Suggestion: Pillage roads in own territory

[JonathanStrange]

"I can vitalize deserts into grasslands, make grasslands bloom with new forests, quench burning sands, sanctify blasted lands, call lightnings down on my enemy, pillage my enemy's lands from cottage to mighty city - but I can't pillage my own roads!" -- Amelanchier of the Ljolsalfar to his counsellors.

"Ahh, milord, it was outlawed in The Treaty of Erebus as an abomination and "unbalancing" -- Llandru the Wise

"Hmmm, what? That's what they limit? Roads!? I understand the gods of Erebus have their reasons, but roads! Just 'cause I own the bloody thing it suddenly becomes hands off?" -- Amelanchier, shortly before declaring war on the gods.

 

[Trojan Sheep]

I honestly can't play Civ (FFH or otherwise) without adding the route pillage action in first. Although admittedly this has nothing to do with the raider trait, and everything to do with me liking my empire to look nice without having some jackoff AI roading through it because of open boarders when I'm not looking.

 

[Jules.lt]

I'd still like the possibility unhook the Broken Sepulcher if I so choose...

 

[Seven05]

What if it's on a riverside tile?

 

[zup]

I too want to pillage roads, if only to isolate myself from others' trade networks. "For the hundreth time this entropy mana is mine!" It also prevents them from stealing my religions. I founded Fellowship of the Leaves, I don't want other people leeching free ancient forests off me. They can still research the tech and get a disciple.

I wish religion only spread if there was an actual trade route to use.

 

[onedreamer]

It was never possible to pillage your own roads in Civ4 and never will be. Neither it is a strategic option or a mistery: the commando promotion is a hard one to obtain and if you can pillage your own roads you will completely screw it. Not to mention, that the AI will never be able to use such a feature decently, and human players do not need this other advantage over the AI.

 

[Humakty]

Really guys, pillage improvements in your own territory ?
"Hello gentle tax payer, I'll raze everything just because I wanna". You should get a big unhappy face penalty in your cities if you do so. I don't think people get the strategic reason when their houses get burned by their boss.

 

[Cliftor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_earth_policy



This is something that's bothered me since vanilla Civ, the behavior of pillaging.
1) IIRC, Airstrikes could NOT take out roads
2) I couldn't target which improvement to destroy first (and, in many cases, it was was ALWAYS the road I'd prefer to destroy).
3) I couldn't destroy roads at all in my own land.

The annoyance hit home with me for the first time when I managed to take a nice enemy city via a daring amphibious assault which I followed up with a huge stack of defenders.

Then, next turn, BAM! "Fight lost" sound x12. He must've moved every single god-damned unit (even the primitives) from every city on his continent. The event log was overflowing with puny spearmen throwing themselves at my riflemen, but I was still pwned. My entire stack was killed and he got his city back and my war effort was put back dozens of turns.

I figured I learned my lesson: "use airstrikes to take out those roads before the landing, buddy!" Such a simple, simple tactical step would won a battle which by all rights I had already won. Only I couldn't do that. When I tried 20 turns later.

Later, in another, particulaly rough game, I found myself in a retreating situation where it would have been prudent to destroy some of my roads. Once again I was up poop creek.

Then there was the time where I wasted half my stack destroying a key enemy tile of road simply because they just HAD to destroy that Town, Hamlet and Cottage first

So those are three changes I definitely wish Firaxis would seriously consider. They're all pretty reasonable. Not overpowered, they're just common sense.

EDIT: Although in real life I agree it's never very popular. Millions died from those kinds of strategies.

 

[Grey Fox]

Well, while a paved road or highway, gas stations, etc can be taken out. How do you really, I mean really take out a regular dirt road? Create ditches? Throw rocks and logs on it? Regrow the vegetation?

Yeah it's weird that you can't destroy roads in your own territory since you can do so in the enemy's but what kinda game play do we want? One where we can customize our defenses whenever we want. Or one where we have to have to have foresight and prepare correctly?
A somewhat extreme analogy would be that a melee unit could pick between pike/axe or sword whenever it wanted to, with bonuses accordingly.

It's not a perfect analogy, but this is a game design choice rather than an oversight I believe (by the original game not FfH specifically).

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this yet, though.

 

[onedreamer]

This is something that's bothered me since vanilla Civ, the behavior of pillaging.
1) IIRC, Airstrikes could NOT take out roads
2) I couldn't target which improvement to destroy first (and, in many cases, it was was ALWAYS the road I'd prefer to destroy).
3) I couldn't destroy roads at all in my own land.

1) no, you don't remember correctly.

The annoyance hit home with me for the first time when I managed to take a nice enemy city via a daring amphibious assault which I followed up with a huge stack of defenders.

Then, next turn, BAM! "Fight lost" sound x12. He must've moved every single god-damned unit (even the primitives) from every city on his continent. The event log was overflowing with puny spearmen throwing themselves at my riflemen, but I was still pwned. My entire stack was killed and he got his city back and my war effort was put back dozens of turns.

Sorry man, but this is only due to your WRONG tactics, not to game mechanics. Firstly, if you just took that city, you were able to pillage the roads around it since they could not be in your land domains since the city was under unrest. Second, even if it wasn't actually the first turn and spearmen that killed your riflemen, and you're pumping a bit too much imagination in this tale, you should have pillaged roads prior to taking cities.

I figured I learned my lesson: "use airstrikes to take out those roads before the landing, buddy!" Such a simple, simple tactical step would won a battle which by all rights I had already won. Only I couldn't do that. When I tried 20 turns later.

that's probably because you didn't select the correct action of air bombing, anyways this is way OT.



Bottom line: just build very few roads in your territory so that you know you can control them, and pillage them before taking enemy cities.

 

[JonathanStrange]

There are PLENTY of things the AI doesn't use "decently" or well right now so not being able to pillage your roads (while being able to pillage your other improvements) because the AI supposedly will never understand it is more than slightly odd and saying it's because it's too unbalancing is even odder. Especially when we witness all the weird things the AI does with its magic, its troops, its World Spells: would razing your own roads - and usually this is in context of razing roads in a conquered AI land, where our planning didn't build them (I can hardly pillage all the roads and then conquer the empire) - would this really be the tipping point?

"How does one destroy a road or a dirt path?" How do we destroy enemy's roads, or raise spectres, or vitalize deserts to grasslands, or summon lightning, or etc?

We already can customize our defenses and use planning and foresight: why should pillaging a road not be part of our arsenal of fort-building, city location, unit promotions, etc?

The idea that you should have thought about pillage all the roads before you conquer a city is worthy - though not always practical in the face of counterattacks - but why, when the shooting stops, roads suddenly become off limits?

We'll live with it. As we have been, but we don't have to like it. If you guys are cool with it. then live and let live.

 

[bread smith]

I would really appreciate pillageable roads in my own territory, too!

A few games ago I was at war with three of my neighbours: Hippus, Calabim and a third nation that I can't remember. All of them had the Raiders trait.

It's really annoying having all of them running through my lands, esp. the Hippus' horses that are running 10-15 tiles.
You don't have any chance to even follow them in your own territory!

 

[Black Mech]

Well, while a paved road or highway, gas stations, etc can be taken out. How do you really, I mean really take out a regular dirt road? Create ditches? Throw rocks and logs on it? Regrow the vegetation?

Yeah it's weird that you can't destroy roads in your own territory since you can do so in the enemy's but what kinda game play do we want? One where we can customize our defenses whenever we want. Or one where we have to have to have foresight and prepare correctly?
A somewhat extreme analogy would be that a melee unit could pick between pike/axe or sword whenever it wanted to, with bonuses accordingly.

It's not a perfect analogy, but this is a game design choice rather than an oversight I believe (by the original game not FfH specifically).

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this yet, though.

Destroying dirt roads is alot easier then destroying paved roads, a nice mine field here, some explosives there, open a flood gate here and flood the low lands, have solders randomly make potholes here and there, have giant burrowing worms or snakes(it is fantisy after all) infest the path, booby traps, man eating plants, have a caster curse the road way or make giant sharp boulders punch up through the ground(waste of a good caster but hey it is effective),have a giant bird or an airplane drop explosives or boulders on the road, napalm the road, roadblocks like felled trees, or make it realy wet and muddy. In the end its not that hard to get rid of a dirt road and if it has some paving stones most of what i said works as well.

 

[psychoak]

Taking out a dirt road is easy. Barring rain, you can use a simple horse drawn plow system.

Although one horse wont be able to cut through such hard packed ground, it's very easy to make it impossible to navigate by wheel if you put a team on a more imposing plow. Making it impossible for horse and foot is between difficult and impossible.

However, you're not actually destroying the path, just making it no better for transit than the terrain it replaces. In the case of grass fields, a road is simply clear of dangers, no obscured holes, runoff lines, brush. Once you run a plow back and forth across it, you've just made it easier to walk through the field than the road, if still easier than going through a forest.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Really guys, pillage improvements in your own territory ?
"Hello gentle tax payer, I'll raze everything just because I wanna". You should get a big unhappy face penalty in your cities if you do so. I don't think people get the strategic reason when their houses get burned by their boss.

In times of war, nationalism/patriotism>all, taxpayers be damned. Those same taxpayers will flee from the front for fear of getting killed/raped/burned and if destroying a few roads/houses keeps them alive, they'll be more than happy about it. Destroying your own infrastructure is a classic defensive military tactic that has been around for as long as warfare and infrastructure existed. In fact, it has been done in nearly every major conflict where there was infrastructure to destroy. IMO, this should be added because it is so basic in warfare its dumb not to have it in the first place. The first thing you do in a conflict is take out supply/trade/power routes/lines.

 

[onedreamer]

There are PLENTY of things the AI doesn't use "decently" or well right now so not being able to pillage your roads (while being able to pillage your other improvements) because the AI supposedly will never understand it is more than slightly odd and saying it's because it's too unbalancing is even odder.

No sir, you aren't able to pillage your own roads because its against strategies of this game. Furthermore (ie: secondarily), the AI has not been designed to do this. This regards the game CIV4, so please don't bring about how badly the AI manages magic to support petty arguments. I won't also comment on statements such as "the AI is already crappy and adding more crappiness won't make a difference". Just...: pffft.

 

[bread smith]

It would be nice if someone could explain how to fix it for myself. It should definitely be possible to pillage your own roads and actually shouldn't be too difficult to change...

 

[Vorpal+5]

Allow this as an option, come on... I'm sure a poll would show that the vast majority want to be able to pillage roads.

 

[Ahwaric]

It would be nice if someone could explain how to fix it for myself. It should definitely be possible to pillage your own roads and actually shouldn't be too difficult to change...

Actually, it requires SDK change.
You can set up a spell that removes route with just xml and python, but it would be quite different than pillage action, especially for the AI.

If you do not mind SDK, there is a modcomp that can be integrated to FfH code. It was written by TheLopez, but the last version is for Warlords, so it requires a tiny bit of updating.
Also, inspired by this thread I have added this to my modmod, so you can get the code from there (I hope I marked it good enough - look for "Route Pillage", plus some xml is needed).

 

[Jules.lt]

No sir, you aren't able to pillage your own roads because its against strategies of this game.

I'd really like to know where you get this from...
It looks more like a bug/mistake to me.
As for AI issues, it's pretty minor for them and removes an annoyance for the player, so I don't see how it's relevant.