Taking over an enemy Great person instead of destroying?!

[mclericp]

I noticed how i always 'destroy' an enemy great person when i melee it. Shouldnt it make sense to 'capture' it and make it urs instead?

And because of this, how come the enemy(maya for me in this game) captured my great prophet instead of destroying it, while i remember only destroying his great engineer and not capturing.

@.@

 

[Enonwnn]

Great Prophets are the only Great Units that can be captured.

If they have been unused, i.e. they have 4 spread religion uses left, then you can use them either to spread the enemies religion (don't do this), or plant them as a holy site (DO THIS!). However, if they have already been used at least once to spread religion, you will not be able to plant them.

I do get disappointed each time I "kill" an enemy great person though. I suppose they'd rather die than work for the enemy.

 

[Hpuk]

Great Prophets are the only Great Units that can be captured.

If they have been unused, i.e. they have 4 spread religion uses left, then you can use them either to spread the enemies religion (don't do this)

It's sometimes useful to convert a city of yours if the enemy religion has one or more faith buildings to buy. If you convert cities that are deep within your religious pressure zone, you'll be able to quickly buy the faith building(s) and then let it convert back to your own religion.
Or obviously if you have no religion of your own and want to get at least some bonuses.

 

[monkeymcbain]

I do get disappointed each time I "kill" an enemy great person though. I suppose they'd rather die than work for the enemy.

The was a scramble between the US and Soviets to capture the Nazi rocket scientists after WW2 and also the US protected some of the Japanese scientists involved in human experimentation from war crimes trials in order to obtain their work.... i guess their expertise is more valuable than killing them

 

[isau]

It would be unimaginably overpowered to be able to capture Great Scientists or Engineers.

 

[forcedalt]

It wouldn't make much sense to have the generals/admiral's be capturable , but , as for the rest , i think it would fun. A possible new war trigger , except : no one really sits on GP's for very long.

 

[joncnunn]

It would be unimaginably overpowered to be able to capture Great Scientists or Engineers.

Only in multi player where donations are possible via war by agreement.
In SP, the AI uses both GS & GE really quickly.

 

[reddishrecue]

So you're saying that civilian great people should be capturable like barbarian great people.

 

[CraigMak]

It would be horribly imbalanced to capture a great person and be able to use it. Even taking workers is pretty strong. This just would not make sense balance wise. Yes, you can capture prophets because they will only spread the enemies religion which they were probably going to do in the first place.

You can also plant it to make a holy site if it's completely unused. That's kinda imbalanced as well.

 

[reddishrecue]

It is already horrible unbalanced with the ease of taking workers from city states and civilizations that easily sign a peace treaty afterwards which allow you to steal a worker without being a fool and losing a unit.
Most prophets that get stolen aren't even worth that much. Deleting them won't give you any gold either. As for the other great people, you might have a point.

 

[LoneRebel]

It would be unimaginably overpowered to be able to capture Great Scientists or Engineers.

Would it be that overpowered? How often do you get to attack an enemy Great Person anyway?

 

[isau]

Would it be that overpowered? How often do you get to attack an enemy Great Person anyway?

Enough to know the AI is really bad at defending them.

 

[Barghaest]

In SP, the AI uses both GS & GE really quickly.

Maybe it's a facet of the slow research games I play using my mod, but I've often seen the AI have a GE or GS waffling about in their area unused. Matter of fact, my mod allows their capture and I've snagged a few GEs from the AI (mainly to settle near new colonies to boost early production).

The AI is horrible about defending GPs... I mainly included their ability to be captured for the barbarian element so the AI didn't lose so many to barbs and could recover them. I don't exploit it personally and usually get them when they're hiding in a city I seize.