Capitol victory sucks

[Apepis]

Some quick notes on Capitol victory:
- It is too easy: all you need to do is to get open borders agreements with as many civs as possible (which is also way too easy) and then build yourself to death with advocates;
- current ways to prevent too quick Capitol victory are quite... unelegant; Ok, when everyone breaks open borders with you, it is surely effective, but it also forces the player to adopt more offensive strategy; all in all, it ends up as a semi-conquest victory and that strips the original idea of some flavor (IMO - a lot of flavor);
- it uses religions mechanic (which is a rather functional solution), and so it blocks the implementation of other ideas using the same mechanic, like - let's say - ideologies.

Conclusion: Capitol victory needs serious redesign or complete removal (to unlock space for something more fun).

What do You think about Capitol victory?

 

[Apepis]

More of the same:
Why not resign form the current version of Capitol victory and replace it with a diplomatic victory achieved by winning a major elections in "Continental Congress" (or smtg else a bit similar to vanilla UN mechanics). This idea could be expanded in some ways, like: there can be several competing Congresses, every one uniting a couple of civs and waging a prestigious (if not economical or militaty) war on the others. For example of such mechanic you could see Fall from Heaven 2 mod with its Overcouncil and Undercouncil. Of course, a Congress, just like vanilla UN, could pass multiple resolutions.

 

[davidlallen]

We had quite a big of discussion in the June-July timeframe on different ways of doing this. Ignoring the actual game mechanics, do you agree with the basic thing I am trying to model, which is manuevering among different rivals to get everybody to agree your city is the most important?

The key point about this is that there is no established national body such as a continental congress or a united nations. So the idea of gathering everybody together in one place to vote, and assuming everybody will be "bound" by the result of the vote, is not what I am trying to get at. In frontier America, or in the Fury Road world, sending delegates from one place to another is dangerous; they are likely to get eaten on the way there or the way back. And each group wants to establish *themselves* as the national authority, so losing some kind of vote doesn't provide any barrier.

Then looking at the mechanics, I agree that the AI's are not very good at defending against influence. I have made only one AI change compared to vanilla; in vanilla, accepting religious influence is usually a good thing, and one good strategy is to not bother founding any religious on your own. Just wait for the next guy to do it and then convert. (In FFH, there is a religious loss possibility, but the benefits of founding a religion are quite strong and most civs do it.)

The change that I made is to have the AI's abruptly terminate open borders when somebody gets "close" to victory. This should really be only the first step in a bunch of changes to make the AI more sensitive to this and to push their own influence more. If you imagine a game with multiple human players, I think there would be a lot more diplomacy regarding advocates and open borders, as well as concessions for converting to another's influence.

If the AI's handled offensive and defensive use of influence "better", do you think it would be more fun? Or is your disagreement more fundamental?

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

been awhile sense I have played the mod, but all out war with you if you are close to the win would help some. Though you tend to be at war any way so you could in-fact spread you capital influence.

Maybe some kind of mechanic that can reduce you influence around the continent if you are at war. People no matter the intent or justification do not like some other's values pushed on them (even if its for their own good i.e. Iraq)

No democracy (or other value) in real life will survive unless the people choose to spill their own blood for the cause. Another nation can be an example, but the moment the raise arms then most bets are off. If you go for a capital win and do it by the sword you risk loosing influence and another capital value could under cut your efforts and cause you to loose.

(edit: oh and about your question of this being a worth while game mechanic, MOST DEFINITELY it imho is a very important flavor aspect of this game)

 

[Apepis]

If the AI's handled offensive and defensive use of influence "better", do you think it would be more fun? Or is your disagreement more fundamental?

If the Capitol victory would be more challenging - and AI got some understanding of influence - then yes, I wouldn't complain. This would be a worthy and fully playable aspect of the mod. On the other side, right now it seems that a lot must be done to achieve that. I wonder if it is really worth the cost.

First, yes, it is flavourfull (although I could think of more flavourfull things that have been not implemented, e.g.: post-apocalyptic religious fanaticism, mutations, or simply a drive to rely heavily on easy to obtain renevable power resources). Capitol victory, as is, fits better in the theme than Continental Congress - true.

But then again, is it really needed? It actually simulates nothing: influenced city is at the same time a part of a sovereign civ and a follower of a certain Capitol. What is the role of Capitol here? Some sort of ideologic center or maybe an "inter-civ" government? Because in case of ideology it could be implemented a lot different (better), and in the case of multinational government... sorry, but in that case, the city should revolt and join its new masters after converting, as I can't imagine such "double loyalty" approach (that would be more acceptable with UN mechanics, where all nations joined willingly).

Of course, I understand that it is all an attempt to mark and measure influence. I only try to say that this is a clumsy way to do it. I believe we should abandon here either the whole victory condition (a good idea but not so crucial, and needs an awfull lot of work), or at least rethink it as something independent of religious mechanics.

 

[Korias]

Use Corporation mechanics instead? It would make more sense, as the advocation of you're capitol would cost a hefty fee, especially in foreign civs. You still get the idea of sending Advocates, but it frees up the religion mechanic for other ideas. As somebody that won their first victory using the Capitol system (albeit as the New Australians, who get a bonus to it), Its an interesting way to preform things. Perhaps, instead, it should function similarly to the AP, with restrictions. I'll be using NA as the example here from now on.
Lets say that NA builds their capitol, and spreads it to a foreign civ. Like the AP, that civ gains a number of votes based upon how many of their cities support the Capitol. Because we're using Corp mechanics, we can also assume that there can be support for only 1-2 capitols, ala the competition of Mining Inc and Aluminium Co. So, I, playing the NA, spread my influence over to Kilobyte. Kilobyte, being different from me, would be using something along the lines of a replacement for Cereal Mills. If I'm using a replacement for, say, Mining Inc, then the two can co-exsist. Because they can co exsist, it would not cause unhappiness for Kilobyte should he chose to defy a NA resolution. However, if I spread it to Martha and the Lost Boys, its like spreading Mining Inc to Creative Constructions- the two dont mix. It would cost a hefty amount to spread my influence, but Because her cities dont have her capitol's support, she gains Unhappiness when she defies my resolution.

Unfortunately, this brings two things to the forefront.
If every capitol were to act as the AP, would each leader be the resident for their own capitol? If so, then we could have conflicting resolutions, which could cause angry faces or revolts in cities with the influence. If not, we could have certain capitols "shut off" if another civ becomes the Resident instead.
And if another civ adopts your influence, what about their capitol? Obviously they wont be using it, so shutting it down would be a good idea, but would there be a way to do that effectivley and through as little work as possible? Merging the AP with Corp mechanics is daunting enough, and the mod already has enough work put into it.

 

[Apepis]

After some consideration I must admit we can also combine Religions/Corporations mechanic with UN mechanic. Let's call this new thing Confederation. It's a "multi-civ" government, spreading its influence just as Capitols (via advocates), but controlling its subject civs by resolutions (the UN part). There can be only a few of possible Confederations (let's say 4 to 7), but all are unique in some way. One can be focused on amassing wealth necessary to rebuild pre-Apocalypse world (that also means members of this Confederation will value trade, freedom of movement and citizen rights - like right to own things). Other can be obsessed with security, claiming it to be the foundation of any stable structure in post-Apocalypse world (this Confederation has a tendency do impose curfews, reduce citizen freedoms, invest in military and police forces, etc.).

This is, I believe, an interesting expansion of Capitol mechanic, eliminating some of it's flaws (too many Capitols, too undistinguished).