Warfare Mechanics

[Leoreth]

This would lead to combat promotions becoming even more prevalent than they are already. It might be a good idea to add a slight buff to the drill promotion tree so that players are faced with more of a choice when deciding how to initially evolve their army.

Yes, I agree about improving Drill promotions.

This seems to blur the role of forts a bit. Nobody builds forts for gold and the +1 commerce is negligible anyway. If anything forts should add -1 commerce due to the expenses associated with maintaining them. [...] +1 commerce just distracts from what should be the central function of forts imho.

Of course this isn't about turning forts into a viable economic improvement. It's about reducing the opportunity cost of not building a different improvement on the tile.

Could it be possible to make naval units expend all their movement points when they enter foreign cultural borders? This way enemy ships don't get ensnared by movement penalties from being in hostile waters, and would still prevent flash naval raids.

This might also be a solution.

This is a great idea. A more active role for archers on the battlefield would be extremely welcome. There would need to be something to tilt combat in favour of ranged units, at least when attacking from a city with walls/castle or a hill, though. Why would I risk weakening my archers by using them to attack when they thrive on the defensive, especially with city garrison promotions?

Unless the enemy also has archers, ranged units are in no danger to be damaged. It's also easily possible to increase ranged strength from a city, or even based on city defenses.

Overall I think you have some very cool ideas, assuming that some, like the Zone of Control thing, don't confuse the hell out of the AI.

That remains to be seen, and the AI probably won't be able to do some of the smarter moves such as acquiring control of a ZoC tile to have other units move into it, but the AI already has to be able to handle situations where specific tiles are inaccessible for some reason, so I see no fundamental obstacle here.

You can easily access large amounts of Trading Company resources (in Brazil) by building forts with cultural control.

But I never said anything about forts granting cultural control.

 

[strijder20]

But I never said anything about forts granting cultural control.

Oh, right, zone of control does not equal cultural control.

Still, the fort tile itself should get cultural control, if only to make it clear whose fort it actually is.

 

[Novicenoble]

Okay, that might make it actually possible to modify this mission to also intercept transports.

AFAIK, current sentry is just a option that basically same with fortifying, but let you notify when enemy ships comes into the units viewrange. So it might different from what proposed in here.

 

[calad]

How about lowering city defence promotions bonuses? It is another non-brainer and has same problems like city raider promotion.

 

[Leoreth]

Oh, right, zone of control does not equal cultural control.

Still, the fort tile itself should get cultural control, if only to make it clear whose fort it actually is.

I've already did that when I changed the culture rules, the problem is that this allows easy claiming of resources just like you described, especially without any stability penalties.

AFAIK, current sentry is just a option that basically same with fortifying, but let you notify when enemy ships comes into the units viewrange. So it might different from what proposed in here.

Oh, they were talking about Sentry?

How about lowering city defence promotions bonuses? It is another non-brainer and has same problems like city raider promotion.

Is it? I currently only use it for 1-2 city defenders and that it. While the bonus is high, city defenders are useless when you are on the initiative, which is what you want to be anyway. So I wouldn't say they're too strong right now, if that changes with the proposed rules remains to be seen.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Oh, they were talking about Sentry?

No, we, or at least I, were not. I explicitly talked about the Sea Patrol mission in contrast with putting a unit to sleep or sentry with regards to sea improvement protection.

 

[Leoreth]

Okay, good. I should really open up the game and look at this myself. Never been a fan of these automation missions.

 

[Novicenoble]

I think I chose somewhat confusing words. Sorry for that.

 

[Leoreth]

No problem. Sentry already is another mission type so I was confused.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Okay, good. I should really open up the game and look at this myself. Never been a fan of these automation missions.

Me neither, in fact this is the only automation mission I use at all.

 

[need my speed]

About Forts getting a commerce bonus, to my knowledge, that's completely correct, historically speaking. Forts - or military camps, or courts, or what have you; basically, a place where the army is staying - were places where a lot of trade was done; soldiers needing to convert their loot into more usable things / things easier to carry, not to mention the usual trading and bartering, if not by the soldiers, then by whoever decided to follow the army (not uncommon at all).

A food bonus could work as well, for the very simple reason that you're probably able to roughly trace an ancient army's route by population booms; soldiers having sex with local women and impregnating them.

 

[Leoreth]

Even +1 food would make a fort immediately preferable to a farm.

 

[need my speed]

To be honest, that would fit in Europe's medieval age.

 

[Leoreth]

There were no farms?

 

[need my speed]

Heh, I thought I had edited my post. The opposite would fit better; farms with a defence bonus.

 

[youtien]

Add a promotion for all infantry units : sapper or pioneer.

Pioneer I: can build fort and/or road, enabled by construction. 50% work rate, +2% city defense repair rate per turn per unit.
Pioneer II: +50% work rate, +25% defense in fort, suffers 25% less colletral damage, enabled by engineering. +2% city defense repair rate per turn per unit.
Pioneer III: +100% work rate, +50% defense in fort, enabled by military science. +4% city defense repair rate per turn per unit. (So a lv 3 pioneer unit can build fort twice as fast as workers, and repair 8% city defense per turn maybe even under siege.) ally units receives 5% fortification bonus.
Pioneer IV: requires great general, +100% work rate, +8% city defense repair rate, ally units receives 10% fortification bonus, can disband to 1 blank unit at 33% or current health, 1 settler and 1 worker.

Pioneer R: can build roman road, only for legions for free, so upgraded legions can keep this ability.
Military academy provides Pioneer I for all infantry units built in the city.

 

[ezzlar]

Remove the road building ability, otherwise good!

 

[GuitarDemon]

I like the idea implemented by other mods (can't remember which, C2C maybe?) where horse units get buffs for open fields but decrease in rough terrain and attacking cities.

This would encourage a mixed units approach for attacking cities, instead of just spamming knights.

I think they were very minimal in the other mod (like 10-15%)

 

[Set]

In terms of weakening sea raids, what about ending movement for a ship, and any units on that ship, the turn it enters enemy culture? That way, even over one hex channels (Such as the English Channel) You need to establish Sea Control first since your invasion fleet and the units on board will be paralyzed in the water for a turn, waiting to be sunk. Maybe Amphibious could negate the loss of movement for ground units on the ship to represent historical surprise amphibious invasions (ie. Overlord). Combined with the already proposed limiting of naval movement to two hexes in enemy territory, this would give any defender ample warning of a coming invasion and a chance to intercept it.

On a slightly more radical note, we could also give ZOCs to naval units (or perhaps specifically limit it to certain naval units) extending two spaces in every direction. No ships within the ZOC could land units and it would cost a full turn of movement to leave (or enter) the ZOC (Also taking away the movement of any units on board). This would effectively increase the "engagement range" of fleets, allowing them to prevent the enemy from landing even if they can't close the distance completely that turn or if the player prefers not to actually attack with his fleet (maybe the fleets are around the same size and strength and he doesn't want to risk multiple 50-60% odds battles to kill the enemy fleet) . This would allow naives that are only slightly smaller than enemy navies to prevent an invasion (as was the case historically). I'm not sure if this would work in tandem with other proposals in this thread (including my own) or if it might be overkill to include those as well.

EDIT: If Leoreth is willing to consider the ZOC mechanic at all, for simplicities sake it would probably work better to use effectively the same mechanic as forts. I don't see any problems with adding the effects I've proposed for Naval ZOCs (costs a full turn of movement to move in, and a full turn to move out) to forts. And adding Leoreth's fort mechanics to Naval ZOCs also opens up some interesting possibilities, ie. if capital ships cast Naval ZOCs and only capital ships also ignore the effects of Naval ZOCs, the only way to engage an enemy "battle fleet" with capital ships in it would be with your own "battle fleet" (since Naval ZOCs are two spaces in every direction and units that negate the effect of EZOC would be needed to close to attacking distance), neatly simulating actual naval doctrine.

 

[calad]

I have a heretical suggestion:

What I liked in civ5 was that combat was much less fatal. In civ4 units insta die 99% of cases when they fail to attack or defence. Withdrawal Chance exist only on mounted cavalry units and you can update it with flanking I and II. For rest of units you can pick tactics from GG or guerilla III. But why should you take Withdrawal Chance improving promotions? Your units are still rather likely to die. Keshik has the best (20%), take flanking I and II and now it is 50%, add GG and now 80%. Problem is now that your unit has 4 promotions with same basic strength and it is still very likely to die. This limit use of GG heavily, either you go for super medic or put in in the city. In civ4 I have seen more than enough times when unit with 90% chance is destroyed, frustrating as hell.

So what I suggest to make combat less fatal and less irritating (unit lead by GG dies on 90% combat chance) is to give every unit a Withdrawal Chance around 50%. With promotions it could go over 100% and it has not broken civ 5. I think it would make this mod more interesting, reduce reloading and less frustrating to play. This would require to tweak promotions and all units but it would be worth of it.