A Few Capital Suggestions?

[Fremantle]

There is such a disadvantage to a poorly positioned capital, , yet the cost of moving your capital is phenomenal. My suggestion is this, start off with no capital and then allow a cheap first pallace to be established, perhaps by allowing you to simply nominate a city as capital. The kicker would be that you couldn't change government without a capital. Corruption could be based on number of cities when you don't have a capital, so that expansion beyond 3-4 cities would cause corruption to become crippling in all cities.

If you manage to piss off your populace that much, instead of just burning down temples, libraries etc, they might attack the pallace, forcing a shift of capital (out of your hands) and a revolution to a form of government not of your choosing. You could use this against your enemies, by destroying temples etc, you could drive the people to revolt, similar to how Germany forced Russia out of WWI.

I actually enjoyed the nation dividing factor, whereby when an enemy's capital got sacked, half the enemies city would declare allegiance to a new civ. Can't remember if this was Civ or CivII, or whether it happened all the time. Respawning of defeated civs as new civs on unsettled land was also a good element.

And another thing, why can't you choose your own capital when your current capital gets sacked?

[fittstim]

Originally posted by Fremantle

I actually enjoyed the nation dividing factor, whereby when an enemy's capital got sacked, half the enemies city would declare allegiance to a new civ. Can't remember if this was Civ or CivII, or whether it happened all the time. Respawning of defeated civs as new civs on unsettled land was also a good element.

And another thing, why can't you choose your own capital when your current capital gets sacked?

The nation dividing happened rarely and was dependant on many factors.

The reason that you can't choose your own capital has to do with the rules regarding that same topic. That is, when your capital city gets taken over, the new capital (and in civIII you always have a capital unlike in civI and II where a civ could be without a palace/capital) goes immediately to the city with the largest population within a certiain distance of the former capital. The rules aren't straightforward and I spent hours playtesting for hard and fast rules but I think there is some randomness involved.

But as to the original post, I think what is worse is the Small Wonder, Forbidden Palace. What I mean is that you can always move around your capital city to take best advantage of your empire's extent. But once you build the FP, you're stuck. If your empire grows in a certain direction, tough luck. No possibility to move the FP to even out the corruption.

Moving a palace, however, is an integral part of the game.

[Grumbold]

I 've found the only way to use the FP short of having a spare leader is to build it in the centre of your first core area. Then no matter which way you end up expanding (if you haven't already planned which neighbour will die next) you can build your palace there.

I do agree that the cost of capital building is far too high. There is also something unsatisfactory in having to rule your homeland via the wonder and move your capital into new-won occupied territory. It makes a culture victory that much more difficult too.

[Fremantle]

Originally posted by fittstim
The nation dividing happened rarely and was dependant on many factors.

Yeah, I remember it was a spin out the first time it happened while I was playing CivII, but you're right, I remember now that it didn't happen regularly.

In Civ III, perhaps the idea of nationality could be exploited, if you capture/raize a civ's capital, then cities which contain foreign nationals could have a chance at culture flipping back to their original nationality. Even nationally pure cities on the borders may throw their lot in with a third stronger nation.

[Tarquelne]

I like the idea of a more easily moved capital, or a capital you can assign after building several cities. I believe either are more realistic too - didn't some ancient empires move their captials fairly regularly. Well, maybe I'm just thinking about China....

I think that the increased corruption level in Civ3 and the Culture have both whetted our appetites for more advanced/interesting Cultural rules and ways to deal with corruption. (Well, I know that's true for me.)

[Fremantle]

Perhaps another suggestion is for the edge of your Empire declaring independence from the capital, especially at persistent times of crisis, such as rioting in the capital, or when corruption levels remain high. This would be more historically accurate:

-the various Greek nations that dotted the Mediterrainean and Middle East
-the break up of the Roman Empire into an Eastern and Western Empires
-the Mongol Empire
-the Muslim Empire
-the collapse of the British Empire, beginning with the US in 1776 all the way through to just after WWII

Difficult to model completely accurately, but a simpler version of it may be possible through nation dividing as previously discussed.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Fremantle
Perhaps another suggestion is for the edge of your Empire declaring independence from the capital, especially at persistent times of crisis, such as rioting in the capital, or when corruption levels remain high. This would be more historically accurate:

-the various Greek nations that dotted the Mediterrainean and Middle East
-the break up of the Roman Empire into an Eastern and Western Empires
-the Mongol Empire
-the Muslim Empire
-the collapse of the British Empire, beginning with the US in 1776 all the way through to just after WWII

Difficult to model completely accurately, but a simpler version of it may be possible through nation dividing as previously discussed.

I think that would be a better approach to ICS than the current corruption method. The larger your empire, the more unstable it would become. Someone posted the idea that every so often, because of a revolt, a city would turn into a type of Barbarian city. I thought that would be a great idea. Rather than just losing it in a culture flip, you would have the chance to recapture it.

[Fremantle]

Originally posted by Willem


I think that would be a better approach to ICS than the current corruption method. The larger your empire, the more unstable it would become. Someone posted the idea that every so often, because of a revolt, a city would turn into a type of Barbarian city. I thought that would be a great idea. Rather than just losing it in a culture flip, you would have the chance to recapture it.

I saw this as well in the Suggestions area on Apolyton, major and minor civs. Perhaps if you are screwing up and multiple peripheral cities become rebel, once a certain number of them in a particular region have revolted as separate city-states, they could form a major civilization.

[godinex]

I think that one of the best ideas of the recently released path is the cost of the palace for one single idea:
capitalization.

[Willem]

Originally posted by godinex
I think that one of the best ideas of the recently released path is the cost of the palace for one single idea:
capitalization.

Please explain. How does the Palace cost relate to Capitalization?