Raiding

Tryford wrote:

I'm sorry if my question is blunt, but...

What exactly is "raiding", in your opinion? What exactly is being "raided"?

I feel that the current ransack mechanic IS raiding and it is the Militaristic cultures that are expected to do it most (see Norsemen). The Expansionnist ability (Under one banner) is meant for a *peaceful* annexation to contrast with the Militarist who are incentivized to "raze the outpost and resettle it with your own".

Your proposed overhaul would create a second method of raiding, reserved for one sepcific culture affinity *on top* of letting them use their ability anyways, and break the current gameplay as all things military are managed through units except your proposed overhaul (some kind of event with few decisions and a timer, or you might be thinking of something like a siege, which would make this "identical to ransack, but way worse for the defender").

Or maybe I misunderstood your idea (Sorry!).

There's no problem with what you said, in fact, I had wrote the idea in my mind directly. Thanks to you, I can explain it in more detailed way.

In the ransack mechanic, we need to engage in war with someone. The army need to go another civilization's outposts or Main Plaza, wait on it and set fire to the buildings they have developed or holy sites, wonders etc and generate some income.

However what I meant by "raiding" is more about plundering individuals on the roads, like stealing gold from traders. Assuming that there are no actual traders in the game(like real units in game), so we can consider fictional (unvisible) traders or villagers using these roads and going to the cities or outposts. Like local farmers going to cities to sell their grains, or faraway traders who coming for selling some exotic items. We cant see them but they are here right?

So we would generate income by raiding the people who passing through that area. Like in picture, a button (named raiding or any differeny name idk) would be added alongside with the ransack mechanic, allowing players to generate income with raiding. To do this we need raid the region not the burn down/ransack the cities or outpost etc.

So we pick army, click the raid button move into the region, and after 1 turn the raiders start to raid the villagers or traders in the region. The villager or traders, try to sell their resourcers to cities but before that we are kinda stealing their goods. That's the story behind of this idea.

Instead of directly destroying a building and generate some income, this approach or game mechanic focuses on cutting the income of your rival. We will kinda reduce his income in a way and create an income for ourselves. If you want to make this idea more detailed we can add like extra little ideas. For example, it may become more expensive to create a trade route because the route is not safe. Or if it is wanted to be done simply, a certain percentage of the city's gold income can be given directly to the raiders.

By doing so, i assumed that the security/safeness of the city's roads would decrease. Combining this mechanic with the expansionist culture ability and city stabilty makes sense atleast for me. Imagine being constantly raided by Assyrian raiders, without respite. Over an extended period, such relentless raids would inevitably breed discontent among the local population. If the ruler of the region fails to effectively defend their territories against these raiders, stability will wane, and eventually, the people will rise in rebellion.

In gameplay perspective like in the picture if i need to give one example, most of the time i am not gonna use Assyrian raiders special ability. If i want outpost without war, i cant use ransack (linked outposts). If i am going to war, most of time i am focusing to conquering cities. It's not like i am not using ransack, but I do use ransack in very specific situations in a war. So assyrian raiders, getting more income of raiding and raizing the region much more general, not so spesific like before. So the players can use it in war or peaceful times.

We can improve the balance by discussing of this mechanic i think. While there might be potential game-breaking situations that I haven't considered, but i feel like that there is a lack of military intervention in trade.

We can add many things related to raiding, i dont want to turning raiding idea into something like an expansion pack by introducing new elements but i just wanna show some examples.

For instance, let's imagine a civic that is activated when you place religious sites far from the city and your region gets raided. With this civic, you unlock religious military order (like templar knights) for your religion. You construct a special building for the religious military order (similar to unique cultural buildings, one per region). When someone comes to raid your region, the armies of religious military order spawn and automatically attack the raiders, so they kinda protecting the pilgrims who is going to the religious sites. (The strength of the army depends on factors such as the number of special military order building you construct, the size of the city, etc.) During a defensive war, they stand guard on the religious site to protect it. If you are the attacking side and one of the war reasons is religious conversion, the religious military order accompany your chosen army and provide support. Later, if you decide to deactivate this feature through the civic or you choose state atheism, the religious military order rebel against you. (They are eliminated when you kill their armies and destroy the buildings.)

Alright, so this is a completely different idea but i can add various concepts that could be related to raiding. For example piracy at sea, capturing slaves, and so on. I have more detailed versions in my mind as well. However, I don't want to overly complicate things or make it difficult to implement, so I won't go into too many examples. What I mean is that many things can be added later that are connected to raiding. 

But if raiding is implemented as an like I mentioned before or maybe different way idk, it could become an option that players can build upon, particularly for certain cultures right now. It could involve establishing a parasitic army in a developed and powerful city, using the enemy's economy for their own benefit with raiding.