Arioch's Analyst Thread

[Louis XXIV]

Specialization to terrain is not that big a deal in any kind of real military history.

I'll disagree a touch here. Certainly, at least in modern times, there are certain battalions/units that are specialized to fight in difficult terrain that the standard army perhaps couldn't operate. In earlier times, this doesn't seem to be quite as common, but there were situations where certain troops fought better in forests or jungles (this has been represented by woodsman in the past, though) or in taking hills (I would distinguish this from guerrilla, which was in operating from the hills. An example would be some of Napoleon's troops, which could let the enemy take the high ground and then obliterate them).

Shock, of course, is entirely different, but I do feel can have historical equivalent. If Civ4's "shock" referred to infantry that was effective at charging at other infantry groups and decimating them, no one did it better than the Spartan Hoplite Phalanx. Phalanx warfare was terrible on uneven ground. In that sense, shock troops would fight best on smooth terrain.

That being said, I also find "add +% here" to get boring when you get into the IIs and IIIs of a promotion. I just like finding a historical justification

 

[Venereus]

We are such geeks!

 

[Grimlin]

According to this guy, who played CiV at Cologne, there is only one capital. It can't be moved, there is no new one if the first one is lost. Simple as that: lose your Capital -> lose trade.

Edit: I'm unsure about this, what will happen if a capital gets destroyed by a nuke? There is the possibility of completely removing a city from the map now.

And yay for 1500th post

 

[beestar]

In Civ IV, the "Require Complete Kills" option means "must kill all cities AND units to wipe out an enemy civilization." This means that in addition to destroying all cities, you must hunt down each and every enemy unit.

... including invisible Spies

 

[SJSerio]

I see no contradiction.

The Domination victory requires that you capture the original capital of every civ.

It doesn't mean that the palace building, used as a signifier of capital status, won't shift to another city if the original capital is lost. Civs need to have a capital, if only because trade routes are links to the capital.


There was never even the smallest suggestion that capturing a civ's capital would eliminate it from the game.
It has been clear from the beginning that the victory condition is to simultaneously hold all the (original) capitals of all civs.
If you capture a civ's capital but don't defend it, they can recapture it.

Let's take a look at the description from Arioch's site (assuming that he got that from an interview or article or otherwise official source)...

Domination Victory now only requires capture of all enemy capitals.

Now the breakdown... "now only requires" implies that this is different from previous Civ's. "...capture of all enemy capitals" does not say anything about "ORIGINAL" capitals!

That all said, my interpritation of it is that once you capture the enemy capital, they are defeated. This would be whether they are illiminated from the game or they keep going, but are in a defeated state (with the possibility of coming back... but that has yet to be forseen). Now, if Capturing the Civ's capital allows the Palace to be shifted to another city, then that defeats the originality of the feature as it was the same as previous versions. Basically, you would have to capture every city which is nothing new!

In Civ IV, the "Require Complete Kills" option means "must kill all cities AND units to wipe out an enemy civilization." This means that in addition to destroying all cities, you must hunt down each and every enemy unit. It has nothing to do with taking the capital.

Good point, however, if a basic Domination victory only requires the capture of the enemy capitals, then essentially "Require Complete Kills" would mean that capturing the capital of a Civ does NOT illiminate them and their capital would shift as you had observed. Therefore, we are both right.

We have no reason to think this means something different in Civ V.

As I stated above, the phrase "now only requires" implies something different from previous versions.

In the end... Firaxis, Take2... you all need to come on here and 'splain yourselves before WWIII breaks out and you have no fans left to sell your game to!!!

 

[Toddy]

Thorburne, sorry I think your wrong.

Now the breakdown... "now only requires" implies that this is different from previous Civ's. "...capture of all enemy capitals" does not say anything about "ORIGINAL" capitals!

It says 'now only requires' because the definition of the Domination victory has changed, where in Civ 4 you needed to control a certain percentage of land and population, to just your rivals capitals.

That all said, my interpritation of it is that once you capture the enemy capital, they are defeated. This would be whether they are illiminated from the game or they keep going, but are in a defeated state (with the possibility of coming back... but that has yet to be forseen). Now, if Capturing the Civ's capital allows the Palace to be shifted to another city, then that defeats the originality of the feature as it was the same as previous versions. Basically, you would have to capture every city which is nothing new!

I'd really doubt that once you capture a civ's capital they are just eliminated from the map, it just doesn't play right. After you've captured their capital, there is suddenly loads of space to expand into with your own settlers? The palace shifting will be allowed to note the new place where the trade route will go to, place to bring the spaceship parts (if your that far into the game), but won't count as a new capital you have to control for the victory.

The civs will still exist and try to win but you'll now be enemy number 1.

 

[Tomice]

You say that like you're sure? Have you any confirmation for that?

 

[Ituralde]

I'm pretty sure it works out like Toddy is saying. Simply because I remember one video from GameStar where the player had already taken out two French Cities, including Paris, but the French were still on the map.

This would also explain the Victory Condition Screen where all existing capital are noted. The tooltip there says something about "are still in control of their capital" otherwise it would just read defeated. Also it would be easy to keep track of thos Civs as they would be gone, plain and simple.

Don't know what implications this will have on the recapturing of Captials.
Either way my money's on the method described by Toddy!

 

[marekb]

Azazell confirmed that if a civilization lose its capital it cannot get neither domination nor scientific victory (unless you recapture your capital). But you can win by culture or by diplomacy.

Look at this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9462642&postcount=25

 

[Grimlin]

Azazell confirmed that if a civilization lose its capital it cannot get neither domination nor scientific victory (unless you recapture your capital). But you can win by culture or by diplomacy.

Look at this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9462642&postcount=25

Like I posted earlier, if the capital is lost it's lost. There is no new palace someplace else... Unfortunately nobody seems to read my stuff xD

 

[Toddy]

Like I posted earlier, if the capital is lost it's lost. There is no new palace someplace else... Unfortunately nobody seems to read my stuff xD

Oh well, the palace shifting part was just me guessing, although I didn't write that.

 

[Peng Qi]

According to this guy, who played CiV at Cologne, there is only one capital. It can't be moved, there is no new one if the first one is lost. Simple as that: lose your Capital -> lose trade.

Edit: I'm unsure about this, what will happen if a capital gets destroyed by a nuke? There is the possibility of completely removing a city from the map now.

And yay for 1500th post

I'm fairly certain I saw a screenshot of a Civ that lost its capitol and had another city that had the capitol "star" graphic on it.

 

[Sciguy001]

Like I posted earlier, if the capital is lost it's lost. There is no new palace someplace else... Unfortunately nobody seems to read my stuff xD

I'm pretty sure it works out like Toddy is saying. Simply because I remember one video from GameStar where the player had already taken out two French Cities, including Paris, but the French were still on the map.

This would also explain the Victory Condition Screen where all existing capital are noted. The tooltip there says something about "are still in control of their capital" otherwise it would just read defeated. Also it would be easy to keep track of thos Civs as they would be gone, plain and simple.

Don't know what implications this will have on the recapturing of Captials.
Either way my money's on the method described by Toddy!

May I once again remind everyone who keeps saying that their ideas are "right" that no one really knows yet how this is going to work out because the developers hasven't made it clear yet.

 

[Venereus]

I'm fairly certain I saw a screenshot of a Civ that lost its capitol and had another city that had the capitol "star" graphic on it.

May be you do get another palace, but the importance of the original capital remains for the effects listed above.

 

[Celevin]

I'm pretty sure the place with the palace will have all in game effects, and the original capitol will be considered for domination wins; i.e. for a domination victory, the winner needs all original capitols. I don't think they want to make players completely lose the game if they lose their capitol, nor lose "all trade" or anything else that might as well be the equivalent of losing the game.

Most different ways we can interpret the wording are eliminated after using a bit of common sense. I'm sure this is nothing complex.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think the simplest explanation would be that, for purposes of trade, a new capital will be there. For purposes of domination, the original capital is all that needs to be taken.

The ambiguity would be for purposes of space race victory. In this case, I feel they'll use the original capital (to have an incentive to keep it), but it could logically be either (unless there's some exploit with letting the enemy take your original capital so you have less distance to travel for the ship parts). BTW, off the top of my head, I wonder if it would make more sense for you to ship the parts to where your Apollo Program was built. Afterall, rockets aren't launched from capitals. But that doesn't seem to be the plan.

 

[12agnar0k]

Azazell confirmed that if a civilization lose its capital it cannot get neither domination nor scientific victory (unless you recapture your capital). But you can win by culture or by diplomacy.

Look at this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9462642&postcount=25

That was about CivRev, a bad mechanic that wasn't fixed and people abused it by destroying an enemies capital (via nukes, or if a barb did it) to disallow conquest victory, then you can work on your other kind of victory unimpeeded.

.........

As far as how Capitals will work, we won't know for sure till we get to play and test it out.
But as far as we have seen, after your capital is conquered you can build another one, (for trade route's, social policy bonuses and anything related to capitals) accept we assume your capital is still considered dead in terms of domination victory (although, they may simply of not been rebuilt, but if thats the case then this domination capital victory would be more like a normal conquest victory), as we saw a screen shot of capitals having been lost on the "win conditions screen" this also suggests you don't actually need to control all capitals to win the game, merely be the only Civ who still has control of his original Capital, this unfortunately will mean If you have conquered the entire globe and control 17 of the Starting Capitals and leave your Original Capital ungaured, that last insignificant Civ who you have ignored maybe because he was your friend, can send an army and conquer your Original Capital and then he would be the only Civ with its Original Capital, and he would win. Now while I really dont like the fact that you can beat a warmongerer and claim domination even if you did none of the work, I guess this will make people protect their Original Capitals a bit more, as you will need to control it to stop anyone else winning Domination, and definitely make sure you protect it if your aim'ing for that Win yourself.
Thats just my assumption on data known, it could work in a completely illogical manner, so we will need to wait to know how it all works.

 

[Tomice]

My guess would be the original capital is mostly important for the military victory, and you get another for all other uses, if you loose it.

Not having trade routes and bonuses from SPs (that are related to the capital) would be such a huge hit, that you could imediately quit the game.

Not sure about space race, it would seem logic that you could take spaceship parts to the new capital, but you loose all progress in the lost capital.

 

[Grimlin]

May I once again remind everyone who keeps saying that their ideas are "right" that no one really knows yet how this is going to work out because the developers hasven't made it clear yet.

I was merely quoting someone who played the game at gamescom and came to the conclusion that there is only one single capital and if this one is lost you're screwed since you won't get another one.
Afterwards I've added my own opinion which is, that I don't think (if true) this mechanic makes sense.

One the topic of capital importance: There are many examples in history where the loss of the capital resulted in a loss of the war.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That was about CivRev, a bad mechanic that wasn't fixed and people abused it by destroying an enemies capital (via nukes, or if a barb did it) to disallow conquest victory, then you can work on your other kind of victory unimpeeded.

In Civ Rev you Couldn't destroy an enemy's capital with a nuke (plus there was only one nuke per game)

As far as how Capitals will work, we won't know for sure till we get to play and test it out.
But as far as we have seen, after your capital is conquered you can build another one, (for trade route's, social policy bonuses and anything related to capitals) accept we assume your capital is still considered dead in terms of domination victory (although, they may simply of not been rebuilt, but if thats the case then this domination capital victory would be more like a normal conquest victory), as we saw a screen shot of capitals having been lost on the "win conditions screen" this also suggests you don't actually need to control all capitals to win the game, merely be the only Civ who still has control of his original Capital, this unfortunately will mean If you have conquered the entire globe and control 17 of the Starting Capitals and leave your Original Capital ungaured, that last insignificant Civ who you have ignored maybe because he was your friend, can send an army and conquer your Original Capital and then he would be the only Civ with its Original Capital, and he would win. Now while I really dont like the fact that you can beat a warmongerer and claim domination even if you did none of the work, I guess this will make people protect their Original Capitals a bit more, as you will need to control it to stop anyone else winning Domination, and definitely make sure you protect it if your aim'ing for that Win yourself.
Thats just my assumption on data known, it could work in a completely illogical manner, so we will need to wait to know how it all works.

Its true it Could work in an illogical manner.

However, Likely that will be patched, require you to control all 'capitals' in the game.

Variations include
1. "Hunt the Capital".. ie civs can rebuild their Capital with Certain restrictions (say must be pop 10 or it takes 10 turns, etc.) and the military Victory goes to whoever has the last existing Capital.

2. "Beheaded" Lose your Capital, lose the game (your cities are eliminated or become independent/Vassal)

3. "Have Your Original Capital" (as described)

4. "Secondary Capital" that can be rebuilt functions for Some other purposes but not related to Military Victory


#1 I Could see if the requirements were serious enough (say If you have a city over Size 15+ your largest city will start becoming the capital (takes 20 turns))

#2+#3 seem like they would be unfun/illogical and probably patched.

#4 seems possible, but potentially confusing to those who don't understand.


I could see "Require Complete Kills" as an option (where every enemy city must be eliminated instead of just the capital)... but that would almost be equivalent to eliminating "Military Victory".. since if every enemy civ is eliminated, you Will win (by Time, Tech, Culture, or Diplomacy)... unless Barbs/City states wipe you out.

And if you want to have to eliminate every civs city to win, you should have to eliminate the City-States as well

So I see

in game Options of
"Conquest Victory Y/N"... if N Conquered Capitals are autorelocated?
"Beheaded"..where losing your Capital either eliminates all your cities or turns them into Barbs or conquers them (eliminating you)