Losing buildings on city conquest

[Bringa]

Hey,

This is a problem that's been with FFH for a very long time: whenever another civ conquers one of your cities, practically all buildings are destroyed, even if that other civ can build the same building as well. I guess this is some kind of technical problem inside FFH, but my question is: is this a problem you guys still want to fit? Is it high on your TODO list?

 

[cabbagemeister]

I think this is a feature from Vanilla Civ4 and not a FFH-specific thing. I believe the purpose is to make warmongering less attractive: it would be too powerful a strategy if you were able to incorporate new fully-developed cities into your empire so quickly. So rather than warring making you instantly stronger, as it did in previous Civ games, war makes you weaker in the short term and stronger only if you take the time to build up your conquests.

Unless world buildings are being destroyed (which I haven't seen happen), I would not change this feature.

 

[James the Wise]

Maybe different civs could have a different % of buildings destroyed in newly conquered cities ?

Or maybe this could be used as a one off trait for a certain civ ?

 

[Bringa]

Cabbage: Nope, this is not a feature from Vanilla Civ. In Vanilla civ, if a city has a granary and you conquer it, it still has a granary. If the original owner gets it back, it will still have a granary. In FFH, on first capture it loses the granary.

James: I don't think it's a good idea to introduce a new mechanic here. The way it's working now is simply a bug and should be changed, imo. Game design wise it makes most sense to let the city keep the building.

 

[cabbagemeister]

I'm not sure you're right. I remember always having to queue up courthouses and granaries in any newly-conquered city in Vanilla. In fact, put "buildings destroyed on conquest" into the forum search form at the top of this page and you'll find a number of Vanilla-oriented threads talking about this same issue.

 

[Chip56]

Nope, this is not a feature from Vanilla Civ

It is, but maybe its less likly.
However you can change the %values that a building is destroyed in xml.
But its somewhat unlogic that you loose 15 out of 20 buildings because you defended with one unit lost and recaptured the city from a unit with 1HP remaining.
I would prefer a drasticaly reduced chance that a building is destroyed on capture but add a small chance (maybe 2-3%) that a building is destroyed on bombard or a (maybe only sucesfull) city attack.
And if possible a reduced chance of destroying something if that city has a lot of your culture (no burning down the whole city after you recapture it).

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Buildings have a chance to be retained on conquest. In some respects, FfH is more generous, because you might keep an oblisk, whereas in vanilla FfH, no culture producing building remains.
I can't honestly say I remember if non-culture non-wonder buildings were destroyed or not.

 

[cabbagemeister]

I'm not sure it's tremendously illogical for the buildings to be destroyed either. When a city is conquered, the conquering civ gets a big cash infusion. In game terms, this money presumably comes from looting and pillaging the important buildings in town (it certainly doesn't come from the treasury of the beaten civ).

I agree that it's silly that retaking your own city would result in further loss of buildings. Presumably your troops wouldn't pillage their own recaptured cities! But preventing this would likely be difficult to code. Exactly how many turns should pass before the game thinks of the city as "theirs" and not "yours"?

 

[Bringa]

Okay, so I just tried it in Beyond the Sword, and indeed I kept about half the buildings only. I didn't play enough non-FFH Civ4 However, in FFH I don't remember EVER keeping a single building.

Where do I find those percentages? Does anyone remember off the top of their heads?

 

[Chip56]

Where do I find those percentages? Does anyone remember off the top of their heads?

Its the <iConquestProb>100</iConquestProb> line in Assets\XML\Buildings\CIV4BuildingInfos.xml

 

[Darksaber1]

Okay, so I just tried it in Beyond the Sword, and indeed I kept about half the buildings only. I didn't play enough non-FFH Civ4 However, in FFH I don't remember EVER keeping a single building.

Where do I find those percentages? Does anyone remember off the top of their heads?

Yeah, I too usually will look in a city to see no buildings exept buildings granted be wonders I own. I don't ever remember capturing a Non-World wonder.

 

[Blackmantle]

At times you keep one building or another. Especially with well-established cities. Maximum for me was four our five buildings retained but usually its 0-1.

 

[Kael]

In BtS there is a 66% chance you will capture each building (in general). In FfH there is a 25% chance you will capture each building (again in general). Thats because in FfH war, and rushes is already so beneficial.

 

[Sarisin]

One associated issue to this that is still bugged is when Basium takes over a city. I can see losing buildings in a war, however, it doesn't make sense that in a peaceful takeover/alliance buildings should be lost and require rebuilding.

Wonders can also be affected. One extreme example I saw in a prior version of FFH was the Gate being built in a city that had Catacombs Libralus. The Mercurians took over that city, the Wonder still showed, but you couldn't build Adepts because of no Mage Guild. Subsequent Mercurian cities had to build Mage Guilds too despite one city having the Wonder that should put one in each city.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

What's most frustrating is when you get a nice city and manage to keep a courthouse, oblisk and a few other buildings, then lose it and next time you get it, nothing.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I think this is a feature from Vanilla Civ4 and not a FFH-specific thing.

Yes, it is. I can say with confidence that it's in the Dragonia 2 Mod (and most other mods, unless the modder specifically removed it), as well. So, you'd have to change the Vanilla Code to remove this.

And tho it's sometimes (or as it seems in certain games, always) frustratin, it does force you to defend the city well.

 

[Fafnir13]

Just from a conceptual side, it's possible that your troops aren't the only guys destroying buildings. Defeated enemies often commit acts of destruction as a final, spiteful act. Then there's also the many turns of rioting that cities have after you conquer them. Wouldn't surprise if some yahoo didn't think it a grand idea to chuck a torch into the local library.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Yeah, that's prolly true. The idea prolly is that the enemy citizens go, "Better burn before the (insert civ name here) get here and use it to hurt our nation". Or at least you could see that happenin in RL.

 

[westamastaflash]

What's most frustrating is when you get a nice city and manage to keep a courthouse, oblisk and a few other buildings, then lose it and next time you get it, nothing.

Or if you lose a city where you settled a Bear :-(

 

[Ahriman]

The thing I hate about this more than anything are the consequences of losing one of your cities; even if you recapture it immediately, its still pretty much useless for ages.
I wish the game could somehow track what you have, so that you might lose most of the buildings to a conqueror, but regain them should you recapture the city quickly.

A courthouse or factory is more than just the physical building; its the entire system of judges, lawyers, etc. If you conquer an enemy this system may well disappear, but if you briefly lose control of a city and then recapture it, most of this nonphysical infrastructure would be much easier to replace than would rebuilding from scratch.

Another alternative solution; when you recapture a city (and the game knows how to tell between conquests and recaptures) you get a building that lasts ~10-15 turns and gives +100% building construction.