Taking Cities in the Pirates Scenario

[Barbarian King]

So, I was under the impression that defeating a city would just plunder it, but when I did so it actually conquered the city for me (screenshot below). Has anyone else seen this? When I did the same for another city, it did the expected behavior (plunder, not conquer), so I'm curious if this is a glitch. Owning a city allows you to build/buy units, including settlers (but I did not have time to test out if you could settle, since the game was almost over). Having the option to buy more ships does seem useful, though, so it might be intended behavior.

20201024150209_1

• Barbarian King
• Oct 24, 2020

 

[Bosque]

I certainly haven't seen that. Whenever I destroy the walls I receive plunder and then the walls go right back up.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Sounds like you should just retire and become the Pirate King of Barbados. That's pretty legendary.

 

[CPWimmer]

Did you defeat it with a Shore Crew by any chance?

99.9% sure this is a bug, but I've never seen it.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Did you defeat it with a Shore Crew by any chance?

99.9% sure this is a bug, but I've never seen it.

That was my initial thought as well and I tried to reproduce, but failed so far. Maybe some other condition has to be met as well to trigger this bug (I'm also sure it is, as it was clearly stated that you can't hold cities).

However, while using shore crews to defeat a city I realized how powerful they are for this job - you might even discuss, if the following is overpowered/an exploit: Sail with a ship close to the city you want to raid, unload a shore crew right next to the city. It can instantly attack, gets some damage - but it can still move afterwards and so it can re-embark again! And than you can resend it on land again and repeat it. They only "cost" is that your ship spends one move per landed shore crew, but that a pretty good deal.

 

[kaspergm]

Build a settler and see what happens.

 

[Barbarian King]

Did you defeat it with a Shore Crew by any chance?

99.9% sure this is a bug, but I've never seen it.

I think you are on to something here. I believe I struck the killing blow with the melee ship (Galleon?), since I had two in my fleet at the time and that's my modus operandi when attacking cities with fleets. When I play this scenario again I'll try to see if I can repeat this event.

 

[Barbarian King]

So in my second game in this scenario, I was able to capture a city again. Happened late game again, all previous cities I attacked had behaved properly. I suspect that highly promoted ships do more damage to health, because if you deplete the walls without depleting the health they will bounce back but if the attacks somehow get timed just right to deplete the health and the walls at the same time you can capture a city with a galleon.

Spoiler :

 

[Equilin]

I have played this several times (achievement hunting!) but never once did I manage to do more damage to health than to walls. Maybe I need 2 Galleons?

 

[Equilin]

However, while using shore crews to defeat a city I realized how powerful they are for this job - you might even discuss, if the following is overpowered/an exploit: Sail with a ship close to the city you want to raid, unload a shore crew right next to the city. It can instantly attack, gets some damage - but it can still move afterwards and so it can re-embark again! And than you can resend it on land again and repeat it. They only "cost" is that your ship spends one move per landed shore crew, but that a pretty good deal.

Swashbucklers are gonna have a field day racking up Infamous points it seems.

 

[AsH2]

..
However, while using shore crews to defeat a city I realized how powerful they are for this job - you might even discuss, if the following is overpowered/an exploit: Sail with a ship close to the city you want to raid, unload a shore crew right next to the city. It can instantly attack, gets some damage - but it can still move afterwards and so it can re-embark again! And than you can resend it on land again and repeat it. They only "cost" is that your ship spends one move per landed shore crew, but that a pretty good deal.

Discuss "if"?!?
How would that NOT be considered an exploit?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Discuss "if"?!?
How would that NOT be considered an exploit?

I personally agree, but as I don't count myself to the core audience of this scenario I'm less quick with this statement...a quick, MP-focussed scenario, intending to be fun, featuring many shiny powerful things giving you all kind of instant rewards and boni. It is an environment where I feel less qualified to clearly point something as an "exploit" (I'm much quicker with that verdict in the base game, as you can see when you browse to various of my "bug" reports, which often adress balancing issues...), as I don't want to ruin other peoples fun, where I likely don't play a lot...

Also, I have seen the Developer Live Stream about the scenario and someone asked, if shore crews can gain EXP - the answer was no, reasoned with them being "standard units". I initially thought that this was done to avoid Shore Crews becoming too powerful, but after having now seen how they work ingame I rather suspect that the Civ6 engine just isn't allowing "transport ships" like we has them in Civ IV and before. A key part of the mechanic/exploit described above is that any Shore Crew you land is full health, even if you have re-embarked with a damaged one in the same turn - probably a result of a Shore Crew not being an individual, distinct unit with a history. As much as I wish that they were normal units (because that would elegantly eliminate at least the "health miracle" happening here), it might be just not possible and so the current implementation might be even technicall WAI. One solution would be though to increase movement consumption when landing a party (or even make it ending the ships turn)

 

[c4c6]

Pirates scenario: shore parties can disembark & embark again Multiple Times Per Turn and bury treasures on several adjacent tiles from ship / attack a city repeatedly with full free healing on the ship in between ... tirelessly ...

As mentioned here, this "feature" concerns not only attacking cities, but also burying treasures ...

One solution would be though to increase movement consumption when landing a party (or even make it ending the ships turn)

I'd say, the number of shore parties should be limited to the number of real existing crews available on a specific ship.

Btw, can such a tirelessly crew enter now another adjacent ship & use all the movement points of that ship too?

 

[AsH2]

I personally agree, but as I don't count myself to the core audience of this scenario I'm less quick with this statement...a quick, MP-focussed scenario, intending to be fun, featuring many shiny powerful things giving you all kind of instant rewards and boni. It is an environment where I feel less qualified to clearly point something as an "exploit" (I'm much quicker with that verdict in the base game, as you can see when you browse to various of my "bug" reports, which often adress balancing issues...), as I don't want to ruin other peoples fun, where I likely don't play a lot...

Also, I have seen the Developer Live Stream about the scenario and someone asked, if shore crews can gain EXP - the answer was no, reasoned with them being "standard units". I initially thought that this was done to avoid Shore Crews becoming too powerful, but after having now seen how they work ingame I rather suspect that the Civ6 engine just isn't allowing "transport ships" like we has them in Civ IV and before. A key part of the mechanic/exploit described above is that any Shore Crew you land is full health, even if you have re-embarked with a damaged one in the same turn - probably a result of a Shore Crew not being an individual, distinct unit with a history. As much as I wish that they were normal units (because that would elegantly eliminate at least the "health miracle" happening here), it might be just not possible and so the current implementation might be even technicall WAI. One solution would be though to increase movement consumption when landing a party (or even make it ending the ships turn)

Another exploit is to (within same turn) chain-transport crew from one safe coast/island to other coast/island close to battle - ever growing fleet.

 

[AsH2]

..
I'd say, the number of shore parties should be limited to the number of real existing crews available on a specific ship.

That would be desirable.

Btw, can such a tirelessly crew enter now another adjacent ship & use all the movement points of that ship too?

Yes.

 

[c4c6]

probably a result of a Shore Crew not being an individual, distinct unit with a history

Outside of the ship I considered shore parties as temporary regular units - when they stay on land and receive repeatedly damage while moving, exploring, fighting, they remember the older hits (have history) afair.
Gaining no experience reflects possibly not having promotions defined.

.

 

[Barbarian King]

I have played this several times (achievement hunting!) but never once did I manage to do more damage to health than to walls. Maybe I need 2 Galleons?

I did most of the damage to the cities using ranged ships, the Galleon was just the finishing blow (when it had a little health + a little walls left, enough that the melee ship could take out both at the same time). I believe it works primarily with weaker cities (smaller, perhaps raided once already) and with stronger ships (as you can see in the screenshots, most of my ships had several promotions). When I was trying to repeat taking a city in my second play-through, I used the combat preview to see which ships would do the greatest damage to health and used those to attack over a couple turns.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

I played around a little bit with this today. On my second run-through and I had created a veritable Pirate Nation - nine cities and a couple dozen ships. Although I imagine it's unintentional, I wouldn't mind having it as a feature. And, yes, you can buy Settlers and found new cities. You can also build Harbors, Encampments, & Aqueducts along with their associated buildings although it is really turn prohibited because there isn't a way to increase yields to reduce build times. You can buy Traders, though, but I haven't tried that yet to see what it'd do.

How it works concerns the value of the OuterDefenseHitPoints, which has to be higher than the remaining City Center HitPoints when both are nearing 0. Generally, this won't be possible because each city will build Ancient & Medieval Walls, which together are 200 points. This total equals the City Center HitPoints of 200. Based on the city combat mechanic, reducing a city's Hit Points to 0 before the walls' OuterDefenseHitPoints, is doable, but can be difficult to gauge correctly.

However, even though Renaissance Walls are not in the scenario, Urban Defense still is. Each of the Civs are also still doing research in the background so once they research Steel they automatically get Urban Defenses and their OuterDefenseHitPoints jump up to 400. This is really only possible in the late game, but it unintuitively makes it easier to take the City HitPoints to 0 before the Walls. Admittedly, I did mod the MaxTurns to 100 among other things to play around with a Pirates vs Colonial Powers type scenario, which is about the only challenge since the AI is severely lacking for the other Pirate Factions.

 

[Barbarian King]

I played around a little bit with this today. On my second run-through and I had created a veritable Pirate Nation - nine cities and a couple dozen ships. Although I imagine it's unintentional, I wouldn't mind having it as a feature. And, yes, you can buy Settlers and found new cities. You can also build Harbors, Encampments, & Aqueducts along with their associated buildings although it is really turn prohibited because there isn't a way to increase yields to reduce build times. You can buy Traders, though, but I haven't tried that yet to see what it'd do.

How it works concerns the value of the OuterDefenseHitPoints, which has to be higher than the remaining City Center HitPoints when both are nearing 0. Generally, this won't be possible because each city will build Ancient & Medieval Walls, which together are 200 points. This total equals the City Center HitPoints of 200. Based on the city combat mechanic, reducing a city's Hit Points to 0 before the walls' OuterDefenseHitPoints, is doable, but can be difficult to gauge correctly.

However, even though Renaissance Walls are not in the scenario, Urban Defense still is. Each of the Civs are also still doing research in the background so once they research Steel they automatically get Urban Defenses and their OuterDefenseHitPoints jump up to 400. This is really only possible in the late game, but it unintuitively makes it easier to take the City HitPoints to 0 before the Walls. Admittedly, I did mod the MaxTurns to 100 among other things to play around with a Pirates vs Colonial Powers type scenario, which is about the only challenge since the AI is severely lacking for the other Pirate Factions.

Thanks for looking into this. It's good to know more of why it is happening, and the whole thing with the urban defenses showing up in the late game would explain why taking cities only ever happened for me in the late game (after turn 50 in the default 60 turn limit game).

 

[Laurana Kanan]

I actually ended up modding out Urban Defense for this scenario and then raising the OuterDefenseHitPoints of both walls by 25 each - 50 total so the walls' HP are higher than the city's. It's also important to disembark two or three Shore Parties to help surround the city and put it under siege. This is important, because it'll prevent the city from "healing" each turn, otherwise the damage to the walls will outpace the damage to the city and it'll be very difficult to take.