[Hypothetical] With the tools we currently have at our disposal, could a "nomad" civ happen?

[Legacy of Smiles]

With our current level of access to changing the game's code, could it be possible to make a Civ that could destroy and resettle cities? It'd be cool to implement but I'm doubtful it's possible.

 

[Gedemon]

what do you mean exactly by "destroy and resettle cities" ?

you mean a civ that can't build settlers but when capturing a city it get a settler on the city position, and the city is destroyed ?

 

[Legacy of Smiles]

what do you mean exactly by "destroy and resettle cities" ?

you mean a civ that can't build settlers but when capturing a city it get a settler on the city position, and the city is destroyed ?

Yeah really badly worded sorry. I meant if you settled a city somewhere you could remove the city from that spot and settle a city elsewhere. Essentially, some sort of temporary or mobile city mechanic.

 

[Gedemon]

Not the easiest things to do, but should be possible with some Lua coding and the use of "fake" buildings to allow the action of leaving a city.

 

[Legacy of Smiles]

Not the easiest things to do, but should be possible with some Lua coding and the use of "fake" buildings to allow the action of leaving a city.

That sounds really interesting. Could you go into more detail about how you'd use the "fake" buildings?

 

[Gedemon]

there would be two fakes building

one would be an "unlocker" for the other ("abandon city") building

the unlocker is a building that use itself as a prerequisite in the BuildingPrereqs table, this way it can't be build by the AI or player, but can be placed using Lua script in your nomade civilization cities. you'll need to overwrite a few UI files to hide the fake buildings from the human player view.

more about fake/dummy buildings here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/lees-dummy-buildings-utilities.614899/

the "abandon city" building would be set to require the unlocker in the BuildingPrereqs, and could have a very low cost to be produced in one turn.

once produced (check done in Events.CityProductionCompleted) you delete the city and create the settler using Lua.