Capturing artillery

[Arrian]

Any time I've taken a city with enemy air units inside, those air units have been destroyed. In all cases, I had the tech required to build those air units. The same goes for sea units.

AFAIK, the only units you can capture are workers (settlers too, which become workers) and ground bombard units.

-Arrian

[bongo]

Originally posted by miccofl


You must have altered the rules. I have been well into the future techs and still the bombers are destroyed. In the editor, general tab, is the capture unit window set to stealth bomber? Also, to be captured and not killed a unit must have no offense or defense capabilities.

Checked the civilopedia last night and noticed the following: All ground based artillery have zero attack and defence values. Same goes for stealth air units. Other air units all have AD values other than 0, thats why I can't capure them.

You still need to have the neccesary tech to build the captured unit yourself though.

One mystery less Luckily the world is still full of them

[Tiberius]

So you can capture only stealth air units?

Now if I read once again the previous posts, everybody who had captured air units was talking about capturing stealth units.

Hmm, interesting. I don't really understand why is this difference between regular and stealth units, but anyway, good to know.

Well done, Bongo

[bongo]

Tiberius, the difference lies in the fact that stealth units have AD-values of zero.

My guess is that if you modified normal bombers into having AD=0,0 they would also be capturable(btw, is that a real word??). Same goes for transports but as I haven't modified the game yet that remains just a guess.

Feel free to test that theory anyone, I don't think i will take the time to do it myself. At least not today as I'm going to fire some REAL bullets later.

[Tiberius]

I understand the difference in terms of the game, I just don't understand why Firaxis made it this way.

PS
My english isn't perfect, either, so what I do when I'm not sure about a word is check it on www.dictionary.com. Apparently there is no such word as "capturable"

[bongo]

Maybe this was the simplest way of implementing stealth units in the game? I don't know, just my 2 øre.

[Proteus_MST]

I think they didn´t think it through.

Maybe the Stealth-Units didn´t need An defence-Factor, cos they had the Stealth Factor prevents them from being attacked by Air Defences, so they set Defense to 0.
What they didn´t think about was, that those it also meant that those Units could be captured.

I think I will mod Stealth-Units so they have Attack and Defense-Values

[bongo]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
I think they didn´t think it through.

Maybe the Stealth-Units didn´t need An defence-Factor, cos they had the Stealth Factor prevents them from being attacked by Air Defences, so they set Defense to 0.

I was thinking the same as your #2 about the AD-values.

#1 also seems to be a valid point

Ah well. I am acually pleased with knowing How. Why is not necessary.

[vulture]

I did the obvious, and set up a scenario with the editor to test this. Results:

Units destroyed:

fighter
bomber
jet fighter
helicopter
tactical nuke
ICBM

Units captured:

catapult
cannon
artillery
radar artillery
cruise missile
stealth fighter
stealth bomber

I didn't bother with any ships as I already know that they get destroyed. Due to the seemingly arbitrarry division of units into what gets captured and what doesn't, I suspect the stealth units may be there in error, but still, that's the way the game works in 1.29f.

Oh, and of course, you need the requisite techs to capture the units.

It took all of 10 minutes to check this using the editor and playing a few 'games'.

[bongo]

vulture

I don't have a pocket-edition of the civilopedia with me but my guess is that units on your 'destroyed'-list all have AD-values other than zero. The units on the 'captured'-list all have AD=0(I haven't checked the cruise-missile). BTW, all ships have non-zero AD-values.

Great work! I'll have to check out the editor myself one rainy day.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by bongo
vulture

I don't have a pocket-edition of the civilopedia with me but my guess is that units on your 'destroyed'-list all have AD-values other than zero. The units on the 'captured'-list all have AD=0(I haven't checked the cruise-missile). BTW, all ships have non-zero AD-values.

Great work! I'll have to check out the editor myself one rainy day.

Sorry, bongo, your theory does not work... I have just checked it in the 'pedia and ICBMs and tactical nukes have A=D=0. If you were right, they would have to be captured, not destroyed...

vulture, did you give yourself the prerequisite techs? Were you able to build ICBMs and tactical nukes yourself?

[vulture]

Originally posted by vondrack

Sorry, bongo, your theory does not work... I have just checked it and ICBMs and tactical nukes have D=0. If you were right, they would have to be captured, not destroyed...

vulture, did you give yourself the prerequisite techs? Were you able to build ICBMs and tactical nukes yourself?

I gave myself every single tech, but no city improvements or wonders, and on one run through just gave myself ancient era techs (and all the units apart from catapults were destroyed then). Didn't have any resources at all. I suspect that bongo is right but that there is code in place to make an exception for nuclear weapons so that they can't be captured. It is possible (I suppose) that there is some kind of Manhattan Project based trigger for capturing nukes, but given that it is a great wonder I doubt it.

EDIT: A quick check shows that even with the Manhattan project, and all the reosurces gto buld nukes myself, the nuclear weapons are still destroyed when the city is captured.

[The Pioneer]

Well, I am not sure how the system works but I've put a defense of 1 to my Artillery and Radar Artillery Units. Thus I am not able to capture them when I attack them, I can only destroy them!

So long....

[vondrack]

Originally posted by The Pioneer
Well, I am not sure how the system works but I've put a defense of 1 to my Artillery and Radar Artillery Units. Thus I am not able to capture them when I attack them, I can only destroy them!

Ah, this perhaps explains why you can use them as military police in your games (re: your post in another thread where you mentioned using arty to prevent flipping).

[bongo]

So nukes are a special case? Maybe have a 'no capture'-flag set, something like that?

Pioneer: At least half of my theory is right, you can't capture units with non-zero AD.