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Old May 30, 1999, 00:17   #1
redleg
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COMBAT (ver 1.1) hosted by Redleg
hmmmm...the combat thread as I originally intended it appears to be too broad. Therefore I am going to narrow the scope of the topics in this particular thread. This may reduce the popularity of this topic, because some of the ideas here (including my own) are appropriate in other threads.

If you have an idea that is combat related, but dependant on another thread subject, post a condensed version of the idea in the other thread and point them here for the full details.

When posting, keep your ideas seperated. Post different ideas in different posts so it is easier to read.

Combat will be focused on these subjects:

Combat look and feel, the interface - if any
Combat factors and modifiers
Combat resoulution
Combat effects on units after resoultion

Any others that I didnt think of.

If it happens in the "CTP Battle Screen" equivelant, or happens when two units fight, the post belongs here.

Some ideas may more closely fit under units, supply and movement, or AI. Some ideas fit here AND there. You make the call.


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<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by redleg (edited May 30, 1999).]</font>
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Old June 3, 1999, 10:35   #2
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here's my unorganized rant-

I'd like to vouch for the current (Civ2+SMAC) combat system, it works fine. The earlier addition of firepower and hitpoints was a real good improvement.

Modifiers?
Maybe it would help if I posted the SMAC terrain modifiers from the manual Appendix 2 - Tables
Terrain affects on combat-
Artillery - + 25% attack bonus per level of altitude
Mobile units in level terrain - +%50
Rocky Terrain - +50%
(Xenofungus modifiers wouldnt apply on earth)

Plus the others I can remember
Infantry gain + 25% bonus to attacking a city. This may be a bit unrealistic . . but infantry need clear bonuses - cheap defense is one. How about they have easier times policing. Only infantry can police? I guess the main bonus to infantry in the real world are their inexpensiveness, ability to hold objectives, they are more fluid and flexible . . . anyone think of anything?
<I would discuss CTP, but I dont have it . .>

I liked the special abilities in SMAC, and think these could be transferred to Civ3 well, AAA tracking and even Chemical (instead of "Nerve") gas pods, Air Superiority are viable modern day special abilities. What about rennaisance, miedeval or ancient units? Could their be special abilities for these units? The ancient ships could be given "cartographer" as a special ability, decrease the chance of a trireme being sunk at sea.

If we are to maintain customizable units here is what I suggest.
1 Chassis are obesleted by others-
Like I said above a trireme's could have a "cartographer" special ability. On more modern ships, this is sort of a duh - ships won't get lost at sea. Later on a certain advance could obsolete the trireme chassis and one to obsolete that one. Instead of just a trireme having the chance of getting lost at sea, grant it to all ships, Trireme = 50% chance of sinking off shore, Sail boat = 10%, Modern Cruiser = 0.01%.

To sum up, here is a chart of naval Chassis, and some suggestions for naval special abilitys-

Trireme- "Breakdown" = 50% base move-2 hp1 fp1
Caravel- "Breakdown" = 10% " " " "-4 hp2 fp2
Cruiser- "Breakdown" = 1% " " " " "-6 hp3 fp3

Cartographer = halves breakdown odds
Double Hull = + 50% defense, carrys twice as many if transport
Double Size = *2 hitpoints, -1 movement
Ironsides = +100% defense to non Cruisers
Flight Deck = Carrier capability
Submersive = Submarine
Nuclear Reactor - (No Support?)
(help me out, I'm not a naval guy!)

Land units-
Chassis
Infantry (never obsoleted)base move-1 hp(variable) fp(variable)
Horses/Cavalry move-2 hp2fp1
Armor(obsoletes cavarly) move-3 hp3fp2

Infantry only
Gurreala movement thingy - each square a road when moving
Pikes - + 50% defense versus horses
Others -
Artillery - Bombardements as in SMAC
AAA defense - + 100% vs Air
SAM's - Attack Air
DeepRadar - see 2 spacees
Paraatroopers (Inf only?)- air drops 8 movements away from city w/Airport or Airbase
Gas Pods = double attack, atrocity
High morale - trained, veterans
grr . . I dont have more time I'm gonna think about this and get back!

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Old June 3, 1999, 11:35   #3
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Midevial civilizations, in the process of attacking a castle/walled town would kill a few cows, or gather enemy corpses, let them sit in the hot sun for a few days, then launch them over the walls, where they would burst open on impact. Spread a fair number of plagues like that.

Early version of biological warfare? Special ability for catepults?
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Old June 3, 1999, 14:35   #4
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I don't really know if this fits here, but in my copy of the Civ 2 manual, they considered having you plan and fight the battles, but dropped the idea. (Note: you guys should check out Firaxis' Gettysburg, it's a fine game.)

I propose that they adopt this notion, but only in what would be called "major combat." There would have to be a variety of units present, and a minimum number. And it shouldn't apply to taking cities; that's basic siege warfare. But it might be smart and fun to allow a few short battles.

This should be an optional feature. But wouldn't it be fun to see your catapult, pikeman, and two chariots turn into normal size fighting units, and deploy them, and all that?
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Old June 3, 1999, 16:01   #5
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I don't care if this has been posted before, and turned down or whetever, I didn't read the first version of this thread.

We HAVE to change the resolution system. I mean, if I with my level 12 armour and level 6 gun can't defeat a defender with level 12 armour and only level 1 gun, fair enough. His armour's too good. But how the smeg does he defeat me? My size 6 gun can't pierce his armour, so how does he kill me with his level 1 gun, when I have the same armour? This has to be changed!
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Old June 3, 1999, 17:36   #6
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Chowlett--what are you talking about, level 12 armor and such?!!? That aint' in Civ!!
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Old June 3, 1999, 21:21   #7
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The Civ2 "move every piece individually" system has to go. I have spent literally an hour on two turns moving my attack force unit by unit as we mercilessly sacked a neighbor and forced him into 4 consecutive civil wars. We need some way to move things in groups. Stacks, armies or whatever is fine by me. Just eliminate this tactical handling of strategic combat.

I think sieging should be an option for your military. Basically, you "surround" a city (cut them off from their friends through ZOC or road connection, put X number of units in their radius, fortified units in a fortress in the area, having more units outside the city than defenders inside, whatever, etc.) and cut them off. They immediately lose 50% of all production, food, etc. As people starve to death, the city starts taking massive happiness penalties and if it gets too bad, surrenders without a shot. Perhaps even units can be damaged/disbanded as the supplies run short. This has the positive benefit of forcing the defenders to have something resembling an offensive military to break sieges. Also increases the value of granaries. And this reflects a major military strategy that was the alternative to bloody frontal attacks on city walls.

Bombardment units should be able to cause damage/destroy buildings inside the city. Especially bombers and howitzers. This is historically reasonable. Even today if you go solely after military targets, you will miss sometimes (see Kosovo). Back in WWII, carpet and fire bombing were clearly the most effective way to bomb, leading to massive destruction. And artillery, even today, are not surgical weapons on the battlefield.

Make air power more powerful than in Civ2. Once railroads were around (I used to give this tech away for obvious reasons), howitzers were always the superior choice to bombers except when land routes were not available. Howitzers had the advantage on attack punch, durability, units destroyed and cost. Don't do this again. Air units should be the key to offensive war in the modern age, not support artillery.
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Old June 5, 1999, 10:02   #8
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Flavor Dave:

I mean units with a defense strength of 12 and suchlike.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Chowlett (edited June 05, 1999).]</font>
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Old June 5, 1999, 16:13   #9
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During a siege in civII if you had the city surrounded they could still work on the farther out squares which you don't occupy, but there isn't a way to reach them without going through your troops.
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Old June 5, 1999, 16:39   #10
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I think their should be NO chemical or biological warfare, and if their is DEFINITLEY none on any airplanes. I think it really imbalanced SMAC and gave the attackers too much of an advantage. Until the development of the Tachyon Field, it gave the unit on the offensive an insermountable advantage for the whole game. It can make a size 12 base turn to a size three base in just one turn with an X gas chopper, and made offense way too strong. It should be left out in Civ 3.
 
Old June 5, 1999, 22:51   #11
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You're right. You could "siege" in Civ2. But it was not a real viable military option. First, you need 10-20 units to pull it off. Second, most of those units will be in squares where they can easily be killed by not only offensive units, but defensive units with decent attack values. Third, the city will hold out indefinitely and never surrender - just lose population which is counterproductive if you want to capture the city. Fourth, if you had that many units available to do this, you have more than enough to just conquer the city, making the option dumb compared to direct attack.

What I propose is to come up with a set of rules where sieging can become a real option to a direct attack. Make it so that five units in a strategic position can effective cut a city off and put it a crisis without a direct assault. Make it so that cities will give up without having to be forcibly occupied. And make it possible for the sieged to break the siege. And make it a real risk that the city might surrender much more quickly than expected or hold out much longer than it should.

This reflects true historic military strategy. It didn't always work, but it was a very effective way to subdue walled/ heavily fortified installations without bloody (and often futile) assaults.
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Old June 6, 1999, 00:46   #12
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eggman--the siege is a tactic already available in CivII--in fact, it is more powerful in CivII than what you're suggesting. If you occupy every square, a city will lose almost ALL of its production and food.

Chowlett--if that happens, it is b/c that's the way the mathematical formula for resolving combat worked in that case. The system is explained on many web sites and in the manual, if you need to check it out.
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Old June 6, 1999, 09:26   #13
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I like your idea for sieges. With my 'deployment' system, a city under siege would not be able to recieve any units (this is the method new built stuff is distributed also, so no new builds) If you reduced the food and gave a % chance that a starving city capitulates. This would only happen after all the the food in the city stores is used up (large stock = long time to hold out...)

I would like to reiterate a fix for a combat model flaw.
In the combat model as is units fight to the death way to often.
To fix this my idea is to make most combat end after a certain number of rounds.

For ground combat nmber of rounds be proportional to the HP of the attacker. Each round three things can happen, attacker can hit, defender can hit, or neither hit. Have 50% chance no hit scored, and the remaining 50% would be divided in the usual way.

For bombards (artillary and combat betwwen domains, and all air combat).
Have number of rounds proportional to the HP of the attacker.
For every round roll for the attacker, attack strength is proportinal to the % chance of the attacker doing damage.
If the defender is capable of hitting back (phalanx cannot hit back at a bombard) the defender rolls with the defese strength indicating the % chance of the attacker being hit. Both can happen in the same round)

Under the normal repair system there would be an imbalance towards the defenders, but i propose to make all repairs cost gold proportional to the shields worth of damage repaired. Lots of damaging but not destroying attacks would quickly drain the defenders treasury, then damage would no longer be repaired.

The targeting ability of bombard units would depend on tech level. Low tech units would just generally bombard a city, damaging units, structures and pop indiscriminatly. High tech could pick a specific target.
Whenever a unit attacks a city there would be collateral damage. Each point the defender takes a point could be randomly assigned to something else in the city, representing colateral damage.
This would emphasise defending outside your cities, because they are velnerable to expensive to repair damage. A good fortress system would be very helpfull.

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Old June 6, 1999, 11:49   #14
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"This reflects true historic military strategy."

Well, I don't care about "true" history. I care about making the GAME better. One thing about the game that I don't like is that in the middle period of the game, it is too hard to take cities. Civ falls into a pattern of expand, perfect, assault, waaaay too easily. Perhaps enhancing siege tactics could make crusader-pikeman era offensive warfare more of a viable option. That's what we should be thinking about, not making this game like reality.

If you want to make this game more realistic, you'd play 2 turns and die of old age.

I suggest one redface for every neighboring, occupied square to a city. That way, if you occupy enough spaces, the city is sure to go into revolt, and a diplomat will easily be able to buy it.

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Old June 6, 1999, 13:10   #15
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Hey, I wouldn't suggest it if I thought it would make the game worse!!

Personally, I think Civ should do away with buying out cities. You should be able to incite revolts with spies. Then you have three possibilities:
1) The revolts are put down. Perhaps the city gets a happiness penalty for several turns or something.
2) The city declares its independence (ala CTP).
3) The city joins another civ (not necessarily yours). Ethnicity could play a big deal here.

My reasoning is that one of my most successful Civ2 combat strategies was to sack and destroy the enemy capital (may take several tries) and then buyout the rest of their cities cheap. To me, that strategy shouldn't work. To defeat an enemy I should have to conquer him or cause unpredictable political instability, not just throw money around and buy everyone like the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase.

I also like the concept of one cities riots causing nearby cities to riot.
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Old June 6, 1999, 13:12   #16
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BTW, if the city declares its independence, it should love you.
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Old June 8, 1999, 01:59   #17
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Civ3 simply must have the stack-combat featured in CTP. If it does not, I simply won't buy the game (as I didn't buy SMAC). The old method of resolving attacks one unit vs. one unit is outmoded, grossly unrealistic, and a fine example has been made in CTP of how to handle combat instead. You hear that Firaxis? Stack combat, man!
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Old June 8, 1999, 03:15   #18
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Another seige problem: if I occupy at least alternating tiles around the city square proper, how do goods get from the outlying squares into the city? They're cut off by enemy units. In MOO if there are unopposed enemy ships in the system food, production, and science outputs are cut in half (representing interdiction by various means). Not only should unhappy faces appear, but food, shields, and especially trade from "interdicted" tiles (in enemy ZOC) should be diminished.
 
Old June 8, 1999, 10:37   #19
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Just as an addition to the siege concept, for sieging to be a viable and useful (and fun) part of the game, it has to be easier than surrounding a city with 8+ units. Surrounding the city would put those units in positions to get themselves killed easily and would require too many resources for an action that could easily backfire (that city could hold out for a long time).

I like the idea that an enemy unit in the city radius causes unhappiness to the city. This could produce similar effects to those that I was describing since unhappy citizens will require entertainers that were formerly working the land or doing other valuable labor. The loss of production, food and whatnot becomes obvious.

Furthermore, I think that if you put 3 units in one square, it should cause 3 unhappiness. (or something similar). Grouping your units together should provide a better defense (assuming they get rid of the silly kill one unit and the 25 unit stack dies with it thing), makes sieging easier and is fairly historically accurate (the army camps in one place and patrols the surrounding area to keep people out/in). Plus, if you have real gall, build a fort on that square and make the enemy's life real miserable.

Of course, I am open to any set of "siege" rules as long as it makes it a viable combat option. There are a lot of ways that it can be handled. For example, instead of causing unhappiness, the unit blocks the use of all the squares in its ZOC. One well placed unit can render 6 squares useless. If those are used squares, it could be devastating. Of course, if those square are worthless swamp, the city would be generally unaffected.

There could also be a minimum number of units that would be needed for a siege. It could be a fixed (3 units min) or relative (at least half the number of defenders) amount. If you have 1 "siege" unit and the enemy has 5 defenders, a siege shouldn't work. Sure, I can disrupt that one square, but the most damage I could pull off is a disruption of trade and production, not a full-blown crisis. Most likely, my "siege" unit would be playing hide and seek (like a guerrilla or a pirate), attacking targets of opportunity while evading patrols sent to hunt me down. To truly siege a city, it needs to be cut off, which requires a force of some significant size that requires a direct confrontation to get rid of it.

Perhaps sieges could require at least one "siege" weapon. Like a catapult, or a cannon or artillery. Or perhaps siege weapons could reduce the number of units needed to pull off a siege.

You can have a specific number of requirements that need to be met for the siege to start. If you meet requirements A, B and C, the city takes a 50% penalty in everything.

BTW, ships should be allowed to help "siege." They would "blockade" water squares.

However, the important key element is that the city must be forced to eventually surrender if the siege is not lifted. Otherwise, sieging is just organized vandalism, which while hurting the enemy, is not much of an ego boost. Having a city go into riots and grovel at your feet for mercy is a lot more fun than just making their life miserable.

If ethnicity is implemented (WHICH IT SHOULD!), sieges should be considered an event that hurts the relationship between two ethnic groups. Starving people out does not make friends.

Thank you for listening to my rant. Have a nice day.
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Old June 10, 1999, 09:34   #20
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Just as an aside to the capture the city concept, there should be an option (as suggested by many people) to raze the city to the ground. Of course, this would be more acceptable in the ancient age (nature of war) than in the modern one (big time atrocity). Razing the city would produce some refugee units. And if slavery is implemented (which it probably should, even if the concept is inherently revolting), there should be an option to enslave and/or kill the entire population of that razed city too. Rome as well as many other civilizations did this often.
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Old June 10, 1999, 10:41   #21
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Buying cities shouldn't be eliminated, but it should be alot more expensive. This would have the benefit of reining in the too-powerful spy, and the too-powerful (late in the game, anyway) fundamentalism.

Also, the number of units in a city should affect the price. Now, it's to easy to "allow" the AI to take a small city, move in half its army, and buy it. At the same time, bribing units should be alot easier.

"Furthermore, I think that if you put 3 units in one square, it should cause 3 unhappiness."

Disagree. This would make siege too powerful. Think about it--you build a fortress on a hill two squares away, and continue feeding units in. What if you have 10 units in one fortress? Should that really make 10 redfaces?

Also, overlapping squares shouldn't count for this. A unit in my city radius and an AIs shouldn't cause unhappiness in either.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Flavor Dave (edited June 10, 1999).]</font>
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Old June 10, 1999, 10:58   #22
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Hi there!

Suggestion for a concept to reduce the micromanagement:

The ability to group units into larger entities and formation editor to place the subunits of an army in desired positions:

Example:
Code:
xxx = Militia, XXX = Legionnares, ooo = Light archers, !!! = Light Cavalry
                                                                     Front
                                                                      Rear
Marching                               Formation #1
                                  Default                               Attack
    !!!
    !!!                                                       !!!           XXX           !!!  
    !!!                                                           !!! XXX   XXX !!!
   xxx             !!!   !!!  XXX  !!!   !!!          xxx                       xxx
   xxx            xxx XXX xxx XXX xxx                      xxx
  XXX                 ooo ooo ooo                    ooo ooo ooo
  XXX
  XXX                                                                Defence
  ooo                                                                      xxx
  ooo                                                !!! !!! XXX XXX XXX !!! !!!
  ooo                                                      xxx  ooo ooo ooo  xxx
   xxx
    !!!
With the ability to save and load formations (several pre-included with the game, for those who don't want to edit their armies).

Thus, you could combine frex. four units into one army, combine that army with two others and include some more light units as screening forces and so on.

Combine this with some buttons to highlight obsolete units or other useful stuff. Reducing micxromanagement (in moving many units at the same time) as well giving more options to customise your armies.

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 10, 1999).]</font>

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 10, 1999).]</font>

<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 10, 1999).]</font>
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Old June 10, 1999, 11:00   #23
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Aaargh, this stupid mailerwindow strips blank spaces.

My example formations got trashed. Apologies.
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Old June 10, 1999, 11:13   #24
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I think there's a code to apply monospaced unformatted text with this site... it may work.
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Old June 10, 1999, 11:14   #25
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Short explanation of what the garbled "graphics" was supposed to be.

Marching formation: Basically just a line of troops with a userdefined order of the component units. Designed for maximum speed (every unit gets to walk along a road for instance, instead of just traveling parallell to it). Being ambushed in this formation is not good.

Default position: Starting position on a battlefield.

Attack position: Describes the desired position of the units in an advance forward.

Defence position: Ditto for the defending position.

If the battle is played out in a combat window, each unit starts in its designated position and then moves into its attack or defence position depending on what strategic role the whole grouping plays.

In ancient times (slow messengers), the player shouldn't be able to influence the formation once a battle has begun, unless the king is present in the army.


<font size=1 color=444444>[This message has been edited by Ove (edited June 10, 1999).]</font>
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Old June 10, 1999, 11:16   #26
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NotLikeTea; Do you know where I can learn these codes? Thank you.
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Old June 10, 1999, 11:28   #27
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Code:
Never mind                                                
                   I
                     found
                           it !  
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Old June 10, 1999, 13:24   #28
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The rule that democracies can't be bribed is PURELY for game balance. Unless other elements of the game are changed, this MUST stay.

Some of my most fun games are when I try to win with only X cities. The best I've done so far is 5. But if two spies had a good chance of taking out 20% of my empire...that would be rough. This rule balances fundy-expansionism and demo-perfectionism.

Also, one way to conquer is the city-by-city. You set up a fortress outside the enemy, but still within 3 of your city. Take the city. If your new acquisition could be bribed, you'd never fight in democracy, even with this straight ahead approach.
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Old June 11, 1999, 00:35   #29
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Flavor Dave, I can see your point. I am open to any set of sieging rules that make sense and are balanced (I gave a bunch of possibilities above). But a size 10 army blocking off access to a city in a fort should be a pretty powerful thing.

The overlapping city radius wouldn't be a problem as a siege is an act of war so a civ can't siege without being at war anyway. With borders, the whole issue becomes moot.

As for spies, I still think that buying revolts is too easy (and unrealistic) even with higher prices. The revolt should not be a sure thing (the revolt may work, it may be crushed). Even if the revolt works, there should be no guarantee that you get to annex the city if the inhabitants don't particularly like you and thus declare independence. And some cities just shouldn't revolt. If the citizens are all happy, why would they revolt? Only cities that have some level of unhappiness or have an ethnic background similar or friendly to your own should be willing to revolt at all. If Communism really worked, there would be little unrest...

And democracies should be able to be subverted. It shouldn't be particularly easy, but ethnic revolts or simply unhappy citizens under an ineffective democratic government revolts are not unheard of.
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Old June 11, 1999, 11:00   #30
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I've thought about it, and I'm taking a harder line on why the number of redfaces in a sieged city should equal the number of squares occupied, and NOT the number of armies.

1. Game balance. All you'd have to do when fighting a democracy is put 5 units into a fortress, and the city goes into revolt, or has to take so many squares out of production that the city will very soon starve.

2. Realism. Think about how big of an area is represented by a city radius on a medium map. The folks in the immediate neighborhood of the siege are probably unhappy, but folks 500 miles away don't care much.
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