New type of city improvement: Defences

[Uranato]

A user on the PnW Discord suggested "static defences". It got me thinking ...

New improvement type: Defence

These are a new type of building that have limits and require energy to function (much like all other improvements). Each of these affects the fighting capability of a specific troop type (soldiers/tanks/planes/ships), if the fight occurs in the city these buildings are built in. Further, these improvements could be sabotaged through use of spies. Another change that could be added is the ability to choose which city your army attacks when making an attack action during a war (currently, if I remember correctly, it is random except for nukes). Possible types of defences could be -
1. Trenches (improve the power of your soldiers)
2. Dragon's teeth (these were used in history to stop tanks, and could decrease the power of enemy tanks) Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_teeth_(fortification)
3. Anti-air batteries (decrease power of enemy planes / increase enemy plane casualties)
4. Coastal artillery (decrease power of enemy ships / increase enemy ship casualties)
I haven't yet thought up the numbers for this, I might do so later in an edit. I think of them as not massively changing the tide of war, but still providing a noticeable effect.

Addendum: there could be a new sort of defence improvement: Safehouse - protects a set amount of resources from being stolen (basically, if you have your safe house, your, say, oil can't go below 500), works in any city, destructible by missiles/spies/normal attacks.

What it'll add to the game: Defences would bring a new dynamic to wars (hopefully) without greatly upsetting the current meta / system. Users of these defences have to make the choice of building them at the cost of other improvements (which'll reduce their economy), especially if there is a limit on how many defences you can build per day (so that one can't simply remove other improvements and build these to max right after starting a war). Attackers would have the choice to focus down a city at the cost of doing less infrastructure value damage overall, as opposed to spreading their attacks (although the damage difference might be so minimal that this isn't a major choice, plus, if I'm not wrong, very few care about infrastructure damage anyway) to maximise infra $ damage. Missiles would gain a slight buff (?) as defences would be targetable.

Addendum 2: Just a thought - defences could also tie in with Immense Triumph outcomes. Trenches work for whichever side has ground control, enemy air superiority negates your trenches etc.

Problems with defences: Personally, I feel that defences are unneeded at this point in the game. They would only work if the choice to build defences was a real choice instead of not building them or building them being objectively superior. Further, I doubt they'll add all that much to the game to justify the amount of time it'll take to add them to the game.

Edited December 26, 2021 by Uranato

[Spukey]

This is very well thought out, well done.

[Earth10]

I like this idea, hope the dev will add it

[Krameleon]

This is an interesting idea. It would add a little more nuance to war, and could make going to war a larger decision. I, however, think this would work a lot better if wars were fought by cities and not by nations. If the wars were city-by-city, you could add these improvements to a city to make a battle at that city more difficult for the attacker.

To do it that way would require some fairly large adjustments to the war system. It might work if you got to target a specific city with every attack. But then I feel like some additional changes would need to be made in order to make attacks hold more weight (especially in higher-city count wars).

I personally think I would enjoy a major rehaul of the war system, and this would be a change I'd be willing to see. However, many people are probably content with the current war system and don't want it to change. Plus, a rehaul of the war system would take a lot of time and effort that would take Alex and the rest of the dev team's attention away from other stuff that also needs worked on.

Overall interesting, but I think it's unlikely to be implemented anytime soon with the current state of the game (and, more specifically, the war system).

[Jacob Knox]

6 hours ago, Krameleon said:

This is an interesting idea. It would add a little more nuance to war, and could make going to war a larger decision. I, however, think this would work a lot better if wars were fought by cities and not by nations. If the wars were city-by-city, you could add these improvements to a city to make a battle at that city more difficult for the attacker.

To do it that way would require some fairly large adjustments to the war system. It might work if you got to target a specific city with every attack. But then I feel like some additional changes would need to be made in order to make attacks hold more weight (especially in higher-city count wars).

I personally think I would enjoy a major rehaul of the war system, and this would be a change I'd be willing to see. However, many people are probably content with the current war system and don't want it to change. Plus, a rehaul of the war system would take a lot of time and effort that would take Alex and the rest of the dev team's attention away from other stuff that also needs worked on.

Overall interesting, but I think it's unlikely to be implemented anytime soon with the current state of the game (and, more specifically, the war system).

I agree with everything you've said here. I like the idea in general, but it would require a major overhaul of the war system that would frankly just be too much for the dev team to deal with right now. Perhaps this is something they can keep on the back burner for further discussion and potential testing/implementation later on.

[Prefontaine]

On 12/26/2021 at 6:26 AM, Uranato said:

A user on the PnW Discord suggested "static defences". It got me thinking ...

New improvement type: Defence

These are a new type of building that have limits and require energy to function (much like all other improvements). Each of these affects the fighting capability of a specific troop type (soldiers/tanks/planes/ships), if the fight occurs in the city these buildings are built in. Further, these improvements could be sabotaged through use of spies. Another change that could be added is the ability to choose which city your army attacks when making an attack action during a war (currently, if I remember correctly, it is random except for nukes). Possible types of defences could be -
1. Trenches (improve the power of your soldiers)
2. Dragon's teeth (these were used in history to stop tanks, and could decrease the power of enemy tanks) Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_teeth_(fortification)
3. Anti-air batteries (decrease power of enemy planes / increase enemy plane casualties)
4. Coastal artillery (decrease power of enemy ships / increase enemy ship casualties)
I haven't yet thought up the numbers for this, I might do so later in an edit. I think of them as not massively changing the tide of war, but still providing a noticeable effect.

Addendum: there could be a new sort of defence improvement: Safehouse - protects a set amount of resources from being stolen (basically, if you have your safe house, your, say, oil can't go below 500), works in any city, destructible by missiles/spies/normal attacks.

What it'll add to the game: Defences would bring a new dynamic to wars (hopefully) without greatly upsetting the current meta / system. Users of these defences have to make the choice of building them at the cost of other improvements (which'll reduce their economy), especially if there is a limit on how many defences you can build per day (so that one can't simply remove other improvements and build these to max right after starting a war). Attackers would have the choice to focus down a city at the cost of doing less infrastructure value damage overall, as opposed to spreading their attacks (although the damage difference might be so minimal that this isn't a major choice, plus, if I'm not wrong, very few care about infrastructure damage anyway) to maximise infra $ damage. Missiles would gain a slight buff (?) as defences would be targetable.

Addendum 2: Just a thought - defences could also tie in with Immense Triumph outcomes. Trenches work for whichever side has ground control, enemy air superiority negates your trenches etc.

Problems with defences: Personally, I feel that defences are unneeded at this point in the game. They would only work if the choice to build defences was a real choice instead of not building them or building them being objectively superior. Further, I doubt they'll add all that much to the game to justify the amount of time it'll take to add them to the game.

Main problem with defensive projects/improvements is the increased benefit for whales. To take down larger nations it requires coordinating grinding down of air or ground, typically. If 3  C20-C25s want to take on a C30 or so, typically two will try and weaken one of those unit types and the third would try and gain superiority and get the edge. Giving that C30 the ability to mitigate losses makes it harder for nations below them to take them on. In addition it will typically be larger nations that can afford the extra improvement slots to use towards defense while still maintaining an economy.