The New Stack of Death

[Ermak-]

I find it funny how Designers tried to stop Stack of death- (units which conter everthing and cannot be stopped) by makign catapults do trample damage. Now in itself catapults became most lethal unit (we talkign standart age now) U get a sbouple of axemena dn spears to defend and a huge catapult ammanoun and they takealmsot anything. Mutlitple damage really compounds fast - so even the horse units die. Waht do u guys think- can catapults really can be stopped in multi?

 

[Phrederick]

Collateral damage was a great addition in Civ4, but it does seem to be too powerful. I think it needs some reworking or scaling back. Perhaps something like not being able to drop health below 75% or some other number with collateral damage might help. Even more important, to me, is solving the defense advantage with the best defender always being picked. If you don't destroy the entire stack on a tile, you will be unable to finish off units from battles that you lose. There needs to be some way to choose which unit to attack, but without making it too powerful.

 

[Pantastic]

The funny thing about collateral damage is that it seems to encourage a large stack. The more units you have, the more there are to absorb collateral damage. A stack of 6 units is easily destroyed, a stack of 20-30 units takes some serious work to bring down. And if you don't kill the whole stack of 20-30, most of it can just sit and rest to be back to full strength.

 

[Leif Roar]

There needs to be some way to choose which unit to attack, but without making it too powerful.

Maybe a set of promotions, say Strategy, which lets the attacking square off against the second best defender (and third and fourth best for Strategy II and III.)

It might also be an idea to let walls and fortresses reduce collateral damage rather than giving defensive bonuses?

While it's a dramatic change, perhaps it's time that Civilization went away from unit-vs-unit based combat and instead did stack-vs-stack based combat.

 

[carl corey]

Good thinking with the Strategy promotion. Maybe make it a Warlord-type promotion?

What I do now is use differentiated promotions. You have your city raiders and then you have your field warriors. Some Drill units, Combat + Shock or Cover, etc. Those units will still be useful in a city attack against the weaker units, so they're not completely wasted as city attackers.

 

[BARBEERIAN]

I don't quite like how the system works either. Put 10+ cats in a stack and there really aren't many cities that won't fall. The worst is how useless your cats can be if you happen to be slightly outnumbered. Especially since the defender can actually get better defense bonuses (aside from garrison) than the citied units. For example, city is on a plain, the attacker is on either hills/forest/jungle. After the cities defense bonus is nullified (1 turn with 4-5 cats), now the units inside get no bonuses, while the attackers get +25%-75%, so your cats will die faster than theirs.

Allowing 'citied' Catapults to Bombard units (without attacking) would even it out. A 1-tile Zone of Control around cities would do (maybe 2 for modern Artillery). Maybe make it require the Construction tech, and Walls being built in the city for Catapults to be able to bombard.

Limiting both attacking, and bombarding cats to take units to 50-75% health would also be nice.

 

[Phrederick]

It might also be an idea to let walls and fortresses reduce collateral damage rather than giving defensive bonuses?

That's a pretty good idea.

 

[mook85]

I don't quite like how the system works either. Put 10+ cats in a stack and there really aren't many cities that won't fall. The worst is how useless your cats can be if you happen to be slightly outnumbered. Especially since the defender can actually get better defense bonuses (aside from garrison) than the citied units. For example, city is on a plain, the attacker is on either hills/forest/jungle. After the cities defense bonus is nullified (1 turn with 4-5 cats), now the units inside get no bonuses, while the attackers get +25%-75%, so your cats will die faster than theirs.

Allowing 'citied' Catapults to Bombard units (without attacking) would even it out. A 1-tile Zone of Control around cities would do (maybe 2 for modern Artillery). Maybe make it require the Construction tech, and Walls being built in the city for Catapults to be able to bombard.

Limiting both attacking, and bombarding cats to take units to 50-75% health would also be nice.

This is why you should cut all forests directly next to your cities if you can. It makes counterattacks easier.

 

[Ermak-]

yes cutting down trees around cites is good idea for defence purpose ( like romans did to the outposts) Also it would be a good idea to make a limit of 20 (or something) of unit sbeing able to be in 1 square- it would be realistic too and minimize stack heck. Anotehr thing i thing i suggest is beign able to "STARVE" citeis into submission. I mean u can do it now with occupiing whole city radius , but units inside dont really starve. I think units inside city radius should loose 5% of health for every turn they are complitly surrounded - to make possible to actually take citeis before damn catapults. Coz as for right now- city which is prepared CANNOT BE TAKEN by force even 3 times as much.

 

[Mutineer]

Ermak, you are wrong. You can allways take city with force 3 times as mach. Even 2 times is enogth.
You just need to do it properly.

Actially main point of posts was that defenders in city actially are more venerable then even on the open.
That is true because offencive units generally stronger then defencive units. Offencive units have access to 3 levels of city raider promotions and no defencive promotions.

So, any of your offencive units in city can not actially defend well, but if you have a lot of defencive units then you can not contattack.

For example, after you remove cultural defence you defending axe can have max (Aprohimate calculations)
25% fortyfy 10% combat1 20% antimelee promotion = + 55% bonus
and it has to stand in place for 6 turns to achieve that, which useally imposible, as one need to move forces to treatened city.
So, in reality it will have only 30% bonus agains attacking axes.

Attaking axes with same number of promotions will have
20% city rider1+ 25% city rider2 = +45% bonus

As you can see, your offencive units can not defend in cities.

 

[MestreLion]

For example, city is on a plain, the attacker is on either hills/forest/jungle. After the cities defense bonus is nullified (1 turn with 4-5 cats), now the units inside get no bonuses, while the attackers get +25%-75%, so your cats will die faster than theirs.

Wrong. You get NO terrain bonus when you attack, only when you defend. So an attack from a forest+hills will have the same strength as if it was on a flat, non-forest tile.

 

[Eqqman]

Ermak, you are wrong. You can allways take city with force 3 times as mach. Even 2 times is enogth.
You just need to do it properly.

I think you need to be careful in making such sweeping statements. Notice that he explicitly said before catapults. I've attacked a city guarded with 2 unpromoted Archers sitting on a hill with 40% culture bonus and failed to take it with a stack of 8 Combat I Axemen. I expect that you're anticipating always reducing the cultural defense, but even so, there are so many factors that influence combat it's hard to guarantee you will 'always' win unless you start adding stipulations.

 

[Martinus]

yes cutting down trees around cites is good idea for defence purpose ( like romans did to the outposts) Also it would be a good idea to make a limit of 20 (or something) of unit sbeing able to be in 1 square- it would be realistic too and minimize stack heck. Anotehr thing i thing i suggest is beign able to "STARVE" citeis into submission. I mean u can do it now with occupiing whole city radius , but units inside dont really starve. I think units inside city radius should loose 5% of health for every turn they are complitly surrounded - to make possible to actually take citeis before damn catapults. Coz as for right now- city which is prepared CANNOT BE TAKEN by force even 3 times as much.

It would be cool if a city that is completely surrounded by enemy troops started losing culture - it could then go into "rebellion" damaging the defenders, or even flip (possibly to the would-be conqueror), which would simulate real world sieges quite nicely.

 

[McRoos]

The whole thing is a little complicated.
It is strange that a catapult in modern times could do some serious harm to infantary, mechanized or not.
Even though the catapult will surely be destryed by the defending infantary, the other units still suffer.

Another thing is the equality between catapults, canons and artillery.
During the Roman times armies needed to bring their catapults cloase to the defenders city because ot the range of catapult.
During the Napoleontic wars, canons allready had well increased ranges and during world war II, the Germans had a piece of artillery that had a range of 80 km's (!!!).
They really did much harm to invading infantary on the Anzio beachhead.

So, modern artillery should be able to bombard from two squares, where that bombardment should bring down fortifications and walls, but not defending units as it does as much as it does now.
Capturing a city always needs an direct invasion by "human units".
You can bomb a city to pieces, but you can only take control when you defeat the guys defending it and that will take a lot more efforts.

Good examples: Stalingrad and Berlin during WWII.

 

[dwat2]

Several people have asked there be a limit on how much collateral damage the cats can do. Thing is, that's _already there._ Both in terms of how much c.d. non-upgraded cats can do and the maximum amount any unit can do. No defender can be reduced beyond 50% of their max by cats if I remember my facts right. Now, raising that percentage or decreasing the number of units that get hit by it per cat is viable, and I would imagine easily modded, but there is a limit currently in place.

 

[Paeanblack]

Maybe a set of promotions, say Strategy, which lets the attacking square off against the second best defender (and third and fourth best for Strategy II and III.)

That is one of the best ideas I've seen yet. It's not a useful promotion by itself, but also makes many of the less useful promotions more relevant.

 

[Mind_worm]

The funny thing about collateral damage is that it seems to encourage a large stack. The more units you have, the more there are to absorb collateral damage. A stack of 6 units is easily destroyed, a stack of 20-30 units takes some serious work to bring down. And if you don't kill the whole stack of 20-30, most of it can just sit and rest to be back to full strength.

this is not true at all. Who would waste cats (the first few are suicide attackers anyway) on a stack of 6 units? whenever you are attacking a group of 20-30 the first 6-7 are the only ones that put up any resistance, this is the whole point, after that they are just scouts(more or less) that need to be eliminated to take the city but dont hold much resistance.

 

[pigswill]

On the other hand if you have a stack of say 30 units and the defenders have a stack of say 10 barrage cats and a couple of hefty garrison units the defending cats will cause serious damage to every unit in your stack and then start inflicting casualties thus making it a suicide mission for you with the garrison units intact; and defenders heal faster than you do.

 

[Phrederick]

On the other hand if you have a stack of say 30 units and the defenders have a stack of say 10 barrage cats and a couple of hefty garrison units the defending cats will cause serious damage to every unit in your stack and then start inflicting casualties thus making it a suicide mission for you with the garrison units intact; and defenders heal faster than you do.

However, you can then just not attack the city. You'll still lose a few in retreating, but you won't always lose the whole stack.

 

[pigswill]

If you're playing the AI then yes you'll get away with it. If its the AI invading you with a giant stack you won't be so forgiving.