Pillaging too easy

[The Rusty Gamer]

One of the things that annoyed me is how any old unit can come along and in one move pillage a tile improvement that's taken several turns to complete. I suppose this is more noticeable in SMAC and CTP2 than Civ2 but nevertheless the principle still applies. Tell me how one scrawny little soldier with a sword and an attack of 1 mess up a road or an irrigation unit just like that. Pillaging should take a number of turns, that number being based on how powerful that unit is. And it gives us a chance to send some units out to stop it. Yes, I know we should have units standing there to defend important squares, but if you don't build a fortress there, depending on your government type, the plebs can get unhappy. So tell me, why we're at it, how sending units to defend important improvements can make citizens unhappy! Dumb, dumb, dumb.

[Maxxes]

Pillaging an improvement should be easier than building it. And that unit is not 'one scrawny little soldier' it represents an army.

[Pedrun]

I completely disagree with you. I even prefer that pillage gives some money. This way the combats become more common and you'll need to protect then. Pillage become a trick to call others to fight. A maneuver to make strategies work.

[Cyclotron]

Pillaging, as described in the Civ2 maunual, is representative of troops trampling crops, caving in mines, and pulling up roads. I don't see any proof, relism or otherwise, that it is too easy to do this.

Pillaging is not a time consuming science. When you pillage, you are trying to inflict damage on the move, carving a wide swath of destruction through enemy territory. Setting fires and trampling fields is something any army can do. After all, Sherman's March was still a march. He didn't carefully dissassemble the towns, he just plowed on through!

This makes sense for gameplay, too. Pillaging is meant to be a viable alternative for a prolongued campaign. You can run in, tear up some stuff, and get out before enemy forces can react. It makes war more costly, and the last thing we should do is make war easier! Pillaging is a good and useable tactic, and a fairly good balance to war. Why have it any other way? If you want to keep those pesky enemy units out of your wheatfields, you better start building some defense!

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- Cyclotron7, "The Rajah of Resources"

[Cyclotron]

And with that post, a crowned Prince am I!

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- Cyclotron7, "The Rajah of Resources"

[ajbera]

Congratulations, Cyc.

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

quote: Originally posted by cyclotron7 on 05-12-2001 10:46 PM Pillaging, as described in the Civ2 maunual, is representative of troops trampling crops, caving in mines, and pulling up roads. I don't see any proof, relism or otherwise, that it is too easy to do this. Pillaging is not a time consuming science. When you pillage, you are trying to inflict damage on the move, carving a wide swath of destruction through enemy territory. Setting fires and trampling fields is something any army can do. After all, Sherman's March was still a march. He didn't carefully dissassemble the towns, he just plowed on through! This makes sense for gameplay, too. Pillaging is meant to be a viable alternative for a prolongued campaign. You can run in, tear up some stuff, and get out before enemy forces can react. It makes war more costly, and the last thing we should do is make war easier! Pillaging is a good and useable tactic, and a fairly good balance to war. Why have it any other way? If you want to keep those pesky enemy units out of your wheatfields, you better start building some defense!

Someone once said that it is always easier to destroy than to create. I find myself making frequent use of pillaging when playing Civ III because it allows me to slowly strangle my opponent's cities without attempting risky frontal assaults. I know that the group of high-defense units they've got garrisoned in their cities will probably waste my attacking units, so I run around outside the city destroying their ability to feed their people, forcing them to either "punt or grunt".

The obvious downside to all of this is that when I eventually "liberate" the enemy city, I usually inherit little more than a pile of smoking rubble. It's a trade-off; do you want to risk losing a bunch of valuable military units to capture a big and well-developed city, or do you follow the "scorched earth" policy and spend a lot of money rebuilding later? It all depends.

Dan
Firaxis Games, Inc.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Don't you think though, that perhaps some units should be more adept at pillaging than others, the more ancient units should perhaps take at least 2 turns? And at the other end, maybe the more modern units might "overkill", when pillaging a tile they cause pollution or destroy the land?
As regards to my second complaint, I take at that in Civ 3 any units within the culture borders won't cause unhappiness, that is, won't be seen to being away from home?

[This message has been edited by Russell (edited May 13, 2001).]

[Theben]

quote: Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS on 05-13-2001 12:00 AMSomeone once said that it is always easier to destroy than to create. I find myself making frequent use of pillaging when playing Civ III because it allows me to slowly strangle my opponent's cities without attempting risky frontal assaults.

Out of curiousity, did you guys include a "sieging" option when attacking strongholds?

[Admiral PJ]

Hey a Christchurch man, nice city :>
A lot more could be ton with the pillaging rules.. maybe taking a whole movement turn to complete, though I find its pretty hard to pillage without being attacked by a fast moving unit anyhow.
You could have Millitary engineers or just the normal ones able to pillage quicker.. It takes serious amounts of explosives to destroy a large river bridge quickly - at least placed in exactly the right spots, otherwise you have to dissasemble it screw by screw.

I like SMACS system where you could bombard with artillery to destroy terrain improvements.. if you can do this with bombers it would be nice as well.
Always go a step forward (better than SMAC) not a step back(the old Civ 2).

Admiral Pete
Head of 3d God game Mantra by VIRE tech.

and a third New Zealander

[Grumbold]

Pillaging farm improvements should be easy. Pillaging a road should be next to impossible without demolition tools. I would suggest only river crossings should be able to be destroyed before the invention of gunpowder. Its hard to completely destroy a mine too although you can do significant damage to the processing equipment. Perhaps some thought should be given to making any improvement a little cheaper/faster to put back in a tile where it has existed before.

[Pedrun]

quote: Originally posted by Admiral PJ on 05-13-2001 04:16 PM You could have Millitary engineers or just the normal ones able to pillage quicker.. It takes serious amounts of explosives to destroy a large river bridge quickly - at least placed in exactly the right spots, otherwise you have to dissasemble it screw by screw.

Define quickly: a year is the smallest turn size even few people could destoy a large bridge in this time. think what a whole army (in civ2 10,000 people) can do.

[Cyclotron]

quote: Originally posted by Grumbold on 05-13-2001 04:40 PM Pillaging farm improvements should be easy. Pillaging a road should be next to impossible without demolition tools. I would suggest only river crossings should be able to be destroyed before the invention of gunpowder. Its hard to completely destroy a mine too although you can do significant damage to the processing equipment. Perhaps some thought should be given to making any improvement a little cheaper/faster to put back in a tile where it has existed before.

Grumbold, are you suggesting that while the Romans could make roads long before gunpowder, it was physically impossible for them to pry the back up??? All you'se gotta do is pry up/overturn cobblestones, or simply fell trees and collapse dirt onto the road, effectively blocking it until it can be repaired.

Which brings up an idea... wouldn't it be cool if tile improvements could be just damaged, not completely destroyed? If you pillaged a tile once the improvements would become damged, and would not yield anyhting or be useable again until they were repaired (worker function, half the cost of rebuilding). Of course, pillaging a damaged tile would utterly destroy the improvements. I like it... probably won't be implemented, but just getting the idea out there!

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- Cyclotron7, "The Rajah of Resources"

[bj]

quote: Tell me how one scrawny little soldier with a sword and an attack of 1 mess up a road or an irrigation unit just like that.

Its not one guy just coz the icon shows one guy. Do you really think that armies, say in ctp2, are made up of 12 men? No. Each icon represents a group of units, like a squadron of fighters, or a regiment of troops.

Anyway, pillaging is and should be easy. I think its right as it is. Destroying crops/buildings is as easy as starting a fire, units like tanks can crumble roads....Heck railroads can be completely taken out by setting of one charge on a rail. Irrigation gone as easy as crumbling a canal or cutting a pipeline...

I also agree that when you pillage you get some reward, like a little bit of money. Ransacking the land and houses etc of a nations territory, enemies can take money, gold, art and any other thing thats there and it'd be worth something.

[bj]

I like that idea cyclo, pillaging only damages a tile. In this case Id say that If you were to try and build the same type of improvement overtop of it, it would take less time/resources. Good fix without overcomplicating the issue.

If you wanted you could also make pillaged improvements disappear if they are not 'repaired' in a certain amount of turns, just to represent it is in a run down state. Possible but not essential