Russia impossible to invade in modern era before industrialization.

[cHosey]

Hey, 1st I'd like to say that you've once again made a top notch mod. I actually quit playing civ4 after the 1st couple months and decided to wait until you released this mod. I must say you didnt disappoint. Overall I think its a very polished and fun to play mod, but I do have a couple things that I think might need some tweaking.

1st is Russia's special civ ability. I was just playing and thought I had them beat easy with my modern Mongolian horde of infantry/cannons/machineguns. After running some spies around 1st to see what I was up against, I estimated I had about 3 times as many troops. So I positioned them along our borders in order to take his 1st 3 cities within one turn. That went off without a glitch, but then I encountered the grueling march to Moscow. By the time I got my stacks to Moscow and his other 2 central cities, all of my infantry were at 10 health, and my cannons were all at 5, lol. These were the ones that didnt meet any resistance. I might be alone here, but that seems a tad much, doesnt it? Even his fortified longbowmen had the % on my guys. I realise the historical reasoning behind this special ability they have, but Im genghis kahn. I did my homework and invaded during the summer!!

The only other thing that didnt make much sense to me were those meetings of the international congress. I lost about 5 hard fought for cities for no apparent reason. It all seemed too random to me. Even my "friendly" allies were voting against me 80% of the time.

As a whole, i think its a very good mod and I look forward to future additions.

 

[OzzyKP]

Yea, I think the Russian UP is pretty severe too.

 

[das]

I did my homework and invaded during the summer!!

The OTL succesful Mongol invasion was done during the Winter; no invasions of Russia in summer had any real success.

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

Maybe there could be a general penalty (movement or damage?) for tiles that are above or below certain latitudes and a certain distance away from the sea but outside your territory (or maybe just in enemy territory) ; increasing the damage-per-turn further north/south and/or inland you go.
I'd suggest it taking ~6 turns to take a "normal" unit's HP from 100 to 50 around Moscow and ~4 around Nidoros, but not reduce a unit's HP below half. I would have thought that Medic promotions and the like in a decent army could help counteract this.

Give Russia a different relatively weak UP and this should protect it's central homeland somewhat. In terms of side effects, it might make parts of Canada and the arid areas of the USA and Scandinavia more defendable and I think that's probably a good thing. One major problem would be that I can't think how it could be made obvious enough not be entirely irritating.

 

[Blasphemous]

I have a little idea. Instead of the Russian Winter killing troops en masse and directly, how about make it more possible to work around it with less direct damage. This is how it could go: if you are at war with Russia, any unit movement that crosses the Russia border either way costs double movement points (for land units only). Also, every turn spent on the Russian side of a Russian border (directly across the border) or directly outside a Russian city, does 1 HP of damage.
This means you have to be careful and quick about invading, and minimize the time spent besieging Russian cities.

 

[Vishaing]

I don't think we should do a straight damage amount, but rather give units more of a halflife damage system, where the more hurt they are the less damage they receive, that way a Russian Czar won't be able to simply leave all of their defenses in the hands of Generals January and February, but they will certainly help immensely, and thus let an inferior Russian Army stand against an otherwise overwhelming force, which is a potent power if used correctly.

I would say each turn a unit is in the Russian Motherland and at war with Russia, they lose 1/10of their remaining hitpoints. Also, a good counter to it would be making a unit with the Commando promotion immune to this damage, but I would NOT do this until Germany has a UP that doesn't involve the Commando Promotion.

 

[Blasphemous]

I like the idea of Commando immunity because it lowers determinism, but I also like my idea of slowed land entry into Russian land at war. So how about 5%HP (1/20 remaining points) loss per turn in the motherland, double cost of movement across Russian border when at war with them, and Commando are immune to both effects.
Slowing down units trying to get into Russian land or out of it would help Russia immensely at repulsing invaders. It would mean you can't just traipse in there with fast units and hit cities within one turn, in most cases. If you're not careful your units will just be sitting ducks while Russia has time to prepare for defense and counterattack. And then when you try to retreat because of the winter damage, you're stuck right on your side of the border for them to pick you off on their way to your capital. But all of this is easily avoidable if you try - even without Commando, if you can get a coastal beachhead set up you avoid the double movement costs by not crossing Russia's land border at all.

 

[Vishaing]

I wouldn't make the slow down just when they get into the Russian Motherland, but my only reason to not do that is because it doesn't seem very realistic. I would sooner have all units in the Motherland belonging to a civ at war with Russia have 1 less movement point, to a minimum of 1. That, would be immensely valuable, and more realistic in my oppinion, but it might be a difficult mechanic to produce, or potentially unbalanced. If the entry cost is easier to make or simply more balanced, I'm willing to put reality aside and use that.

Also, in case someone asks, the reason I consider it unrealistic is because I don't see units entering the Russian Motherland suddenly hitting this wall of bad weather that forces them to stop, just at that wall, before continuing in unfazed, well, unfazed minus the whole troops dying of cold thing.

EDIT: I just finished reading the rest of your post, and I must say I like the strategy element of it, so even slightly unrealistic, I am now in favor of both of them, sort of. Now, whichever one is more balanced, that's the one I say we go with.

 

[OzzyKP]

I mean I like the current Russian UP. I just think the rate could be reduced a bit.

 

[jbfballrb]

I don't think its realistic to slow down units in Russia. Most invasions took lots of hits from the Russian Army and from winter, but were not really impaired mobility-wise until the Russians started fighting back.

 

[Gunner]

I mean I like the current Russian UP. I just think the rate could be reduced a bit.

I agree. It would really be much simpler and overall better in my opinion. All of this business with losing movement points crossing the border and stuff seems a bit much. It would be hard for people to understand and hard for Rhye to mod (at least compared to reducing the current effect which would just take the changing of one number).

That is, of course, if the UP actually needs to be toned down. I haven't actually had to fight Russia yet in a game so I wouldn't know.

 

[a1Basco]

the UP is fine. I've invaded them as the mongols.. If you can bombard them with enough Keishiks, then they will be overwhelmed. It's all about speed.

 

[habee]

I like the UP too

 

[Blasphemous]

my only reason to not do that is because it doesn't seem very realistic.

It really isn't immensely realistic, but it's more of an idea for gameplay that metaphorically mirrors reality. Movement in Civ is not really just a matter of how fast armies move around. It's a representation of their logistical efficiency. The idea of border slowdown is to somehow force the invader to prepare logistically and to make it hard to just traipse into Russia and start conquering. It's also metaphorically realistic because if you're having logistical line-of-supply problems in an invasion, but you survive the first bit of it, you will have already solved your logistical problem. But then if things go bad and you have to escape in a hurry, you get logistical problems all over again. Remember that turn in Civ is a very long time. It's a few years for most of the game, one year at least always. If your army actually lasts a year or two with harsh winter and logistical messups (which you have because you didn't prepare in advance) you will be able to set the army up to move on.
I'll just say this again because it's the whole point: the UP should be harsh but avoidable when planned for. If you can think of a better way to do that than land-border slowdown, go ahead and write it up.

 

[das]

IMHO actually slowing down invaders makes no sense; invading Russia is difficult logistically, so HP damage makes sense, but I don't why any attackers should be actually slowed down. The problem was never with advancing, it was with consolidating the gains made and capturing the key positions under the grind of logistical problems and bad weather conditions.

 

[kairob]

I dont see what the problem is, in my last game as france I managed to take s.t peterburg off them and I would have gone further but my army was weak from fighting the germans and I wanted a buffer zone between me and the mongols/barbs (the mongols actually got wiped out by the chinease I have never seen them do well) the trick is to attack very fast strieght for a city take it then hold your position and get ready for the next mave I find. (I play on medium difficulty level btw in case that affects anything)

 

[Blasphemous]

das, like I said, it's a simplification. Within the year or two that the turn of slowdown represents, the army would not make any lasting progress even if they did in fact advance further beyond the border. And again like I said, the most important thing is that this is a way to make the invader need to prepare the invasion well or generally fail.

 

[OzzyKP]

I dont see what the problem is, in my last game as france I managed to take s.t peterburg off them and I would have gone further but my army was weak from fighting the germans and I wanted a buffer zone between me and the mongols/barbs (the mongols actually got wiped out by the chinease I have never seen them do well) the trick is to attack very fast strieght for a city take it then hold your position and get ready for the next mave I find. (I play on medium difficulty level btw in case that affects anything)

St. Petersburg is easy since it is right on the coast. You can drop off units right next to it and attack. Or sneak in from Germany's culture.

But what becomes impossible is late in the game where Russian cities have plenty of culture and it takes you several turns to get from point A to point B, and by the time you get your troops in position they are at half strength. Taking interior cities becomes impossible then unless you have a huge tech lead.

 

[kairob]

I think they should increase the area that cities surrender in for moscow as not many russian cities are in it and then it becomes one big push to get to moscow...

 

[Zetetic Apparat]

But consider how much of Russia is likely to surrender just because you've captured Moscow or Muscovy at any point in it's history.