You’ve won.
Or
You’ve lost.
But the game won’t end.
The ultimate outcome is known. The rest is just theater.
Boring theater at that.
This is the ultimate fate of so many 4X games. You know you’re going to win (or lose) eventually but you still feel like you have to go through the motions of slogging it out.
For Beta 2, the AI will just surrender when it’s hopeless. But humans have the choice to fight on. Because there’s always hope.
In the game I’m playing right now, the AI has me down to my last city. But he can’t take that city.
They have me surrounded. But they can’t take the city. I am not sure they can.
And I can’t take them.
I’m down to my last city.
They’ve destroyed all my outposts. My shards are gone. My metal is gone. I have just this one city.
Different Ideas
Laying siege is how this sort of thing would historically work. Have the player lay siege and it’ll slowly wear me down. This fails because my army in the city is easily powerful enough to wipe out any individual army that would try to lay siege. Plus, it’s a pretty significant game mechanics to add, test, and balance this late in the game.
The idea I’m playing with tonight involves magic. If you can’t take the city by force, make it miserable to live there through magic until the city finally destroys itself if not countered (which I wouldn’t be able to since I have no mana).
I'm looking for ways that are satisfying to the player.
Obviously the AI will eventually just cast the spell of making and win. But that could be hundreds of turns.
You have a well defended city with very powerful champions in that one city it can be really hard to conquer it conventionally.
So I am thinking of spells that increase unrest or lower defenses (and of course spells that decrease unrest and increase defenses). If player A controls the map, then player B will eventually get outspent.
I thought traditionally that it would be through lack of resources (you fail in at least 2 of the 4 4-Xs) that you lose: you get starved down to weakness, then you get taken. Traditionally, without enough resources, you cannot support an army strong enough to defeat all other stacks indefinately. That's not the case here?!? That's too bad...
Cities are strong because of the defensive bonus they have. It wouldn't be such a problem if the defensive bonus eroded through siege. Sieges could be abstracted by reducing the defensive bonus for each attacking stack touching the walls.
I would think that three or less stacks should never get a siege bonus but 4 or more should start to reduce the defensive capacity of the city based on the number of city tiles.
So a one tile city would need 4 attacking stacks to reduce its defensive bonus to zero.
A two tile city would need 5 attacking stacks to reduce it to zero (4 stacks would reduce it by half).
A three tile city would need 6 attacking stacks to reduce it to zero (4 stacks would reduce it by a third, 5 by two thirds).
And so on.
City tiles would be calculated on the number of small tiles divided by 4 rather than the actual number of large tiles else this would be an exploit.
Or a "Finish Him !" spell. You deal damage dependant on the number of "quares" the enemy controls, but the less they have, the more damage the spell does. For instance the spell does 1000 damages points divided by the number of squares : just add a high cost to that spell and you can't cast it early.
Or add a spell that summons creatures right inside the defending city.
Or a "ninja" spell that let you attack with temporary units before the combat even starts.
Or a "bribe" spell : spend how much mana you want. For every 3 mana spent you can get 1 hp from enemy. If you "kill" one enemy it comes to your side instead.
Or a "nightmare" spell that will cast nightmares right inside the sipirt of champions, preventing them of attacking in the first 2 rounds (or weakening them to some degree)
Or use diplomatic capital to bribe defenses : those won't help defending, and after the city is taken, those units becomes neutral and you can try to get them. Or just kill them.
While that sort of magic is a good idea there should be other ways to do it as well. A siege trait for units that gives them a bonus when attacking a city could work. Or a siege ability that allows armies to neutralize a city's defensive bonus if they sit outside the walls for X turns. Or even a siege ability that increases unrest gradually as you sit outside the walls. Maybe you could even give the abilities to catapults. You shouldn't have to rely on magic, but it should help.
Why not have catapults be the solution? They don't serve much of a purpose currently.
Another possibility - perhaps the trapped player could have some sort of last ditch altar of sacrifice spell/ building. Pull it off, and one of the world mega events hits, which reshuffles what is going on enough to perhaps pull the AI off of you, and give the player a chance (pending what the mega events actually do). Or the altar could backfire and something devastating enough happens to the player city that its easy for the AI to waltz in and take it.
Just thinking it might feel like a more "satisfying" ending to the player, since they ended their last city, or had a chance to save it through a choice right then and there, less "look back on your many mistakes and enjoy the inevitability of your destruction." Since in the latter case I'd probably be more likely to just quit and fire up a new game, or an old save.
Maybe it'll give some ideas.
Agreed on catapults - Catapults adjacent to a city can strategically attack it, destroying a randomly selected building, city wall or reducing the population. A force with catapults can reduce a city over several turns from a size 5 city to a size 1 city. The more catapult units you have the more strategic damage that you do to a city. If you don't have catapults you are forced to attack the city. A stack that makes a strategic catapult attack on an adjacent city can't move that turn. Choice: Strategic Catapult Attack OR City Assault.
Since it takes several turns for catapult units to reduce a city, the defender can send for reinforcements from other cities. The defender can also sally forth to attack, destroy the catapult unit(s) and use an escape spell to retreat back to his city.
Note 1. As a city gets smaller, the number of militia units that it can field decreases.
Catapult abilities + spells
Frogboy I know you stated you don't want to worry about a siege mechanic but let me run something by you.
New Action: Lay siege- This action allows the selected army to lay siege to a town. This gives the following effects.
It could take some effort but I think it would be worth it. Right now as you said, it is real easy to have that "unassailable" city because you get the defending garrison + army vs army. Since the defenders also get the health boost (actually it might be def, i can't remember), it would be really hard for an attacker to win.
Just some thoughts.
Strategic catapults like Civ IV - they damage x number of enemy units defending a tile, up to 75% of hp. they can also bombard to reduce city defenses. In tactical battle they should be nearly worthless - extremely slow (moves and initiative), low defenses, weak to fire, etc.
I like the catapult idea.
I'd like to see a siege option as well, where you can surround a city for a few turns, and force the defenders to fight you or lose the city.
Previously, in War of Magic:
(I'm fine with end game spells like that)
I don't mind Catapults (in the stack) reducing or removing the Defense bonuses that ppl get in a city.
(its not like we actually have walls, so having Catapults remove the bonuses would work just as well I think)
I like the idea of catapults destroying random improvements and thus reducing the income and food for a city, thus increasing its unrest and causing it to shrink in size as its citizens abandon it to avoid starvation and higher taxes.
What's wrong with the AI building 5 stacks of doom (assuming it tried one unsuccessfully) and attacking with them one after another?
Or are you looking at a situation where the defender can beat up the best stack the AI can throw at them without taking damage? If so then surely the defender deserves to be unbeatable (until the AI drops a volcano on them anyway .
Catapults could do extra damage against units in a city. That would be the Warfare way to win. It seems like Fb has the magic part down. Hordes of spearmen would probably be the Civilization choice. Do we only want three?
Hordes of spearmen seems more Warfare style than Civilization, a Civilization tech'd empire should be able to lay siege to a city and slowly convert the population away from the city; reducing their total units until only the champions/leader remains to defend the city.
I know. I just had nothing for Civilization besides that. There is currently only the tech victory option in Civilization. Maybe they would use a diplomacy tech to force a peace treaty without the player's consent. The treaty would give the city over to the AI and kick the Sov out. There is no indication that we are getting any new siege mechanics so I am trying to think inside the box.
Maybe civilization would use dragon-pults and Mercenaries?
I'm thinking more of an espionage via diplomacy choice.
dp
Let's summarize
It seems magic let us create more interesting ways to create havoc
This game is about magic, give us some spells that we can use in a situation like this.
there are millions of possible ways, from plagues to weakness spells.
Just make spells with: "defenders lose 10% life per turn" units get cured if they end theyr turn outside town"
come on, there are like unlimited possibilitys, its not that hard
Dimension Shift: "15% (+5% per xy shard) chance per defending unit, to not be included in the next battle"
Hellish Reaper: "transforms the 2 weakest enemy defenders into some kind of demon which help the attacker in the next battle, lasts 3 turns or till the battle happens"
i can think about hundreds of these spells, of course they should be very expensive to cast.
Well I hope there is a option to turn off the AI surrender. I don't want the AI to surrender to me even if it is known that they will lose.
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