Capturing Cities - Question

When capturing cities... how does the game decide which improvements stay? Is there only a few type of improvements that remain after you take over? Is it a bit random? I always have to build theatres or some culture producing improvement it seems so I guess it removes all culture producing buildings other than world wonders. Can someone enlighten me on this subject? Thanks.

I know it removes all culture buildings. But I haven't sat down with a Spy, wrote down all the buildings before/after.

It might be covered in the combat thread... which I may go re-read (Strategy Forum).

Culture-producing buildings always vanish, including National Wonders, with the exception of World Wonders and Shrines--though neither produce culture after capture, IIRC. With all other buildings, it's random. It certainly seems as though older and larger cities with more buildings pre-capture will have more of their buildings survive.

I don't know if it's in the game mechanics, but the most common buildings I see survive are granaries, lighthouses, courthouses, and forges. Maybe because they're more common; the AI seems to like building them. Occasionally I'll have a bank or a market survive, but usually only in a very old city.

So you are saying that some stuff is random and some stuff is predefined.

Zebra 9 said:

So you are saying that some stuff is random and some stuff is predefined.

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Yeah, kind of like life.

Academies always survive the capture of a city. Otherwise, it's as Sisiutil said. I've made captures when as many as 10 buildings have survived and others where everything vanished: I'd guess that the average number of survivng buildings is about three.

I've most commonly observed aqueducts and granaries surving, but I think it's just random.

It would be nice to get a list of what's random and what's not.

Zebra 9 said:

It would be nice to get a list of what's random and what's not.

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Here's my attempt at it. Others can correct it as needed.

Buildings that always survive the capture of a city:

• World Wonders

Also, any of the "special buildings" built by a Great Person:

• Religious Shrines
• Scientific Academies
• Military Academies

Buildings that are always destroyed in the capture of a city:

• National Wonders

And any building that produces culture, so...

• Monuments
• Temples
• Monasteries
• Cathedrals
• Libraries
• Universities
• Theatres

Any military buildings present are also destroyed in the capture:

• Barracks
• Drydocks
• Walls
• Castles

Buildings that have a random chance of surviving capture:

Any non-military building that does NOT produce culture, so...

• Granaries
• Forges
• Lighthouses
• Courthouses
• Banks
• Grocers
• Markets

...and so on, there are just too many of these to list.

Great breakdown Sisiutil, thanks!

Zebra 9 said:

It would be nice to get a list of what's random and what's not.

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Another great question - it's been a good weekend.

All of the information that you need is contained within CIV4BuildingInfos.xml. There are two keys values defined for each building.

• bNeverCapture - cities captured will never include these buildings
• iConquestProb - this is the diceroll for survival of a building during capture

There are four different combinations of these:
bNeverCapture = 0, iConquestProb = 100

These are the World Wonders, the Shrines, and the two Academies. They survive everything.

bNeverCapture = 1, iConquestProb = 0

These buildings can not survive a cultural revolt, nor can they survive capture, but they will be present if a city is traded to you. These are your religious buildings (Temple, Monastery, Cathedral), obelisk, library, university, theatre (and their unique replacements). Note that Cathredrals might still go away if you don't have enough temples to support them.

bNeverCapture = 0, iConquestProb = 0

These are the National Wonders, airports, and your military structures (barracks, stables, walls, castles - and their unique replacements). You won't ever capture them in war, but they survive trades and cultural exchanges. In the case of the national wonders, this may be a mixed blessing. If you haven't built a wonder yet, you may capture it where you didn't want it.

Actually, you may be able to capture these under the perfect circumstances - the game appears to determine recaptures based on the culture in the city plot. Does this mean that if a city is in position to revolt in your favor, and you help it along with pointy sticks, you can keep the extra goodies? I'm not sure.

bNeverCapture = 0, iConquestProb = 66

Everything else. 2/3 survival rate. Hoo -ah.

Wow, very nice... thanks!

Thank You! This opens up some new MODing abilities

VoiceOfUnreason said:

bNeverCapture = 0, iConquestProb = 0

These are the National Wonders, airports, and your military structures (barracks, stables, walls, castles - and their unique replacements). You won't ever capture them in war, but they survive trades and cultural exchanges. In the case of the national wonders, this may be a mixed blessing. If you haven't built a wonder yet, you may capture it where you didn't want it.

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Hmmmm. Yup. It would be really sad to culture flip a city that has poor production, only to find the AI has built Heroic Epic in it.

Any idea on how the game decides which Nat. Wonder to keep if a flip gives you a second copy of one that you already have? For example, I assume the game isn't going to let you have 2 Forgotten Palaces. So if you've built one, and then culture flip a city that has another, does the game automatically destroy the one in the culture flip city? Or does it randomly choose which one gets destroyed?

gdgrimm said:

Hmmmm. Yup. It would be really sad to culture flip a city that has poor production, only to find the AI has built Heroic Epic in it.

Any idea on how the game decides which Nat. Wonder to keep if a flip gives you a second copy of one that you already have? For example, I assume the game isn't going to let you have 2 Forgotten Palaces. So if you've built one, and then culture flip a city that has another, does the game automatically destroy the one in the culture flip city? Or does it randomly choose which one gets destroyed?

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i wonder. i'd guess that the one from the culture flipped city goes bye-bye.

it is possible when cheating in worldbuilder to have more than one copy of a wonder. i found that out in a 'cheat and make it easy for myself game' where i decided to move the statue of liberty via WB to a city other than where i'd built it, for the GPP points. i went into city mode and 'moved' it to the new city, not removing it from the old one since i figured there can be only one. turns out the original was not taken away, so i had 2 free specialists per city on that continent. that was TOO much of an advantage, even for me, so i went back into WB and took out the original. it did rather surprise me tho.

gdgrimm said:

Any idea on how the game decides which Nat. Wonder to keep if a flip gives you a second copy of one that you already have?

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There's no choice involved. Essentially what's happening is that the game is building a new copy of the city that you captured, and walks through the buildings one at a time to determine if that specific building should be copied to the "new" city. If you already have already used up your limit for that particular building elsewhere in your civ, the copy for the building is skipped -- from the players point of view, this is absolutely indistinguishable from the building failing to make a saving throw.