[NFP] AI Razed a Capital City!

[Morgawr]

I have close to 3,000 hours in this game and never have I ever seen an AI raze another AI's capital city. Well, that changed today. Ethiopia captured Tenochtitlan and razed it to the ground! Then Aztec moved their capital to another city. Is this even possible?? I thought capital cities could not be razed. I checked the Domination victory screen and Ethiopia didn't get any points for the capital meaning it is indeed razed.

Strangely in the gossip screen it says they razed a "lost" city but I know for a fact it was the capital

The circular road in 2nd image is where the capital was. Ixtapaluca is the new capital of Aztec

(I don't have any weird mods installed except the CQUI mod which is UI only)

 

[xxhe]

I see AI razing city states, too. So it must be a generic bug.

As a side note, looks like that I (player) still can't raze AI's capitals.

 

[Navelgazer]

Since the Byzantium / Gaul pack, I've seen the AI lose their Capital to loyalty. I'm betting that happened to Tenochtitlan and then Menelik razed the free city.

 

[Morgawr]

It wasn't due to loyalty; they were at war his capital was under siege and Ethiopia captured and razed it

 

[Kotofei]

Saw it happen right in front of me the other day. Mali's capital was under attack...and then it was gone. October patch thing? I only have GS, so it's not an NFP thing.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Just wow. So, does this then prevent any victory via domination (since you can't own the razed capital)?

 

[679x]

Happened to me as well! Someone sieged Bogota, Gran Colombia's capital, and deleted it from the map. I was in a religious emergency to keep my religion in Bogota - the emergency ended prematurely since the city was gone, and even though I had already kept the religion there for enough turns to guarantee that I win, the emergency ended with a victory for the opposing participants (though all 6 of the participants had earned 0 points each so they didn't get anything). I was miffed about that, and then took a moment to wonder how a capital city got deleted from the game at all. I know that city states raze cities that they capture, but there were no city state units nearby, which I know because I had apostles giving vision of the area. Very unusual.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

That's odd, you can't raze Capitals at all, not even if they are Free Cities.

Are you sure that they didn't raze a different city? Maybe Tencochitilian is under the fog of war?

 

[Equilin]

Just wow. So, does this then prevent any victory via domination (since you can't own the razed capital)?

No, the razed capital will just not be counted towards Domination. The same happens with comet strikes wiping them out. This also means you can win domination if your cap is the last cap not wrecked by comet.

 

[679x]

That's odd, you can't raze Capitals at all, not even if they are Free Cities.

Are you sure that they didn't raze a different city? Maybe Tencochitilian is under the fog of war?

I am certain that a capital city was razed by an attacking AI. I think it's just a new bug. I've never seen it prior to when it happened in my most recent game.

Edit to add that it might be worth noting that I started that recent game prior to the new patch coming out, and Norway's capital got captured by another AI but was not razed. Then, I continued that game after the patch came out, and the next time an AI captured another AI's capital, it was Bogota, and it was razed. I'm not sure if it's going to happen every time an AI captures another AI's capital or if the AI just had the option given to them to raze it, but in either case, I suspect it has something to do with the newest patch.

 

[Morgawr]

Yes 100% sure as well. Like I said I have almost 3,000 hours in this game and never seen this before and it happened the very first game I started post patch so must be a bug. I’ll post it bugs section later today if someone else doesn’t. (Or if there’s a way to copy or move this thread over?)

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

The field "COMBAT_RAZE_ANY_CITY" is still set to "false" (0) in the global parameters file, which I believe is what keeps capital cities from being razed. If I am correct there, then it would mean that somehow this field has been removed from the coding (when the AI decides whether or not to raze) -- of course we can't tell that since we still don't have the code for modding.

There is also a field that is "COMBAT_KEEP_ALL_CITIES_ON_CAPTURE" which is also set to "false" (0). Setting this to true should prevent razing of any city (if someone is interested in this in the meantime).

Allowing city states and capitals to be razed almost sounds interesting now that I think of it (since it doesn't prevent domination victory, thx @Equilin for the heads up!).

 

[Victoria]

Awesome. Likely unintended but sounds fun.

 

[Abaxial]

I've seen barbarians do that in Civ 5.

 

[Morgawr]

It's been reported as a bug

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/1-2-7-ai-raze-capital.664063/

 

[Muskie]

They weren't razed, but in my first dramatic ages game, multiple enemy capitals rebelled, two whole empires completely went free city. I didn't even try to take that many cities, I just stayed small and loyal and won diplomatically, but dramatic ages has a big effect on religious victory too, because the free cities don't make apostles and such and they are not major civs so the number of competing religions goes way down. You could potentially get a very fast religious victory or loss in dramatic ages.

 

[hhhhhh]

Someone from the Chinese community tested. So the tentative conclusion is that if AI cannot hold the city with a governor (i.e. loyalty pressure is worse than -8) then it will raze it. Apparently razing capital is an unintended bug, but even after that is fixed, AI razing city state is gonna be really annoying.

 

[pokiehl]

I'm actually really happy to see the AI is razing cities.

 

[Morgawr]

I agree that is definitely an improvement in that case because AI always used to capture cities it couldn’t hold onto due to loyalty and razing them makes much more sense. Should be a net positive once they fix the capital razing bug

 

[Deggial]

Capitals and CSs!