On the new Domination Victory and Capitals

[Bobbtjoe]

It has been stated (gametrailers video interview) that the new Domination Victory is achieved by "taking over each capital in the world" as Garrett Bittner, Producer @ 2K Games says in the video. The old Conquest Victory where you needed to capture every last city has been removed from the game. In Civ4, when you conquer a capital, the Civ will assign a new capital. So how does this work?

1. Do Civs still assign a new capital when you capure their capital?
2. So you'd have to conquer the original capital (London) and not necessarily the current capital (York)?
3. Does this mean that if Napoleon captured London (he wish ) and you capture it form him, you can have a Domination Victory without ever fighting England?
4. What if the London got razed by someone else? Does that mean England becomes irrelevant for Domination Victory?
5. Does conquering all capitals also include conquering all city states?

My understanding / assumption:

1. Yes, makes sense for a Civ to have a new capital to house the queen.
2. Yes, otherwise you still end up chasing Civs to the last city.
3. Yes, follows from 2). Of course can still punish the English for being taken by the French.
4. Yes, follows from 2). Means that if someone else does that, they help your Domination Victory too.
5. No idea, really. I'd say that if you conquer each major capital, you're dominating enough.

Is there any clarity about these aspects of the new Domination Victory? Other questions around this topic to be answered? Your perspective ...

Have you ever played civ rev? If you've haven't, don't, because it's terrible. But for those of us who have, we know that this system of taking all the capitals to win a domination victory is in civ rev. So it is likely that it would work the same way in Civ 5 as it does in Civ Rev:

[*] No, you can never assign a new capital in Civ Rev, so it is likely to be the same way in Civ 5.

[*]No, you would not be able to change captals.

[*]Yes, you can win a domination victory in that situation without fighting England.

[*]You can not raze cities in Civ Rev, so it might be simialar in Civ 5 (mabye you just can't raze capitals?)

[*]I assume so. Though in Civ Rev, you didn't have to capture all of the barb capitals to win a domination victory...

 

[Schuesseled]

99% of the time we get crappy starts. I don't see that changing for Civ5, do you?

You can always re-locate your first settler. I do that on occasion. Looking for a good spot, a really good city placement can undo the damage of waiting really easily.

 

[Mercade]

Have you ever played civ rev? If you've haven't, don't, because it's terrible.

I haven't and I intend to keep it that way. It's console, isn't it? I don't have a console thingie. Just PC's.

[*]You can not raze cities in Civ Rev, so it might be simialar in Civ 5 (mabye you just can't raze capitals?)

It's been confirmed that you can raze cities in Civ5, but maybe not capitals indeed. When you conquer a city, you can 1) incorporate it into your empire, but that'll cost happy faces, 2) install a puppet governor [kinda like making it a city state, you get the proceeds, but no influence on how the city is run at all] and 3) raze it.

 

[eireksten]

As long as we're guessing, here're mine.

• Do Civs still assign a new capital when you capure their capital?

No, they do not. They continue their existance without a capital. I'm guessing the capital doesn't have any game breaking abilities other than being necessary for the conquest (not domination) win.

• So you'd have to conquer the original capital (London) and not necessarily the current capital (York)?

Yes. Follows from 1)

• Does this mean that if Napoleon captured London (he wish ) and you capture it form him, you can have a Domination Victory without ever fighting England?

Yes. England lost their capital, and will be risking someone else winning by conquest unless they reconquer one.

• What if the London got razed by someone else? Does that mean England becomes irrelevant for Domination Victory?

I doubt you can raze a capital beyond size 1 (razing takes away one pop each turn, if I understand correctly). Think of it as you can't ever get rid of the citizens entirely. There will always be some underground league left in the city.

• Does conquering all capitals also include conquering all city states?

No. I really doubt that. I don't think city states will stand a chance against a large power unless they get allies. And as you've already "conquered" their allies, it would simply become boring mop-up.

 

[funkymunky]

I would guess that this means that the civ with the last palace standing is the winner.

The capital of a civ is the city that has a palace building. It has been this way in every civ game thus far. But, this time, perhaps when the capital is captured, the palace building gets destroyed. So, in the end, the civ with the last palace building standing becomes the winner.

I might also suspect that a civ might be able to rebuild their palace again in a new city. But if the palace building is made expensive enough, this should not be doable unless the civilization is very strong. In which case, you will need to conquer each civ enough that they cannot financially afford to rebuild their palaces. I think if this is the approach taken, it would make for a sensible and satisfactory type of conquest victory.

 

[Chomper]

I thought I heard somewhere that capturing a capital in this version was enough to remove them from the game. In older games capturing every city to win didn't mean possesing every city made, rather controlling 100% of them (everyone else being eliminated). I interpreted the point as, taking a capital removes the civ from the game, so if you have every capital (be it every one made or yours, as its the only one still standing) then you win by domination.

 

[Pouakai]

But that would be stupid. If London was invaded by Napoleon, does that mean that the English just 'give up' and surrender? No, they try to fight to get their capital back.

 

[Gamemaster77]

I hope they add in an option for a complete Conquest victory as I feel I will miss capturiing every last enemy city. I know I did when I played the iphone civ rev.

 

[The_J]

You can, you can.
Just block the last capital with your units and go conquering the world. I can't see any problem there.

 

[EmpireOfCats]

I hope they add in an option for a complete Conquest victory as I feel I will miss capturiing every last enemy city.

This. I don't like this change at all.

At the moment, with the available information, it seems like the game is being dumbed down for people with little frustration tolerance and short attention spans -- just take these four cities, and bam, you've won. I guess that means that the British must have won the War of 1812, because they invaded Washington and set fire to the city. Silly Americans! Why did they keep on fighting?

In Civ IV, the size of the enemy's empire figured into the decision if you wanted to go to war -- I can remember a game where I was fighting Monti (who else) who had control of that world's equivalent of Asia. I had the capital in two moves, but it took decades for the whole war to end, because what was left was so strong. And now, it's all supposed to be over just like that? Vassal states solved the problem nicely, thank you.

If anything, how about the country fragments once you capture the capital, and nations that were subjected rise and become independent again. That would keep the importance of the capital, but not turn it into a "game over" switch.

 

[12agnar0k]

My guess, and thats all we can do, assume, is that this Capital Domination win condition can only be achieved if Capitals don't work like in previous Civ titles on the PC but rather work like the official Cousin game Civilization Revolution, whereby your capital is your starting city, you can't build a palace in another city, you can't swap capitals from one place to another, enemies can't raze your Capital. This doesn't take much away from gameplay accept that sometimes in a game of civ if you got a bad starting location you could move the palace to a great second spot. I can safely assume this will be out of Civ 5, but is this simplification? I don't think it is, because for this particular change we now get a Capital Domination Win Condition, and that actually works quite well, It brings some more strategy into the game, Capitals are that much more important, protect your Capital. Or when deciding what city to take from an enemy, thier Capital will be empathised even more than normal.
Capital Domination is quite fun, though I hope we still have the ability to turn off all victory conditions other than total anihilation as I do like to rule the whole world

 

[qwerty25]

You can always re-locate your first settler. I do that on occasion. Looking for a good spot, a really good city placement can undo the damage of waiting really easily.

You can only re-locate a few turns away. You can't go walk around without settling unless you want a horrible disadvantage later on.

 

[12agnar0k]

Maybe, maybe not, How do you know what disadvantage will come of re-locating to settle more than a few turns late, you haven't played civ 5 yet. It's true that in civ 4 if you spent too long settleing you would be worse off basically on attempting to get anything done first. This might not be true in civ 5. And well if you start off in the middle of jungle or desert or ice, walking away to someonewhere many turns away but better isnt necessarily bad.

 

[Songkok]

This is not a good trend, they are encouraging ciV to be only a war game.
"Just conquer 5 more cities and you won the game!"

 

[12agnar0k]

Who the hell plays with 3 enemies or 5 enemies, most people i'd wager unless trying to get the easiest possible Diety Victory, play with 11-18 AI's. This is plenty of Capital targets to entice any war mongeror. And if you find winning to easy, not just on this mode but any mode, crank up your difficulty setting, it will be hard i'd bet to take 17 Diety Capitals

 

[Sciguy001]

This is not a good trend, they are encouraging ciV to be only a war game.
"Just conquer 5 more cities and you won the game!"

What in the world makes you imply this??? Making the only conquest victory in the game (the majority of the ways to win do not require war) less conquest-intensive than it has been in past Civ games (you no longer have to focus enough on war to conquer every city in the world) makes it seem to me the opposite of encouraging it to be an "only war game". In the myriad of other civ-like strategy games (including RTSs) the only way to win is by conquering your rivals. Civ has not taken any kind of step in this direction any more than it always has been.

 

[12agnar0k]

The higher the difficulty setting the harder it will be to achieve Military Victory, compared to going for cultural or space race. So no its as much only a war game as it ever was, if you play on as easy setting Military conquest will be as easy as its ever been, assuming combat mechanics don't make it really hard even at an easy setting, where as if you play on a hard setting with aggressive AI's that build tons more units thanks to lower maintanence costs than you and more of an economy, and more cities, Military Victory becomes very hard to achieve.

 

[ShaqFu]

Keep in mind that to raze a city in Civ5, you have to have a garrison on it for one turn per population point. To raze a large city (as a capital should be), you'll have to fight through your opponent's lines in the field, take the city, and hold it for 16-20 turns until you finish burning it down.

To be brutally honest, if your opponents can fight their way to your capital and sit on it for a century or so, your game really wasn't going anywhere to begin with.

 

[Tomice]

Well, the only important feature of capitals in civ4 was "distance from capital" - upkeep. If they throw this out, and possibly give capitals a defensive bonus, it would work (although it wouldn't be my favourite solution).

I can't find any better answer than that the capitals are eternally the same. Everything else seems too complicated and unlikely.

To throw in a new thought anyway, you could have a moving "king" unit on the map, usually located inside the strongest city. If he/she is captured, the civ becomes a vassal. So you would need to turn all/most enemies into vassals this way. A civ might free itself from vassalage, and there might be more peaceful ways to turn civs into vassals. Also, the king can't die accidentially.

This was just a random thought, I don't think it will be this way

 

[Johnny Be]

What in the world makes you imply this??? Making the only conquest victory in the game (the majority of the ways to win do not require war) less conquest-intensive than it has been in past Civ games (you no longer have to focus enough on war to conquer every city in the world) makes it seem to me the opposite of encouraging it to be an "only war game". In the myriad of other civ-like strategy games (including RTSs) the only way to win is by conquering your rivals. Civ has not taken any kind of step in this direction any more than it always has been.

I agree with this!

I think the big change is that they are making combat a much more tactical and planed tool , instead of a blunt weapon to steamroll everyone with SODs.