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Feature #876066
open
Action "Destroy City" or scorched earth, ideas to make it viable and not OP
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Description
action = "Destroy City"
This action was introduced in a precursor form in sandbox, it's a great idea and it looks like it wanted to be evolved a little more later. The comments quoted below rightly respect it can be too OP:
;DESTROY CITY
; The GameLoss unit requirement makes sending units on a suicide mission to
; capture and destroy cities deep inside enemy terrain national suicide.
; The risk of moving a GameLoss unit to the target city increases the cost
; of the action. Rationalization for the requirement: the physical presence
; of the Leader makes it easier to comply with the order to destroy the
; city. (See the "orders by phone" Milgram experiment variation)
A few observations:
1. Most games are played without a Leader unit.
2. However, it was very correct to respect this can be too OP and needs strict controls.
3. Strictness is also needed because it can degrade games from "sore loser effect": the angry loser razes his own cities before quitting.
4. Finding ways to nerf and regulate this in standard games without Leader units isn't just a rare luxury, it solves some balance issues. Often you can take a city that ends up being a liability (theft, etc.), and it's IMPOSSIBLE to starve it (e.g. it's on a grass tile.)
A few questions
1. Am I correct that in 3.1 we will now have complete control over move fragments needed to perform an action? This can be one of several nerfing restrictions to balance and to allow this action.
2. In standard rulesets, extra reqs could make it viable
- Special flag allowing razing, could be tied to unique unit or special types
- Gov reqs for razing
- MinForeignPct and numerous other flags and reqs can be used to regulate this well.
- the Destroy City function on the server could look up a value in an effect, server setting, value inside the unit, etc. (scorched_earth_rate or something.) inside the unit is best, even if it just borrowed the bombard_rate setting from a unit or something like this: Instead of complete and instant destruction, it would reduce val% of population or -val size per turn the action is performed.
Updated by Sveinung Kvilhaugsvik about 3 years ago
Ideas from the initial patch:
In gna patch #6248 - https://web.archive.org/web/20170307134127/http://gna.org/patch/?6248 - Sveinung Kvilhaugsvik wrote:
No way to defend against this action as long as it is enabled currently
exists. A follow up patch could make it probabilistic by allowing the
Action_Odds_Pct effect to reduce its initial odds of 100%.The population of the target city has no chance of escaping as
refugee units or by using the migration system. A ruleset setting to give
them some means of escape and some chance of making use of it could also be
added in a follow up patch.
Lexxie L wrote:
1. Am I correct that in 3.1 we will now have complete control over move fragments needed to perform an action? This can be one of several nerfing restrictions to balance and to allow this action.
You can require a certain amount of move fragments to make an action legal. You can deduct a certain amount of move fragments from the actor unit (and, when this applies, the target unit) once the action is completed. Some actions will still deduct a given amount of move fragments on their own. Some of the still hard coded move fragment costs should be moved to the ruleset.
2. In standard rulesets, extra reqs could make it viable
You could also require that the city is foreign and make it an alternative to "Conquer City". I think Civ 3 did this.
Instead of complete and instant destruction, it would reduce val% of population or -val size per turn the action is performed.
My (long term) plan is to make it ruleset configurable if an action is instantaneous or an activity. If there is demand I could try to hurry up this support for "Destroy City" and for "Found City" (Feature #873682).
Updated by Lexxie L almost 3 years ago
I'm guessing it will need or depend on lots of 3.1 stuff. If so that would mean there is no hurry, but it would be in desired for us to see it in an eventual 3.1.
.