Capturable Great People

[SaucyJ]

Did a search of the forums and no pertinent threads showed up, so I'm assuming no one else has requested this (apologies if they have).

Is there anything that can be changed in the code to make great people capturable rather than the terrible mechanics that are currently in place?

 

[The Capo]

I like this idea, this is how it was in Civ IV. I didn't really play Civ V much so I don't know if it was like that in V. There may be a reason they decided not to do this though. A good compromise would be to treat them the way spies are treated. Perhaps when a GP is captured you could trade them back to the civ in the diplomacy screen, the same way you can spies.

 

[Gleb Bazov]

Run this SQL statement first:

UPDATE Units SET CanRetreatWhenCaptured='0' WHERE UnitType LIKE 'UNIT_GREAT_%';

See if that works and makes GPs capturable. It may be insufficient, though. If it's not, then use this one in conjunction with the first one:

INSERT INTO UnitCaptures (
BecomesUnitType,
CapturedUnitType
)
SELECT UnitType, UnitType
FROM Units
WHERE Units.UnitType LIKE 'UNIT_GREAT_%'

Now you GPs without the ability to retreat to their capital when captured and, in the event they are captured, they must transform into the same unit type they are.

However, there is a catch. A Unique GP is not merely, say, UNIT_GREAT_GENERAL. It is actually a unique object in the game that has an identity as UNIT_GREAT_GENERAL, but is otherwise a separate object. Thus, it is possible (using LUA and also by modifying the Units table in XML to allow GPs to be trained) to force the game to produce general UNIT_GREAT_GENERALs and any other UNIT_GREAT_Xs. The only thing they have in common with the Unique GP Individuals is their basic UnitType (sharing the same movement point, teleportation to capital when capture, and so forth), but they do not share anything in terms of individuality and unique abilities.

So, if you commit the changes above to the game database, it is quite possible that, upon capture, the game would generate generic UNIT_GREAT_Xs in place of the captured Unique GP Individual.

However, I am quite interested in seeing what happens, so, if you do try it, please share your results!