Possible changes to attacking cities

ElricOfGrans

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 1, 2015, 2:31:35 AM

There seems to be much agreement that it is too easy to capture a city, fortifications are meaningless and the defender has no defensive advantage. An idea came to be today of two small changes that could change this.

Firstly, fortifications as extra HP serves little purpose. What if instead you had to besiege a city and eliminate them before you could attack. It could then force a battle the moment the fortifications are gone, rather than continuing damage to the garrison at this point. I know I normally just attack, then the next turn move into the next city: this would slow down an aggressor, allowing the defender the opportunity to present a more meaningful response.

Secondly, what if the besieging troops took damage while in siege. For example, each turn in siege the army(-ies) takes the same damage delivered to the fortifications but spread across each unit. For example:

* A city with 100 Fortifications. An army with 8 units does 80 fortification damage per turn. After turn one, they take 10 damage each, then they take an extra 2.5 (20/8) damage each on the second turn.

* The same 100 fortification city is besieged by two armies of 8. They deliver 160 damage per turn, thereby taking 6.25 (100/16) damage per unit and attacking on the subsequent turn.

This would give the defender a meaningful advantage, but also encourage the aggressor to focus armies on a single city at a time. At present, I know I split my armies up to attack separate cities, allowing me to quickly and easily build momentum and topple an opponent. Perhaps, to complement this, the General Hero skill related to sieges could be tweaked to increase damage to fortifications and decrease damage to the army.

This would not solve the issue of Militia being useless, but fortifications would be far more valuable. Technologies for more fortifications would be worth considering. The Cultists' faction bonus of extra fortifications would actually matter! The defender could defend and the aggressor will have to put in more of an effort to wipe out an opponent.

Any thoughts?

kokopuffs

Newcomer

kokopuffs

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 1, 2015, 2:43:21 PM

Fortifications should give high ground advantage to the defending player depending on how much fortification value is left. Classically a sieging army had to be significantly larger than a well-fortified defender. Also, rather than having militia in garrisons (face it, there's no way to make them not suck) - the militia bonus should be converted into raw damage per turn to an invading army (abstracting the concept of how a militia would engage in hit-and-run/guerilla warfare against a much larger invading army) while in the district, with the number of invading units damaged equivalent to how many militia are currently there. Nothing too high, but enough that a protracted siege could turn the tide in a defender's favor even if the attacking army has a numerical advantage.

fibojoly

Old Timer

fibojoly

Old Timer

17 900g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 1, 2015, 9:41:19 PM

I agree that garrisoned ranged units and militia should damage the besieging units, at the very least!

VIPPropbuddha

Newcomer

http://ladderduel.com/league/elmultiplayer/

VIPPropbuddha

Newcomer

30 300g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 3, 2015, 7:24:32 PM

When you say "It's too easy to capture a city", please be specific about what situations you feel that the Attacker has it too easy.

How much stronger should an attacking army be? 2X? 10X?
How much should a player have to invest in defenses? Nothing? An Era 1 tech and 1 structure? An amount equal to the attacker?
Are you playing vs. the (weak) AI or against competent human players?

A lot of folks think that Militia should be enough to defend a city alone. Militia were added during Early access only to prevent small ( 1 or 2 units) armies from ninja-ing cities early in the game. They are not intended to be the solution to City Defense.

From my experience, cities with upgraded defenses and decent garrisons are difficult to take without a siege as it is too hard to damage enough in 6 rounds. And if the player has a standing army outside of the city, the besieging armies are not going to have time to pull off the siege. If an Empire has no/weak garrison, no defensive Improvements and/or no standing army, then they deserve to lose their cities, don't they?

That said, it is also my experience that the current AI does not do the above, thus making it easy to roll over their cities. Hopefully this will improve.

I'm not suggesting that the Siege mechanics can't use some tweaking but the design is sound.

Caotico09

Newcomer

Caotico09

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 3, 2015, 7:53:08 PM

Propbuddha wrote:
When you say "It's too easy to capture a city", please be specific about what situations you feel that the Attacker has it too easy.

How much stronger should an attacking army be? 2X? 10X?
How much should a player have to invest in defenses? Nothing? An Era 1 tech and 1 structure?
Are you playing vs. the (weak) AI or against competent human players?

A lot of folks think that Militia should be enough to defend a city alone. Militia were added during Early access only to prevent small ( 1 or 2 units) armies from ninja-ing cities early in the game. They are not intended to be the solution to City Defense.

"It is to easy to capture a city" when: A couple unit stacks can take out most of an empire (without many losses) if the defender has lost his couple stacks.
A player should have to invest in defence early and often. (Cheap Defenders like in SMAC come to mind, maybe ability to build defenders that cant leave city??).
BUT, In my opinion there is not much reason to invest in defence currently. Adding defenders to a city will only buy you a couple turns (while fortification decreases) then they die because of the damage done once fortification is gone. It is much more useful to use the built units in attacking stacks. (Defence must be useful and have a reason to do it).
I think the biggest issue with this game is an 'attacker'/'aggressor' gets to many bonuses. Nerfing all weapons might be a good start. I understand this might sound ridiculous at first, but hear me out. In SMAC tier 2 weapons (T2W) and tier 2 armor (T2A) are not equal. A unit with T2W will only kill a unit with T2A 25% of the time. So if you want to go on a major offensive you need to have: A) More units then defender, B) Get tier 3 weapons. So now T3W will kill T2A 75% of the time. But the defender might of built city perimeter defences, so now the attacker is back to 25% of success.

This doesnt make conquest games un-doable, it just eliminates the "boulder rolling down a hill" affect.

How would this work in EL?
Make Armor be statistically equal to Weapons that are a Tier Higher. With only 6 turns, a full stack of units might take 2 battles to destroy since attack/damage stats are lower.
The addition of units that you can customize and build as Defenders only (cant leave city).
The removal of defender units dying/being damaged after a siege (is this broken currently?! units take WAY more damage then the sieging power).
Giving city squares a large (100%?) defence bonus against ranged units.

An alternative route? Give units that are garrisoned inside a city flat bonuses (25-50% on all stats)...but only when they are being attacked (ie: wouldn't help by garrisoning then using as reinforcements on another battle where you attack).

Stalker0

Newcomer

Stalker0

Newcomer

14 000g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 4, 2015, 6:03:27 AM

Caotico09 wrote:

"It is to easy to capture a city" when: A couple unit stacks can take out most of an empire (without many losses) if the defender has lost his couple stacks.
A player should have to invest in defence early and often. (Cheap Defenders like in SMAC come to mind, maybe ability to build defenders that cant leave city??).
BUT, In my opinion there is not much reason to invest in defence currently. Adding defenders to a city will only buy you a couple turns (while fortification decreases) then they die because of the damage done once fortification is gone. It is much more useful to use the built units in attacking stacks. (Defence must be useful and have a reason to do it).
I think the biggest issue with this game is an 'attacker'/'aggressor' gets to many bonuses. Nerfing all weapons might be a good start. I understand this might sound ridiculous at first, but hear me out. In SMAC tier 2 weapons (T2W) and tier 2 armor (T2A) are not equal. A unit with T2W will only kill a unit with T2A 25% of the time. So if you want to go on a major offensive you need to have: A) More units then defender, B) Get tier 3 weapons. So now T3W will kill T2A 75% of the time. But the defender might of built city perimeter defences, so now the attacker is back to 25% of success.

This doesnt make conquest games un-doable, it just eliminates the "boulder rolling down a hill" affect.

How would this work in EL?
Make Armor be statistically equal to Weapons that are a Tier Higher. With only 6 turns, a full stack of units might take 2 battles to destroy since attack/damage stats are lower.
The addition of units that you can customize and build as Defenders only (cant leave city).
The removal of defender units dying/being damaged after a siege (is this broken currently?! units take WAY more damage then the sieging power).
Giving city squares a large (100%?) defence bonus against ranged units.

An alternative route? Give units that are garrisoned inside a city flat bonuses (25-50% on all stats)...but only when they are being attacked (ie: wouldn't help by garrisoning then using as reinforcements on another battle where you attack).

I agree that defense needs to be better...though I think altering the fundamental balance of weapons and armor is a tad extreme.

There are far more specific fixes we can do:

1) Increase the power of militia

2) Make it so that fortifications cannot be 100% taken down.

3) Increase the morale bonus of the city and district squares.

Jojo_Fr

Pro

Jojo_Fr

Pro

22 900g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 4, 2015, 9:15:23 AM

I totally agree with your observation about the too big advantage of the Offense on the Defense.

To add a contribution to the discussion, I proposed as others people, a reflexion and several new ideas about this problem : Link.

For exemple :

- (Unprecise suggestion) Create new defensives buldings and improvements : Endless Legend does not really create defensive situation for cities, or give opportunity to enforce the strategic defense of yours cities. An invader can siege a city for free, can move back when he wants when he sees the danger coming. To change this situation could create really interesting defensive situation, where the invader must contourn a city or come with more units. Here are severals ideas : Low priority.

*Hero cannot be affilied to units when they are not in a friendly territory : It make unpossible to approach with flying/fast cavalery units then giving hero to the stack at the last moment. Which it's not logical and fair.

*Cutting roads for strategical reason : You should be able to dont build road which go from your city to a city which is not yours. It is not logical to be forced to see these roads builded. So, you should be able to pick a road to a new city and make it destroyed in 3 turns. And, if you want, to reactivate it (for free), in 3 turns.

*Create a temporary quagmire : 3 units can transform in one turn two contigent hexagones in quagmire of one your region (one per region max). The quagmire need 3 units which work one turn, but is finished in two turns not one (to avoid the instant trap in one turn). The quagmire long last 5 turns and affect any units even friendly units. Any unit(s) which pass by one of these two hexagones is blocked two turns inside (this turn and the other) and any combat which occurs in quagmire give a malus of displacement and defense in the combat zone where the stuck units begin the combat. Displacement is like in forest, and defense is -50 %.

*Campaign fortress : A single separated district which act as a zone of control which prevent any unit to pass by a 3 hexagone zone without passing by the fortress. The fortress have a garrison which you can use. One fortress max per region.

*City gate & high wall : It prevent any unit to attack and conquer the city until the fortification as down to 100. A logical way which protect a city to any invasion even when the city has only milician defenders.

*City goat suburb : A circle of water of one hexagone dimension protect the city suburbs. Any ennemy unit need two turns (the actual turn + the next) to cross the goat and attack the city. Leaving the city circonference need two turns again (unless the city is fall and become a friendly region).

*Defense tower : An auto fire tower who target any ennemies each turn.

*Magical wind : Ardent'mage new pillar which prevent in a circle zone of a friendly zone, any flying unit to fly. Efficiant in situation where you fear an attack of flying units. Flyint units can still move as their normal speed, but they cannot fly in combat or in the map.

zukenft

Newcomer

zukenft

Newcomer

2 200g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 6, 2015, 12:43:13 AM

even with better defenses, if the snowball effect of conquest is not reduced, the end result would be the same. maybe taking cities is harder, but once taken, retaking it would be as hard!

before adding bonuses to city defenses, would it be better to increase the penalty for conquering instead? say, no FIDSI production and no rush buying while the city in rebellion, then a chance for uprising, giving free armies for the previous owner.

VIPPropbuddha

Newcomer

http://ladderduel.com/league/elmultiplayer/

VIPPropbuddha

Newcomer

30 300g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 6, 2015, 5:18:56 AM

zukenft wrote:
even with better defenses, if the snowball effect of conquest is not reduced, the end result would be the same. maybe taking cities is harder, but once taken, retaking it would be as hard!

before adding bonuses to city defenses, would it be better to increase the penalty for conquering instead? say, no FIDSI production and no rush buying while the city in rebellion, then a chance for uprising, giving free armies for the previous owner.

Interesting observation. I loaded up a save game (Fast speed) and took a city to watch the progression.

On the first turn I had a large penalty (-87%) to

due to ownership which brought the city to "Rebellion". What Rebellion does is -50%

and

locally and hurts global

(which is weighted) that may bring down

and

in all cities. Since this was a small piece of the empire the Global

effect was minimal and I was still hauling in a lot of

and

from the new city. The

penalty is pretty easily countered as long as you have

to buyout stuff in the city. The only thing I was at risk of losing was some population, but in this case there was enough

progress to the next population and I didn't lose any.

So at it's worst, the newly conquered city are still quite profitable for me. The negative

gradually disappeared over 7 turns and the -50% really was only in place on the first turn. The new city still benefited from all of the booster and Empire plan bonuses from turn 1. I did nothing (ex. garrison troops,use an ability) to speed up the process. Once ownership is completed the city behaves like any other.

There's a lot of room to require more effort, beyond granting freebie defensive bonuses, to capture enemy cities.

Caotico09

Newcomer

Caotico09

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 6, 2015, 2:34:55 PM

Im messing around and trying some games with higher expansion penalties plus the effect that you cant produce (industry set to zero) or hurry anything on a city (hurry costs increased 5x) that has "Rebellion".

Will see how that affects the overall expansion and conquering ingames.

Stalker0

Newcomer

Stalker0

Newcomer

14 000g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 9, 2015, 4:37:26 AM

zukenft wrote:
even with better defenses, if the snowball effect of conquest is not reduced, the end result would be the same. maybe taking cities is harder, but once taken, retaking it would be as hard!

/QUOTE]

You could have it where cities in rebellion didn't get any of the new bonuses. So a city in rebellion is easy to take back if you don't have the army to keep it.

VIPAnwyl

Chameleon

VIPAnwyl

Chameleon

29 800g2g pts

10 years ago

Jan 10, 2015, 2:07:59 AM

Maybe they could make the time before you have complete control of the region after conquering the city longer. Then maybe they could give defending conquerors a negative defensive bonus while giving attacking former owners of the region an offensive bonus.

Arqane

Newcomer

Arqane

Newcomer

10 years ago

Jan 11, 2015, 3:26:26 AM

I don't think re-taking cities is much of a problem in the game (again, because offense is so much better). If defense was changed to make fortification useful, all you have to do is destroy those buildings so they need to be rebuilt... that should set a decent possibility of re-taking the city.

What the game needs is something to force an attack on a fortified town. I'd suggest food being needed for sieges. Sieges would take 1 food stockpile per turn, or if you don't have available food stockpiles (such as early in the game), it would draw from the nearest town. It would actually make the Necros a bit better at actually warmongering if food was brought into the equation. Market bans would not only be good at annoying other factions, they could help with defense. And generally stacking food isn't useful in the game much right now because of the exponential nature of town growth and districts. So if you had an abundance of food, you could wait it out and siege the towns, weakening them a lot. If not, you'd be forced to attack earlier, and actually go up against the fortifications as they are now.

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