The quick way to move the capitol

[Caesar Addictus]

I recently started an early war with the Aztecs and unintentionally found out that if my capitol is sacked that the game just moves it somewhere else. So after my inital shock of just having had my capitol become part of the Aztec empire, I suddenly realised that it simply move to the city in which I had been building a new palace since the past few hundred years. I couldn't believe it. What a great way to move a capitol in the early game. It didn't cost me a thing except for a few cheap improvements in my original capitol. This worked really well for me because I would have been building that sucker for quite some time yet.

Could that be a handy strategy in the early game for making the move? The only question is, in spite of the fact that it worked out well for me: how does the game decide where it's going to move the palace to? The 2nd city founded? The largest city? If it's predictable enough, I might just use that idea again.

Sorry if this is old hat for most of you, but I find it impossible to keep up with all the reading in this forum. It's hard enough just trying to get caught up on Vel's strategy threads .

By the way, I have an unrelated question: How do you know what is making the people unhappy? My domestic advisor never says anything useful; when I'm in the city screen, I can't find anything useful; right clicking on unhappy faces doesn't tell me anything; when a city is rioting, I get a post-patch popup that doesn't help me; and finally when a city is rioting, if I look at the disorder report, if looks basically the same as the popup. I would love to know why Orleons is so much unhappier than any other city, including capture ones (it's probably due to the 6-8 swordsmen that I rushed there)

[quinalla]

I can't help with the first question, though hopefully someone can because it is interesting. As for your unrelated questions, yes if you rushed those swordsmen with population then that will certainly make your people unhappy. I don't know the exact numbers, but I have read them somewhere, something like 1 person is unhappy for 20 turns, I don't know if that is for each person killed in the rush or each time an improvement is rushed. Also, on each difficulty level there is a certain number of happy/content people you get automatically and it decreases the higher you go to make it more difficult. Hopefully someone can give you some real numbers, but that is the general idea.

-quinalla

[sophist]

Re: The quick way to move the capitol

Originally posted by Caesar Addictus

By the way, I have an unrelated question: How do you know what is making the people unhappy? My domestic advisor never says anything useful; when I'm in the city screen, I can't find anything useful; right clicking on unhappy faces doesn't tell me anything; when a city is rioting, I get a post-patch popup that doesn't help me; and finally when a city is rioting, if I look at the disorder report, if looks basically the same as the popup. I would love to know why Orleons is so much unhappier than any other city, including capture ones (it's probably due to the 6-8 swordsmen that I rushed there)

Go to the city screen and double-click on any unhappy citizen.

[MarshalN]

I haven't had my capital conquered in Civ3 yet, so I don't know the answer to that in Civ3. In Civ2, however, I think it's somewhat random that your capital will move -- sometimes you just have to live without a palace, sometimes you don't. I forgot what the rules are (haven't had that happen to me in a long time either). I am rather confident in saying that it won't move to a fringe city -- i.e. it won't move to your new-found 1 pop city as your new capital. I suspect it has something to do with founding date or size, but I'm not exactly sure what's the actualy determinent. Someone else may be able to provide a better answer

[pchang]

My Guess

Based upon watching what happens to AI capitals when I capture them, it looks like it moves to the next oldest one.

[ICMB]

In my opinion, it "should" move to the city with the highest cultural value left in your Civ. This would also tend to be the larger/older cities.

Someone will have to do some testing. Time to invite my enemies to come get me.

- ICMB

[Caesar Addictus]

I thought in CivII that if your capitol was taken that you simply suffered without one. CivIII has the advantage that you just get another one for free.

If it is relatively certain that the capital won't be moved to somewhere rediculous, it might be a useful strategy to let another civ have the original one (temporarely of course).

Sophist:

Go to the city screen and double-click on any unhappy citizen.

Wow, I can't believe I missed that. In fact I was certain that I had already tried it! But just now, I tested it and, indeed, a simple double click. Hmmmph! Thanks.

[KLIN-TONN]

In Civ II, when your cap was taken, didn't they make you pay 1,000 gold to move it? If you didn't have the money you were stuck in anarchy. That's how I remember it, anyway.

And so long as we're on the subject...BRING BACK CIVIL WAR!

[David Weldon]

I don't let my capital get taken, I abandon it by building a settler and then rebuild a non-capital city in the same place. This is perfect if you start at the end of a peninsula or end up with a non-centered capital for any reason.

As for where it moves to, my experience has been that it moves to whichever city has the largest population at the time. I haven't tested it enough to know how it resolves ties, or even if it is really using some other metric and the population thing is just coincidence. 5 out of 5 times, however, it has done so. This includes a test where I pop-rushed something in the next biggest city before abandoning the capital, and then the capital moved to the third largest city (which was 2nd largest after the pop rush). Without the pop rush, it relocated into the 2nd largest city.

I'm pretty sure it's not your next oldest city because I have seen it skip that city (which I was using to pop-rush military) in favor of a larger, newer city.

[MarshalN]

Like I said, it's been waaay too long since I last lost a capital to anything in Civ2, so I'm not sure. The only time that happens is when I land a big barbarian hut very early on, in which case I usually just reload or something since there's nothing you can do to defend yourself in those cases...

Anyway.... next biggest city or next oldest city sounds like the most likely. It shouldn't be the one with the highest culture, I don't think.

I didn't know you get a new capital if you disband your old one though. That sounds almost like a cheat to me.

[Spearthrower]

From watching when sacking enemies Capitals... it always seems to move to the largest city.... that makes sense as well.

[Caesar Addictus]

It could just turn out to be that the second city founded also tends to be more centrally located, has the 2nd to the most culture and usually has the 2nd (or 1st) highest population. The problem is that it's hard to test; it's not that often that I'll let my capitol be taken. The only way is to see where enemy capitols move to when you take them (and hope that the same pattern applies to your own civ). But the problem there is that it's harder to keep track of which city the enemy civ created 2nd.

[Nakar Gabab]

[SIZE=1] But the problem there is that it's harder to keep track of which city the enemy civ created 2nd.

Don't be too sure, Chief. The cities are ALWAYS built in a specified order. For instance, the first Roman city founded after Rome is Veii... I'm fairly sure of that, it's always worked that way for me...

[MarshalN]

Yup, since computer doesn't change city names, that's how it works.... you KNOW which city is second.

Now, this is no longer true if one of the AIs conquered another pretty much completely. Then they might have a foreign civ's city that's founded earlier than the native ones. It'd be interesting to see if the capital will move to the once-foreign city or not.

[Padmewan]

So, then the question is... does this work if you were to disband your capital, or sell it to someone else?