Civ6 PBEM: Sullla of Rome

[fahbs]

While we're talking about city defense, is the only thing that upgrading walls (ancient->medieval->renaissance) does is increase their health?

And how does the civic that gives free walls (Civic Defense?) work? It's free renaissance walls? Does it still apply the 1 gold maintenance?

[Athmos]

From what I could find, ancient walls, medieval walls and renaissance walls each add +50 outer defence to the city (outer defence are a kind of second health bar that considerably reduce incoming damage unless you have a battering ram, or use a siege tower to ignore it).
I don't know the exact formula for damage to walls and health, but the explanation here is as good as what is now available in the game: http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/City_Combat_(Civ6)

Once you reach "Civil engineering", all cities instantly get 200 outer defence and all walls are obsolete. You don't have to use a policy, it straight up applies everywhere, instantly, forever.
You still have to use projects to repair "walls" if they ever get damage (you cannot repair if the city has been attacked in the last 3 turns).

[fahbs]

Hmmm....

Note that normal units do significantly reduced damage against cities, with or without defense (-85% for Melee units, -50% for Ranged ones) unless they have the support of a Battering Ram unit. Also, the Siege Tower support unit allows melee units to circumvent the outer defense layer and attack the city directly.

That makes it sound like the penalty applies to the city health and not just the walls. Also I thought ranged units had a bigger penalty against cities?

So that means, against siege towers, upgrading walls is completely useless because they bypass the need to reduce wall health and the only thing upgrading does is increase that health?

(not that upgrading walls isn't waste anyway since Civil Engineering isn't that far a leap from medieval/renaissance walls)

Something new I learned from that page: liberating a conquered city state gives you an instant 3 envoys and suzerraianraereain status, since everyone's envoys are reset to zero after liberation.

[Athmos]

Ranged units get a -17 (!) penalty against cities, independently of walls. I think -17 is -50% (since the +17 of an army compared to a single unit doubles the damage). I don't know the penalty for melee units against walls from memory, but It probably correspond to that -85%.*
When using battering rams, melee units do fill damage to walls, and when using a siege tower (ie : when you have a ram or a siege tower in contact with the city anywhere), melee unit damage the health directly, bypassing the walls.

* Yes, I know it's not intuitive but that's the way the logarithmic damage depending on the strength difference (not ratio) works : -17 power = -50% damage, no matter what unit you're talking about. I actually think It's quite good.

[fahbs]

Huh, I always thought it was a 10 point difference = half damage

[srgtb]

Huh, I always thought it was a 10 point difference = half damage

A 10 point difference is about 67% damage received and 150% damage dealt. Averages 45 damage per attack.
A 17 point difference is about 50% damage received and 200% damage dealt. Averages 60 damage per attack.
A 28 point difference is about 33% damage received and 300% damage dealt. Averages 90 damage per attack.

Equation is: random(24 to 36) * e^(difference * 0.04) * wall_factor

wall_factor is 0.15 for melee against walls, 0.5 for ranged against cities with walls, and 1.0 against cities without walls.

Battering ram changes wall_factor to 1 for melee attacks. So you can get a weird experience with ranged units taking down just walls and melee taking down just city health.

[Athmos]

No, walls are no use against a siege tower. The only benefit is that they allow the city to shoot in that case, but they provide no effective protection.
About the melee penalty against cities, I agree that this wording is confusing, but I also know from experience that melee units gave a hard time against walls without any siege support, while a battering ram doesn't change anything when hitting a defenceless city, do I don't think it's quite correct.

edit : I just checked in the Civilopedia (City combat), and the wording is much clearer : "Melee unit do only 15% damage against walls"

[Sullla]

This is going to be a shorter turn report than usual. I was out at a movie tonight, and I wasn't able to play the save until returning. Thanks for all the posts in the thread today, even though I can't go through and respond to them individually right now.



Here's the biggest news for the turn: TheArchduke dropped two envoys into Hong Kong and brought it into the war against me. That was a nice move on his part, and this would have been really annoying a couple of turns ago when the main front in this war was against Cumae and Lugdunum. However, I think the danger here is mostly passed by now; my units are already moving out of the region, and they won't need to fight their way through that sea of archers to make progress. With a defensive strength of 30, the cities themselves should be in minimal danger. The AI won't be able to put either city under a proper siege, so they will keep healing back 20 HP between turns, and the archers shouldn't do too much damage with the -5 strength penalty. Best of all, I will get another envoy when I finish researching Mercenaries civic in 3 turns, and that should knock TheArchduke out of suzerain status. (He has 3 envoys in there right now and I have 2 envoys.) I'm pretty sure these cities can survive for 3 turns against the AI's unfocused attacks. If I get pillaged, whatever, I'll use builders to fix it later.

The worst thing would be getting distracted up here. TheArchduke is my opponent, not the city state. I'm not going to start running legions off into the northern tundra chasing after random city state units.



Here's my final unit positioning after moving everything. The western legion advanced three tiles, and the legion immediately west of Lugdunum also moved to the southeast. That unit is currently at 90/100 HP and has a pending promotion for an insta-heal. It was the only unit in the Lugdunum area that I had to move, as it would have been shot by an archer otherwise. The other two legions and the horseman are safe: the horse because it's in the city, and the legions because archers can't shoot over hill tiles. Those three units rested for the turn and will start heading southeast next turn at full strength.



The middle of the map has been completely transformed by Yuris' entry into the conflict. Teh lost his city of Frankfurt this turn as expected, and he retreated his surviving archers and warrior back into the northeast. I'm very content to see them go, and I have no desire to chase into German territory. I'll offer a peace treaty as soon as I can talk with teh... which will be a while because I still can't talk to TheArchduke yet. At Aquileia, I swapped back to a builder and moved up the current builder to hopefully chop that forested hill. I want to chop out the current builder while I'm still in Serfdom civic, which I'm going to drop in favor of another Economic policy (probably good old Urban Planning) in 3 turns. I'll also want to repair the city walls soon too, and that becomes an option after three turns of them not taking damage. Plus I need to get a Bath district here and to finish the Commercial district - no shortage of projects to take on.

The focus has now swung back to Arretium. The Archduke's legion is showing its face on the other side of the river, and I would be very pleased if it tried to invade me. That would only make the assault on Mediolanum that much easier. With the threat to Aquileia disappearing, I'm moving my healthy warrior back over to the west, and healing the archer in preparation for assisting the upcoming attack by my western forces. There's also an archer coming out of Ravenna next turn, and Arretium in 2 turns, plus I'll be able to drop Bastion policy at the next civics swap in exchange for Professional Army. Half cost upgrades here we come. I'll turn both warriors into legions, and between all these units I should have no trouble finishing off TheArchduke's remaining cities. My prediction right now is that he lives to see Turn 85, but not Turn 90.



The usual picture of my core cities. I farmed the floodplains near Arretium with my builder for another 4/1 tile, and I'll have the farming triangle done in that area shortly. Engineering tech completes next turn and all these cities will knock out Bath districts quickly once their current builds complete. Arretium is going to be producing a whole bunch of traders for me too in the near future. Yuris' Eagle Warrior is on its way out of my territory. Everything is going nice and smooth here.



In all the excitement, I never had a chance to post pictures of this island down in the deep south. It's a pretty nice location, and I definitely want a city here after the war with northern Rome is completed. I'll have to run Colonization policy again at some point and crank out a round of settlers for this spot and any other islands (there should be a mirrored one to the north, and I think I see land peeking out to the west as well, another potential island there). I would actually settle on the cows here, since they can't be removed as a resource and that would then free up the other land tiles for a Bath and Campus district, with a Harbor district going in the water. Since there's a unique luxury here in the form of the whales, this is very much worth controlling.

Internationally, Yuris has been cranking out the districts recently using his unique builder Aztec ability. I have him up to 4 districts, and that plus his captured German city has him firmly in second place now in score. Yuris has run into the same problem as me with the occupied city though: he didn't gain nearly as much as teh lost due to the occupation penalty. And unlike me, Yuris has virtually no chance of eliminating teh or getting him to cede that captured city. I'm hoping these two will stalemate without either one being able to gain an edge. Don't mind me, just conquering half of the continent here, please continue to go about your business...

[Athmos]

(...) I would actually settle on the cows here, since they can't be removed as a resource and that would then free up the other land tiles for a Bath and Campus district, with a Harbor district going in the water. Since there's a unique luxury here in the form of the whales, this is very much worth controlling.
(...)

cows can be removed / harvested.

I never commented on your "American tourists" game when you wondered about the apparently random way resources can or can't be harvested. Actually you can harvest any "bonus" resource once you have the right tech, but you can't harvest "strategic" or "luxury" resources.

So you can harvest cows and sheep, but not horses (I think both are food) (need animal husbandry).
You can harvest fishes (food) and crabs (not sure, I guess food), but not whales or pearls (need sailing).
You can harvest stone (for production), but not jade, marble or gypsum (need masonry).
You can harvest copper (for gold, not production !) but not silver, iron, coal, nitre, aluminium, uranium, mercury or diamond (need mining)
both wheat and rice can be harvested for food (need irrigation).
Bananas can be harvested for food, all other plantation resources are luxuries and can't be harvested (need irrigation).
So no harvesting spices, tea, coffee, tobacco, silk, cotton, chocolate and I probably forget something
You can harvest deer (food I think), but not furs or Ivory (need animal husbandry).


However I don't think bonus resources are removed if you settle on them (need to check).
I never tried harvesting many resources, so I'm not absolutely certain about what you get, but I remember messing up my micro in a game because I assumed harvesting copper would provide production. The bonuses are larger than "feature removal" (clearing swamps, forest and jungle), but they scale up along the game in the same way.

[Sullla]

That's helpful to know Athmos, and it simplifies the logic of what can and can't be harvested considerably. Bonus resources can be harvested, while luxury and strategic resources cannot. I had all kinds of confusion about this since it has nothing to do with the tile improvement built on top of the resource.

TheArchduke had the save for about 12 hours, which means we're probably only getting one turn in today:



The big news for the turn is that teh finished researching a civic and dropped the envoy into Stockholm, making him the suzerain. I'm not sure why that's the case because we should both have 3 envoys there; maybe he managed to turn up a pair of envoys somehow. In any case, Stockholm is now at war with me and Yuris, and at peace with teh and TheArchduke. When I complete Mercenaries civic in 2 turns, I'll have to decide if it's better to drop the envoy into Stockholm or Hong Kong to end their respective wars with me. I'm leaning more towards Hong Kong for the moment; I'm probably going to conquer Stockholm because it's worth a ton of science, both because it already finished a Campus district and it has the Galapagos Island natural wonder to the north. Those sea tiles have lots of food and beakers for working them. I'll reevaluate this in 2 turns and see how things look. For the moment though, teh is getting the doubled Great Person points bonus: 6 Great Engineer points/turn (from his three completed Hansas). Yes, he can build them that fast as Germany.

TheArchduke has also planted another city at Durocotorum. I had seen his population decrease from 5 to 4 at Mediolanum, but I didn't think he'd actually have a settler under production during this conflict. I guess so? Maybe this explains why TheArchduke appears to have had no infrastructure in any of his cities: he must have been building nothing but settlers all game long. Well, another size 1 city should be easy enough to take, why not. All of TheArchduke's cities are Bath-eligible, so even though only two of them were on fresh water, I'll be able to make good use of them down the road.



This was annoying. The highlighted legion was apparently shot by an archer in between turns; I guess that if an archer is standing on a hill, it can shoot over another hill tile. The archer itself did virtually no damage, but because the legion was hit, it didn't heal the 15 HP that I was expecting it to get back. Stupid city state! Anyway, the legion is still at about 70 HP, and it has enough XP that it will promote the next time it wins a fight. Since there's no point in standing in place to keep getting shot, I moved this unit up with the rest of my army in northern Rome:



My forces courageously abandoned the people of the captured cities to the attacking city state, heh. Well they should be OK up there, and there's not much damage that those random archers can do. I am taking full advantage of the fact that roads are apparently usable in enemy territory in this game, something that I very much think should not be the case, but oh well. TheArchduke actually moved his forces out of the Mediolanum region and started heading south towards Arretium. I think this was a tactical mistake; perhaps he believes that Arretium is vulnerable? It isn't, of course. Now I can easily surround the city next turn, and probably pick off some of those archers. Only one of them can hide in the city, and they'll be one-shotted by legions in the open. This would be much harder if the legion continued to remain fortified in its previous position, on the jungle tile northeast of the city. Instead, I've moved in and occupied that territory myself. With my edge in numbers and the Great General, I'm confident I can take this city, probably in 2 turns.



Further south, Arretium is now seeing action in earnest. I moved the archer east of the city inside Arretium itself, where it can shoot back without fear of being hit. If I moved onto the copper tile, I could have fired on teh's archer, but then both of the archers could have fired at me in return. This was the safer play. The builder in the southwest corner of this screenshot chopped a jungle tile, and I funneled the food/production into Arretium. (When a tile is between two cities, whichever one is working the tile gets the chopping bonus.) That was enough to complete the archer that Arretium was working on, and so I moved it southwest and fired on the legion. Note how little damage this shot did: only 12 damage in total. It will be even more of a discrepancy for my legions, since they also have the Great General for another +5 strength.



This is the overview picture after moving everything in this front. Ravenna also finished an archer this turn that moved up two tiles, giving me three archers in this region. Hopefully I can get all of them into firing range for next turn. I was forced to retreat the injured warrior back a tile to the southeast, since TheArchduke could have shot it with his archer if it stayed in place. That means no healing this turn, but no damage taken either. The full strength warrior remained lurking in the back, ready to be upgraded to a legion next turn. I could have moved onto the roaded jungle tile to the northwest, and I'm reasonably sure that the warrior would have been safe from archer fire there because it's behind those hill tiles. However, in the event that I have the mechanics wrong, that would be a lot of damage taken right before I upgrade to a legion next turn, and I didn't think it was worth taking that risk. Especially since I made a mistake on the archer ranged mechanics last turn.

TheArchduke's units can move on my roads but that doesn't help him here because the city of Arretium itself is blocking passage onto the rest of my road network. The archer to the southwest of Arretium is totally safe, for example. There's no road tile to the west of the city, and the legion can't attack across the river under Civ6's wacky movement rules. Similarly, only the northern archer of TheArchduke can shoot at any of my units next turn. The southern one is off the road network, and can't get back into place to shoot anything invading from the north. Next turn, I'll close in on Mediolanum and start returning fire in earnest with my archers. This is turning into a large pincer movement, with TheArchduke's units trapped in the middle.



Aquileia was quiet this turn, no units moved forward from teh. It looks like he's getting the best of that fight with Yuris up in the north, judging by the low strength on Frankfurt. I might be forced into defending this spot again soon, although I think by the time that teh can come back again I should be very prepared to tell with him. My builder moved onto the hill forest to chop it next turn, and I have a mostly-done archer in Aquileia that I'll overflow into and complete. With the slinger upgrade, that will give me 3 archers just here alone, plus the city walls, not to mention all the other units off to the west. I'm not concerned about this spot any more.



And as usual, here's the heartland of my civ. Roma will finish that horseman next turn to give me yet another military unit for this war. I'm approaching triple the power rating of the other players now. Engineering tech completed, and I threw down a Bath district at... every single city on the map, I think. They were all eligible locations, and of course I want that unique district everywhere. Say goodbye to housing concerns for the rest of the game once they're done. I considered going for Harbor districts next, but then changed my mind and selected Machinery tech instead. The biggest drawback of that tech is that you can't build archers any more once it's finished, but I should have plenty of them now. Lumbermills on forests and the ability to upgrade archers to crossbows will both be very nice to have. I even knocked out the boost for the tech this turn by finishing my third archer.

Apologies for a mostly quiet day as far as this game goes. There's plenty of action going on everywhere on the map right now, but I think I have things under control.