A Few Thoughts about Cities and Sovereigns

from Elemental Forums

I'm starting to think that it might be better if cities were not entirely destroyed after a successful attack by monsters (or any other non-faction units). Instead, I believe it would be penalty enough if the city lost a level or two (representing the death or uprooting of it's inhabitants), lost a few buildings and maybe suffered extra unrest for a while (representing the population's discontent over not being properly defended and morale loss because of the death and carnage). These three penalties would still make a successful attack by monsters against your city an extremely bad thing; but not something you that makes you feel like you need to re-load to keep your campaign alive. A low level city (level one and maybe level two) would still be destroyed outright.

Realistically, it also makes sense that monsters may devastate a large city without completely removing any signs that it ever existed. As I said above, this would still be a major setback. Also, I think it would be good for the AI civs, who sometimes have a particularly difficult time dealing with monsters.

Conversely, as I think that monster attacks on large towns come with too severe a cost (being completely wiped-out), I sometimes think that your sovereign's death comes with too little cost. Lots of times when there's not enough boots or shields to equip all of my champions/sovereign, I find myself giving them to my champions over my sovereign -as I'm less worried about him being killed than my champions. This seems backwards. The life of the soveriegn should protected above all others. and the sovereign's loyal subjects should be willing to give their lives to save his or her's.

But, for the sake of balanced gameplay, I wouldn't suggest anything too drastic; though you should definitely feel the loss of him being beaten. I think you should lose some fame (representing the loss of an "aura of invincibility"). Champions are probably less likely to want to join a sovereign who is getting defeated. A temporary unrest penalty (maybe just 10 unrest for 10 turns) through-out your civ would also make sense, as it could represent the population questioning his ability. I'm not suggesting a penalty that would seriously set a civ back. But I don't think that the sovereign's fall in battle should be of too little consequence. Also, I don't think they (sovereigns or champions) should be able to use their bonuses to city unrest while they are re cooperating from an injury in that particular city. If anything, they should wish to hide knowledge of their injury from the people.

Thanks for reading

 

   

13,571 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm starting to think that it might be better if cities were not entirely destroyed after a successful attack by monsters (or any other non-faction units).
End of quote

Excellent idea, wish I had thought of that!!!

[Sorry, couldn't resist the sarcasm, no way you could know assuming you are new to the forums but unfortunately this, and other interesting variations of it, have been suggested dozens of times and for some reason Stardock have shown no interest in changing the mechanic. It's worth raising again though!]

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


True dat.

+1

Though, I am still bias towards the idea of having the rampaged city turn into a lair for said monster until you are able to put together some forces and go back in to reclaim your city.

(works well with wildlands expanding too...hint hint.)

;)

Also, need to be careful when it comes to destroying buildings. There are still cases where destroying the building does not destroy the building's effect. Thus you could find yourself in a temptively abusive situation. Tha....hiccup....would probably need to be addressed if building were meant to be destroyed on a regular basis.

ObjectDock - Access shortcuts and frequently used applications from an animated dock.
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


In MoM and Civ if human raiders took over a town, they would start making units and stuff there as a barbarian civilization.  I'd like for something like that to occur personally. 

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

This cannot be modded? I would use a mod that made that happened. (for the city not getting destroyed outright).

 

As for the sov penalties I think too that the lost of him is just not really something to be worried about and it should be,

 

I remember the movie 300 when everybody thought that the bad guy was a god until he got cut. Then everything changed. A god can bleed. I would like to see something like that here. The OP had it right with a global unrest increase throughout the realm. Makes sense,

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The loss of mana is not insignificant, but it seems to be a percentage, which means factions with low mana stores don't have as great a penalty. I quite like the idea of a Fame hit, as it seems logical that heroes would be less likely to join a losing sovereign. Maybe killed heroes and sovereigns could randomly lose one item they own, which would be fairly historical; defeated knights might lose their horse or their armour but not their lives.

Temporarily increased unrest is a possibility, but might be a bit too harsh. Bear in mind with all these suggestions that it's the AI that is probably going to be losing its sovereigns on a regular basis, so if you make the penalty too harsh this will make the game easier, which I don't think most people want.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

If sovereign defeat causes unrest would only hurt the AI more because they tend to suicide their sovereigns. That's my only concern.

 

Then in turn, their empires/kingdoms collapse from unrest and monsters invading the weak villages/towns and take it over then I march in and take it all for my own.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Can I mod the effects of a defeated sovereign to test it's effects? Which files should I open? Thanks in advance

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Primal, s/he's looking for a way to make the faction suffer a penalty when the faction's sovereign is defeated, not inflict a penalty on the faction that a sovereign surrenders to.

There are a couple lines in ElementalDefs.XML that apply to sovereign revival, but they only reference the mana cost. There may be a way to force add a trait to a sovereign who loses a battle which applies a faction-wide unrest penalty and which goes away after a few turns, but I don't know how the conditional events work, so someone else will have to say something about that if it's possible.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Primal_Savage, reply 11

Something along those lines? Just gotta find how to stick an injury on a sov... Note that this would be a permanent +1% unrest

 

<AbilityBonus InternalName="Injury_Obscurity">
<AbilityBonusType>Unit_Injury??? Self_Injury??? Sov_Injury??? Player_Injury???</AbilityBonusType>
<AbilityBonusOption InternalName="Obscurity">
<DisplayName>Obscurity</DisplayName>
<Description>-5 Fame, +1% Unrest</Description>
<Icon>NAMEofICON.png</Icon>

<GameModifier>
<ModType>Resource</ModType>
<Attribute>Fame</Attribute>
<Value>-5</Value>
<Provides>-5 Fame</Provides>
</GameModifier>

<GameModifier>
<ModType>Player</ModType>
<Attribute>AbilityBonus</Attribute>
<StrVal>A_Additive_Unrest</StrVal>
<Value>+1</Value>
<Provides>+1% Unrest in all cities</Provides>
</GameModifier>

</AbilityBonusOption>
</AbilityBonus>

 
End of Primal_Savage's quote

Thanks. I'm going to give it a try.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting joeball123, reply 9
Primal, s/he's looking for a way to make the faction suffer a penalty when the faction's sovereign is defeated, not inflict a penalty on the faction that a sovereign surrenders to.

There are a couple lines in ElementalDefs.XML that apply to sovereign revival, but they only reference the mana cost. There may be a way to force add a trait to a sovereign who loses a battle which applies a faction-wide unrest penalty and which goes away after a few turns, but I don't know how the conditional events work, so someone else will have to say something about that if it's possible.
End of joeball123's quote

I too would love to see the defeated AI receive a penalty trait and continue under your service instead of just being killed off. Too often I want the AI to surrender to me, but despite me utterly crushing him, no surrender. I'm forced to kill off a perfectly good sovereign.

Additionally, sometimes an AI sovereign just leaves the game and stands there for hire from the first faction that crosses paths. Could some gold/upkeep please be applied to this scenario. In addition, a penalty trait should be assigned here aswell, though not as severe as the other two because you have to hire him/her.