The AI needs to raze all improved tiles it rolls over in war.

[Teutorian]

I don't understand...
Why purposely limit what the AI is capable of doing and then claim "The AI sucks too much to compete with a human so it can produce armies twenty times as fast."..?

I've thought about this a lot with this game and I was just playing and reminded of it all over again.

I was playing as Egypt on Emperor, just messing around, building, building, building, going for a cultural victory. I only had two cities as there wasn't good enough real estate to justify a third. Naturally, my borders expanded well beyond the limits of the tiles I could improve and a giant blotch of yellow covered a sizable portion of the map - much bigger than I should have been able to defend with about 3 crossbowmen and a boat.

We all know how it works. The AI sucks. It doesn't take much to defend your cities. I held both the Arabs and the Persians off for centuries with just a very small army.

And that's because all I had to do was defend my city. And therein lies the problem: we shouldn't have to only defend our cities. We should have to defend our nations/territory/etc.

Let the AI raze all tiles they march over! Why purposely make it so the AI can't mass raze all your tiles and then claim the AI is too gimp not to get major modifiers?!

Increase the devastation of starvation and the speed in which it takes place with a large population, then let the AI burn your territory to the ground as it rolls towards your city. Watch how fast and how dramatically game play changes after those changes! All of a sudden, no matter what victory type we're aiming for, we can't just huddle around our cities with 2 or 3 units and hold off a massive AI army pain free.

All of a sudden war is a much different and not to be entered lightly.

If two nations are on the verge of war the defender would and should put his army on the border of his nation, and that's exactly what this one minor change to the AI would force us all to do. Either we would defend our entire country or we would send our army out to meet the enemy on neutral ground, or take the fight to them, as it should be.

This nestling our 2 or 3 units around our city because we know we can does not at all FEEL LIKE defending a civilization in a war. It's just dumb. Sorry, there's no other way to put it. If AI can penetrate your borders they should raze everything in sight and the ramifications of having your farms razed to the ground should be devastating, more so when you have a huge population.

Is there a mod for this or anything? I really feel like this one minor change would completely transform the nature of warfare and Civ V, eliminate the need for the AI to have such big multipliers for army production, and make defensive wars somewhat interesting instead of a giant bore.

 

[Tokira]

The problem about making the AI to pillage all the improvements that their units touch would be that it would discourage people from going for cultural victories or having small empires. With a small empire you can't pay for the costs of a big military and therefore you would be forced to conquer some AI cities to make a puppet empire to fund your army.

Personally I don't like to be a warmongerer in every game and thus I think that this change would rather harm the gameplay than make it better. Due to this change going for some kind of domination-style game would be even more obvious decision.

 

[Teutorian]

I've done my share of domination victories but I find them boring now as well.
The trouble is cultural victories are probably even more boring considering how easy it is to defend your cities. At least as a war monger you're actually doing SOMETHING besides clicking next turn.

Lower production cost of units a little and increase cultural gains from buildings perhaps? So culture players can at least mass a defensive army? Maybe add more options for buildings and wonders that increase fighting capability in friendly territory?

I like the idea of cultural and other peaceful victories but not as they exist now.
As they exist now you just build all the culture buildings and continue spamming next turn (or in my case wait for next turn since i've put it on auto)

Culture players should have to defend their country when threatened.
No way should I be able to let two huge military powers DoW on me and hold them back with 3 units and not suffer at all for letting them march all over my `nation`.

 

[bozosmithy]

I think this has been done as i played a game last night where they pillaged my work boat and i lost my pearls

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I've done my share of domination victories but I find them boring now as well.
The trouble is cultural victories are probably even more boring considering how easy it is to defend your cities. At least as a war monger you're actually doing SOMETHING besides clicking next turn.

Lower production cost of units a little and increase cultural gains from buildings perhaps? So culture players can at least mass a defensive army? Maybe add more options for buildings and wonders that increase fighting capability in friendly territory?

I like the idea of cultural and other peaceful victories but not as they exist now.
As they exist now you just build all the culture buildings and continue spamming next turn (or in my case wait for next turn since i've put it on auto)

Culture players should have to defend their country when threatened.
No way should I be able to let two huge military powers DoW on me and hold them back with 3 units and not suffer at all for letting them march all over my `nation`.

I think Cultural Victory should not require a small empire, because that's the only Victory that forces a small empire (you coudl wait ages with 20 cities, but c'mon)

 

[FeiLing]

They do pillage strategic and luxury resources. I think sometimes also specials like wheat and deer etc. Seems like no normal tiles though (roads, farms, mines without special resources).

Now - when you play against the AI - do you pillage the city's surroundings before you take it? I highly doubt it. (unless you want it to stay small for happiness reasons)

You only do it in multiplayer or to be more precise: when you are not sure if you can take the city or you know you can't and just want to do as much dmg as possible.
How could the AI possibly think it won't steamroll you, as it has 200 more units than you (the reason why it's always asking you for ridiculous peace deals)?

 

[Tabarnak]

They should at least try to pillage a single road to block trade routes and ressources.

 

[Callonia]

I think I like this but, I place priority on unit preservation than pillage the hex unless I know that unit is gonna die.

I don't pillage that much but when I do, I mass pillage or surgically pillage.

Mass Pillaging happens when a city is too powerful to be attacked at all.

IE, 42 str city when everyone have str 16 units pfft. Persia, i'm looking at you.

And if A massive city is incredibly hard to take due to fortune of terrain and AI somehow plop down in correct hex.

Surgical Pillage is called for, make that city lose its roads for reinforcements. U gonna need alot units to lay siege to the city while you make 2nd attack at same time to disconnect the roads. Especially if the enemy is reinforcing it heavily.

AI have enough problems as it is, making them pillage will have chance of them screwing up even more by ignoring the enemy just to pillage. And i build alot of improvements. ;/

 

[Gort]

I think there should really be two types of war for the AI - a war of conquest, in which it doesn't raze tiles because it's expecting to take the cities, and a war of destruction, in which it pillages everything it can because it's not expecting to take cities.

There should be a calculation made based on the strength of its forces versus cities and the strength of your cities to decide which is which, and this should be made each turn. Thus, the AI might switch to a war of destruction from a war of conquest if it loses its siege weapons or airforce.