If I catch where you're going with the siege system... you're saying that any stack with more than 50/50 siege will have some vulnerable siege units. Are you advocating something like this?
#siege - #nonsiege = #vulnerablesiege
Where #vulnerablesiege will get absolutely massacred? I think this definitely prevents catapults from being overpowered and overused.
Vulnerablesiege would get massacred if attacked by > the #nonsiege component, automatically. And if attacking #nonsiege < defending #nonsiege, there would be a percentage chance of flanking similar to BtS attacks. What this abstracts is a tactic where the defending men-at-arms are at the front and attackers try to get around them. If they are numerically superior, they will; and if they are numerically inferior, they might, but not guaranteed. In an MTW battle, this plays out directly in the battle: you keep the defending spearmen or pikemen busy with some "sacrifice" swordsmen, and meanwhile the knights slip around the defenders and whack the siege engines--and then that's it for the siege engines, and then the knights go back and hit the spearmen from behind, complete route... if the spearmen stay busy with the swordsmen and don't make them route first.
There's still an annoying game problem though, that's directly linked to turn based play. In a turn based game, the person who moves next to a stack of catapults is vulnerable until the next turn. This basically lets people pull a no-brainer move of keeping a stack of catapults waiting for anyone to come close. Maybe this happened to an extent in real life, but it happens way too much in Civ to be fun or strategic.
... then again, if you have the "vulnerable siege" rule, then you create a great opening for mounted units to go at a stack of catapults with their double move.
Yep. And so "ambush catapults" have to have spear-based escorts to survive such an attack, which dramatically ramps up the cost of laying such an ambush. It would have to be a piece of land you really really didn't want the enemy to breach, and it would only make sense if it were a chokepoint without an easy walk-around. Thermopylae-style fighting, for when Xerxes comes to call with his Stack o' Doom.
I think there's a way to have realism, but it has to be in a way that gives interesting game play too (instead of "build catapults because they're the best"). And without creating super complex formulae. (I think the one I mentioned might work though.)
Catapults in real life were FAR more expensive, mind you, than other units. For one thing you had to have skilled siege engineers running the show (chaching). Then you had to employ beasts of burden to transport these contraptions (chaching). And if your land or the land being besieged wasn't rich in forest, you sometimes had to import special lumber for them (chaching chaching chaching). I think it's entirely realistic to have a catapult unit maintenance cost at 3x the cost for other units. And even then they're not necessarily "the best", for reasons explained before about the time to setup, the slowness of march progress, etc. In a cost-benefit analysis, really the only clever use of *SIEGE* engines... is for a *SIEGE*. They called them that for a reason.
The lead designer of Civ 4 once quoted an important rule in one of his presentations. He said "the key to any successful sequel: 33% new, 33% improved, 33% exactly the same". That formula totally rejects the idea of taking the old game and just tacking more stuff on. You essentially keep 2/3 (half of which you tweak and fix), which means you have to throw out 1/3 of the old game.
The basis for this is user experience though, not saving programming time. The old that you throw out doesn't recoup programming hours for you at all, but the argument could be made that it reduces either excessive complexity for the player or excessive burden on the game engine for computer performance.
But as you've said, "expansion packs are different" and obviously they don't go by the 33/33/33 rule for them (as BtS mainly just added, added, and added). An expansion pack would probably indeed be an ideal realm in which to introduce the non-ridiculous battle interface. Maybe call it "Civ4 Battles" or something like that. It would constitute the add of the battle interface while keeping everything from the main game, and maybe even some things from BtS (the better stuff like levees and Moai statues!)
(PS I hate the Apocalpytic Palace too. But I think it's crappy design is less about stupidity and more about a lack of time or effort. Seems to me they just grabbed the crappy UN and duplicated it for the early game. And they added a "stop the war" mission to both, which really doesn't make sense in a game where the primary victory condition is to conquer the world. The UN doesn't fit in the game as is, and then they go ahead and expand it, and dupe it? Ugh.)
Well, if they "don't hate realism", then maybe they should consider what an "Apostolic Palace" was and what the "U.N." is today.
The Catholic version of the real medieval "Apostolic Palace" had a number of interesting features that could be wired into Civ. Primarily what it was, was a mafia hierarchy dedicated to expanding the religion, oppressing other religions, and increasing revenue for the organized crime operation. Far more often than ordering its client kingdoms to "stop the war", it was ordering them to START wars. "Hey, that kingdom over there is Pagan... GO GET 'EM!!!" If two Catholic kingdoms fought, the Papacy might *sometimes* decide it would be best if they stopped fighting, but... seldom. More often the Papacy would determine that kingdom A is a better revenue-source than kingdom B, (under the label of "more faithful", chaching), and in that case throw its favor behind kingdom A. What that support typically meant was more of a positive backing of kingdom A than a negative pogrom against kingdom B.
Case in point: William of Normandy's conquest of England. William had Papal backing so the Pope gave a special banner of "God's favor" to William, but that mainly only meant anything to *William's* forces. Oddly or perhaps reasonably, the Saxon forces didn't see anything wrong with being both Catholic and *Saxon* and loyal to Harold Godwinsson. There was no huge uprising of Saxon Catholics against Harold or in favor of William, but there *WAS* a morale-boost for William's forces since they had a special belief of special religious imprimatur of legitimacy behind them. That's the way it rolled most of the time. It wasn't a huge downer for the non-favored kingdom to be disfavored by the Pope, but it could be a huge upper for the one with Papal backing.
When it came to wanting two kingdoms to stop fighting, in the relatively few cases that happened, the Papacy tended to tread lightly, because the Papacy knew that sometimes the fighting would continue on in spite of its objections, and in that case it would reduce the credibility and influence of the Papal office, if word got around that kings could generally do what they wanted no matter what the Pope said. So IF the Pope detected that peace was attainable, then yes, he would meddle and get into the thick of the negotiations, and claim credit as the "peacemaker" in the affair. But if peace seemed unlikely, rather than risk a credibility hit, the Pope would just... back one side or the other in the conflict.
Okay, back to Civ. How could the Apologetic Palace be reformed? First off, "stop the war" as an option should be greyed out most of the time, except when the number of cities with the desired religion-spread is roughly equal among combattants (perhaps to within 55/45 ratio). Some options should be added:
1) START a war against a "heathen" nation or a "heretic" (a nation that has too few cities with the desired religion spread, bringing too little revenue to the shrine).
2) SUPPORT an existing war in favor of one nation or the other (typically the nation with more cities with the desired religion-spread).
3) EXCOMMUNICATE a ruler (can happen only if the ruler in question has that as the state religion). Could just be the whim of the "Pope", or would happen automatically if an Ap Palace decree is defied.
4) REINSTATE an excommunicated ruler (to be realistic, via trade screen where the ruler makes an offering to the "Pope" to get back into good graces, maybe just an offer of gold to be simplistic enough.)
Excommunication or defying an Ap Palace decree should have this effect:
1) -1 unhappy hit in all cities where the religion is spread.
2) -1 unhappy hit for that religion's Temple, INSTEAD of a +1.
3) Cathedral-type buildings, any positive happy effects turn negative.
If the state in question does NOT have the Ap Palace's religion as the state religion, defying a decree would have the same effect as above, but instead of "Excommunication" it would simply be "Heretic" status.
What this brings up is another dimension to religion which I think the time has come to add: the ability to *REMOVE* religions from cities, which in history kings and queens have done by suppressive measures. In England for example, at the times of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, varying degrees of suppression essentially "removed" Catholicism from its cities and replaced it with Protestantism instead. Probably the way this should be done is through an Inquisitor religion unit: similar to a missionary, but its mission is not to *spread* its own religion, but to *remove* others. Its chances of success or failure should be similar to a missionary's for religion-spread. An historic Civ scenario would then have Catholic Inquisitor units removing the Catharist religion from the cities of southern France and northern Spain, for example. Or removing Judaism and Islam from Spain. Or removing the Witchcraft or Druid religions from northern Europe, etc.
A religion removal would also destroy all that religion's temples, monasteries, and cathedral-type buildings.
AND... to be realistic of course you'd have to be in Theocracy or Organized Religion to be able to build an Inquisitor. Or maybe just Theocracy, hmmm...
Oh, and IMO, the Ap Palace should be a build similar to a religion's shrine: one per religion, buildable by a Great Prophet, and ONLY if you DO have the shrine, with the exception that the city it gets built in can be anywhere. And rather than gold as in a shrine, the Ap Palace would build up espionage points, maybe something like 8/turn.
But then, that would be... "realistic". Hehe.
