Avoid city demolition

[gui456wSERTDYF]

Would be nice to have some mechanism to avoid the enemy demolishing his city 5 seconds before you are to take it. For example disable demolishing option when enemy is close, or when building is under attack, or when no units are garrisoned, etc.

[alre]

or just disable auto-demolishing all together. not fun. perhaps nerf conquering instead. 

[gui456wSERTDYF]

Is there a mod that auto demolishes buildings?

[alre]

not that I know of, no.

[Philip the Swaggerless]

One of the most satisfying experiences I've had in a game is taking someone's CC, and then their superior army cames back to reclaim it, and then I deleted their whole city. xD

Of course I acknowledge this is unrealistic.

@alre Does auto demolishing mean pressing the delete key to destroy the selected building(s), or are you talking about how the AI deletes its buildings before you can claim them?

[alre]

10 hours ago, Philip the Swaggerless said:

alre Does auto demolishing mean pressing the delete key to destroy the selected building(s), or are you talking about how the AI deletes its buildings before you can claim them?

AI behaviour.

[Adeimantos]

Maybe deleting buildings should not be possible, instead you should be able to command units to dismantle them; it would take time but you get resources back. Or deleting should take time, like after you press delete the building gradually loses health over like 10 seconds, and stops if captured.

[Atrik]

7 hours ago, Adeimantos said:

you should be able to command units to dismantle

Like the sound of it. Maybe something like this would also introduce sacking buildings you've just captured: loot for buildings and a little worker time.

[alre]

1 hour ago, Atrik said:

Like the sound of it. Maybe something like this would also introduce sacking buildings you've just captured: loot for buildings and a little worker time.

attacking building is kind of that already.

[Atrik]

Yes, but could be a greater loot for dismantling buildings that would also require you to be owner in the first place.

[Ramsés]

On 2/7/2023 at 16:39, Philip the Swaggerless said:

Una de las experiencias más satisfactorias que he tenido en un juego es tomar el CC de alguien, y luego su ejército superior regresa para reclamarlo, y luego borré toda su ciudad. xD

Por supuesto que reconozco que esto no es realista.

@alre ¿La demolición automática significa presionar la tecla Eliminar para destruir los edificios seleccionados, o estás hablando de cómo la IA elimina sus edificios antes de que puedas reclamarlos?

Puede ser algo realista , es tecnicamente la tactica de tierra quemada .

[Philip the Swaggerless]

19 hours ago, Ramsés said:

Puede ser algo realista , es tecnicamente la tactica de tierra quemada .

What is unrealistic is that you can instantly delete all of the buildings with the press of a button, as if by modern explosive demolitions. You don't have to have men walk to them and set fire to them. 

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

Like all realism based changes, I'm ok with it as long as it is a well thought out mechanic for gameplay purposes. Realism isn't fun by itself.

Edited July 6, 2023 by BreakfastBurrito_007

[gui456wSERTDYF]

I am not speaking about this being unrealistic, it is a gameplay thing I don't feel is nice. You are about to take a city and suddenly it disappears in front of you.

On 05/07/2023 at 4:42 AM, Adeimantos said:

Maybe deleting buildings should not be possible, instead you should be able to command units to dismantle them; it would take time but you get resources back. Or deleting should take time, like after you press delete the building gradually loses health over like 10 seconds, and stops if captured.

These kind of mechanisms are the ones I would be in favor of. Either a timer, the need of own units dismantling the building (kind of the opposite process of building the building, and recovering some resources), own units setting it on fire (if you don't want resources back; it would take some time as well, but shorter), or something on this line. But not just shift+supr and suddenly the whole city disappearing.

I think this would make the game a bit more interesting.

[alre]

maybe just having the AI not doing it would be a good start, and something that makes the game more enjoyable. what does the SP crowd here have to say?

[Gurken Khan]

1 hour ago, alre said:

what does the SP crowd here have to say?

I feel cheated and hate it when the AI deletes a CC I'm about to capture. I briefly swear and move on, or I swear, quickly build a new CC and then move on.

[ChronA]

Deleting units and buildings is another Age-of-Empires-ism of dubious transferability to a game that is supposed to be focused on historical realism.

If people are thinking about changing it maybe the simplest solution would be if instead of instantly killing them, the delete command converted the actor to the Gaia team. Then the previous owner could go about killing or destroying and looting the target using the existing systems. The amount of new code required would be very minimal I suspect.

[gui456wSERTDYF]

5 hours ago, ChronA said:

the delete command converted the actor to the Gaia team

This is a good solution indeed. In some cases, however, it is nice to still have some kind of demolition option to get rid of older buildings for example.

[krt0143]

I often delete my own buildings, usually for redundancy/space reasons, or because I have somehow blocked myself. That been said, you shouldn't be able to instantly delete buildings you're about to lose: Explosives weren't invented at that time...

I would vote for the "demolition" process, i.e. reverse building: It takes workers and about 50% of the time to dismantle a building, and you get about 75% of the resources back. This way you still can get rig of unwanted buildings, but you can't sabotage them if the enemy is about to take them.

[Joe-Lay]

On 07/07/2023 at 4:26 PM, gui456wSERTDYF said:

 In some cases, however, it is nice to still have some kind of demolition option to get rid of older buildings for example.

You could order your troops to destroy it by ctrl+R.clicking on the building like you would an enemy's. It might be nice to quicken the process though. After all, your men would have complete access to your building unlike access to another player's. Thus, soldiers would demolish your buildings quickly, even if enemy buildings took longer.

[wackyserious]

Disabling the delete function when there are enemies in a certain radius/distance is a good suggestion, I like that too, I think Stronghold had that feature.

Scorched-Earth strategies were done before hostile forces enter the area to deprive them of the resources in the area, not the other way around when a hostile force have already conquered the place.

[RabuDabu]

It would be nice if instead of completely destroying buildings, you could dismantle them which would allow you to recover individual raw materials, that's what I miss. The idea of plundering buildings is also interesting, as disappearing entire cities is hardly the way to go, and it's becoming a bit monotonous. 

[Ramsés]

El 07/07/2023 a las 16:26, gui456wSERTDYF dijo:

Esta es una buena solución. En algunos casos, sin embargo, es bueno tener algún tipo de opción de demolición para deshacerse de edificios más antiguos, por ejemplo.

The idea of dismantling buildings would be fantastic, and very realistic, eliminating units is not as strange, it would be like executing them or something like that. Although expelling them and returning them from Gaia is not bad, when that happens, if there are many of them, factions such as bandits or rebels could appear.