Why no special icon for a city with a coastal fortress or SAM battery?

[fittstim]

It was suggested that I come here to inquire, so I will...

What's the deal with the city icon changing when the city has Walls? This let's every attacker know that the defenders of the city get a bonus in defence against an attack. However...

There is no indication (as far as I know) that a city has a coastal fortress (which conceivably would be just as easy to see from a naval attacker's standpoint) or a SAM battery.

Now the AI seems to know that the city is equipped with these (as well as the SDI improvement). I tested this. The AI attacked a city with a nuke. I then reopened the game and gave the city an SDI and the AI attacked an adjacent city instead. It's the same with bombers and the SAM battery.

Therefore, human players are at a huge initial disadvantage when waging war against the AI.

Sorry if this issue has been addressed before. But it is something that puzzles me.

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by fittstim
What's the deal with the city icon changing when the city has Walls? This let's every attacker know that the defenders of the city get a bonus in defence against an attack. However...

There is no indication (as far as I know) that a city has a coastal fortress (which conceivably would be just as easy to see from a naval attacker's standpoint) or a SAM battery.

Well, we can argue that anyone can see a wall from quite a long distance OTOH a SAM defense is a bit more difficult to guess, if not by satellite or plane reconnaince.

A coastal fortress may be was more visible, but if only means some cannons ready to protect harbour... I dunno

Anyway, you can't see anywhere straight from the map, you should wisely use yours diplomats and spies

[ancient]

i dont know what your talking about, but in civ2 (2.42) the ai would attack a city that had a sdi defense several times with a nuke in the same turn.. why? i thought this was rather stupid... if the first nuke was stopped by an sdi defense why would it launch several more at the same city?

[Adm.Naismith]

Originally posted by ancient
i dont know what your talking about, but in civ2 (2.42) the ai would attack a city that had a sdi defense several times with a nuke in the same turn.. why? i thought this was rather stupid... if the first nuke was stopped by an sdi defense why would it launch several more at the same city?

"If at first you don't succed, try and try again?"

[Rasputin]

never encounterd that nuke attack agaisnt a sdi city. maybe its cause i use MPGE ....

[rah]

What level were you playing? In deity, i've never seen the ai nuke a city with an sdi. But you could fool them by making a "nuke bait" city 3 squares away from a city that did have an sdi for coverage. The ai would merrily waste most of it's nukes on the bait without damage. Since the ai cycles through unit by unit without memory, it knows no better.
This is the type of crap that must be fixed.

RAH

[ancient]

i think i was playing in prince..

[TechWins]

Ancient, the AI does the same thing to me too.

Since the ai cycles through unit by unit without memory, it knows no better.

You're right this does have to be fixed.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Rasputin
never encounterd that nuke attack agaisnt a sdi city. maybe its cause i use MPGE ....

I have MPGE and the AI tries to nuke my SDI cities. Maybe you're just lucky.

[JellyDonut]

I was playing Russia in a Cold War scenario and the same city was targeted by 12 nukes in one turn but it had SDI. The AI should have known because I bribed the city away from it earlier!

[AroSch]

What's the deal with the city icon changing when the city has Walls? This let's every attacker know that the defenders of the city get a bonus in defence against an attack. However...

There is no indication (as far as I know) that a city has a coastal fortress (which conceivably would be just as easy to see from a naval attacker's standpoint) or a SAM battery.

On topic: I agree. I like this idea. How about a more then one city wall: in ancient times builded city walls can be upgraded to 17th cent walls (bastions?) and again later to modern SAM or whatever. And all these upgrades should be shown at the map. And importend buildings (harbor, coastal fortress ...) too.

[fittstim]

Originally posted by Adm.Naismith

Well, we can argue that anyone can see a wall from quite a long distance OTOH a SAM defense is a bit more difficult to guess, if not by satellite or plane reconnaince.

A coastal fortress may be was more visible, but if only means some cannons ready to protect harbour... I dunno

Good point about the satellite/plane recon. So maybe when a civ gets advanced flight the cities should start showing all of the obvious improvements (walls, fortresses, harbors, factories, etc). I mean recon flights/photos were a MAJOR part of WWII and directed most of the bombings [Bomb the factories!!!].

Originally posted by Ancient

i dont know what your talking about, but in civ2 (2.42) the ai would attack a city that had a sdi defense several times with a nuke in the same turn..

No way about AI and nuking a city (I tested it again to double check). On deity level, the AI will NOT nuke any of my cities which contain a SDI nor will it use planes to attack of my cities which have a SAM.

I'm using the "no limits" version civ.exe but otherwise it's standard CivII Gold Ed. with appropriate upgrades.

[Recurve]

I like the idea of upgrading city walls when someone invents the cannon (ideally this should be an optional feature).

With regards to modern cities, they don't actually have (or need) city walls! Maybe they should become obsoltete altogether with the invention of the howitzer? I don't remember city walls posing problems for attackers in WWII.

[Recurve]

Originally posted by fittstim
So maybe when a civ gets advanced flight the cities should start showing all of the obvious improvements (walls, fortresses, harbors, factories, etc). I mean recon flights/photos were a MAJOR part of WWII and directed most of the bombings [Bomb the factories!!!].

Very good point fittstim!

[Robert Plomp]

the same city was targeted by 12 nukes in one turn but it had SDI. The AI should have known because I bribed the city away from it earlier!

That's really one of the most ridiculous parts of the AI,
if you capture one of his cities that hasn't a SDI it will nuke the city immediately !

I mean, you're not going to nuke your own city, are you ?
Like if Bush will nuke Washingthon after Russia has catpured it...

[fittstim]

Exactly! Think how many "walled" cities were overrun by tanks/infantry in WWII. Maybe the walls should become obsolete.

But I think that this is maybe why Howizters ignore city walls. The point being that it would be horrible to have your walls become obsolete and then have your capital taken over by goofy centurians and charioteers who no longer have to worry about the walls. Maybe there could be some sort of special obsoletion (is that a real word?).

I guess the easy solution would be to make not only howitzers but also infantry and tanks able to ignore walls. And I think that this is something that can be done from within the rules.txt file.

[AroSch]

I guess the easy solution would be to make not only howitzers but also infantry and tanks able to ignore walls. And I think that this is something that can be done from within the rules.txt file.

Absolute. Becouse I remember the 2nd function of city walls: you didn´t loose inhabitans if you loose a unit by defending a city... this seems to be still importend.

Generally I like to see as much as possible on the map without going into my cities and look if things already been builded: Walls in different upgrades, harbors, coastal fortresses (like I sad before), cathedrals, may be wonders... this would make it a lot easyer to manage the empire without lots of popups.
It seems Firaxis has impemented (min.) one of these things: Could be, the anchor which is showed in some of the screenshots, shows a city with harbor. I think this, becouse harbors are very importend if the trade model become that meaning like it was sad in different reviews.

[death_head]

I've always considered it a plus when a game has a well-organized interface. I consider that to be one which tries to eliminate plodding through windows. Therefore, the more icons and graphics, the merrier.

[TechWins]

How about a more then one city wall:

I've always liked to have this idea in Civ3. Maybe it could be done like how the barracks are done in Civ2.

[Jonny]

I seem to remember that in Deadlock 2, cities that had airports or harbors had icons next to them. Perhaps a same system could be used in Civ3, with a small icon being shown next to them. Perhaps the icons and the city wall could only be seen if you have moved a unit next to that city.

Originally posted by fittstim

What's the deal with the city icon changing when the city has Walls? This let's every attacker know that the defenders of the city get a bonus in defence against an attack. However...

There is no indication (as far as I know) that a city has a coastal fortress (which conceivably would be just as easy to see from a naval attacker's standpoint) or a SAM battery.

Now the AI seems to know that the city is equipped with these (as well as the SDI improvement). I tested this. The AI attacked a city with a nuke. I then reopened the game and gave the city an SDI and the AI attacked an adjacent city instead. It's the same with bombers and the SAM battery.

Therefore, human players are at a huge initial disadvantage when waging war against the AI.

Yes in Civ 2 the only time you might find out about the Wall, Coastal Fortress, SAM, and SDI is when you attack the city or sent a Spy to find out. Maybe in Civ 3 they will remove the AI Cheat.
In CTP 1 there was a little wall added to the city icon when the city wall was built. I have not paid attention in CTP 2 to that feature.
They could add that feature in Civ 3 even today with a one or two lines of codes. Take their City icon drawing and add a city wall to it, copy it into the game and add the codes to make it work. Maybe 4 to 8 hrs. work. Add city wall to each city icon drawing.

[TechWins]

Yes in Civ 2 the only time you might find out about the Wall,

Actually in Civ2 you could tell if a city wall was built or not.

I would like not being able to know or not if a city has SDI, as long as the AI can't cheat. It would add to the feel of nuclear warfare IMO.

[Inverse Icarus]

about city walls becomming obsolete like barracks, if this was how it was going to go, you shouldnt HAVE to sell the old ones as you would a barracks, because for a turn or so you would have a city vunerable to the stupid babylonian swordsmen

[Adm.Naismith]

As fittstim note before:

Think how many "walled" cities were overrun by tanks/infantry in WWII. Maybe the walls should become obsolete.

But I think that this is maybe why Howizters ignore city walls. The point being that it would be horrible to have your walls become obsolete and then have your capital taken over by goofy centurians and charioteers who no longer have to worry about the walls. Maybe there could be some sort of special obsoletion (is that a real word?).

I guess the easy solution would be to make not only howitzers but also infantry and tanks able to ignore walls. And I think that this is something that can be done from within the rules.txt file.

What's the point of manage a "late disappearance" of walls? City walls in real life become obsolete because any realistic enemy has shifted his army to weapons that can crush city walls anyway.

Of course, if a Zulu tribe would be able to stealthy attach the modern city of Rome, I bet Romans would still use their city walls

[Jonny]

Walls should not become obsolete. Why? Because they might not be effective against the tanks and howitzers that your neighbor to the north has, but they would still be effective against the legions and phalanxes that your primitive neighbor to the south has. Therefore, modern units should ignore city walls, instead of having walls become obsolete.

[Mech Assassin]

Oh, about the Barracks, I think, you should be asked to spend that and that amount of money to upgrade them to new era, rather than selling all them.

I think, in past, you should be able to build watch towers and castles and things like that to upgrade city walls. I also think, you should be able to build walls and defenses (more than just fortresses) in the world map with settlers or engineers. City walls, fortresses and castles could be replaced by trenches, military installations and bunkers in modern era.

[Recurve]

Originally posted by Jonny
Walls should not become obsolete. Why? Because they might not be effective against the tanks and howitzers that your neighbor to the north has, but they would still be effective against the legions and phalanxes that your primitive neighbor to the south has.

By the time your city walls disappear you'll be armed with tanks (mobile warfare would be one of the prerequisites). You won't really be worried about the odd legions your backwards southerly neighbour will be throwing at you (at least I won't be)!

[death_head]

If you look at a lot of formerly walled cities, you'll notice that the walls are in the center of town, in the "old city"...thus, they wouldn't be torn down or anything, but the perimeter defense would've moved...

[Grumbold]

While city walls are pretty irrelevant in modern warfare, the house walls themselves serve a similar purpose, making it much harder to kill dug in infantry. While it would be nice to phase out city walls and just give moderm infantry defence bonuses, in the interest of simplicity they might as well stay.

[fittstim]

Yes, yes, yes!

I agree with most of what everyone says but there is also the problem with the naval and air units.

A caravel should be blasted out of existance by a coastal fortress. However, a battleship or AEGIS cruiser should be able to ignore the CF.

Stealth planes should be unaffected by the presence of a SAM while propeller fighters should be anihilated.

And I hate the fact that the barracks are "sold". Why not give the ability to upgrade (Upgrade Barracks could be an Improvement. As long as the old barrack exists, units can be healed faster but new units won't be veteren). And this upgrade could be 20 shields instead of 40.

P.S. A notorious "cheat": Right before you discover a tech which would "render your barracks obsolete, go into the rules.txt file and change the number of shields required to build a barrack from 40 to 250. Reload the game. When the barracks are sold, you will then get 2500 gold for each barrack sold. This quickly jacks your treasury up to the 32 000 limit (or higher if you have the no-limits upgrade). And there is no "cheat" recorded in your game. [I admit, of course, that I've used this - but it was a long time ago ]