Capitalization as Wealth?

[Willhelm II]

Just an idea... would changing Capitalization to wealth (like civ3), and making it a nil tech radically alter the game mechanism.

Discuss.

[techumseh]

Is it of much value at lower levels of development?

[Panda]

Nah.

If you hang around on the strategy forum you'll soon learn that Civ2 was broken by caravan production.

Assuming you could convert shields to gold you'd be losing 50 gold to produce the unit, but the return in a trade route would be at least as high in cash, with an equal amount of science beakers, and further trade arrows in the cities concerned.

[biru biru]

Even in the early game, capitalization could be a useful option. Five small cities capitalized at the same time, could do 50 gold in say, 2 turns (if each can use a forest or two). In the 10 turns that it would take each of these cities to build their caravans, they could have generated 250 gold. Not much, but enough to rush a couple of elephants on a small map.

This same short term small profit could be used to exploit a brief military advantage on larger scales and maps too, despite the higher pay-off from successful caravan routes.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by biru biru
Even in the early game, capitalization could be a useful option. Five small cities capitalized at the same time, could do 50 gold in say, 2 turns (if each can use a forest or two). In the 10 turns that it would take each of these cities to build their caravans, they could have generated 250 gold. Not much, but enough to rush a couple of elephants on a small map.

In those same 10 turns, you could have built 5 elephants (1 per city) and have 10 shields/city to spare.

I suppose it could have some limited use, rushing defenders in a very small and very isolated city. Assuming you have the turns to spare, which you usually don't (enemy units have a distressing knack for showing up and requiring an immediate rushbuy).

Beyond that, converting shields>gold at a 1:1 ratio is normally a colossal waste, and a bad habit that shouldn't be encouraged

[biru biru]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man


In those same 10 turns, you could have built 5 elephants (1 per city) and have 10 shields/city to spare.

I'm gonna have to concede that one.

As converting shileds to gold at a 1:1 pay-off now seems generally such a bad idea, i think that having capitalization from the beginning of the game may not change strategies much.

In the late game, of course I prefer building and delivering caravans/freight, so never really got much experieince with capitalization.

[biru biru]

On the other hand!

That same 250 gold in 10 turns, before the discovery of trade, could help to rush your first crucial wonder (say HG, or Light house). If the wonder is going to be that crucial, it might just be worth it to postpone settlers, etc, in order to work together on the wonder.

[AGRICOLA]

I have never used Capitalization in a regular game of Civ but have used it occasionally in scenarios where there are no caravans/freights. I view it as a means of transferring production from cities where more units are not needed to cities where units need to be rush built.

A typical example would be a world conquest scen where the last enemy strongholds are on scattered throughout the Pacific. Capitalizing cities in Europe, eastern America and western Asia can provide funds for rush building units around the Pacific rim and on newly captured islands.

[Thoth]

biru biru: You'd still be better off building and disbanding diplomats/elephants to rush the wonder. 1 diplomat disbanded is worth 15 shields. Each wonder shield costs 4g, so each diplomat is worth 60g towards the wonder. Capitalization would only produce 30g.

[techumseh]

Is disbanding diplomats more profitable in the construction of wonders than using caravans?

[Mercator]

No. I think they were talking about a situation before the discovery of Trade. So that's why.

I've used Capitalization plenty of times. But that happens because I'm a perfectionist. I use it once I've built everything else in a city and I'm just left trying to maximize my score before I build my spaceship.

I think that's mostly why they added it as well. In Civ1 in an end-game you were stuck building and disbanding crap units when you had built everything else. Capitalization in Civ2 is just there to make sure you always have something to build.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Mercator
I've used Capitalization plenty of times. But that happens because I'm a perfectionist. I use it once I've built everything else in a city and I'm just left trying to maximize my score before I build my spaceship.

Ahh, but a perfectionist trying to maximize his score would build food Freights instead of capitalization and then cross-deliver them to boost population (and thus, score)

(OK, OK... I don't really do that... I'd bet almost no one does. That makes for incredibly tedious turns.)

In fact, I think Mercator hit it on the head... Capitalization is a way to turn production "off" in a city so the player doesn't have to constantly build unwanted units or improvements, which make the turns take longer and lonnnnnger. That's all I really use it for. But you shouldn't need to be turning a city 'off' in the early game, anyway.