When an enemy comes near one of my unguarded mines, they capture it, and all peasants inside. When I go near or even right click an enemy mine (when the chain symbol replaces the mouse) my units usually destroy the mine.

Is there anyway to always capture an enemy mine?

Well, you can destroy your mine with the delete button on your keyboard. However, there is no way to capture your enemy's mine if your enemy destroys it.

What Geri is trying to say is that it's not your units that destroy the enemy mines but the enemy himself, who blows it up just before you capture it - the AI is pretty quick considering this maneuvre. And as he said, you can do the very same thing by pressing DEL - you can do this with all units and buildings, however, most buildings will only suffer massive damage and catch fire but can still be captured and repaired. I believe mines and towers are the only ones that can be blown up instantly.

I'm afraid not. The AI (As stated before) is quick to the trigger, and will demolish their mines in gloriously pixelated blasts.


Well, almost not.


For some reason, gold-mines do not blow up when captured. It's the only mine the 'AI leaves alone'. I have no idea if this is just happening in my game...But you should try it. Free gold AND settlers from another nation!

But be carefull with those mines...Their blast costs troops.

I'm pretty sure they blow up their own gold mines. You might just be getting lucky.

They'll self-destruct anything you can capture. Buildings(except mines) will take about 50%-66%(unsure of exact amount) and catch fire, causing further damage until it explodes or is fully repaired. Captured town halls will automatically train up a peasant, BUT you need TWO peasants to out-repair the damage caused by the burning. Exploding buildings will usually kill a guy or two, and mines can be especially lethal since there's no time to run. Best just point your howitzers at them(unless gold mines don't explode after all, then capture them).

They'll also kill off their own artillery, although this just kills the artillery unit.

It's fairly rare to take buildings without self-destructing, but it's somewhat common for artillery. It's really annoying if they somehow catch some of YOUR guns, and then kill most of them when you try to retake them.