It's incredibly annoying when roaming monsters destroy your cities, which you've spent lots of time on. It just seems so cheap and random, sometimes you get these massive monster stacks that randomly move onto your city and then all your work goes down the drain + you can't even found another city on that tile anymore. It's massively frustrating.
Why don't monster attacks just reduce the population of the city? It would be much more fun that way (IMO). I hate it when there are a few Strong/Deadly stacks of monsters in my territory early/mid game, and there's no way for me to take them. It pretty much forces me to go Beastlord to save the frustration, as only then can I build up Strong/Deadly armies early game (if I'm lucky with the beast spawns).
Well if that's the problem then the city could just be 'on fire' for 5 turns if you don't cap it back by then. Poof it's gone.
Maybe throw in an encounter based on the monster than captured it, just not to make it too easy. That way it still punishes you for building next to mobs you can't defeat yet.
@ OP
Yes, this would definitly make the game much better!
There is a key difference here. I am quite happy to defend my cities from the AI. What about defending cities against roaming monsters though, some of which are mid to late game groups that are too powerful to fight, monsters which were quite likely unleashed by the AI disturbing them, monsters which then ignored the AI and attacked my city instead?
Conversely how about roaming weaker monsters like bears? I've been attacked by more bear level monsters than I have by the AI and because they can be disturbed and wander around for a while before choosing to attack a city it can be hard to defend against all of these bands. When that bear then levels your size 2 or 3 city it hurts. It's just a bear for Pete's sake, not Godzilla!
Let's not accuse people not playing Ironman to be cheaters. They perhaps do that because until now the devs don't acknowledge the problem. Latest answer I know about is Brad one, about the fact that it would take too much time coding this 5 turns delay before razing and they have others things to do which is more important (like high quality shadows for sprites).
Ideally the Monsters should target roaming units first.
But I have before agreed that really only things like dragons and larger should destroy city's, mainly because it's hard for bears to burn city's down.
Is the issue really THIS serious? I agree on the salted tile, but usually I clean up the lairs first. If you afterwards do not protect your city...sorry! Sometimes it also works to "claim" the land first with an outpost (rarely attacked by monsters) and settle later. I have to admit though that a "some-monsters-have-infested-your-city-and-grow-there-until-you-do-something-about-it"-event sounds pretty cool...I just wonder if the AI will be able to handle it: First, what happens if the AI takes one of "your" cities that is currently "infested" and second, what if one of the (poorly protected) AI cities falls into the hands of monsters? Will it storm against the monsters completely neglecting other players? If the AI is unsuccessful, it will possibly level the "monsters" within the city making it even more impossible for anyone to take it back...
Why not have a simpler solution, where the monsters raze the city, but leave the tile unspoiled? At least if it is a low level city. If it is high level, you might deserve the salted tile, because you lost the city in the first place...
Yes please.
I think this is mostly an early game issue when you haven't built up many troops, and the troops you do have aren't strong enough to withstand an attack from a strong (or better) monster.
It's just not practical to have your sovereign and heros hang out in a city just in case a monster strolls by.
Then keep a better watch?
First If the AI takes one of the currently "infested" city then it is the AI's city plain and simple. I look at it as a rather large monster lair.
Second if the AI cities fall into the hands of the monsters, well then the AI will have to make appropriate choices whether to take the city back or do other things of course. First it would have to determine if the city is worth taking back. If it deems in worth the effort, it would then have to decide how many troops it would bring to try to take the city back (similar to a player battle). The AI is not so silly as to keep trying to take a city even in the odds are astronomically against it and so the city will never get to the impossible to take it back stage.
If we are wishing for features and would like to see some features implemented I say that this is one I would like to see... although I'm a realist and know that this would take a lot to program into the game, and so unless they are truly going to suprise us, I wouldn't expect to see this event based take over (but there is still hoping).
The salted earth situation is something that needs to be fixed in this context, but maybe there is a spell that would do it for us.
Yes I find the issue serious, and please before say sorry to people who don't defend their cities, give us your starting factions, perks and difficulties. Because how can I defend a city when it's attacked by a monster stronger than my sov army???? When I play summoner & rush the summons, I can get a decent strong army, but what can i do if i'm attacked in 2 directions and have only 1 army that can counter them? What can i do when an event pop some monsters stronger that my armies near my cities? What can I do when the AI wake up some deadly/epic monsters that choose to wander around my cities???
At best it feel totaly random, at worse it force you to use 1-2 playstyle to progress, really not good for an empire building game. I don't want loose many turns of progess to some unfair randomness where I don't have any control. I don't want be forced to reload and pray random god. Loosing a whole city like that is too much, and should an option for people who like more hardcore difficulty.
I really prefer civ4 over civ5, but the last civ added some nice features like cities HP & siege that could be used by FH :
Each city have some HP, each time AI, Monsters & Player attack a city and win, Hp dropping depending of army strengh. At each battle Militia is at full power. That would make capturing city take more that 1 turn, and that would allow militia to win over some weaker mobs like bears or keep fighting until your army come help.
City hp come back slowy each season. Each time a city is damager, some food/buildings could be destroyed.
Any system that add an incremental damage would be more interesting than a binary Keep your city/loose it on some random events.
Part of the problem is the inconsistency of the monster behaviour.
If it was the case if whenever a city was built within 5 squares of a monster, the monster would attack the city (AI players cities too), then one would know to always defend the city, or to not build it in the first place.
But the truth is, 95% of the time, cities can be left safely undefended. Often monsters move 1 square a turn, and there is plenty of warning to go deal with them before they are a problem.
When disciplining children, the punishment should be consistent, and proportional to the disobedience.
Monsters getting to burn cities is a sort of random punishment that kids would never learn from - it does not happen consistently, and does not feel like it is associated with the crime (of leaving a city undefended, or of building too close to a lair).
Very, Very, true... It just like a lot of the tourists at yellowstone standing within 10 feet of a buffalo... 95% of the time, nothing is going to happen, but that last 5% people get hurt from the buffalo. I guess it is the unpredictable nature of animals / monsters.
I don't have problems with them taking or destroying my cities, I just want it to be a spectacular event of it because this game has the potential to utilize and enhance the gameplay here.
@Borg999 and Takkik:
I did not want to offend anyone. Just as some people mentioned before I rarely had the problem. But this might depend on playing-style and faction as you correctly pointed out... I also have not played many games above "challenging" for AI, but I did play a couple on "insane" for monsters and only then did I occasionally have the problem of take-over (usually they will either kill my only city and I have to start a new game or I will have a strong enough army to protect 2-3 cities). But I also almost exclusively play on large maps, so I guess I never had the AI "waking" some monsters in my neighbourhood...I totally agree that "praying for the Random God" is not very desirable...
@parrottmath
Thank you for the explanation. I was more or less wondering if the AI could handle the "special" status of a city that was "infested" because of the fact that some proposals here sounded rather...well..."special". I guess it all comes down to smart programming...I was not to deny the AI some common sense in evaluating its situation.
One of the interesting features of the 'AI' in Master of Magic, was that on higher difficulty levels, garrison duty in your capital was a reasonably combat intensive experience. Every few turns, something would be attacking your capital, be it wandering monsters spawned from lairs or nodes, or enemy armies which have been making a beeline for your capital from half way across the map.
Yes, your city could get destroyed, but there was rewards of frequent combat experience for the garrison.
+1 OP
Agreed with ben_sphynx...the monsters should capture the city, and turn it into a 'monster' lair, ala The Hobbit when Smog takes over the Dwarf cities...it can even be an epic quest to recapture lost cities, and the people who recapture the cities might gain spoils depending on the value of the city that was taken.
Those of you who like tough monsters don't understand that having monsters not completely destroy cities would allow us to have much tougher monsters, especially close to your start. There used to be rather tough monsters near your capital sometimes but over time they got neutered to their current state because having the AI set them loose to destroy you capital was game over. Playing on maps with lots of players means you don't see many truly tough monsters anymore. Having a tough monster attack and but only harm cities though would be allow you to recover and plot revenge, and allow you to help other players and build alliances. It would also be very dramatic.
^ I like this.
Dragons and such should wipe out a city completely. That does make sense. But other things.. No. Unless like Jonathan said, is an elemental lord or some titanic monster from the depths. Cool, whatever, makes sense. Having a horde of Ogre's, etc. which wandered into your realm due to the NPC planting an outpost on its lair, when its 10x more powerful than you can possibly fight yet, comes and destroys multiple cities.. Its pretty ridiculous.
This is further enhanced by the fact the tiles can no longer be settled. If even this was implimented, it wouldn't be to bad.
nothing shoud be razed instantly, it plain stupid, for the god sake, why someone can raze town builded over ages in single turn?
This is a good suggestion for making the whole city razing mechanic more interesting.
As for cheating. Until the game mechanics are properly balanced and the bugs are sorted out I don't feel bad about save-scumming. There is way too much random stuff going on at the moment.
A 4x can be competitive, but at the moment the events and environments are a little too random. It is a bit like GalCiv. The game is excellent, but the difficulty often comes from extremely imbalanced starting positions. This is not necessarily all bad, but it does mean that some games will just kick you when you are down.
What you an others don't seem to realize every game isn't going to be optimum in favor of YOU. Guess what? Yer going to LOSE some games to monsters, roaming monsters and the AI. Just get used to that fact and you'll have loads of fun playing this game because it will finally be like a box of chocolates. You never know when you're going to WIN. heh. ;{P
Because they can! :{P
I really like the idea of monsters hindering the city, rather than completely destory it. But as someone else mentioned, it may encourage over-expanding. How about when a monster attacks a city and wins, the city's level is reduced by one, and if that results in a city level reaching, it is destoryed. That gives early cities and high level cities some protection (especially if they are "protected" for several turns from repeat attacks by that same monster), while still making over-expanding a bad decision.
As opposed to now? I wasn't aware that was possible.
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