How did another civ win a space victory when I captured his Apollo program?

[sun surfer]

I just played a game where I noticed Hiawatha was ahead of me in techs and got the Apollo program built too early, so I had no choice but to attack even though it was a closed Great Plains land map and I was in one corner and he was in another, and the only way to get to him was through many other civs.

Anyway, I did manage to capture a few of his cities and eventually his capital, which I could see contained his space program which a few components already built and added. And at this time there was maybe 20 turns left before 2050 and I was going for a time victory.

I'd never prevented another civ from getting a space victory this way, so I was worried he'd still somehow manage it, but I thought surely, he'd have to build the Apollo program again and I'd see the notice that he'd built it and I could attack if necessary. I also sent military around his territory constantly just to make sure I wasn't seeing a new space program in any of his cities, especially his new capital, and I didn't see any.

Well, some turns later, I started getting notices that "Hiawatha has completed SS this!" and "Hiawatha has completed SS that!" I got a little worried but thought, well, it's close to the end, I just don't see how he could rebuild the Apollo program to add those things to in time. So it must be a glitch that he's even building those things now in the first place since he lost his building he needs to win. I also had nuclear weapons and military at the ready right by his cities just in case I got wind that he had rebuilt the space program.

So everything's going great until TWO turns before a time victory. It all the sudden announces that Hiawatha has won a space victory! What?!?

How the heck did he manage to win one without ever re-building the space program? He kept building components, but I had control of his capital city which included his space program, and he never re-built the space program. Is this a glitch, or is there something I'm missing?

 

[Browd]

Apollo Program is a project, not a building in a city that can be captured or destroyed. Once the project is completed, its capabilities are known empire wide. (Same with the Manhattan Project.)

Also, when you conquered his capital, you didn't destroy any SS parts that were already attached to the SS -- those completed parts were auto-teleported to his new capital. He can continue building parts in any of his cities and attach them to the SS at his new capital.

 

[sun surfer]

Ah thanks, well that clears it up. It's funny how you can play something so long and not figure some things out like that (to be fair, I'm not quite a "fanatic" and am a more casual player so far, but I've definitely put plenty of my time into Civ).

But the capital I did capture had the beginning structure of the spaceship and it stayed in the capital I captured, I wonder why that was? Shouldn't it have disappeared then and moved to another city? That's the reason I was looking around his civ, to make sure I didn't see it popping up anywhere else. Was that just a graphics glitch, or am I somehow mistaken?

 

[Browd]

Graphic glitch, probably.

 

[Homusubi]

Let me get this right. You saw Hiawatha - yes, Hiawatha - go for a Science victory. Were you playing on Random Personalities or something? I always think of the Iroquois as an ICS domination civ.

 

[Shadow717]

Let me get this right. You saw Hiawatha - yes, Hiawatha - go for a Science victory. Were you playing on Random Personalities or something? I always think of the Iroquois as an ICS domination civ.

Hiawatha actually has a very high tendancy to go for a science victory. It may even be his prefered choice. I lost a game to him just last week

 

[soprof]

Let me get this right. You saw Hiawatha - yes, Hiawatha - go for a Science victory. Were you playing on Random Personalities or something? I always think of the Iroquois as an ICS domination civ.

It's funny, but if you follow his policies you'll often see rationalism as 3rd =D

Also, jungle starting bias gives a science boost at a certain point =D

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yeah. Hiawatha is definitely a science victory contender.

 

[Homusubi]

Hiawatha has a Forest starting bias, not Jungle.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I've had the Iroqouis start in a jungle before (with just a few forest tiles). They aren't quite the production giants as they are in full forest, but they have good growth and the forest trade routes thing still works, so the money flows too. Once you get trading posts thrown up in the jungles along with universities and the Rationalism sopol, they get very sciencey.

 

[sun surfer]

Let me get this right. You saw Hiawatha - yes, Hiawatha - go for a Science victory. Were you playing on Random Personalities or something? I always think of the Iroquois as an ICS domination civ.

Yep, Hiawatha, and no, no random personalities.

I was playing on a weird map though - the Great Plains closed landlocked world. Just thought I'd try it out as I usually like the more normal ones with oceans and such.

He got really lucky though. I was purposely going for time victory to unlock that Steam medal so all I needed to do was be on top score-wise and prevent any other wins before 2050. I don't know what was up with the map generation this time but I started in the northwest corner with more than half of the city states surrounding me. It was very odd. Once I explored the whole map I realised the city-states hadn't been generated equally across the map - they were all around me! And because it was a closed map, I couldn't go north or west at all.

So I was forced to got to war early with my neighbours - Bismarck to the east and Napoleon to the south, who of course were both more than happy to war with me being such war-hungry rulers. What really sucked about all the city states is the ones around me on the edges of the map, because Bismarck kept allying with the militaristic ones and then while I was at war with him to the east, all the sudden his units (given to him by the city state) would keep coming out of nowhere to do havoc on my northwestern border which should've been completely safe and isolated.

All this time, Hiawatha got lucky with a northeastern corner start not that close to anyone else and not many city-states blocking his way. So he managed to expand better than everyone else and became strong early. For me to get to him (he was the last player I met in the game), I had to cross the borders of Bismarck, then Rameses, the Montezuma. So it was extremely difficult to wage war with him to say the least because I either had to have open borders with all the others (and not have them randomly expire throwing my units back out) or be at war with them as well. And on top of that, though I eventually dominated Bismarck, I had a strong Napoleon to the south who I just couldn't keep up with in military units, and even when I wanted peace he kept backstabbing me and going to war, so I had to make enough military units to send a whole army to fight Hiawatha on the other side of the map, and still have enough military to protect my own lands from Napoleon who was number one in military.

I managed to do it all, and capture a good many of Hiawatha's cities including his capital where he was building his spaceship...and then he still wins a space victory two turns before my time win.

 

[Light Cleric]

Let me get this right. You saw Hiawatha - yes, Hiawatha - go for a Science victory. Were you playing on Random Personalities or something? I always think of the Iroquois as an ICS domination civ.

Especially since G&K, Hiawatha has been a huge thorn in my side because of how he becomes a runaway science civ. In my first OCC Science attempt, he finished Apollo at 198 and launched at 240. He regularly runs insanely ahead in tech, like in Deity Challenge #3 where he was consistently 20-25% ahead of the average, hitting **Modern** in the 140s.

 

[Biologist]

There are only two sure ways to prevent a Scientific victory by the AI. Either achieve a victory condition yourself before the other civ blasts off, or attack the AI and take all their production cities. The latter should prevent them from building the spaceship (or researching needed techs) in a reasonable amount of time.

Since the fall patch, AIs bent on a Scientific victory seem much less prone to being distracted by petty wars. Taking the AI capital is a good start, but you pretty much need to take away all their good production cities to stop their progress. I lost one recent game when Germany continued to calmly build their spaceship despite being at war with everyone else in the world (except me, since I was turtling in a corner of the Pangaea map and couldn't even reach German territory). The really crazy thing was that they actually wiped out two other nations during the course of that war.

 

[sun surfer]

By the way, on this game I discovered that the Civ V generator has a sense of humour. I chose Great Plains, an almost all-land map, and then selected "random leader". It gave me Elizabeth, of course. So I had absolutely no useful leader/civ perks this game.

The AI space victory is the thorn in my side. Every single time I've lost so far on Civ V, it's always been because of an AI space victory. Even when I win, it's often racing to win whichever way against an AI working towards the space victory. The real problem of it is, once you see them starting for it, if they're ahead of you, there's so little to do to stop it. Like Biologist says, basically your only option is to stop everything you're doing and concentrate on war with that civ, and as I've learned, just capturing their capital/spaceship city isn't enough. I hate turning options off because they affect other aspects of the game too but I'm seriously considering turning off space victory for awhile.

In all my games, no other civ has managed to decimate me (though there's been close calls), no civ has ever gotten close to a cultural victory (I have, and some other civs have been way ahead in policies, but none besides me have ever started to build the winning building) and no civ has ever built the UN for a diplomatic victory (including me - that was my next goal after time victory).

 

[krc]

By the way, on this game I discovered that the Civ V generator has a sense of humour. I chose Great Plains, an almost all-land map, and then selected "random leader". It gave me Elizabeth, of course. So I had absolutely no useful leader/civ perks this game.

Longbows?

 

[sufficiency]

Hiawatha will often go for science victory.

 

[Biologist]

Longbows?

And one extra spy, assuming G&K is installed.

 

[sun surfer]

OK, Elizabeth didn't give "absolutely" no perks, but close enough. She was definitely the worst leader the system could've given me and gave me *almost* absolutely no perks.

And btw, it was vanilla, so her only perk for this game was the longbows.

 

[Unresolved]

Longbows are excellent. I'd take Elizabeth in a pangaea over several other leaders. India comes to mind...

 

[sun surfer]

Oh heck no. Ghandi would be much better. He has two types of units that are useful and a unique ability that is useful. Longbows alone do not equal that at all.

And this wasn't pangaea. This was the Great Plains map, where the map was closed (no round world east to west) and basically all land simulating the great plains of the U.S. At least on a pangaea you could use Elizabeth's navy advantages to navigate around the pangaea. In the game I played everything but her longbows were completely useless.