What if great generals can relocate capitals?

[JanghanHong]

I was thinking what a city named "Attila's Court" might actually be if the Huns lost its capital and was forced to relocate to another city from a borrowed name list.

What if the second function of Great Generals is that you can "settle" it in one of your own city and it will relocate your capital to that one.

The great general, then, would be understood to be the personification of your empire's seat of power.

While this would not be desirable for many play-through where you are content with your starting city, it has the potential to emulate many civilization's history, particularly militaristic civilizations that did relocate their capital rather frequently.


I want to be, as Alexander, to start out as far-flung Macedonia, conquer the known world all the way to India, and then settle down in the geographic centre of my empire, Babylon.

Or, as the Ottomans, I want to be able to conquer Constantinople and immediately claim to be the successor empire, founding Istanbul within the rubbles of Queen of cities.

As the Mongols, I want to be able to start in a pastoral backwater of Karakorum, push into Central Asia, and then conquer China, eventually founding the Chinese Yuan Dynasty in Beiping (Dadu), which used to be a provincial capital until the Mongols raised its importance, and then became used as the capital of native Chinese dynasties ever since that time.

Or as Japan, Kyoto is landlocked, sleepy town next to a lake yet Tokyo sits on a fertile river valley next to Mt. Fuji and has access to coast, iron working has revealed plenty of iron and Civil service gives much potential to Tokyo as the new capital. I want to use my great general Tokugawa to move the capital to Tokyo and grow it into a global megalopolis.

How about China? China literally had a different capital every time a dynasty changed. Some cities were used more than once, like Beijing or Xian. One of my greatest pet peeve actually, is that the starting city of China is Beijing. Obviously, developers knew a lot more about Japanese history than China's. Kyoto being the Japanese capital is a good aesthetic decision, if you extend it to China, the capital should definitely be Chang'an (Xian), not only was it the first capital of unified China under the first emperor who built the Great Wall, it also happened to be the capital of Tang dynasty 800 years later under Wu Zetian, but I digress.

Spoiler :

The -Jing part in Beijing means Capital, Bei-means North, so Beijing literally means northern capital, before it became the capital, it was Beiping, or Northern Plains. Following that line of logic, Edo was renamed Tokyo (Eastern Capital) after the capital was moved from Kyoto, in fact, -Kyo and -Jing are same character with the same meaning with different pronunciation rules due to being used by two different languages. Korea has a bit different approach - Seoul literally means capital in Korean, so during the Japanese occupation, it was called by a different name. This noun is becoming a de-facto pronoun since Korea hasn't changed capital in 700 years, but "The Seoul of France is Paris" is a legitimate Korean sentence about France, albeit a little on the colloquial side.

Or as the Russians, I want to be able to start in Moscow, while for centuries, you were content to be in the middle of vast plains and forests, you look out and see that the only way to be a world power is to have access to the sea. Seeing a tiny yet productive coastline into a sea occupied by your rivals, you can found St. Petersburg, then quickly settle Peter the Great there to start your adventure set your sights on your more technologically advanced rivals.





Your first capital will always be considered the heartland, the origin of your empire and will still count towards Domination victory, so you cannot just neglect it and trade it away, so this mechanics wouldn't conflict with the present domination victory requirements.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Interesting idea. I prefer the great general's current second function- creating a citadel. The citadel is a powerful defensive structure that causes great attritional losses to enemies that end turns alongside it. It also gives a 100% defensive bonus to units stationed within. It also claims surrounding tiles for the general's home country. I think this is better than being able to move capitals.

 

[kirbdog]

I also like the great general's culture bomb/defensive improvement function.

 

[Ajuga]

I don't see why a great general can't have a third power. In easily 90% of my games I wouldn't want to move my capital anyway.
Though I can see how this causes issues for domination victory.

Instead of using a great general how about adding a palace wonder you can build in any city. Taking a few turns to build so you can't shift your capital the moment it's threatened.
Once somebody takes your capital by force you wont be able to build palaces, you need to reclaim your original capital before you can do so.

 

[Biologist]

The reason the option to shift capitals doesn't exist in Civ V (as it did in previous versions) is that moving your initial capital would interfere with the AI's attempt at a Domination victory.

What could work would be a system that allowed "provincial" capitals to be established. The would act as secondary capitals, and provide some sort of bonus at an appropriate cost.

 

[joncnunn]

I see it as a better idea for scenerios than in the base game.
In the base game for Civ V there's no real reason to move it.

But in the Fall of Rome scenario, it would be useful for both the Huns & Goths to relocate their capital to captured Roman cities due to inability to build new settlers combined with capitals with no road connection to Rome. (And it would be expensive to do so both in terms of maintenance and worker turns.)

 

[LuCypher73]

If they added a new great person: perhaps a Great Leader - that might work, their special building could literally be a palace, and it would be cool if then also freedom finisher would count palace yield as a great tile improvement

 

[JanghanHong]

If they added a new great person: perhaps a Great Leader - that might work, their special building could literally be a palace, and it would be cool if then also freedom finisher would count palace yield as a great tile improvement

if capital is simply the city they are in and you start with them in the beginning of the game, we could even have regicide game, re-writing domination requirements.

 

[fuzzatron717]

Well how if we give the ability to the great artist and so it doesn't interfere with the domination victory the devs could recode it so A.I for domination victory target the first city that was founded which right now would be the capital. A good example would be Napoleon he targeted Moscow for domination of Russia instead of the current capital of the time St. Petersburg.

 

[JanghanHong]

Well how if we give the ability to the great artist and so it doesn't interfere with the domination victory the devs could recode it so A.I for domination victory target the first city that was founded which right now would be the capital. A good example would be Napoleon he targeted Moscow for domination of Russia instead of the current capital of the time St. Petersburg.

So two "capitals"? One would be Ancestral Capital that cannot be razed, and one would be functional capital that could be razed unless it's also an ancestral capital of some other civ. For most games, they would be the same thing.

I forgot that Napoleon was obsessed with Moscow when St.Petersburg would have been easier to take using the Baltic navy.

Also, I would think that there really are ancestral capitals that are much more sentimental to the people then the functioning ones, like Al Ryiadh vs. Mecca for Saudis, Kyoto vs. Tokyo for the Japanese.

 

[Rpger29]

I also like the great general's culture bomb/defensive improvement function.

I really dislike the change from GA to GG. I understand, but I still don't like it. The AI doesn't have any sense of the fact that stealing land from the player is a 100% guarantee of immediate war. I've had the AI use a GG to steal land from the 1 ring of cities in like 8 games now.

Each time, I had at least four times the military strength of the AI in question. The AI has never valued GG's, and the land steal change made the AI understanding even worse.

 

[Lay_Lay]

As noted above, adding complex new strategies for the human to exploit while not programming the AI to know how best to exploit, just makes the game easier for us to win.

 

[fuzzatron717]

So two "capitals"? One would be Ancestral Capital that cannot be razed, and one would be functional capital that could be razed unless it's also an ancestral capital of some other civ. For most games, they would be the same thing.

I forgot that Napoleon was obsessed with Moscow when St.Petersburg would have been easier to take using the Baltic navy.

Also, I would think that there really are ancestral capitals that are much more sentimental to the people then the functioning ones, like Al Ryiadh vs. Mecca for Saudis, Kyoto vs. Tokyo for the Japanese.

Yes ancestral capitals are mandatory for domination victory and then administrative capital which would have the palace plus any other bonuses that capitals have and it would be the functional capital.

Edit: I forgot A.I should be programmed like Napoleon when targeting the mandatory domination ancestral capitals like Moscow and to make sure the devs make it so the A.I will occasionally move capitals depending on the situation

 

[compwiz1202]

Not quite as vital without corruption in the game anymore. They should make it so you can't move it during war, and it takes a number or turns to happen after the initiation. I also think it would be nice to have a Great Prophet move your holy city so you could put it in a better spot to spread your religion once you have your cities set. In case anyone didn't know, you don't need to make your capital the holy city. You can move the GProphet to a city closer to other cities so passive spreading is easier. Especially with the Great Temple boosting external pressure from the Holy City.