The Compulsive-Capital-Moving Bug

[MikeLynch]

I've observed that some folks here have experienced the same bug I occasionally have, wherein I get messages every few turns about one or more AI civs moving their capital for no reason.

Questions about said bug:

1) Is its occurrence totally random, or did I do something to cause it?

2) Can it be stopped?

3) Is the AI wasting resources while it's doing this?

4) Is it *actually relocating the palace* each time, meaning if I wanted to start a civil war it could get all screwy on me at the last minute? Or is it just SAYing the palace gets moved, but nothing's actually happening?

[Mercator]

I don't think it's really a bug, merely a feature of the stupid AI.

1) I don't know about random, but I doubt you're causing it. I've seen the message from civilizations I've never even met.
2) Make the Palace unbuildable?
3) Probably
4) I'm quite sure it's actually happening. I guess sometimes the AI just decides to build a palace (maybe even in multiple cities at the same time). I would think it's just when an AI doesn't have much to build yet at the start of the game there's a chance it'll start building a palace... I don't think I've really seen it happen during the later stages of a game (although I could be wrong).

And about the civil war. Any civ can get its capital automatically relocated when it's capital is captured. It needs to pay 1000 gold, though. If it doesn't have the money, the capital isn't relocated.

[yaroslav]

I was told that it happens when the AI has not enough improvements to build - if that is the rigth reason, a solution could be give more technologies to the AI, so it can build new improvements

[Scouse Gits]

Corruption is the likely reason. The AI founds the capital in the first two turns with no exploring, so when the first city isn't centrally placed corruption becomes rampant.

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SG(2)

[DrSpike]

I'm with SG...............I think the designers were worried about corruption. Unfortunately the AI doesn't really time it's palace moving very well.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
when the first city isn't centrally placed corruption becomes rampant.
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SG(2)

That's why many capitals should be moved (...in RL, I mean )

[Gatekeeper]

It happens rarely in the Mac version of Civ II as well. My understanding is that a *combination* of corruption issues and having nothing else to build triggers flurries of capital moves. It happened in one of my more recent games — Mongolia's capital ended up being in Basra, not Karakorum, and the Greeks and Zulus (Amazons and Draka in my game) did the same thing.

Gatekeeper

[MikeLynch]

These explanations all make sense, but the reason I ask about it is that I have occasionally seen it occur compulsively throughout the game. As in, every two or three turns, someone moves their capital, all the way to the bitter end, when there are more than enough improvements to build.

Either that's some serious corruption, or a bug. Oo, here's a test: convert an offending AI civ to Fundamentalism or Communism, which IIRC has no corruption.

[DrSpike]

Well possible corruption is the reason they are programmed to sometimes build it, but the trigger is likely to be lack of other buildings. I suspect the AI would still build palaces in govts with low/no corruption.