Defensive Buildings

[SandMonkey]

In my current game I built an early city on another civ's island, stealing away gold and silver. The city is located adjacent to Siam and a couple of city states, and could therefore be in a precarious position if war breaks out.

• First of all, defensive buildings = walls, castles and military bases, right?
• Do they really prolong the ability for your city to hang on for reinforcements?
• Does the increase in strength from the buildings correlate to a more powerful city bombard?
• The Kremlin is listed as making defensive buildings "50% more effective". Does this mean that it increases the strength modifier by 50%? If so, I feel like the word "effective" is just not the right term.

And totally unrelated, is there a way to see where I am sending my units if they have a multiple-turn move order? I seem to remember in previous iterations of civ that if you clicked on the unit it would show you how far they had to go and how many turns it would take.

[Ijuin]

[*]First of all, defensive buildings = walls, castles and military bases, right?

Yes

[*]Do they really prolong the ability for your city to hang on for reinforcements?

They don't affect your city's hit points--they increase your city's base defense factor. For example, if your city's defense is 12 and you build Walls (+5), then the defense jumps to 17, meaning that your city defends as strongly as a defense 17 unit fortified on the city tile.

[*]Does the increase in strength from the buildings correlate to a more powerful city bombard?

AFAIK the buildings are defensive only, and the city bombard is based on the city's basic defense before buildings are accounted for. Think of the buildings as like a layer of protective armor.

[*]The Kremlin is listed as making defensive buildings "50% more effective". Does this mean that it increases the strength modifier by 50%? If so, I feel like the word "effective" is just not the right term.

Yes, the 50% means that the strength modifier is 50% more--so Walls for example will give +7.5 instead of +5.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

There seems to be something missing from this feature - an active combat requirement when taking over cities.

Extreme example for analytical purposes. Imagine you have a Giant Death Robot garrisoned in your city. Your city is harassed by a few archers and a pikeman. At present this will turn out as a major embarrassment for the GDR. Mr. GDR will stand by as the city is taken over, after the pikeman delivers the final blow to the city's defence point.

Now, if instead

1) bombardment would lead to a major hit in city defence and a minor hit in the garrisoned unit
2) city invasion requires duelling with the damaged garrisoned unit (with +100% fortification bonus)

you get
a) incentive for attacker to get the garrison out onto the battlefield or damaged within the city
b) incentive for attacker to siege for multiple turns
c) incentive for defence to cut the siege short and prevent an entrenched situation
d) incentive for defence to defend with non-bombardment units
e) realism, and strategy!