How does 'restart' work?

Here's a question that has been bothering me for a while:

I kill an AI civ early on, they get restarted. Now how does this work and is it advantageous to kill them and make them restart or is it better to leave them alive with 1 city?

As for the advantages of killing:

- the Civ looses all imporvements in the last city
- the civ gets a new Palace that is younger and will thus loose some culture points
- you (usually) get a city

the disadvantages:

- you never know where they will pop up again
- you'll still be at war, and it might be a long time before you can contact them and get peace - sometimes long after you want to change to Republic
- you have troops near their last city usually, but you won't have any close to the new starting position
- it is unknown what happenes to the tech level of the civ: do they get freebies? is all research that hasn't been completed lost?


Until now, I'd usually kill them, judging the disadvantage minor, being glad about the additional city.

Now, a game has taught me that restarting makews the civ stronger than before!!!!!! I always assumed they'd restart the same as at the beginning of the game, that is they'd get the normal number of units + 1 defender. On Regent, that would be 1 settler, 1 Worker, (1 Scout) + usually 1 spearman. Now I found that they get a free second settler, a free second spearman, and possibly a free Archer, too!!!!!


Anyone any experience? This means it is probably smarter to contain them in their last city, so what do you do?????


Here's the saves to proove the number of units they get:
savegames

3.sav hit return, use Warrior to attack. Then move all Warriors northwards. You'll get contact as in 4.sav.

Another thing: they do not loose units they have running around, as they normally would when killed, thus it is not a restart, but rather a continuation

Turn the restarting feature off in the game options.

With culture included in the equation, restarting the AI players unbalances the game.

If the civ that respawned after one civ is killed off was a different civ it would be a different thing. As it is, if you leave the restarting feature on and kill a civ early (ie. when they only have a couple of spearmen) then the respawn gives them a new city plus 4 additional military units and an extra settler and worker. You basically double or triple their strength by killing them, plus they get to retain all their culture.

If you are concerned that killing them early without allowing restarting might create a gap in play, then either up the barbarian level or increase the number of opponents to start with.

cracker: I always thought they restarted small, but your reasoni8ng is exactly why I now always let them build a second city, then take their capital (that by now has grown culturally and survives). Rinse and repeat.....

I would add that you can use the GOTM8 as a good example of what a difference playing with the restart enabled would have.

(I tried hard not to make this a spoiler, so if you have not played GOTM8 this post may sound like mumbo jumbo)

In GOTM8 a number of civs were encountered and killed fairly early, but because of the terrain features of the map there was generally lots of open and unsettled territory until late in the game. Imagine killing the unnamed female opponent once, and then having to kill her a second time on a peninsula, and then having to kill her a third time on an offshore island.

Also the games that have an AI player killed on a faroff continent by other AI players would basically beam that civ over to another continent like some sort of Flying Monkey invasion force.

I have played a number of these games and it is clearly just not a well thoughout thing to include in the default rules for the game.

How come you didn't mention that they get 100 gold when they respawn? Anyway, they will almost always give you the 100 gold for peace at that point. It depends on the game if I take them out or not. Sometimes they occupy space I want, other times they are on a fringe that I don't care about so I let them live to 10AD.

CB

Cartouche Bee: thanx! Forgot about the Gold!

cracker: restart off now in my games!

That 100 gold can frequently be turned into a tech or two so I weigh that into equation also. I leave the respawn on cause it leaves more options available to me and I can control the outcome pretty easy. I know that if you want an early conquest it can spoil the chase but that would be a spot where turning it off would be helpful.

CB

The details on respawning AI civs:

- AI civs can only be respawned once.
- For an AI civ to respawn, there must be an unclaimed, unoccupied tile on the same continent as the one where it was eliminated (by killing it's last settler or last city) and no other civs can have territory or units within a 5-tile radius of this tile. The tile must also allow cities to be built upon it (i.e., no mountains/water using default rules).

The respawned civ loses the following:
- All embassies/spies
- All units
- All colonies

The respawned civ gets the following:
- 1 city
- 3 defensive units
- 1 offensive unit
- 1 settler/start unit 1
- 1 worker/start unit 2
- All bonus starting units based on difficulty level
- Their gold is increased by starting_gold X 10 (i.e., 100 gold using default rules).

Everything else (culture, at war, techs, etc.) remains unchanged.

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
- you'll still be at war, and it might be a long time before you can contact them and get peace - sometimes long after you want to change to Republic

Click to expand...

I don't get this part. You still retain contact with the civ even when you destroy them and they respawn. So you could still end the war any time that they'll recognize your envoy.

For the record, I have played several games with restart enable on purpose. These were sort of fun in a surrealistic sort of way because you end up killing and chasing, then chasing and killing, the killing and chasing some more.

In one game, I killed Abe twice, Tokogawa 5 times, and relegated Ghandi to the status of permanent boat person.

I loved it when Ghandi would pop up and offer to trade me his territory map for my territory map. I said yes one time just to see what his territory map would be, but it didn't appear to do anything short of make the Mahatma go away for a few turns.

You play with a totally different strategy in these games because there is almost no cure to potential culture flipping since the culture for the victims keeps geeting drug around the map with them as if they were some sort of "bag-lady" civilization. The respawning can also "beam" the caravan of displaced units to the most disruptive locations that could never have been reached by man or beast under normal game play rules.

I would kill them, as they always give you the worker, all their cash, and any techs that you need, if they talk to you the first turn. Since they only respawn one time, it's not that bad to track them down again and get rid of them for good (you were strong enough/good enough to get them the first time, right?).

Man! AND a 100 Gold!! I didn't realise they got the dough!

cracker, your solution is The Way. Off with re-spawn in Options!

I got two questions, 'cause I just couldn't find these after a half-hour searching:

Which patch allowed the on/off option for re-spawn?

Where you DON'T have the option to turn it off, what is the cut off year after which killed civs DO NOT re-spawn? I know Firaxis revealed this, but I just couldn't find it.

As usual, Good Work Killer ... you brought up a point that many of us had all probably been overlooking ... I have occasionally let a civ live as one completely blockacked city, to be killed at my leisure later in the game, but usually wasted them for the one additional captured city (and a little bloodlust ... usually my wars are because they attacked me, and then, killing them off becomes a Moral Duty.) But your analysis reveals a more systematifc approach is better. Outstanding!

Civ on!

Mike B,

Thanks again for the great post, these bits of real info are always appreciated and always helpful.

Are you certain about the one respawn limit prior to V1.21? (not that it matters much now that this seems to be fixed.)

I had submitted save games to Infrogrames customer service in v1.17 that documented the multiple respawns as being really frustrating.

I pretty much just stopped playing the game for full length games until you guys added the flag to turn the respawning off.

Thanks for including that flag!!!! Wish it was set to default to OFF so that people would not have to experience the frustration of respawning until they understand the game a bit better.

Originally posted by Mike B. FIRAXIS
The details on respawning AI civs:

- AI civs can only be respawned once.
- For an AI civ to respawn, there must be an unclaimed, unoccupied tile on the same continent as the one where it was eliminated (by killing it's last settler or last city) and no other civs can have territory or units within a 5-tile radius of this tile. The tile must also allow cities to be built upon it (i.e., no mountains/water using default rules).

The respawned civ loses the following:
- All embassies/spies
- All units
- All colonies

The respawned civ gets the following:
- 3 defensive units
- 1 offensive unit
- 1 settler/start unit 1
- 1 worker/start unit 2
- All bonus starting units based on difficulty level
- Their gold is increased by starting_gold X 10 (i.e., 100 gold using default rules).

Everything else (culture, at war, techs, etc.) remains unchanged.

Click to expand...

Mike, a big thanx, but this is totally different from what i see! Check my sav, they have a settler ready that has moved away from the city so they got a city plus a settler = 2 settlers. Also, in another game (that i think I can post, I'll have to search) I made sure there was not getaway settler, then killed the last city, but their Warriors kept running around. The replay showed a clear respawn, but they didn't loose the units!

Originally posted by rangers85


I don't get this part. You still retain contact with the civ even when you destroy them and they respawn. So you could still end the war any time that they'll recognize your envoy.

Click to expand...

To asnwer this: say they get teleported to another continent: they will not see your envoy until you land troops! That can take until Astronomy......

Originally posted by royfurr
As usual, Good Work Killer ... you brought up a point that many of us had all probably been overlooking ... I have occasionally let a civ live as one completely blockacked city, to be killed at my leisure later in the game, but usually wasted them for the one additional captured city (and a little bloodlust ... usually my wars are because they attacked me, and then, killing them off becomes a Moral Duty.) But your analysis reveals a more systematifc approach is better. Outstanding!

Civ on!

Click to expand...

Thanx, that's the German in me talking Often i just want to wipe them off the planet, but then my perfectionist streak starts asking why not to let them found cities for me

Originally posted by royfurr

Which patch allowed the on/off option for re-spawn?

Click to expand...

v1.21f

Originally posted by royfurr
Where you DON'T have the option to turn it off, what is the cut off year after which killed civs DO NOT re-spawn? I know Firaxis revealed this, but I just couldn't find it.

Click to expand...

There is no cut-off year for this. They can theoretically respawn in any year (assuming there is enough space for them as detailed in my previous post).

Originally posted by cracker
Are you certain about the one respawn limit prior to V1.21? (not that it matters much now that this seems to be fixed.)

Click to expand...

It's always been this way (I checked our previous versions to be sure).

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
Mike, a big thanx, but this is totally different from what i see! Check my sav, they have a settler ready that has moved away from the city so they got a city plus a settler = 2 settlers. Also, in another game (that i think I can post, I'll have to search) I made sure there was not getaway settler, then killed the last city, but their Warriors kept running around. The replay showed a clear respawn, but they didn't loose the units!

Click to expand...

Well, they didn't get two settlers... they got a settler and a city. I forgot to mention that respawned civs get a city as well. If you have the save with warriors not being killed I'd like to see it. I suspect that maybe you weren't dealing with a respawned civ but that you just missed one of their cities or settlers...

The respawned civ gets the following:
- 3 defensive units
- 1 offensive unit
- 1 settler/start unit 1
- 1 worker/start unit 2
- All bonus starting units based on difficulty level
- Their gold is increased by starting_gold X 10 (i.e., 100 gold using default rules).

Click to expand...

So, they get a brand new capital, plus another settler, which they send off ASAP. By the time you get to their new capital, one of their two cities has built another settler to send him off somewhere else. Never ending cycle .

Originally posted by Mike B. FIRAXIS

v1.21f

If you have the save with warriors not being killed I'd like to see it. I suspect that maybe you weren't dealing with a respawned civ but that you just missed one of their cities or settlers...

Click to expand...

I'll search! And I'm sure I didn't miss anything!