Capital Move Incentives

[Temujin8k]

Why give penalties for not moving capitals for long periods of time, though? I think the minimum should be no bonuses at most.

 

[Visard]

Would you really build a palace with your Great General?

True it is a weak action.
To make it more useful it could also either make small culture bomb or free change of expansion civic.

 

[1SDANi]

Perhaps building a Palace with a Great General could grant increased military unit production in the capital for X turns and increased by Y turns whenever one of your cities are conquered. This would both serve to incentivize moving the capital closer to combat for faster troop mobilization, and away from combat for a danger in hopes of stabilizing the situation.

 

[Force44]

I like the idea of a specialized palace 1SDAN.

Palaces with different bonuses would definitively be an incentive for me to switch capitol.
Like a civic change that costs hammers in stead of a turn of revolution.

 

[Force44]

Different palace bonuses could also stack. (each epoch allows you to pick another one)
And building a second palace in your capitol could come at an increased cost (eg increased cost of hammers for already existing palace(s))
or the cost could be interference of the bonuses (eg one palace gives +50% science and another palace gives +50% gold but building both of them in one city gives +40% gold and science in the city)

Picking a bonus out of an available group imo would also be fun (a throwback to the three different styles of castle you could build in CIV 1, as well as the founding fathers in colonization)

 

[1SDANi]

I like the idea of a specialized palace 1SDAN.

Palaces with different bonuses would definitively be an incentive for me to switch capitol.
Like a civic change that costs hammers in stead of a turn of revolution.

My suggestion wasn't really a specialized palace, just a temporary effect after using a Great General to move it.

 

[Enyavar]

Great Generals in history have not moved the "palace" into a safe zone, but into the dangerous periphery, where they were able to command their armies and fight the enemy. Think of the Roman Soldier-Emperors, think of Charles de Gaulle.

So, not exactly a "palace". More a "centralized command center to steer sh* back out of the fan". Such a command center would be a great fallback for empires that have become instable due to expansion instability and/or barbarian victories; and to empires that lost their capital.

So. Suggestion:
Generals can erect "command centers" on any domestic or unsettled land tile they're on. Land of other players may also be claimed IF these players have less than 10 culture on the tile. Any city on the tile or on tiles directly adjacent to the command center, will be razed with the normal penalties, thus making room for a fort.
- it has a duration of 20 turns - afterwards, it turns into a regular fort, and provides no bonus of any sort anymore
- until the duration runs out, it provides the normal fort bonus to units operating in it; plus an additional 50% morale bonus for all fights occuring directly in its 1-tile radius
- it also provides, initially, 20 additional stability that negates all kinds of military and expansion instability for the empire (in that order; and it provides NO positive stability, only negates negative effects if they exist). Each turn, one point of temporary stability is lost.
- it serves as an additional administrative center (in the way of reducing costs of nearby cities), but also costs 10% of your regular income.

 

[Force44]

An idea to improve the incentive for moving the palace without adding additional mechanisms (like giving additional bonuses to new palaces) would be letting the squares around the capitol be exploitable by multiple cities. That would make the difference in quality for the new capitol certainly a lot bigger (if it is in a better spot).

 

[Enyavar]

would be letting the squares around the capitol be exploitable by multiple cities

If that were to be realized, it'd going to be an exploit strategy if I ever saw one:

• Build your capital in the middle of the core.
• Surround it with as many cities as possible that sit just 1 Tile out of the BFC, that overlap each other and that are still in the core.
• Profit.
  
• Never change capital again.

Yes, the idea is interesting, but this additional mechanism violates one important premise you made yourself:

improve the incentive for moving the palace without adding additional mechanisms

 

[trevor]

Moving the capital for an additional boost to military strength seems too "tactical" for this level of game... like something you'd see in 5/6. & I don't know if the benefits of Leo's ideas 2 or 3 can be represented adequately (should moving a capital closer to the border of an at-war civ grant a stack of units?) at this level of abstraction.

Thinking about it logically though, what's a force in the game that's got a high chance of being fatal but difficult to get out of: collapsing-level stability. Viewing it in game terms, the current regime is failing & society is, well, collapsing. A capital move should then to me represent a new regime coming to power & moving the center of political gravity to a new city—which sounds an awful like a free Great Statesman civic change coupled with a stability check that can only improve. Maybe limit the effect of a palace move to once an era?

 

[Force44]

If that were to be realized, it'd going to be an exploit strategy if I ever saw one:

• Build your capital in the middle of the core.
• Surround it with as many cities as possible that sit just 1 Tile out of the BFC, that overlap each other and that are still in the core.
• Profit.
  
• Never change capital again.

Yes, the idea is interesting, but this additional mechanism violates one important premise you made yourself:

I share your concern for this very exploit.

But the very scenario you are providing is to a certain degree already the case. (there are some videos on YouTube by a very skilled civplayer winning the vanilla game at the highest level without savegames using this very strategy)

The suggestion hinges on the preassumption that a new capitol is in a more profitable spot than the current capitol. (a mechanism already in place)

Thank you for pointing out to me that changing the rules for squares in the BFC of the capitol is adding a new mechanism to the game. Please don't hesitate to PM me or start a new tread if you want to discuss this idea further.

 

[Enyavar]

Thinking about it logically though, what's a force in the game that's got a high chance of being fatal but difficult to get out of: collapsing-level stability. Viewing it in game terms, the current regime is failing & society is, well, collapsing. A capital move should then to me represent a new regime coming to power & moving the center of political gravity to a new city—which sounds an awful like a free Great Statesman civic change coupled with a stability check that can only improve. Maybe limit the effect of a palace move to once an era?

How about finishing a new Palace sets the economic stability to zero, in case it was negative? Then prevents palace building for 50 turns. Such an effect would be minor enough to prevent palace-spamming, but gives players (and AI) a realistic chance of escaping the pretty frequent economic traps that happen when your cottages can't grow further.

 

[1SDANi]

How about finishing a new Palace sets the economic stability to zero, in case it was negative? Then prevents palace building for 50 turns. Such an effect would be minor enough to prevent palace-spamming, but gives players (and AI) a realistic chance of escaping the pretty frequent economic traps that happen when your cottages can't grow further.

A full economic reset, or just the Economy on next check cannot get worse and is temporarily floored at 0? The former would be too OP, but the latter sounds pretty nice. A good way to buy time to fix the economy at the cost of production.

 

[need my speed]

I don't think a boost in stability, combined with preventing this player from collapse at the next (X?) stability check(s), dependent on city size (larger city is better) and distance from the previous capital (farther is better), is overpowered. You do want people to actually use the Palace.

 

[1SDANi]

I don't think a boost in stability, combined with preventing this player from collapse at the next (X?) stability check(s), dependent on city size (larger city is better) and distance from the previous capital (farther is better), is overpowered. You do want people to actually use the Palace.

Economic stability takes into consideration dozens of turns of economics. Wiping that history is absolutely overpowered. A stability boost would be fine, but we're not talking about that. We're talking about a feature that would let a player go from 1000 Gold per Turn to 5 Gold per Turn, move their capital, go up to 50 Gold per Turn, and get a large stability bonus for "Economic Growth".

 

[Force44]

A very blunt idea.

Why not designate squares as capitol ties based upon the 5 criterea Leoreth gave in the Original Post?

Those squares would yield more gold, food and hammers when worked by the city containing the capitol.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Why not a more simple economic boost? Upon completing the Palace in a city it has never been in before the Great People threshold is reset to a lower level and/or all Cottages/Hamlets/Villages in the new capital instantly gain a higher level. The Palace's build cost should increase each time.

 

[jorissimo]

(there are some videos on YouTube by a very skilled civplayer winning the vanilla game at the highest level without savegames using this very strategy)

Who is that player? I have noticed that AbsoluteZero, who plays on Deity, places his cities quite close together but I'm not sure it's him you're talking about.

 

[Force44]

That is indeed the player. I found out about him through the walkthrough for the first 100 turns by TKS2013 if I recall correctly.

But lets not derail this thread further. In my post I tried to distinguish between adding mechanisms that augment incentives already in the game to switch from palace and completely new mechanics that aim for the same goal.

The most Obvious Rhye's of Civilization mechanic (CivIII) would be start the capitol in a spot with lands that are very good at the start but get worse over time coupled with lands that start off worse but eclipse the original capitol spot over time.

 

[SBlack]

Could starting a golden age in non-capital city build a palace. Palace building wouldnt have to be upgraded and it has some historical base (Turks and Istanbul, Meiji and Tokyo, Arabs and Bagdad, etc.).