[SPOILERS PB71]Krill: By the numbers, when the walls fell (on everyone else)

[Thoth]

Well defended Thoth, well defended.

But I'm not attacking Pindicator, nor Commodore, nor you.

Thanks.     I wasn't really expecting you to get involved but I figured it was worth a shot.  With Commodore recapturing my border city and the collapse of my culture in the area I wasn't going to have enough turns to replenish my cats before Pindicator could arrive at Random Killing with his siege train.

Er.

Thoth, my man? You're probably dead.


Right now there is not a single player who could fight that samurai stack.

That was pretty much my assessment as well when I saw what was coming my way.  


Which made the victory that prompted this

Holy mother of god what happened over there?

All the sweeter.    

What the fuck just happened.

  I thought you had eyes on the whole battlefield?  The pieces were in place the turn before Commodore moved his doomstack out towards Random Killing.

[Krill]

I had eyes on everything at the end. In fact, when I play this last turn and hit enter, I will put max EP on Pindicator and I think I will have EP vision on every city on the map except four of Commodores cities because I never uncovered them from the FoW and was too lazy to build a spy. At that point I probably had a better understanding of the game than any lurker.

What I didn't expect was the misplay from Commodore to leave the door open behind him as he moved onto Random Killing. Nor do I understand was the order of battle, was how you managed to destroy the stack. I believed the stack destruction was possible, and the gold gifts were there to help bump up the number of real hitters you had, but it was still a bit shocking to see everything pushed forward, and for you to have the opportunity to cut off any retreat. FWIW, I knew that the you were likely to attack the stack the turn after the cats went in because that was the extra turn you needed to move more units into place, a benefit of playing sequential. It's the same thing I did when I dealt the Pindicators first samurai invasion.

A good lesson was that no one had enough to hold onto anything they took this game. Maybe that should influence mod balancing in terms of city improvement destruction on city capture, I dunno.

[Thoth]

He had a dilemma when he moved forward: Keep the bulk of his forces together and leave his supply lines relatively unguarded or split his stack and leave whatever garrison he left in Dayglo vulnerable to the trebs and cats I had in range and invite defeat in detail.


What you didn't see was that 5 of my unpromoted cats had 10 xp so the first 6 cats were all Barrage 3, they did an excellent job of tearing up the knights before my barrage I and II cats went in. Got 3 retreats out of 14 cats plus both trebs retreated at low odds. Next turn after Commodore promo healed, I had 3 full health cats (barrage 3,2, and 1) plus three damaged cats and the two trebs. So there were a lot of collateral strikes even though a lot of the second turn strikes wound up hitting either siege or redlined units. Then the flanking Horse Archers went in until I started getting >50% kill odds with combat/shock HAs and/or longbows.

[Thoth]

A good lesson was that no one had enough to hold onto anything they took this game. Maybe that should influence mod balancing in terms of city improvement destruction on city capture, I dunno.

Goes back to the old Commodore-ism about never attacking a competent opponent at parity. It just isn't profitable very often.

I don't see this as a bad thing, what would you want to change?

[Krill]

A good lesson was that no one had enough to hold onto anything they took this game. Maybe that should influence mod balancing in terms of city improvement destruction on city capture, I dunno.

Goes back to the old Commodore-ism about never attacking a competent opponent at parity.  It just isn't profitable very often.

I don't see this as a bad thing, what would you want to change?

I don't want to change anything. I just wonder about making certain basic infrastructure immune to destruction on city capture so cities don't keep on getting reset back to zero on hammer, such as granary, barracks, forge, library, market, monument, then leave everything else as it is.

If the city is kept, fair enough, it can be worth a bit more, but if it is recaptured, the original owner doesn't lose out as much either.

[Krill]

He had a dilemma when he moved forward:  Keep the bulk of his forces together and leave his supply lines relatively unguarded or split his stack and leave whatever garrison he left in Dayglo vulnerable to the trebs and cats I had in range and invite defeat in detail.   


What you didn't see was that 5 of my unpromoted cats had 10 xp so the first 6 cats were all Barrage 3, they did an excellent job of tearing up the knights before my barrage I and II cats went in.  Got 3 retreats out of 14 cats plus both trebs retreated at low odds.  Next turn after Commodore promo healed, I had 3 full health cats (barrage 3,2, and 1) plus three damaged cats and the two trebs.  So there were a lot of collateral strikes even though a lot of the second turn strikes wound up hitting either siege or redlined units.  Then the flanking Horse Archers went in until I started getting >50% kill odds with combat/shock HAs and/or longbows.

Yeah, that makes sense. Cats beat everything in the end.

[Thoth]

Enough cats, well promoted.


I see your point re basic infra surviving capture. I don't think culture producing stuff should survive, but I don't see much problem with gran, forge, courthouse, harbour, lighthouse surviving.
More surviving infra also means more incentive to keep the city rather than raze it.

[pindicator]

I rather liked the idea in civ 6 that buildings would be damaged and you had to spend hammers to repair them. Not sure if that is workable in civ4 though

[Krill]

It's sad, that so many of the balance problems of civ 4 were effectively solved in civ 6, but then it lacks pitboss.

That said, we managed a turn per day with seven players. But people have to want to play civ 6, and after Thrawn destroyed any idea of functionality in PBEM22 and 23 what's the point?

Anything like the building repair system would require significant work inthe SDK. I imagine it is possible, but it's beyond my ability (which is a big fat zero) to implement.

[xist10]

I rather liked the idea in civ 6 that buildings would be damaged and you had to spend hammers to repair them. Not sure if that is workable in civ4 though

I think this could be relative easy to implement - only xml changes, I think.
Split every/most building in two.
One part without effect and a capture chance of 100%, the other part with effect and capture chance of 0% and the first building as prerequisite.

This would clutter the building list and I think the KI would have problems, but this would be possible.
Balancing is a point too, for example if I split the forge in 90/30 it’s easier to whip.
With more than xml you could script an event which would say “When city X finished building ‘Forge1’ add building ‘Forge2’.”