Has anyone ever won after losing his/her capital?

[Teodosio]

Has anyone ever won after losing his/her capital?

 

[Loucypher]

I actually have, this was back in G&K. Was playing as Siam and had the Aztecs as my southern neighbors, but to the North there was nobody so I settled a few cities northways. The Aztecs unsurprisingly attacked and because my capitol was in such a poor position, I had to give it up. The other cities were much, much easier to defend though so I could turtle up and pull a culture victory. Was one of my slowest victories ever but hey, it did work.

 

[digrosz]

I try not to ragequit but build up an army in my second best city to recapture it. Preferably, even, attack his other cities/units and get my capital back in a peace deal so that it won't lose too much population.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I would say you double your difficulty, your Capital is the hub of the activity and more or less often ends up as the primary source for most of the yields (science in particular).

 

[I_qua_I]

This is an interesting poll. I'm curious how it will turn out. I don't recall ever losing my capital when it wasn't my last/only city to take (so it was pretty much an insta-lose anyway.) I imagine though that I wouldn't feel particularly compelled to finish the game if I did have other cities. (I voted the ragequit option.)

 

[Denounced]

Lol if I don't ragequit straight away I rage kamikaze my remaining units.

 

[Tachii]

The masochism is too strong for me to not ragequit. :<

 

[Louis XXIV]

I've won after losing my capital, but I recaptured it within 10 turns. I've never won without having my capital at all.

 

[ahawk]

Usually losing my capital means losing the game, as it tends to be the last city I own.

But if I lose it and I'm still in the game, I tend to play on just to see which AI wins. Sometimes, I'll intentionally just play spoiler against whoever took my cap.

However, I'm fairly certain I've never lost my capital and won without recapturing it at some point.

 

[Callonia]

I've yet to lose my capital. But did come close to it very few times. AIs still can't handle my carpet of doom when I'm getting threatened by my capital but I'm fairly certain I would still play on if I lost my capital because if that happens I would be too surprised to rage quit at all.

 

[Princeofnigeria]

I've won without my capitol once as Polynesia, small continents.
My capitol was on a small continent bodered by the aztecs to the north and Attilla to the south. I bum rushed a settler and threw him into the ocean with my 1 maori to attempt to gain new ground. Just as tey hit continent two, encountering no human activity save for an ancient ruin, the huns and aztecs joint DoW-ed me. I held them off for nine turns with one Comp bow and two maori, but in the end was overwhelmed. Normally I would have raged but for the sake of role playing I continued, with my lost clan acting as a new base of operations. I had snagger the great library and stonehenge before my capitol fell (likely the cause of my downfall lol) and so I was able to keep my techs in the middle of the pack and found a religion second. I built up the coasts and settled on some medium sized islands, creating a navy and a trade network that made me the strongest economy on earth. I adopte religious policies for science and war, and vowed to sack Attilla's court and Tenochtitlan before the game was up. My money bought me all the city state allies I could need, rebuilding my nations pride and strength, and by the renniasance It was as if I had never lost my capitol. Unfortunately my capitol was in a natural harbor of 1 sea tile, making my navy nigh on useless, and Attilla had gone about turning the place into a fortess, making a reconquista impossible. I ended up winning a diplo victory in 2015, AFTER nuking Attilla's court to rubble and sacking Tenochititlan. It was a very eventful game.

 

[Anarchist]

I do not 'rage-quit' as such, but I do give up. I think you are almost always toast when that happens, as is any AI Civ.

I like the idea of the 'rage-kamikaze-attack', however. I'll try that next time!

 

[cinattra]

I think I have lost my capitol pre-Civ5 and I managed to get it back, but I definitely lost that game. There was too much damage to my capital.

I would probably still lose a Civ5 game if I lost my capitol. I would lose my entire military trying to defend it. Rage quit yeah pretty much.

The other civs usually start jumping on you when you are in a weakened state so it is really almost not worth continuing.

 

[redwings1340]

I've never lost my capital and had more cities still remaining. It would seem difficult though, I don't know if I could continue after that.

 

[Raptor Llama]

Just pulled a science victory after I lost capital early game (Diffculty King, Speed Marathon). You see, it was YnAEMP and I was Russia, so there Atilla spawn less than 10 tiles away from Moscow, so I kind of knew I had it in for me, but I kind of shrugged it off and when his 50 battering rams came my 1 measly warrior in the other city just couldn't keep up. So I immediately vowed revenge and exploited my UA, but not really since I only need 4 of the 12 or so iron I had. I first conquered the hun's initial cities due to the way the new warmonger calculations work to ensure I wasn't branded as a warmongerer (which I wasn't), then I got my capital back. I was behind in tech until I beelined for the 3 factories and adopted that tenet that lets factories boost science output. After that I slowly but surely surpassed the other tech leaders and eventually came into the information age when other leaders were just getting into the atomic. But before the industrial era I was still about 14ish in demographics for literacy. The huns used to be higher than me in that but after wiping them out with the help of the rest of the world that was no longer the case.

So in all, I definitely felt the effects of losing the capital, and St. Petersburg which was (funny enough) the capital for a little while still had a higher population than Moscow toward the end (though they were close). It probably was a massive help to be playing on marathon, so I can't say as to how salvageable a game is on a standard pace or even a higher difficulty. But in the end, I'd say losing the capital almost helped as it gave me an excuse to capture some Hunnic cities (his capital having higher production than mine) which sort of boosted me up a bit. I guess you might consider conquering your opponent to compensate for your capital's loss.

 

[Mauzel]

Diplomatic victory as Indonesia on Emperor, Epic pace after losing capital. Archipelago map, spawned within coastal distance to England.
Midgame war with England, lost my "capital" and subsequently my spice city because England spammed 20 SotL. Interestingly, since my spice city was on a relatively large island, the followup cities were actually inland, so I hanged on because the SotL's guns can't reach my city.
After 100 turns of war or so, retook the spice city on the coast, paid about 30 gpt for a peace treaty, and bought a def pact with Germany. Though my naval force never really was able to challenge the English naval domination, the def pact kept the peace until endgame, used trade routes to bank up 40000 gold and ninjaed CS ally for the election, with England and Germany steamrolling everything but me and Rome (Rome was half-steamrolled by england) while Germany is 2 part away from Science Victory.
Basically, after losing the capital, I really don't have the production to attempt anything else, so just hoarded gold for the rest of the game until the very last moment as Germany was about to win.

 

[LanguishViking]

During the Classical Era in a warmongering game as Japan I lost Kyoto to an Ethiopian invasion while I was invading Brazil. I peaced out Brazil reducing it to one city, then returned the army home and retook the capital. Ethiopia was in a good defensive position in mountainous terrain with narrow access so I wasn't able to take revenge until the industrial era when Riflemen with overlapping march/medic/cover promotions managed to not die while distracting the Ethiopian ranged units while my Cannon set up and reduce Addis Abeba.

The important thing about getting it back up to speed were the production and food convoys growing the city extra fast and the production cities I had outside the capital to keep me supplied with units while Kyoto was rebuilding.

Once I had taken Addis Abeba I was supreme (on Emperor) and conquest was a mere matter of tediously carrying out the task.

 

[HappyBuilder]

I miss the ability to truly rage quit like in previous editions of Civ. That's when you switch to Map Editor, bring in advanced weaponry, and wipe the offending civilization off the map. Now those were rage quits!