Cultural Defences

[ce61agg]

Hello

Most of the game concepts make sense and sometimes are impressively tied to historical facts. However, i cant see any logic or historical links behind the concept of cultural defences. why do i have to bring catapults and bombard a city because it has a temple or a thatre?

I think cities are protected by their geography (being built on a hill) and their fortifications.

Walls and castles should be the only reason to use the "bombard" mission of the siege weapons. They could also be extended to the gunpowder era, by giving us the option to build a new kind of fortification, eg Star forts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort or modern forts.

In WW2 and post WW2 warfare, it is true that city fortications are almost obsolete, and things like bunkers could be used simply to reduce the damage caused by artillery or planes.

what are your thoughts on the concept of cultural defence?

[ColdPhoenix]

I think of it as to symbolising the patriotism and determination of the citizens. It's harder to take a city if the citizens are doing what they can to stop you as well as the troops. Bombardment will weaken the morale of and injure the populace.

[Theben]

Cultural defence should be based somewhat on civics. Slaves and serfs aren't going to care who their overlord is so much as it isn't a cruel barbarian or a 'heathen'. Citizens of republics and democracies, as well as civs with Nationalism/nationhood would have more incentive to fight.

[rah]

Maybe, maybe not. Slaves and serfs with families had a large incentive to keep the city from being sacked.

[Blaupanzer]

Slaves built immediate fortifications and berms around many ancient cities up to and including the US Civil War. They may not have done it by their own choice, but their masters were inclined to make a stand rather than run, and used the slaves for that purpose.

[johnmcd]

Some slaving societies in ancient times had ways to give slaves their freedom; there was hope for a slave. If they thought that their journey to freedom was under threat by a new overlord then I can see why they might see the new order as a threat to them too.

Plus, indiscriminate slaughter was often a feature of conquest back in the day - if my city was possibly going to be razed by the conqueror I'd probably fight pretty hard to preserve my enslaved ass.

[snoopy369]

Cultural defense is in there for a gameplay reason - making it harder to take cities that have been around a while. City walls are unfortunately a hard to balance factor - you either make them worthless (as they were in vanilla civ4) or must-build (no cultural defense would make them a must-build); it's very hard to make them interesting without making them overpowerful. The cultural defense option was an interesting solution, I think, regardless of historical accuracy.

[Theben]

An interesting option might be city defenses partially based on your behavior. If you raze lots of cities the people will fear your armies and fight harder, increasing the defense. If you're a conqueror who doesn't raze and allows the people to live and worship as they please (how that would be programmed I don't know), the def would be less. Also if you hit that 'Slave' button a lot the def will go up.

Just a thought.

[Jaybe]

Cultural Defense may also reflect the evolving structure of the buildings in the city.
Wood or mud brick, masonry, concrete, reinforced concrete, etc.

[Theben]

Which brgins up another point. How come villages and towns don't provide some defense? I think Hamlets<- shouldn't, but villages could provide 5-10% defense and towns 15-25%.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Theben
Which brgins up another point. How come villages and towns don't provide some defense? I think Hamlets<- shouldn't, but villages could provide 5-10% defense and towns 15-25%.

They DO (as I've modded it)!

Here's all my documented changes made to CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml
Fort: iDefenseModifier changed from 25 to 50, iAirBombDefense changed from 20 to 25
City Ruins, Mine, Windmill, Watermill, Quarry: iDefenseModifier =10
Workshop: iDefenseModifier =10, AirBombDefense =10
Cottage, Hamlet: iDefenseModifier =5
Village: iDefenseModifier =10
Town: iDefenseModifier =15, iAirBombDefense changed from 5 to 10

It works, too. Regardless of whose borders you are in, however.

[Blaupanzer]

Jaybe, nice of the other guy's townies to protect me when I am away from home. You noted that town air bomb defense was modded up from 5 to 10 in your exposition. That must mean that towns have a bomb defense modifier in the current game? I did not know that. A good catch!

[Jaybe]

Blue Armor, iAirBombDefense is its defense strength when being bombed (not struck) by aircraft hitting the town, not units in its tile. I did NOT like the concept of towns having no higher iAirBombDefense than cottages (the whole gamut was just 5).

I interpret the iDefenseModifier NOT as civic defense, but as defense from the structures of the improvement, whether it be mine shafts, industrial buildings or houses.

[joncnunn]

It's been well known for quite a while that urban terriagn is some of the best terriagn to defend and the most difficult to dislodge a defender from.

The game is using culture can of as a represenation of how built up the urban area is; e.g. just founded 0%, first expansion 20%, etc.

Then we know that pre gunpowder that walls & castles were also important but lost importance after it being wide spread. That is what the primary min defense of 50%/100% is representing along with being ignored by gunpowder units.

Jaybe's numbers seem decent to me for cottages thru towns in light of the city numbers; note that City Defender units won't get additional bonsues from the cottages thru towns but will for the cities. (You might want to add a 20% bonus to the city ruins type as well).

I could also make good arguments for entering a village/town tile within enemy culture to use up all remaining MP for the rest of the turn. (Your troops are going door to door securing the tile)

[Theben]

Originally posted by Jaybe
They DO (as I've modded it)!

Here's all my documented changes made to CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml
Fort: iDefenseModifier changed from 25 to 50, iAirBombDefense changed from 20 to 25
City Ruins, Mine, Windmill, Watermill, Quarry: iDefenseModifier =10
Workshop: iDefenseModifier =10, AirBombDefense =10
Cottage, Hamlet: iDefenseModifier =5
Village: iDefenseModifier =10
Town: iDefenseModifier =15, iAirBombDefense changed from 5 to 10

I can't see adding a defense of more than 5 to mines, mills, workshops, and quarries. They just aren't as extensive as areas used for living- i.e., villages and towns.

I do think slowing down units entering villages, etc. is a good idea. But then most units can't move more than 1 anyway... allowing units to advance 2 or more should still be allowed as long as some unit has secured the tile already.

Another factor is an army that conquers a town, the town is in revolt so the conqueror gets NO bonus to defense. I've actually used the strategy to sacrifice a border town against a superior force in order to attack the city with City Raiders. I get the bonus for city assault but they have no defense, and it tends to be a bloodbath.