Suggestion: More Destruction from Sacking

[Agent Smith]

I've seen a lot of talk about blitzing recently and how the AI never really gets a chance to match a player.

Well, I was thinking. It seems that, once a city/castle is taken, it is way too easy to repair things and move on. Perhaps, instead of buildings being damaged and taking only 1 turn to repair, maybe they should be, or least have a chance to be, destroyed completely. This would require the player to take the time and build the structures again if necessary. For instance, the destruction of a barracks building would severely hamper a players abiltiy to raise a quick garrison and move on to the next target.

Thoughts?

[Odin]

I've seen a lot of talk about blitzing recently and how the AI never really gets a chance to match a player.

Well, I was thinking. It seems that, once a city/castle is taken, it is way too easy to repair things and move on. Perhaps, instead of buildings being damaged and taking only 1 turn to repair, maybe they should be, or least have a chance to be, destroyed completely. This would require the player to take the time and build the structures again if necessary. For instance, the destruction of a barracks building would severely hamper a players abiltiy to raise a quick garrison and move on to the next target.

Thoughts?

I can agree with this, I also think that once you occupy a city/castle it should take a sizable army to maintain happiniess, assuming that the castle/city happiness level represents the entire province.

This would require the player to maintain larger garrisons in newly aquired lands, additionally it would have the ripple effect of reducing offensive units for conquest.

The trick will be managing how the AI handles this as well. I mean right now you can leave some peasant units in a newly occupied province and for the most part the population is thrilled....

[vonsch]

Yeah, I think if a building is at 100% damaged it should just disappear. If it's not completely destroyed, the percentage of damage should be multiplied against the length of time to upgrade it to it's present level to determine the repair time, much like appears to happen with the repair cost (to some degree, at least).

That would also curb some of the excessive use of assassins. If you destroy an enemy's building, it isn't gonna do you any good either when you take over that region. That's how it should be.

[Omisan]

Having a general stationed in a newly conquered city should be almost mandatory for maintaining order for at least 2 or 3 turns.

[TevashSzat]

Well ppl, if u cant sack then us blitzers will simply not sack and get our money elsewhere

[pat the magnificent]

here's the problem with that.

say you destroy a huge cathedral after sacking a city.

do you now have to restart the entire church string of buildings with a small church? It would take way too long to climb back up the building tree. And the cost of the process required to rebuild a city would make sacking actually end up resulting in a net loss of money... which seems entirely back asswards