Raiding and Pillaging (Viking!)

[Promethian]

Districts give us a very interesting option for military conflict. Attacking not to gain the city but to pillage their districts for resources, leave and ransom the city back in the peace deal. I absolutely love this idea and Norway is clearly designed to do just this.

What do you guys think?

 

[King Jason]

This has been on my radar ever since pillaging was revealed to be on a per-district basis and that tile improvements can also grant yields other than gold, such as science. Not to mention the fact that builder availability and time is required to repair improvements, and production time is required to repair districts and buildings. This will set enemies back substantially without needing to take warmonger hits for capturing or razing cities.

 

[stealth_nsk]

At first I was a bit skeptical about the pillaging war, but later I've looked at the city keeping details. In short - if you keep conquering city, you get a lot diplomatic problems and problems with the city happiness. You need to either force previous owner to agree with your ownership (which requires really heavy military push on them), or return it back, possible for significant sum of everything. The latter looks like a viable option for pillaging war.

 

[Haig]

I've mentioned it before, but I'm also excited for the ability to wreck districts and improvements with bombers, so now I can get to the enemy without land troops if I need to. And enemy can do it to me too, creating choices as to which districts I will protect with my anti-air.

 

[Big J Money]

I wonder, if pillaging ends up being too good, if we'll see some nerfs to it.

Related: do we know if there are war mongering penalties for drawn out wars? Say I start some wars in Ancient and refuse to end them the entire game...

 

[stealth_nsk]

I wonder, if pillaging ends up being too good, if we'll see some nerfs to it.

Related: do we know if there are war mongering penalties for drawn out wars? Say I start some wars in Ancient and refuse to end them the entire game...

There's war weariness, which decreases amenities. That's enough to stop endless wars. Also, some warmonger penalties are tied to specific actions, like conquering a city.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

Pillaging seems to be a lot of fun (for the one who is doing it, at least ). Really looking forward how viable strategy it will be, in terms of yields and diplomacy. I guess Vikings will be 4th civ I play.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I love it. I always felt like pillaging should be a more important aspect of warfare in Civ. Although, I may be biased. I was introduced to US Civil War history through doing a report on Gen. Sherman.

 

[Big J Money]

There's war weariness, which decreases amenities. That's enough to stop endless wars.

That would be an interesting thing to test. If it's possible to pillage enough throughout turns to make the war weariness worth it. I'll bet it can be. If you can get enough luxes and/or have a UA that provides bonus amenities to where you aren't suffering much or not at all.

Couple that with the fact that if you continually pillage your opponents' luxes, then not only are you looting them but you're causing their amenities to go down as well.

 

[Jewman]

Pillaging looks fun but I don't know about ransoming back cities. At least in the ancient/classical era, you can easily take a neighbors capital and just repair all the pillage improvements with one worker and eliminate the threat of someone forward settling you.

In the lets play collab between Arumba and filthy robot they took out norway right off the bat and basically removed the need to rapidly expand opening up many other options, like wonder building.

Later on it may be worth ransoming back cities, especially when you've already created the empire you desire and just want to go on punitive missions to get the AI in line. But early on, I don't see any reason to.

 

[Big J Money]

That seems like a valid strat to me; especially considering filthy and arumba really should be playing on a higher difficulty. I'd like to see what it would have been like for them to try it then.

 

[bbbt]

I think it's great in theory. My biggest problem with it though is that, for gameplay reasons, it's likely something the AI won't be programmed to utilize - as hit and run pillaging tends to frustrate a lot of players - see barbarian horsemen. It more and more makes me wish Firaxis would add an AI aggressiveness slider or something for setup, as they are trying to satisfy two different player camps at the moment.

 

[Mort_Q]

It more and more makes me wish Firaxis would add an AI aggressiveness slider or something for setup, as they are trying to satisfy two different player camps at the moment.

It could also be part of the Civ specific AI, where the Aztecs or the Vikings are more likely to raid you for profit, not conquest, in the early game then say America.

 

[Promethian]

Quill's Norway game is the perfect example of an opportunity to do this. He cleared Germany out and has tons of open territory to expand into. He had multiple opportunities to return Athens for a massive profit and he didn't even need Athens to open expansion. He could have returned Athens and took his fleet to Scythian territory to do some viking for more profit. Now Greece is in a constant state of "gimmie my city back" and when he isn't on baby difficulty Greece will build up and push to take it back. Add in the diplo hit for keeping the city and raiding and returning is looking more and more viable.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Longboat are pretty nice scouts on water heavy maps. 4 moves, can capture goody huts. If you find a CS or civ you can pillage them and then heal and then pillage again and so on.