Scavenging

[Woodreaux]

I don't know how many of y'all played some X-Com:UFO Defense back in the day, but I did. I loved the whole notion of you keep what you kill and get to salvage the enemies gear once you've obliterated them from the battlefield.

I think an aspect of this could be applied to games like Civ, where warfare thrives on technology. In XCom, after winning battles, you could give the salvaged xeno-weaponry to your scientists who could in turn reverse engineer it and unlock access to said weapon. Civ V could introduce this in 2 ways. Anytime you win a battle (on the attack) and occupy the dead defenders' tile, if the defending unit was empowered by a technology you don't have yet, you get a random number of towards those techs. Similarly, when conquering a city which contains buildings you don't have the tech for, each said building gives you a few towards that technology.

It only makes sense, the Mongols did it to the Chinese to get their artillery corps up and running. What do y'all think?

 

[Shurdus]

This is something I dislike. You already get a bonus amount of beakers towards techs that an opponent has so in effect techs that are known by at least one AI are already cheaper. You therefore already get units and buildings faster if at least one AI has acces to this building or unit.

Also it beats me why you would get a bonus for finding - say - a grocer in a city that you captured. What are your wise people going to learn from a pile of bricks? It is not like there is anything inherently special about this building you capture, so there is nothing to see. The same goes for weapons. If you know one nation uses weapon X you already get a bonus towards the tech that unlocks that weapon.

The factor that makes me dislike this the most however is that this system would favor warring. Warring is already a sominant factor in civ, and I think anything that makes warring even more prominent and important should be discouraged. I would like to see more games that end peaceful rather than more wars. I want non-violent victories to be a more realy option rather than just a theoretic option that is possible once in a few games.

 

[Ahriman]

The factor that makes me dislike this the most however is that this system would favor warring.

This to me is the main problem. War should give you territory and resources and population, it shouldn't also give you technology, or it becomes too dominant as a strategy. Technology and (short-term) economy should be achieved more easily when at peace than during war.

 

[Thyrwyn]

I agree that warring does not need any more encouragement as a strategy.