AI Bribing Capital Cities!!!

Gatekeeper · May 21, 2002, 00:35

Everyone:

In my current game of Civ II, the Vikings are running wild across the standard large Earth map (modern age now). First they bribed Persia's capital, Persepolis, into rebellion. Now they've done the same to Thebes, Egypt's capital (which resulted in a civil war for Egypt).

I don't get it. I thought capital cities couldn't be bribed. Heck, I just cheated to see if there was a bug or something ... but, no, there isn't. My spies were not able to bribe the Vikings' capital of Trondheim, nor the capitals of what's left of Egypt or the newly-arisen India. The option simply didn't appear on my menu of choices.

The only thing I can figure is that at some point in their history, both Egypt and Persia lost their capital cities to invading armies and then retook them later. Thus they had the cities and I just automatically assumed they had always had them. (The Vikings beat me to building Marco Polo's Embassy ... so I didn't have up-to-date diplomatic information until I built the United Nations.)

I'm playing on the Emperor level and haven't seen this happen before. How I wish I had an earlier save of the game, so I could check to see if Thebes and Persepolis were, indeed, the capital cities I automatically thought they were upon building the UN.

Huh. Maybe Persia and Egypt traded sacking each other's capital cities. But if that's the case, why did Egypt split in a civil war? The AI often doesn't rebuild the palace in a former capital that's been sacked. It builds in another city.

I have added city names to the CTY.TXT file, but not for Egypt or Persia. I also changed the Greeks into the Amazons and the Zulus into the Draka, but I don't see how this should instigate the ability to bribe capitals, since I sure as heck cannot do that. I tried.

Color me confused.

Gatekeeper

Scouse Gits · May 21, 2002, 02:57

You seemed to have covered the options - either they were not in fact capitals or the AI has found a new mega-cheat!
Just a thought - I have a faint recollection of you being Mac based rather than PC - is this the case??

SG[1]

Gatekeeper · May 21, 2002, 03:15

SG[1]:

Yep, I'm Mac-based. Thing is, I've never had this happen before. Then again, I also usually have MPE in order to keep track of this sort of stuff.

Gatekeeper

Scouse Gits · May 21, 2002, 04:58

You might try PMing finbar - he has reported a number of extremely peculiar Mac-only phenomena -- he might be able to shed some light here ??

SG[1]

Smash · May 21, 2002, 12:49

Thats a new one for my ears.
Has to be either no palace or duplication in the "2nd round of cities' names.

I wonder how much it would cost to bribe a capitol?

Gatekeeper · May 21, 2002, 14:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
You might try PMing finbar - he has reported a number of extremely peculiar Mac-only phenomena -- he might be able to shed some light here ??

SG[1]

I'll keep that in mind. Since last night, the Viking AI has gone back to sacking Egypt's capital city, Elephantine (and their government fled to Pi-Ramesses). Sheesh. Look what happens the one time I don't have MPE to keep track of early to industrial age wars, politics and whatnot.

Does finbar show up much nowadays?

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · May 21, 2002, 14:42

Smash:

Thing is, neither Egypt or Persia were widespread enough to begin repeating city names. There was/is only one Thebes and one Persepolis (both still under Viking rule despite my splitting the Viking Empire by taking Trondheim).

Gatekeeper

Scouse Gits · May 21, 2002, 16:14

Quote:

Does finbar show up much nowadays?

I was 'talking' to him in the chat room only Monday ...

SG[1]

Gatekeeper · May 22, 2002, 16:21

SG[1]:

Excellent. Now I just have to PM him.

Gatekeeper

Straybow · May 23, 2002, 04:49

Is it possible to destoy the Palace with a Dip/Spy? That could be the reason. Or perhaps they destroyed happiness improvements, and the city went into revolt? I dunno.

Scouse Gits · May 23, 2002, 05:18

Quote:

Originally posted by Straybow
Is it possible to destoy the Palace with a Dip/Spy?

That is a really good question ...

Quote:

Originally posted by Straybow
I dunno.

I can only concur

SG[1]

Julius Brenzaida · May 23, 2002, 10:18

Very strange story indeed

A empire only splits when you capture its capital and a capital cannot be bribed. I don't think that one can sabotage or destroy a palace. We should ask a spies specialist : Slowthinker, Lafayette, are you there. If I find time, I might do some testing myself.

But, even if you sabotage a palace, then a city is not a capital anymore and then the empire does not split. A complete mystery then

Scouse Gits · May 23, 2002, 10:25

Quote:

Originally posted by Julius Brenzaida
I don't think that one can sabotage or destroy a palace.

The more I think on this - the more sure I become - if it were possible to use a spy to destroy a Palace then we would have done so by now - and then bribed the (now non capital) city!! I have taken down a capital's walls often enough - I feel certain that on at least one such occasion I would have noticed the option "Take the Palace, You Dummy!" in the offered list.

SG[1]

Gatekeeper · May 23, 2002, 21:24

Straybow, Julius, SG[1]:

You cannot destroy the Palace via sabotage. I just tried it on the Mongol capital in Antioch (they came back to life after I took the Viking capital in war and split their empire). Everything else is available to sabotage, though, so I settled for blowing up the city's walls.

Also, the SDI Defense can never be destroyed. I always get a message saying the facility is surrounded by razor wire and hellhounds, er, guard dogs. Thus, I have to go for another target.

Gatekeeper

Scouse Gits · May 24, 2002, 03:04

Now the SDI has been discussed in the past - apparently it can (on rare occasions) be taken out - not in my personal experience, but reliably reported by trusted players - more often on a Mac than on a PC interestingly ...

SG[1]

Gatekeeper · May 24, 2002, 16:04

SG[1]:

Fascinating. I'll have to use a dozen or so veteran spies and see if I can nail an SDI Defense. After all, it's so much more satisfying firing a nuclear warhead at a city than using a backpack nuke.

Gatekeeper

finbar · May 26, 2002, 05:14

I have seen an AI capital bribed - which is to say, for example, I've seen London bribed - but I've always assumed the capital status has already been shifted elsewhere. I suspect that's probably what's happened, Gatekeeper. The AI civs are always shifting their capitals around. I remember, in one game, the Sioux moving it every second turn for about a thousand years. They started just after the game started, so I doubt they could have been under attack. Imagine carting all those desks around.

I have also always thought that neither the Palace nor SDI could be destroyed by sabotage. God knows I tried often enough when I had nothing better to do with my time.

Gatekeeper · May 28, 2002, 01:39

Finbar:

Now that you mention, I, too, have had games where the AI moved its capital around every other turn early on in the game. Since I didn't have Marco Polo's Embassy, I suppose I wouldn't have gotten any message boxes stating the capital(s) had been moved. Nor did I have informal contact (i.e. w/o MPE ... no treaties, no map trading), so that might be another explanation for the natural capitals not being capitals (except in Egypt's case; can a capital city be bribed if it wasn't the capital at some point in time?).

Gatekeeper

finbar · May 28, 2002, 03:22

If a city ceases to be a capital it has to be bribeable, I'd've thought. It's the Palace that renders it unbribeable. If that was the question. Do you have any saves from the game at the point when "capitals" were being bribed?

Gatekeeper · May 29, 2002, 01:04

Finbar:

Unfortunately, I do not have any pertinent saves. The ironic thing is, I've gotten into the habit of saving every three to five turns, except for this time, when I instantly overwrote the previous save because I had to skeddadle off to work.

Gatekeeper

finbar · May 29, 2002, 02:42

Work? Work? Work? Get your priorities straight, Gatekeeper!