What should happen when you take an enemy's capital city?

[Chris_b_89]

I haven't played Civ 1 or 2, for many years, but I remember that in one of them (I think it was in Civ 2) if you took their capital city they had a chance of descending into civil war.

I liked this aspect to the game a lot, because it gave some significance to the capital city, and it presented a strategy to defeat a rival civilization that was much stronger than your own.

The way it works now, you take their capitol, and it just moves to a different city, as if the capitol has no significance at all.

It wouldn't necessarily have to go into civil war, maybe some of the cities would pledge allegiance to you, or the civ would go into anarchy for a few turns. But I do think taking the enemies capital should have some significance.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I opened a poll a while back suggestion that the conqueror should get a free courthouse in the city - wasn't received very well.

Also, I think the civ should get a '50%-Palace' as replacement only, thus only half the corruption fighting effect. Then, it should be able to rebuild the real Palace at half cost.

 

[sabo]

About the only advantage I've found to taking the capitol Chris is the AI will pretty much give you his shirt to end the war afterwards. The only other advantage is destroying the space ship if they're building one

 

[Zouave]

In the Ancient or Medieval period it should either cause a civil war or force the enemy to make peace on terms favorable to the conqueror (but not crazy).

It should NOT MEAN NOTHING AT ALL, as is the case in Civ 3 where it goes hoping from town to town. When taken, it should cause anarchy to the civ that lost it for four turns, and only then a new palace could appear in a city of choice. In addition to the other stuff above.

 

[sabo]

I agree Zouave

 

[Zouave]

Oh. I took the Aztec capital seven times in one campain in the Medieval period. Once I took it five times in a row.

The Aztecs would NOT make peace with me except on a treaty for treaty basis, which was unaccceptable as they started the war.

So they got exterminated. Stupid AI.

 

[Maple]

Originally posted by Zouave
Oh. I took the Aztec capital seven times in one campain in the Medieval period. Five times I took it five times in a row.

The Aztecs would NOT make peace with me except on a treaty for treaty basis, which was unaccceptable as they started the war.

So they got exterminated. Stupid AI.

I've had the same thing happen to me. The Romans were my friend, my ally, my eternal brother, they helped me wipe out the Babylonians, Greeks, and Zulu. We successfully (sp?) defended against the world power, the Russians. We were Gracious for more than 3000 years. Seven turns after we wiped out the Zulu, they declared war on me. They took one city and killed maybe a half dozen Cavalry. I was so mad that I used my new tanks to take 14 of their 20 cities. Then they asked for a treaty for treaty peace.

So they died.

 

[GI Josh]

Loss of a capital should result the same as loss of a government . . . anarchy for some set period of time, say 5 turns. This would result in a serious penalty, give strategic importance to a capital, but would not be a "game ender". It would also make a FP more important. If a capital is caputured and the civ has a FP, the capital should transfer to the FP city and the FP should turn into a palace. Thus a FP gives you a prepared back-up capital and you avoid the 5-turn anarchy penalty. However, now there is no backup until you build another FP. Choice of FP will now have strategic considerations, i.e. you don't want both your FP and your capital to be vulnerable to sudden attack. Also, the capital will have more significance in the early game, pre-FP.

I think there are a lot of easy ways to add strategic depth to the game without adding a lot of units/buildings/etc. that would make the game unwieldy. For example,check out some of the threads on changing the effect of RRs.

 

[etj4Eagle]

GI Josh I like your ideas, especially with multiplayer coming out. Heres hoping against hope that Firaxis might add it at some point as at least an option to PTW.

 

[warpstorm]

Firaxis said that in PTW there will be an option for Regicide. I think that this means that the actal ruler is on the battlefield and that if he is killed it is game over for that civ.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

GI Josh: !!!!! I like that idea of yours

 

[Squirrel]

Originally posted by Chris_b_89
I haven't played Civ 1 or 2, for many years, but I remember that in one of them (I think it was in Civ 2) if you took their capital city they had a chance of descending into civil war.

I liked this aspect to the game a lot, because it gave some significance to the capital city, and it presented a strategy to defeat a rival civilization that was much stronger than your own.

It was in Civ 1, and there was another nice aspect to it as well: If you were about to lose the space race, you could take the AI capital and their space ship would be completely destroyed.

I too liked this strategic importance of capitals and I think they should do something about it in Civ 3. GI Josh' ideas were quite good.

 

[Smoking mirror]

In civ three the best military strategy is not to take the enemy capital, but to beseige it; cutting off all trade routes and killing off all the population.
A civ can only do international trade of resources (like oil rubber etc.. if their capital has a trade link with the outside world.
Also if you restrain yourself from actualy capturing the capital, you can take the cities around it and so slowly increase the distance between the capital and all the other cities. The cities that do still exist will have more and more coruption as you get further away from the beseiged capital; a good tactic is to continualy bombard the capital, reducing its ability to counter attack (for the first few years of a capital seige you can expect at least one longbow man a turn to be built in the capital and imediately throun at you troops in a suicide attack.

If you take the capital, all you do is make things easier for the AI by forcing their coruption control area further in to the still resisting cities.
I used to love the way in civ two you could travel half way round the world, using enemy rail roads park ouside an enemy capital, crush the few defenders with ease and then drive the enemy civ into supercoruption/ civilwar; It was a surefire way of beating any civ as long as you had enough strong units to take the capital.
But lets face it, it didn't realy leave you with a strategic challenge did it?

 

[Japher]

I liked getting a tech from the other civs when you destroyed one of their towns... I also think you should be able to raid the coffers and keep the town. I don't really care either way... Because one more town that is mine is one more town that is not theirs.

 

[friedmad]

of course, the corollary to this is to just surround the capital, cutting off all trade and resource collection, then pick off the other cities one by one, taking the capital last.

god i love this game