Batlord

Join Date 09/2009

[Balance] Capturing cities

So it's my first thread here, i preordered the game long time ago, but wasn't actively testing it during beta ^^

I noticed what could be a huge balance issue, almost game-breaker if the game is to be played multiplayer one day.

It will be very short to explain :

When you capture a Fallen city as a Kingdom faction, or a Kingdom city as a Fallen faction, well, you keep the existing buildings of the faction ... fair enough ... But since most buildings gives the exact same effects in both faction, why can i add my kingdom buildings in addition to the existing fallen buildings ? This means i can have a money changer and a merchant at the same time giving me +2 Gildars per turn, and same goes with all buildings.

This means conquering a big city and developing it leads to a super-monster city with every buildings in double, i let you imagine how unbalanced the city would become.

The whole conquering mechanic needs to be rethought, as i fail to see any way to fix this in a simple manner. The obvious idea would be to allow the conqueror to build other faction's building, but there would be a conflict between tech trees i guess ...

Other solution is to transform the fallen city into a kingdom city, but keep the terrain improvements like warg dens, mines etc.

If you have others suggestions please let us now, but i think this should be fixed ASAP amongst the many other major issue that cripple that great game ...

elemental

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100% agree...

Also... why cant i destroy cities?

On tiny maps the AI just builds allot of small cities next to my borders and sometimes between two of my major cities...

SO i just have to conquere them and i get stuck with a small crappy city i rather burn!

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well conquering cities has always been problematic

really need some option and some more effect (like destroying buildings after a battle)

also monsters capturing isnt that fair maybe they should reduce population and destroy buildings too, dunno

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Quoting rancmiller,

reply 1

100% agree...

Also... why cant i destroy cities?

On tiny maps the AI just builds allot of small cities next to my borders and sometimes between two of my major cities...

SO i just have to conquere them and i get stuck with a small crappy city i rather burn!

You can. Research the warfare tech that allows you to raze cities. Click 'more' on the city UI and then raze.

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Yes. The captured cities part needs some attention. Even if you conquer a city from the same faction (i.e., a kingdom capturing another kingdom city) you gain the city with all its population and buildings. But this population was loyal to the former sovereign. Why are they following the new sovereign without any doubt? Yes, some of the inhabitants will just adapt. But I think most of them would leave, as they don't have any type of compromise with the new master.

It is said explicitely that city growth is not from new born citizens but from new attracted ones. Once the person who atracted them (the sovereign) loses control of the city, the logic dictates that most of them will leave.

About buildings, you could say that without the proper faction population you can't use those buildings. Or that you can use it at limited effectivity.

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Yeah it is a bit...awkward. I think they need to change it where the population gets cut in half upon capture or something similar and in regards to current buildings/structures etc...They should probably just cut that in half as well. Say if it has 4 drop 2 of them at random to "Battle Destruction" or sabotage or whatever.

If they want give a skill under the Civ tree or something perhaps that increase the chance you keep more buildings on a city capture even.

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wait so if I capture en empire city I get all of its bonus from its unique buildings on top of all the ones I can build?

I just dont like the entire borg immediate assimilation. thing either.

I swear very little effort was put into warfare design.

I mean come on, we cant raze a city till we research it, what kind of shit is that. Well my soldiers can maim and kill and rape and pillage but we just dont know how to light a building on fire.

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I think the Raze City tech should just be renamed "Discover Fire".

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I found the fact that cities capture intact somewhat suprising too.

The only counter-balance to it that I can see is that the improvements take up precious space--buildable squares--and so if you keep two of them for some purpose, you are reducing your real estate for other buildings.

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I think it should take a few turns to take a city and maybe only in sections until its fully taken over and converted. The insta convert is a bit too easy. There have been cities that weren't even fortified and instantly taken over. Some of these have been key strategic points on the map like between mountain chains.

I dont mind the double benefits of kingdom/empire hybrids, but it should take some time before the opposite can produce your own buildings. Perhaps a pioneer unit should be required in order for the city to progress further. Also, when a city is taken over, random buildings should be destroyed and the city size and population should be decreased.

It just shouldn't be a one to one conversion plus the bonus of building your own buildings on the opposite factions cities.

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easiest solution - raze all the structures.. now that the city will only be able to build the same improvements as its faction.

RAT

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Yes, I agree also. Something along the lines of a transformation cost is needed. Also, and to be honest I don't now whether this is possible already, but perhaps in cities you build, if you were allowed to build multiple buildings of a curtain type that give bonuses would help balance this out. So if you take over a city with 2 mills & 2 irrigation systems, it would be less necessary to build more simply because you may want the tiles to bolster something else. If in cities you have already built your food production is already a big surplus. Either that or the building of a curtain bonus type of building needs to be limited to 1 per city.

I wonder now, whether it could be worth letting your cities be taken over. Let the invading faction build a few things then take it back again to get a few extra buildings that you otherwise would not be able to. Hmm! tactic sounds familiar, some of the people involved with big business would probably agree.

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Bear in mind you have the same tile limit either way.

Every building from the AI you keep is another tile that won't be used for a multiplier building, which is far more valuable than +1 extra gildar/material/tech.

Edit: I use their buildings to mitigate the costs while I build up my baseline buildings, then tear them all down because running into the tile limit on larger cities is something that I see happening a rather great deal.

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Well, that's a good point Lord_Asmodeous. To be honest I am yet to play this game to the end, and I agree in the end the tile limit will determine what you end up keeping. I am curious though as to whether that is what you end up doing to cities you have built also anyway. It just seems to me at the moment to be too advantages to overtake cities rather than develop trade treaties and the like. In the long run, maybe the reverse is true IDK.

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Personally I would have 'Raze City' be free tech and 'Capture City' be something you have to research, but that's just me. After all, it should be easier to plunder and pillage than to negotiate a population. Maybe I'll find a way to change it on my own.

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Another issue is the momentum capturing cities give you. Take your one doomstack, go conquer some AI cities and your economy just gets stronger and stronger with no downside. No rebellious people. No penalty for integrating the new city. Full influence right away. It's silly.

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Agreed. Medieval: Total War handled this much better as a conquered city could always becomes rebellious and throw out the occupying units. We need to see the same dynamic. It would also be cool to have TW's option of either destroying, enslaving or simply occupying a city when it falls into your hands (researching how to destroy a city just doesn't make sense).

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Quoting bman654,

reply 7

I think the Raze City tech should just be renamed "Discover Fire".

LOL. This is what I think. My people don't know how to set fire to a structure or topple columns/walls? Like the houses have footings or foundations. Even if they did, you could still burn the structure, provided it's flammable, and bury the foundation.

Quoting RooksBailey,

reply 16

AoE has a similar mechanic. You had to hold a city for X number of turns or it would revolt. I would also like to see the ability to raid parts of cities or their improvements. I remember attacking an outlying gold mine once and had to fight the entire city garrison and got stuck with the rat hole after I cleaned them out.

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Quoting midnighthike,

reply 14

That makes a lot of sense. At the begining you just don't know how to convince people to switch sides, and they just leave, meaning you lose all population (or something like 90%) and all the buildings dissapear (you can explain this saying that since there are no citizens to take care of them the buildings just degradate beyong any useful use due to lack of maintenance) then through techs and/or skills you can get more and more citizens of conquered cities.

Having rebel citiizens would be cool. But if they are too complicated to make, just still with the leaving/staying citizens thing

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Maybe a cool mod could add some neat stuff, maybe not good for retail but a sweet mod. I march my army into the city and kill their garrison. There is chaos in the streets, some peasants barricade themselves in the school but its on fire!!! Do I let it burn? My army is scattered only a couple soldiers are nearby do they break in and fight the peasants who outnumber them... saving the building? That is just one scenario I'm sure I could think of more. another Idea would be that early game when you sack a town it is almost entirely destroyed and the people are rebelious, later after some techs which the game needs MANY MANY more imo, you can take cities with increasingly less "negative" affects...

On a side note why is there no city "happiness" the world is supposed to be harsh from the lore youd think some people would be all grumpy about it? but maybe it doesn't fit in this game?

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