mass driver wonder the ability not just to attack other cities but have a range that can go half way around the map but needs spotting.
No way that would be balanced in my mind but man would it ever be fun. We would suddenly have super weapons again

 

[omniclast]

That's a pretty cool idea actually.

There's not really any way to mod things like that in at the moment. The game's DLL has not been released yet, and in order to do any kind of new mechanics like the kind you see in total conversion mods for civ5 people need to be able to modify or at least see the base game code. For now we are limited to changing values and shifting some of the mechanics around, but even that is pretty limited (for example many of the things that virtues can do can't be coded for buildings, and vice versa).

 

[kipwheeler]

Maximus Light, I also think that's a pretty cool idea. Another possibility is that the mass driver could be fired once every ten (twenty? thirty?) turns to take out an orbital unit anywhere on the map. It could become the wonder for wiping out satellite-heavy opponents.

 

[Ryika]

Both of these ideas would be REALLY annoying to play against.

 

[kipwheeler]

Ryika, I agree. But I *want* some annoying enemies. It makes it all the more satisfying to inflict violence on them.

 

[DefiantMars]

Ryika, I agree. But I *want* some annoying enemies. It makes it all the more satisfying to inflict violence on them.

I can feel my rage towards Alexander boiling and rising to the surface. The Macedonian must die.

 

[Galgus]

I'd rather enemies feel like a legitimate threat that might invade me rather than a mosquito-like threat that keeps pinging my satellites and units until I crush them.

One sided wars just aren't as satisfying.
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I too hate Alexander, the one who makes it nigh impossible to ally a city-state come late game.

 

[Ryika]

There's a difference between a "legitimate threat" and an Opponent that can snipe one of your units every turn though. It just sounds really cheesy to me.

I mean, how do you defend against that? What can you do to not have a 120+ Strength City either pick off your range support in only a few turns or, if you play very defensively, the units that you try to use as a barricade?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

This sounds more like a Starcraft campaign stage than something for Civ.

 

[kipwheeler]

There's a difference between a "legitimate threat" and an Opponent that can snipe one of your units every turn though. It just sounds really cheesy to me.

I mean, how do you defend against that? What can you do to not have a 120+ Strength City either pick off your range support in only a few turns or, if you play very defensively, the units that you try to use as a barricade?

That's why I'd recommend it only be able to do it at certain variables. Maybe every thirty turns? Another way you could limit it was that it would have the ability to zap a single target that was within the boundaries of your own orbital coverage, or possibly even within the boundaries of your actually culturally-controlled areas.

Part of the reason I find it interesting, I think, is that it reminds me very much of the "Wrath of Heavens" end-game ability in Illwinter Games' Dominions 3 game. In that game, which was a fantasy setting rather than sci-fi, one of the late game magics would basically cause damage to every single hostile unit in your territory every turn--not enough to kill the tougher units, but enough to kill a few weak ones. It sounds overpowered when you hear it, but the Illwinter folks did a decent job of balancing it so it wasn't crazy.

I think if I were trying to balance it for BERT, I'd make it a pretty expensive wonder that could only be built on a city with (1) access to Geothermal, (2) a city with no other wonders built in it, and (3) one of the mass driver cannon's features would be that its hosting city would lose all defense for 30 rounds after shooting off the mass driver. On round 31, you could fire it again--but if you do, you again lose all defense for another 30 rounds. The damage would be something akin to the early orbital laser satellite.

As for how you would prevent it, you'd have to take the city away from whoever was shooting at you. You could also tweak the game so that any artillery the enemy has directly between your Mass Driver and the intended target can block the shot, possibly? Of course, now we're getting more into a thread suitable for the new ideas forum section rather than here. (And it might also be that the idea sucks--I'd find it intriguing and unique as a feature for a wonder if balance could be found that wouldn't unravel the game.)

 

[Galgus]

There's a difference between a "legitimate threat" and an Opponent that can snipe one of your units every turn though. It just sounds really cheesy to me.

I mean, how do you defend against that? What can you do to not have a 120+ Strength City either pick off your range support in only a few turns or, if you play very defensively, the units that you try to use as a barricade?

I completely agree.

An army feels like a legitimate threat, killing a unit from far, far away feels like cheesy nonsense.

That's why I said I didn't like the idea of enemies pinging my units.
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@kipwheeler

That would be far more frustrating and cheesy than it would ever be fun.

It would essentially require capturing the city, which in many cases would require outright winning a war.

The idea just wouldn't work in a Civ game; and defense should be about Armies centrally rather than Wonders or Buildings.
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Though it brings me pleasant memories of Superweapons in the rts Red Alert 3.

 

[Maximus_Light]

Both of these ideas would be REALLY annoying to play against.

There's a difference between a "legitimate threat" and an Opponent that can snipe one of your units every turn though. It just sounds really cheesy to me.

I mean, how do you defend against that? What can you do to not have a 120+ Strength City either pick off your range support in only a few turns or, if you play very defensively, the units that you try to use as a barricade?

That's the point though! lol
Don't forget I did say it wouldn't be balanced at all, but I do think that would be fun to play against an AI or to stomp AI's with, it's just not reasonable against other players, there would need to be more too it than that.

Let me put it to you this way: We used to have Nukes to break military stalemates now we don't have anything really that fits that role. Nukes worked because everyone has access to them but you need substantial resources and technology to use them (uranium is not terribly abundant after all). If you want to protect your Civ you need(ed) to have both a decent military and at least some way of dealing with nukes.

The issue with this being used against other players is it is SOOOOOOOO ridiculously powerful you simply don't have ways to counter something like that effectively, so if you wanted to bring that into a multiplayer game you'd need to have some way to counter it or way for other people to build and and have restrictions on building/using it that they couldn't be used all the time. After all the point of having a giant space gun for defense is frankly never going to be realistic.

I think it wouldn't be so bad if there were ways that everyone could get some kind of super weapon and this was just a unique one that stands apart from the rest.

Edit: Actually, now that I'm thinking about it needing both an orbital unit and ground forces having vision on the location you wish to strike seems reason able because it's not easy to have both units and orbital units half way around the world with vision on a city.

Ryika, I agree. But I *want* some annoying enemies. It makes it all the more satisfying to inflict violence on them.

I can feel my rage towards Alexander boiling and rising to the surface. The Macedonian must die.

I'd rather enemies feel like a legitimate threat that might invade me rather than a mosquito-like threat that keeps pinging my satellites and units until I crush them.
One sided wars just aren't as satisfying.
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I too hate Alexander, the one who makes it nigh impossible to ally a city-state come late game.

Sometimes I keep Alexander alive just to have someone who everyone hates that I can declare war on. I mean that's the fun of having them, or the Zulus, or the Aztecs in the game, you know they are just ripe for smacking.

(I shall build the sashimi league and then march forth on my giant floating cities/super carries that can bombard other cities then put a giant Mass Driver on the biggest one and laugh maniacally as I destroy all in my path!