Trading for Capitals

As background, I've stepped up to Immortal difficulty and am playing an Archipelago map as England.

Things are going reasonably well, but I lost control of the diplomacy early. So not only has Arts funding been passed, I've been at war almost constantly after spawning between the Aztecs and the Huns. My navy is now quite strong...

I decided to pursue a Domination Victory almost by default.

I only lack two capitals now. Beijing, which will be tricky as China and I are at tech parity, but she has nukes and I don't. (We're about half-way through the Atomic era.)

My actual question is about the other capital I don't have. Assur is currently held by The Huns and the Assyrians have been eliminated. Will Attilla ever trade Assur? Or do I have to take it by force? I have enough logistics battleships and strong bombers to take one strong capital in a single turn, but not two. And definitely not two so far apart.

TLDR: Will AI ever trade a taken foreign capital? (Not their own, one they took from a third civ.)

Thanks!

RatesAnalyst said:

As background, I've stepped up to Immortal difficulty and am playing an Archipelago map as England.

Things are going reasonably well, but I lost control of the diplomacy early. So not only has Arts funding been passed, I've been at war almost constantly after spawning between the Aztecs and the Huns. My navy is now quite strong...

I decided to pursue a Domination Victory almost by default.

I only lack two capitals now. Beijing, which will be tricky as China and I are at tech parity, but she has nukes and I don't. (We're about half-way through the Atomic era.)

My actual question is about the other capital I don't have. Assur is currently held by The Huns and the Assyrians have been eliminated. Will Attilla ever trade Assur? Or do I have to take it by force? I have enough logistics battleships and strong bombers to take one strong capital in a single turn, but not two. And definitely not two so far apart.

TLDR: Will AI ever trade a taken foreign capital? (Not their own, one they took from a third civ.)

Thanks!

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Yes, Attilla or any other Civ will trade another Civs capital, it really is just another city in the pecking order,...

In other words, he wants to hold onto the city that is of most value to him in terms of growth, culture, resources, etc.....

If Assur has just been conquered, and is a low population compared to the rest of his cities,...then there is a pretty good chance that would be the one he would offer you in a peace deal (if you a powerful enough). If it isn't then the one he is offering is lower on the totem pole. (And, obviously if you need to eliminate the lower cities to get Assur lowest on the list)

Of Course, if you a REALLY powerful OR offer him something he wants MORE in return, then it is (Of Course!) possible to grab one of his higher ranked cities, and sometimes he will even offer you multiple cities depending on the situation.

EDIT: Newest version of BNW, you do need ALL capitals in your possession,...Sorry

Also, for a Domination Victory, you don't need Assur!
According to Civilopedia, a Domination Victory is...

"If you are the last player in possession of your original capital you win."

Actually I think this qualifies as "Quick Question and Answer", that would probably be a better place to post a question like this in the future. But, no biggie!

^^^That is true for Vanilla—but things have changed in BNW:

http://www.carlsguides.com/strategy/civilization5/dominationvictory.php

In BNW, to win a domination victory you have to control all the original capitals.

It’s no longer being the last one controlling your original capital.

I’ve neve seen an AI trade a captured capital. I would think it would ruin their attempt for domination.

docbud said:

^^^That is true for Vanilla—but things have changed in BNW:

http://www.carlsguides.com/strategy/civilization5/dominationvictory.php

In BNW, to win a domination victory you have to control all the original capitals.

Click to expand...

I actually haven't encountered this recently,...
And it is probably true, BUT I took the quote directly from 1.0.3.279 Civilopedia,..so that is something they screwed up (didn't update Civilopedia),...I'll test it next time I get a chance

^^^There is no "probably" about it. And yeah--it seems Civilopedia wasn't updated. Good luck with your games

Close and careful examination of the in-game Civilopedia demonstrates it is littered with information that is erroneous for G&k or BNW or both. Insufficient attention was paid by Firaxis to updating 'generic' information in the civilopedia when they released the expansions.

Specific Unit information, Building information, Policy information, for example, seems to always be correct, but the generic game concepts and similar generic information is laced with non-updated erroneous carry-over text.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll make a few more overtures to Attila more as a test than anything. I don't expect him to acquiesce.

I asked here because I wasn't sure if his reluctance was because it just never happens or if the reluctance was because I had already taken Attila's Court....

If it's the last capital you need, just trade everything you got for it, it won't matter since you will be winning at the end of the deal. I once got an AI to give me the last capital I needed in a peace deal. I gave him all a couple of my core cities (my initial expos) for it.

claudiupb said:

If it's the last capital you need, just trade everything you got for it, it won't matter since you will be winning at the end of the deal. I once got an AI to give me the last capital I needed in a peace deal. I gave him all a couple of my core cities (my initial expos) for it.

Click to expand...

This is a nice trick but hard to get it to work since most of the time the remaining AI hates me so much that no deals can be made and especially since I already controlled his capital. AI can only trade capital if it's not his original capital and one he conquered. It usually only works when he's losing so bad that he's left with very small number of cities.

I have gotten (former) caps as part of a peace deal.

I have had no luck at all trading for cities. I think it is broken, probably by the developers in an effort to close any exploit.

One recent example, with the Indonesian DCL, Spain would not trade me Madrid for Denpasar. It was a good offer on my part. I was ready to give up war mongering, but I wanted my city back mostly just for RP, and I was willing to give up Madrid for it. Spain would have no part of the deal. Yes, relations were bad, but any human player would have taken me up on it. I eventually took it back by force.