How often can AI move capital ??

cbn · August 23, 2000, 10:22

I was playing SP as the Romans (small map, deity, raging hoards) and in the mid 1900s had launched for AC. I knew the Mongols were building a spaceship at a crazy rate so I focused all my attention on being prepared to take their capital (built nukes, switched to Fundy, and built many howies)-- Sure enough the Mongols launched so that they would beat me to AC by a year. I went for their capital and took it 2 years later but no spaceship recall-- The capital moved-- I then had to go on a rampage-- I howie rushed 11 Mongol cities including 7 capitals over the next 6-7 years and believe the Mongols only had 2 or 3 cities left (which I took the next year just because I could) when I finally got credit for taking the capital.

Is their any limit to how many times an AI government could escape? Has anyone ever lost to an AI moving their capital to an inaccessable place? I guess this would be standard procedure in a MP game played out to launch. The launcher could be faced with several militarily strong opponents but a capital moved to a remote corner could lead to victory even if their major cities were being slowly munched. I guess the key in MP would be to attack or sabotage to prevent a launch in the first place.

jpk · August 23, 2000, 11:16

Whenever I have seen the AI capitol move it has always been to either a neighboring city or one city over to a neighboring city.

As far as I know the only limitations is enough money.

A good strategy for the AI would be to move the capitol from one continent to another. I have never seen that happen.

Ming · August 23, 2000, 11:23

They can move it as many times as they have cities. And yes, the limitation seems to be their ability to have the money to buy a palace in a single turn. It may also be if they have enough combined production available in one turn to build a palace in a single turn, but not sure about this one

You just have to kill all their cities

SCG · August 23, 2000, 13:16

I'm pretty sure its only a money limitation for the same turn moves (which is where the avoiding of spaceship recall applies) In OCC #10 (the fundy game), I destroyed the English capitol twice, twice splitting the empire in half. They went from over 8000 gp to 4000 on the first split, and 4000 to 2000 on the next split. I lost the game due to too few spies, but i tested it afterwards. They had just over 2000 gp such that when i took the capitol as a large city, i captured enough gold to keep them below 1000 after the split, and the ship was recalled. If i went ahead and knocked it down to 1 and then destroyed it by capture, they had enough gold to build a new capitol. Im not sure how many cities they actually had at that point, but they launched with nearly 40 cities (no wonder they launched before i did), so with the 990 or so gold and quite a handful of cities still, they had enough combined gold and production to build another palace.

So my conclusion would be that it is only gold that matters when the AI capitol escapes to a new city.

------------------
April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*

finbar · August 23, 2000, 20:08

Providing the buggers play by the fiscal rules we do, which often isn't the case. The AI seems to be able to bribe human cities with, apparently, next to no money in the bank.

------------------
finbar
Mono Rules!
#33984591