Raising, Raiding, and Occupation

from Elemental Forums

In many strategy games, wars are either of obliteration or subjugation.  I'm wondering if, in Elemental, this might be handled differently.  Rather than obliteration or subjugation being the easiest route in war, perhaps raiding and slaving would be the most cost effective, short term strategy.

This could be done fairly easily.  In most strategy games, when you conquer a city you are given a spur of the moment decision.  If you decide to occupy a city, your soldiers immediately move in and start oppressing.  If you decide to raise the city then--- poof--- the city disappears in a plume of smoke.  I'm wondering if, instead though, the only benefit you can get immediately from successfully invading a rival city would be when you only intend to raid and enslave.  Once the city defenses are down, the city's denizens flee the sight and you grab whatever valuables you can find, nab some women and children for slaves (your civilization ethics permitting), light a few fires, and head for the hills.  After the fires die down, the majority of the city's denizens return and rebuild. 

If you want to raise the city, on the other hand, you have to stick around for awhile based on the manpower you have available, burn every last building, salt the fields, collapse the mines, hunt the citizens down in the country side, and beat the foundation of the city into dust.  Naturally, this takes a lot of time and effort.  If you decide the raze the city, you might even get fewer slaves and gold than if you had simply raided it (in the chaos of razing a city, piles of undivided loot tend to "disappear" and slaves escape.) 

Subjugating a city would be even trickier.  So the net effect of what I'd like to see is that pettier wealth related wars, rather than empire building wars, would be much more common.  Also, relationships with a given civilization wouldnt' decline simply from declaring war, but what you do during that war.  If you raid one city and go home, your relationship doesn't take too heavy of a hit.  Raid that same city 5 times in 50 years, though, and you can expect that nation to revile you. 

Some kingdoms might even gain great wealth, power, and prestige without ever even subjugating an enemy city.  Granted, raid an excessive number of smaller kingdoms and you can expect they'll be fielding a grand alliance against you.   

elemental
7,461 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I like it. I call "dibbs" on the female slaves. Maybe I can finally start that harem I've always wanted. }:)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I like it. I call "dibbs" on the female slaves. Maybe I can finally start that harem I've always wanted.
End of quote

:rolleyes:  and this guys married.. Raven you talk about women all the time, I only have a girlfriend but if she found out i talked about harems... :omg:  Lets just say that's why i hide this forum (and that way she doesn't know im a nerd either)  ^_^  

 

But, on topic, I think its a great idea, especially since cities will be taking up multiple tiles it'll be easier to pull off i'd imagine. Especially if cities get revamped to follow the ideas that have been circulating of even more spread out cities, we'll just have to wait and see i guess!

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting RisingLegend, reply 2

and this guys married.. Raven you talk about women all the time, I only have a girlfriend but if she found out i talked about harems...  Lets just say that's why i hide this forum (and that way she doesn't know im a nerd either)    
End of RisingLegend's quote

My wife is perfectly fine with me having a harem so long as she remains the number one wife :P. In fact, for hundreds, if not thousands of years, most men had more then one wife to appease them. When Christianity and Catholicism became main stream they started promoting monogamy. I don't know, but I think they need to go back and read the bible. It's full of guys who had Multiple Wives and God didn't frown on them for it. I'm not really religious or anything, I just thought I'd point that out.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't date, so I really have nothing to say on the wives/harems/general jocularity topic.

However, I agree that raids as opposed to out-and-out conquest is a great way to keep the military side of the geame from becoming the only victory option (or absolute best one under all circumstances).

And it's razing, not raising. Or maybe you do want to raise cities when you capture them........ that way you get to keep the loot, but all the citizens who fled can't climb back up there to cause trouble.........

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Raven, reply 3



Quoting RisingLegend,
reply 2

and this guys married.. Raven you talk about women all the time, I only have a girlfriend but if she found out i talked about harems...  Lets just say that's why i hide this forum (and that way she doesn't know im a nerd either)    



My wife is perfectly fine with me having a harem so long as she remains the number one wife . In fact, for hundreds, if not thousands of years, most men had more then one wife to appease them. When Christianity and Catholicism became main stream they started promoting monogamy. I don't know, but I think they need to go back and read the bible. It's full of guys who had Multiple Wives and God didn't frown on them for it. I'm not really religious or anything, I just thought I'd point that out.
End of Raven's quote

Lol, to add the the non-sequiter, I don't think anything is wrong with polygamy per se, but it makes for poor civil stability in civilizations that have roughly equal casualties amongst men and women.  Whenever you have a surplus of men or women, even a little bit, you end up with more crime and general discontent.  Sure, in Biblical times men dropped like flies from rampant warfare (just read Deuteronomy) so naturally you had a surplus of women.  In a society where you have polygamy or polyandry, and you end up with a whole lot of people without mate options.  If you have a society skewed toward polygamy, you end up with 8 year old girls marrying 69 year old men.  Not a good situation.     

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Ah... Right now is Human versus human but what happens when the Fallen are available?

I agree that your actions during a war should have influence in your relations with the other powers, specially the ones suffering them. If I allow enemy cities to surrender before the battle and avoid any razing and slaughters, surely the enemy shouldn't hate me so much. He doesn't have to like me but he won't have so many bad reasons to hate me (appart from the lost cities, gold, resources...). Except if they are Fallen. Maybe if you go sparing people, they think of you as a weakling that doesn't deserve to live. While if you show strenght and that you can be ruthless, you will earn some respect (they hate you the same tough).

I wonder if anytime you attack a city, it really must be a "conquer or be defeated" thing. Why if I only want to kidnap some people I need to conquer the whole city first? Once conquered I might as well keep it for me. If my amazons want to raid a hamlet to "liberate" some women, it'd be nice if they could attack with that kind of mission in mind and be able to retire from battle after some turns (in which supposedly they pilla... er.. liberated some women that will join their population). Or maybe attacks whose sole purpose is to destroy some types of buildings...

And what happens with the original population of a conquered city? Specially if it's population of a different race. :S Still want to know the answer for that (mentioned by me in an old thread long long ago, when the forum was young XD)

Anyways, I agree with the OP.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I see it this way: you can attack the city (i.e., the castle), or the zones (everything, but the castle).

When you attack the castle & win, you have a few options:

  • Raze the city
    Destroy the city completely. The castle is destroyed, whole population was either exterminated or ran away, and the only things that are left, are a few zones (game will randomly destroy a few zones). If the attackers want, they can destroy what's left, or venture forth. Assuming that there are some zones still left, Sovereign can rebuild a city in the old one's place. This way he won't have to rebuild some of the zones.
  • Occupy the city
    The standard way. You simply gain control of the city. In the first 30 turns (or so) there should be severe penalties to income, population growth, etc.
  • Pillage the city
    You left the city untouched, but in return you steal X gold. X = number_of_turns*daily_income (income, not balance). Let's assume that number_of_turns = 20 and daily_income = 40. This way pillagers get 800 gold, and the income of a city is decreased by 40. Normally it means that the city won't provide any gold for 20 turns, but it may also happen that (in case of reduced/increased daily income) it will suffer losses/gain some income.

If you attack the zone you won't have to fight armies sitting in the castle, but you should also be aware that they can move out to intercept. When you are at the zone, for every turn you will spend on it, you will gain a percentage of the income of the particular city. The bigger the city, the more zones you can occupy, but the overall percentage gain will stay the same. Let's say that you can gain at best 50% of an income of a city, providing you occupy all the constructed zones.

P.S. I don't think my gf would accept anything close to a harem (she would probably make a counter-proposal of 'male-only' harem, waiting for my objection) ;). That was my part in the OT :).

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I'd like to also be able to siege a city and starve out the population.

Well there is a problem with the concept of pillaging a city without first defeating the city's defenders. Realistically, raiders would be slowed down by the slaves and gold they were trying to make off with. This meant that the city's defenders could easily catch up with the raiders to do battle. In other words, it is not feasible for you to be able to pillage and sack a city without first defeating the city defenders.  Even if possible, the amount of 'loot' you could make off with would be dependent on the number of raider-like troops. One cannot expect a footman carrying pike and heavy armour to successfully 'make off' with women now can we?

In a normal case, i would expect the city's defenders would have to be defeated, slaves rounded up and chained, and then the army will begin a slow march back to the home city. Half the slaves would probably die from the march back.

 

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting moondoggiee, reply 8
I'd like to also be able to siege a city and starve out the population.

Well there is a problem with the concept of pillaging a city without first defeating the city's defenders. Realistically, raiders would be slowed down by the slaves and gold they were trying to make off with. This meant that the city's defenders could easily catch up with the raiders to do battle. In other words, it is not feasible for you to be able to pillage and sack a city without first defeating the city defenders.  Even if possible, the amount of 'loot' you could make off with would be dependent on the number of raider-like troops. One cannot expect a footman carrying pike and heavy armour to successfully 'make off' with women now can we?

In a normal case, i would expect the city's defenders would have to be defeated, slaves rounded up and chained, and then the army will begin a slow march back to the home city. Half the slaves would probably die from the march back.

 
End of moondoggiee's quote

Well, with my idea, you had to beat the garrison regardless of what you wanted to do.  If you wanted to raze the city or subjugate it, naturally, you had to stick around for awhile.