Capturing an AI capital

[rjmatsleepers]

This may be covered in the Great Library, but I couldn't find it

When you capture an AI capital, three things can happen:

a) the capital is re-established at another location;

b) the empire splits into 2 warring factions;

c) the AI space ship returns to earth.

I assume the capital is re-established if the civ has enough money to build a new one. Is this correct? How much money do they need? Are there any other conditions?

I assume the empire can only split if there is at least one vacant civilization spot. But does it always happen? Is there a minimum size below which the empire does not split? Are there any other conditions?

I had assumed the AI space ship always returned when the capital was captured, but this is not the case. Apparently, if the empire splits and a new capital is established, they space ship does not need to return. What are the conditions under which capturing an AI capital will bring back the space ship?

These questions are relevant to the situation in the current "Democracy" game, so if you have any contribution, no matter how small, please post it.

RJM at Sleeper's

[atomant]

Re: Capturing an AI capital

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers
This may be covered in the Great Library, but I couldn't find it

When you capture an AI capital, three things can happen:

a) the capital is re-established at another location;

b) the empire splits into 2 warring factions;

c) the AI space ship returns to earth.

I assume the capital is re-established if the civ has enough money to build a new one. Is this correct? How much money do they need? Are there any other conditions?

I assume the empire can only split if there is at least one vacant civilization spot. But does it always happen? Is there a minimum size below which the empire does not split? Are there any other conditions?

I had assumed the AI space ship always returned when the capital was captured, but this is not the case. Apparently, if the empire splits and a new capital is established, they space ship does not need to return. What are the conditions under which capturing an AI capital will bring back the space ship?

These questions are relevant to the situation in the current "Democracy" game, so if you have any contribution, no matter how small, please post it.

RJM at Sleeper's

1) Alternate cappitals will continue to spawn until the treasury is spent. I do not know what the formula is, but it is around somewhere

2) An empire will split only if you capture the capital of a civilisation that is bigger than you.

3) The space ship continues to exist until the civilisation in question does not have a capital, Alternate capitals still count.

[Grigor]

IIRC the cost of a new palace from scratch is the operative figure, which I recall as 1000g. This could be checked by comparing the amount of cash the AI civ has before the capital was taken and after. Either UN or cheat menu will show that.

[Peaster]

An advanced AI often has two capitols appearing on the foreign minister screen. So, when you take capitol one, they switch instantly to capitol two. I suppose humans could have two palaces as well, but I have never tried it. If they do not have a back-up capitol, it seems they are unlikely to build one quickly (probably because they lack the gold, as Grigor said).

[Tomasz]

Are there any other conditions for empire splitting? Cause I always, after conquering another civ, go to the cheat mode and make barbarians or another civ that im in war with, generally smaller than me, conquer my capital.

The division happened three times in my life I recall.

One time it was very spectacular, I played a game in the mediterranean world having my cities everywhere except north-east corner and egypt. I made my capital to be captured, and the nation divided so evenly

Are there any formulea for the way a nation divides?

Tomasz

[rjmatsleepers]

Re: Re: Capturing an AI capital

Originally posted by atomant


3) The space ship continues to exist until the civilisation in question does not have a capital, Alternate capitals still count.

I think it may be more complicated than this. In the current democracy game, when we captured the original Zulu capital (Zimbabwe), the empire split, the capital moved to Mpondo and the space ship continued to fly. When we captured the new capital, the capital moved again (to Rouen), but this time the space ship returned to earth. That was my experience and I believe the same thing happened to Monk and Cavebear.

BTW is it possible to tell in advance where the capital will move to?

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Peaster
An advanced AI often has two capitols appearing on the foreign minister screen. So, when you take capitol one, they switch instantly to capitol two. I suppose humans could have two palaces as well, but I have never tried it. If they do not have a back-up capitol, it seems they are unlikely to build one quickly (probably because they lack the gold, as Grigor said).

My recollection is that as soon as the human player builds a new palace, the old palace goes. That is what happened in the current democracy game when we moved our capital from Apolytonia. I wonder if it is possible for the human player to have a back-up capital?

RJM at Sleeper's

[Carolus Rex]

IIRC the amount is 1000 gold; anything less than that and the AI will not be able to relocate the capital.

Carolus

[Elephant]

I have never seen a "backup" capital - check the Cities list under the Intel screen and there should only be one at a time. I've sometimes wondered if an improvement underway can be switched to the Palace and it completed for less, but with AI I've only seen 1000g deducted during a switch. I thought the city chosen was the largest available, but have not had enough experience to rely on that memory. I did not think the spaceship "returns", rather I thought it "crashed" - that is, it has to be rebuilt from scratch. Again my few experiences with this are hazy. I also think that Masonry is a required tech for moving the Palace, whether deliberately or in emergency.

Your experience with Rouen is the question here - if the capital switched, why did the spaceship "return"? Is there a "first time OK, second not" rule during a single turn? Or did the AI fail to switch capitals immediately, then rushbuy an existing improvement to a Palace during their build phase?

For a civ to split it has to have a higher Power Rating than the civ that takes the capital, and there must be at least one empty civ color. There may be a minimum number of cities required - you kind of assume it if the civ has a decent Power Rating. This could make for an interesting OCC-Conquest scenario...

[Peaster]

Elephant - Here's a screenshot of two capitols. But this comes from a scenario, and I am not sure it can happen in a normal game.

[La Fayette]

1) Several capitals for one civ only occurs in scenarios AFAIK

2) The Space Ship always crashes if the capital is taken AFAIK

3) I have never paid attention to how the new capital is chosen by the AI when the civ splits.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by La Fayette
1) Several capitals for one civ only occurs in scenarios AFAIK

The current democracy game is technically a scenario because of the way the map was constructed. We knew that this opened up the technology tree, but I don't think anyone realised there would be other differences compared with the standard game. Anyway that probably explains the "back-up capital.

Originally posted by La Fayette
2) The Space Ship always crashes if the capital is taken AFAIK

In the current democracy game we have captured a capital without crashing the space ship. At the time I thought there might be a rule that the space ship continues flying if the empire splits, but now I wonder whether it is another scenario thing.

Originally posted by La Fayette
3) I have never paid attention to how the new capital is chosen by the AI when the civ splits.

You've probably not played a democracy game in which the only way to avoid losing was to bring back the Zulu space ship. Suddenly you become interested in all sorts of areas in the game which previously seemed obscure.

RJM at Sleeper's

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Elephant
I did not think the spaceship "returns", rather I thought it "crashed" - that is, it has to be rebuilt from scratch. Again my few experiences with this are hazy.

I thought that the message talk about returning to earth, but I may be wrong. Either way, you are right that it has to be rebuilt from scratch.

Originally posted by Elephant
Your experience with Rouen is the question here - if the capital switched, why did the spaceship "return"? Is there a "first time OK, second not" rule during a single turn? Or did the AI fail to switch capitals immediately, then rushbuy an existing improvement to a Palace during their build phase?

My recollection is that the capital move to Rouen happened in the middle of our move. I was certainly in a position to make further unit moves. There could be a "first time OK, second not" rule. If there is, I wonder whether it applies separately to each civilization or it is only "first time" in a particular game. This could be fairly crucial, since we may need to bring down the Viking space ship as well

Originally posted by Elephant
For a civ to split it has to have a higher Power Rating than the civ that takes the capital, and there must be at least one empty civ color. There may be a minimum number of cities required - you kind of assume it if the civ has a decent Power Rating. This could make for an interesting OCC-Conquest scenario...

I experimented a little with the 1920 save from the current democracy game and found that the AI empire will split even if it has a smaller population than the human player. I didn't experiment with the power rating - I couldn't remember what factors influenced it

RJM at Sleeper's

[debeest]

My understandings:

The AI can instantly replace its captured capital/palace for 1000 g. (You have the same option if your capital is captured.) In such case, there is no split and no destruction of spaceship. The AI will not always make this choice, especially if it has only a little more than 1000 g.

The new capital is usually in what the AI considers the best protected location, central to its remaining cities but also at some distance from your forces.

If the capital is not replaced instantly, the spaceship will be destroyed and must be started from scratch. (I can't explain what you described seeing in the demo game, RJM.)

A civ will only split if it's more "powerful" than yours, which will almost always mean it's "bigger" than yours, and there is a vacant color slot. I think there are other requirements as well, but I don't know what they are.

When you build a new palace, your old palace disappears and your capital moves to the new city. I've never seen a civ with multiple capitals.

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by debeest
My understandings:

The AI can instantly replace its captured capital/palace for 1000 g. (You have the same option if your capital is captured.) In such case, there is no split and no destruction of spaceship. The AI will not always make this choice, especially if it has only a little more than 1000 g.

As I mentioned before, in our current game we hace certainly had a case where the capital moved and the space ship was destroyed. The tentative explanation is that there is a first time rule of some sort in operation.

Originally posted by debeest
The new capital is usually in what the AI considers the best protected location, central to its remaining cities but also at some distance from your forces.

If the capital is not replaced instantly, the spaceship will be destroyed and must be started from scratch. (I can't explain what you described seeing in the demo game, RJM.)

Probably my memory is at fault. I thought it said the Zulu space ship returns to earth, but I could easily be wrong.

Originally posted by debeest
A civ will only split if it's more "powerful" than yours, which will almost always mean it's "bigger" than yours, and there is a vacant color slot. I think there are other requirements as well, but I don't know what they are.

When you build a new palace, your old palace disappears and your capital moves to the new city. I've never seen a civ with multiple capitals.

The multiple capitals thing seems to be a consequence of playing a scenario which in turn is a consequence of the map we started with - I can't remember the details, but I think our starting map came with a lot of technologies and our first leader went into scenario mode to get rid of them.

Anyway, the consensus seems to be that we are not going to get rid of another space ship as easily as we did the first, so we either need to go in for some serious conquest or else we need to outbuild our opponents.

RJM at Sleeper's