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

[sapi]

I'm not sure about the building destruction idea, but cities that have been sacked should be ungovernable for at least 2 turns without a massive garrison.

[TevashSzat]

If governing sacked cities become so hard, then all you need to do is exterminate everything.

[Odin]

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

But shouldnt that be part of the strategy aspect? If you sack a city and destroy a cathedral, and then choose to rebuild the city shoudnt it be expensive?

I do agree with the issue of destroying a cathedral means you have to start at the bottom of the tech tree if you do choose to rebuild. Perhaps you should be knocked down a level or two?

I think the main point is that the AI (currently) cant match a human in the land grab and specialization of cities. At least i am not seeing it, and in my humble view if you sack a city that has a cathedral and destroy it there ought to be some hell to pay from catholic factions, a very unhappy population, and more then likely an excom from the pope, or at a minimum a signifigant drop in papal relations.

[Agent Smith]

If governing sacked cities become so hard, then all you need to do is exterminate everything.

That's exactly my point. It actually gives MEANING to those options you get when you take a city.

Right now, as it stands, since sacking is so utterly neutral in all regards, players can nearly make infinite money by blitzing and sacking cities. There are absolutely no reprecussions.

Sacking should be a short term benefit, one where the risk of destruction is outweighed by the amount of money you can bring in and the city's lack of strategic importance.

So, if you are blitzing, and a city is huge and of strategic value, you shouldn't be able to get away with getting 30,000 some florins with no hell to pay. If you are intent on holding the city for your own with, it would be nice to have to think harder about what you want to do.

[vonsch]

But shouldnt that be part of the strategy aspect? If you sack a city and destroy a cathedral, and then choose to rebuild the city shoudnt it be expensive?

I do agree with the issue of destroying a cathedral means you have to start at the bottom of the tech tree if you do choose to rebuild. Perhaps you should be knocked down a level or two?

I think the main point is that the AI (currently) cant match a human in the land grab and specialization of cities. At least i am not seeing it, and in my humble view if you sack a city that has a cathedral and destroy it there ought to be some hell to pay from catholic factions, a very unhappy population, and more then likely an excom from the pope, or at a minimum a signifigant drop in papal relations.

The Pope is not pleased if you destroy church-line buildings. I've gotten a message from him, and a drop in my Pope-o-meter when I did it. And there is a population happiness hit in that you do at least lose the positive happiness benefits. That aspect of "sacking," the deliberate destruction of churches by direct player action is, I think, reasonable.

I think it's too easy to repair sacked cities as it stands if the buildings are completely zeroed out on the repair meter. This isn't a new issue though. It's always been this way from STW.

I think having the building drop back a level is a sensible balance. Having to go through the whole line to rebuild is a lot of time, more so than the cost in gold. Have it so that if the building is at zero status and takes more damage, it drops a level down and applies the new damage to that level. This would also encourage repairing buildings immediately to avoid having them drop a level if you have enemy assassins acting, or a seige looming that might result in ownership swaps in the near future.

But it's probably programming, not modding, so it's a wishlist item, not practical.

Doing this would change assassin missions, but while it would decrease their power in a fashion, it would also make training them easier. You get more bites at the different buildings, thus more potential experience gain. It would slow things down, though. It would take more assassin missions to totally remove a troop-production line of buildings. Not that most would care to totally destroy such; we'd mostly want to remove the capability of producing one or two types of troops that give us special trouble.

[Odin]

The Pope is not pleased if you destroy church-line buildings. I've gotten a message from him, and a drop in my Pope-o-meter when I did it. And there is a population happiness hit in that you do at least lose the positive happiness benefits. That aspect of "sacking," the deliberate destruction of churches by direct player action is, I think, reasonable.

I think it's too easy to repair sacked cities as it stands if the buildings are completely zeroed out on the repair meter. This isn't a new issue though. It's always been this way from STW.

I think having the building drop back a level is a sensible balance. Having to go through the whole line to rebuild is a lot of time, more so than the cost in gold. Have it so that if the building is at zero status and takes more damage, it drops a level down and applies the new damage to that level. This would also encourage repairing buildings immediately to avoid having them drop a level if you have enemy assassins acting, or a seige looming that might result in ownership swaps in the near future.

But it's probably programming, not modding, so it's a wishlist item, not practical.

Doing this would change assassin missions, but while it would decrease their power in a fashion, it would also make training them easier. You get more bites at the different buildings, thus more potential experience gain. It would slow things down, though. It would take more assassin missions to totally remove a troop-production line of buildings. Not that most would care to totally destroy such; we'd mostly want to remove the capability of producing one or two types of troops that give us special trouble.

Sadly there are only so many ways you can make the game harder in SP. Give the AI cheats (more money, better starting troops, better buildings) or increase the penalty for the players actions.

The later achieves a 2nd goal of requiring the player to make tougher choices, in my view its win win. The specifics of what penalty should be incurred for what action is a larger discussion, but essentially gaming Ai's need one or both of these conditions to present a challenge to a human.

[yezhanquan85]

Well, I can only think of one slightly serious consequence for sacking: After a while, the 15% unrest for regions not under your control when you start the game will kick in. If not noticed, you'll have a problem.

[TevashSzat]

I remember that I started a thread a while back on things the player could do to make the sp harder I'm sure it is around here somewhere

[Taiwan Legion]

i think a good balance would be to make it so that you can only repair one building per turn. As it stands right now, you can repair 10 buildings at a fraction of the cost of the original building. I think they should make it so that you can only repair one building per turn, and the cost of repair is linearly related to the original construction cost and the percentage of the damage.

[Slaists]

Well, sacking should not actually bring destruction with it. I should basically mean, looting everyone in the city and resulting in a cash gain and in a hugely unhappy populace (need to maintain a huge garrison).

[Odin]

Furthering the discussion along, does anyone know if these conditions are moddable? If you sack a city is there a parameter that dictates unhappy populace for a matter of turns?

Well, sacking should not actually bring destruction with it.

@Slaists

I guess my question is should there be a degree of destruction? Perhaps you sack a city for the florin gain but intend to keep the city. Okay I think thats a reasonable strategy, I also think that its reasonable that an army would damage some of the city in the process.

So I think there should be some destruction but the example given earlier in the thread about falling all the way down the tech tree for one building being torched is extreme.

[Whacker]

RE: an earlier post by Odin. I always thought that being able to knock buildings back down a tech level would be a great and extremely useful feature. It'd also be nice to be able to knock down the main building level as long as there aren't any dependencies, for example being able to reduce the wall levels.

RE: main topic and suggestion about building damage being able to reduce buildings down a tech level, I'm against this. I think the current implementation and building repair mechanic is fine, though I honestly liked RTW's better, where you could repair a huge bunch of buildings at a go.