Secondary Battle Terrain for Cities?

[Chazar]

Has it been considered to to give cities a secondary battle terrain?

I think that would be thematic and favouring offense a little more over defense. Although I initially though that rebalancing might be a nightmare, I now think that only a few changes would be needed.

Consider a city surrounded by grassland: Some slow-moving spiders can freely approach the city from quite far away (especially if there is a road), while the city's cavalry garrison cannot make a sortie to defend the city out in the field. Therefore the cavalry should receive its open terrain bonus (or maybe half of it) to defend the city.

Vice versa, consider a grassland city defended by spiders and some cavalries attacking it: the cavalries might not take the city, but they could easily lay siege to it. However, in warbarons, you need to spread out on 12 squares in order to lay siege to city, which is impossible (plus vectoring), so one could argue that the cavalries should get their open terrain bonus (or maybe half of it) to attack the city.o

A positive side-effect would be that heavy Infantry becomes a less obvious choice for defending a city. Light cavalries would still be slightly weaker for defense, but suddenly your garrison has an option for offense elsewhere, which heavy infantries would not have. Orcs become a viable alternative for attacking or defending a swamp city. Elves can defend a forest city, andso. So we would see more terrain-fitting city defenders.

Rebalancing could be simple if terrain bonus is halved for cities; or alternatively, initially some units are given a negative city bonus (e.g. -2 for light cav's in city might be sensible).

[Versace]

I think those changes are unnecessary and just complicate the game, which is a bad thing. Cavalry and other quick units can still attach first on their own turn, as they can reach approaching stach before it reaches city.

I think key to making this game successful is to keep it simple. I think the units are nicely balanced too as it is, I find myself buying all kinds of units and rarely pillaging cities.

[KGB]

Personally I like Chazars suggestion and have pushed for this same thing before since DLR had it. His suggestion of half terrain bonus in cities is probably the way to go.

I don't think having half terrain bonus in cities complicates the game at all. It already seems very strange to me when a city is located in the middle of a swamp/hills/forest that units are often far better off being outside the city rather than in it unless the City is giving +10 wall bonus. If a city is in the middle of such terrain it makes sense that it's part of the terrain (a tree based city in the forest, a water based city in swamps (like Venice) etc).

As noted there are 12 squares surrounding a city. If at least half (6) are of one type then that would be considered the terrain type for bonus purposes. If no terrain had at least half the squares then there would be no terrain bonus for that city. When you click on the city it can display any potential terrain bonus in the pop up that shows the walls, income etc so there is no confusion.

KGB

[LPhillips]

I don't like the idea in the slightest. It is unnecessarily complicated with low reward.

[ptGamer]

I think having the bonus makes the game more realistic. Players smart like KGB are likely to find ways to use that to their advantage.

I do think it may slightly raise the barriers to entry. I think the game naturally attracts folks who are more sophisticated than the average gamer. Since I have played this game earlier this year I have also noticed the number of players has not been growing much, which may or may not be related to the complexity (e.g. lots of rules) of the game.

Overall, I favor no change.

[smursh]

I prefer the system like it is. In the above case you should send your calv on a sortie to destroy the spiders. This is a part of the game. If you have to send out sorties it changes how you defend. IF your calv gets a bonus in the city no sortie is needed.

Think about this: I have a paladin+7 leadership, two heavy calv and 1 hv inf. The enemy aproaches with a stack of 5 topped with a crusader. My castle wall is +5. Do I sortie for the hv calv bonus, or wait in the castle? either descision is risky depending on what I face. The challenge is making the descision-that's the fun.

[LPhillips]

Smursh, I could not have said it better.

[Chazar]

I prefer the system like it is. In the above case you should send your calv on a sortie to destroy the spiders. This is a part of the game. If you have to send out sorties it changes how you defend. IF your calv gets a bonus in the city no sortie is needed.

Think about this: I have a paladin+7 leadership, two heavy calv and 1 hv inf. The enemy aproaches with a stack of 5 topped with a crusader. My castle wall is +5. Do I sortie for the hv calv bonus, or wait in the castle? either descision is risky depending on what I face. The challenge is making the descision-that's the fun.

Agreed, but the problem is that you do not have this fun choice to make the sortie at all: due to the turn-based nature of the game, all enemy movement is instantaneous. The enemy units just jump around the map and hence you cannot interecept them. If there is a single non-open terrain within 6 squares of the city (as there usually is), the spiders can just park there and attack directly on city terrain on their next turn.

This is precisely my point: the game takes away a fun choice option. Defending a city with anything else than heavy infantry and units benefitting from city terrain is never a good idea. It would be stupid to defend a city surrounded by swamp on all sides with orcs and sea serpent, although these units ought to be able to defend or attack such a city easily. That is what I find boring with the current game, all city defenders/attackers are the same.

I considered having a "guard option", which tells a stack to attack any enemy stack that pass within viewing distance. However, there are numerous severe problems with such an option, but the main problem is that it would favour defense. Giving the owner of a city the option to choose the battle terrain between city and the surrounding terrain (thus giving you exactly the choice depicted above) would similalry just favour defense, which is bad. I want orcs & serpents to be useful in capturing a city located in a dense swamp. So an optional secondary city terrain (set by map creator) was the next best solution that came to my mind.

[LPhillips]

My experience is quite different than yours, Chazar. I find that needing to employ the correct units to match the terrain outside of cities (instead of tailoring it to a specific terrain bonus that city has) is a tactical challenge and requires much thinking. Also, most units gain their viability from the current system. What you're lobbying for is basically a complete recreation of the game.