City Capture Options

[BeBro]

Ok, we can now take a city, or destroy it.

I like the idea, but I think there should be a loss in the "culture" score if you destroy cities. Also I think this loss should be lower in ancient times, and higher in more modern ages.

[Earthling7]

Sounds like a reasonable idea. It's hard to make friends when all you do is raze cities.

Am I right in that conquered cities stay pissed for a while, as in real life? That would be cool...

[Urban Ranger]

What happens to the destroyed cities? Or maybe I should go look on the site

[UKScud]

The news item mentions that cities can be razed in ANY age??

If so, OMG!

Can you imagine it, near the end of game, 2001. A hostile force sends marines into a big, big city...say pop.15+ and they raze it!

What happens to the population? Slaughtered? Some become partisans? Refugees perhaps?

Is this something that would cause an international incident in the same way that the Civ2 spy planting a nuke in a city was?

I can understand the "realism" of having a medieval city razed to the ground, you might even expect it in an early industrial age, but modern age???

Does that sort of thing happen without international consequences? Should it?

[Lordfluffers]

I think this idea of razing any size city is a little inaccurate and will probably unbalance the game. It is logistically unlikely anyway not to mention the resistance that it would receive from the inhabitants. Although many cities were effectively destroyed in ancient times, these cities had very small populations. Secondly nobody really has the power to level a city. Napoleon's Russian conquest led The Russians to raze Moscow, but it still survived. What about WW2??? Will it be possible for the Germans to destroy any city they capture???

Ultimately I think this will lead to an unbalanced game. Players can build huge armies, destroy a city, and go on and ravage another. The whole game will be based on surprise attacks on major cities to cripple the enemy. As a result players will have to build huge defenses to counter such a threat. In reality, civs have to occupy their captured prizes.

I agree with razing cities of a certain size or starving them out (although I think this should create resistance). I also think that shelling and bombing should damage city improvements and populations, but razing a city whatever its size is absurd!!!!!

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
What happens to the destroyed cities? Or maybe I should go look on the site

It will be burned to dust.

[Rince]

There has to be a hard penalty for destroying cities. If you conquer a city, you should have to deal with the consequences. Just loosing your reputation isn't enough IMHO. I remember from previous civ sessions that i never cared about my diplomatic contacts anyway. Maybe this will get impossible in Civ 3, but still, destroying cities really isn't realistic.

Rince

[Asmodean]

OK...razing a city with a size of 1, 2 or even 3....that sound fine to me. But bigger cities, come on...Where's the realism in that. Just imagine razing a city the size of New York, or Berlin. In realistic terms, it can't be done without the use of nukes.

In Civ I or Civ II, I missed this feature so bad , because the AI would sometimes place cities within the city radius of one of your own cities. But now...with the border system, I don't even care that it's in. Firaxis: please tell us what prompted you to include this.

Asmodean

[BeBro]

Originally posted by Rince
Maybe this will get impossible in Civ 3, but still, destroying cities really isn't realistic.

Unfortunately it is absolutely realistic, at least in ancient or medieval times (e.g.Carthage). However, I agree with all here who say there should be a penalty for doing this in industrial/modern ages.

[Earthling7]

I think destroying a city up until 1750, Earth terms, should be fine. It should not be tolerated after the beginning of the industrial age. Also, Republics and Democracies should be punished for doing it. The people would go bananas.

If it happens in the above case, it should be treated as an atrocity. Maybe the UN Council couls vote on if it is an atrocity. Maybe the victim has been terrorising the whole world with their militaristic madness...

If it's in, it should be implemented properly.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Earthling7
If it's in, it should be implemented properly.

IMHO a proper implementation of this would be to limit this to the early ages - not later that middle ages to be sure. And to implement a limit of, say, city size 6 or 7. I can see cities of those sizes getting razed. Imaging however, razing a metropolis of 8 or 9 million people. Buildings can be destroyed or burned, but killing that many people - wiping out an entire city. Even Hitler couldn't bring himself to do that, and God knows he had the chances.

I know Firaxis are balancing fun and gameplay over realism, but come on...

Asmodean

[Lordfluffers]

If it's in, it should be implemented properly.

Good point!!!

You should really only be able to raze a city with nukes. Or there should be a very, very heavy penalty for it in the later stages of the game. It is very hard to destroy a large city with conventional weapons, even today. Stalingrad survived, just, after 10 months hard fighting, bombing, shelling. So did Berlin, so did Warsaw. It is so difficult and expensive to destroy a huge city. London and its suburbs is hundreds of square kilometres in area and has millions of inhabitants. The ordinance required to level it would be vast and the army to maintain order while it did so would also have to be huge. If it is done, especially in the industrial/modern era, then there should be harsh penalties. I personally think this is massively unrealistic and should be kept to the smaller cities.

[Tventano]

In SMAC it counted as an atrocity. So although military it could have an advantage it had very severe diplomatic consequences.

[Jason Beaudoin]

The question that comes to my mind when I hear that you can raze a city is the following:

In terms of gameplay, would it be better to raze a city? You wouldn't have to occupy that city. You wouldn't have to worry about uprizings. I wonder what it will be like to actually occupy a foreign city with potentially hostile citizens.

Firaxis... you can give us away some secrets, after all, EBWorld is reporting that the release date is on 30 October 2001... about one month away! Woo hoo!

[BeBro]

Well, often you may need the captured city as a base for further operations...

[Jason Beaudoin]

True enough!

In one of the new screen shots that was just released, you'll notice that the player who was attacking the unfortunate Civ of Germany razed most of the cities. I wonder why he didn't capture them. Was it because it wasn't worth the trouble, or did he need to satisfy some sick feeling of vengence?

[Urban Ranger]

I don't think razing a large city is possible. If you have heard of the Nanjing Massacre, it's the proof. After the IJA (Imperial Japanese Army) captured Nanjing, a large city in China, they went berserk and started mass murdering the people. In a number of days 340,000 were killed However the city survived.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
In a number of days 340,000 were killed

People are so nice

[crmeyer]

First we must all admit that we neither know how this is implemented nor what consequences are incurred upon the razing of a city.

Secondly consider the razing not in a literal sense but in a strategic sense. Yes Berlin "survived" but it wasn't worth much for the decade following WW2 and even then it required a huge amount of investment from both the West and the Soviet Union.

So, perhaps, the question should be: "Can a city be razed to the point that its population and infrastructure no longer provide value to a civilization?"

I think the answer to this is clearly: "Yes"

Also, on a related note ... I can still recall the "Partisan" explosion that I have experienced in Civ2 for just "taking" an enemy city ... I expect that Firaxis will suffer even greater pains upon those that raze a city.

Even without "penalties," the razing of a city is usually detrimental to the conquering force in wasted resources alone.

Finally, it is difficult to analyze specific elements without having a clear understaind of the system in which it operates. Remember that there are significant changes to the actual "system" under which the civs conduct themselves ... trade, diplomacy, etc.

[isaac brock]

Originally posted by Earthling7
If it's in, it should be implemented properly.

Wow, what a bold statement. Of course it should be implemented properly. Are there other parts of civ 3 that should only be implemented improperly? tsk tsk.

[The Andy-Man]

they have probably put the option in so that when a civ declares war on your lil republic, you can take a few of there cities (and because units now cost money and not production points) and to save the cost of an extensive feild army protecting new aquisitions on enemy teretory, you just destroy it.

[crmeyer]

Originally posted by isaac brock


Wow, what a bold statement. Of course it should be implemented properly. Are there other parts of civ 3 that should only be implemented improperly? tsk tsk.

Yes a bold statement indeed.

Clearly much more bold than statements about gameplay elements without regard for or understanding of the systems in which the gameplay elements operate.

[Inverse Icarus]

juding by the animation it might actually take TIME to raze a city, depending on it's size.

if you try to raze a large city, maybe 2 pop would die each turn, thereby making it important to hold the city while you are razing it.

it's just flat out stupid to be able to take over a city and destroy it that same turn, thats worse than nukes for christs sake.

[BeBro]

Originally posted by UberKruX
it's just flat out stupid to be able to take over a city and destroy it that same turn, thats worse than nukes for christs sake.

Hm, but if one turn is one year? Enough to destroy a city completely. The reason why cities in modern wars survived is not that they are so hard to destroy - with or without nukes. IMO the reason is that normally one side WILL capture the city, but not destroy it.

[DonJoel]

Hm, but if one turn is one year? Enough to destroy a city completely.

Everybody who says that you should be able to do this and that in a turn because its a year is plain stupid and doesnt know **** about civ.
Is it realistic that armor moves 3 squares in a year?
Is it realistic that it takes 20 years for a modern ship to move around the world?
No, but its ****ing fun.

Btw, i dont think you should be able to destroy cities in a turn. the gameplay in especially multiplayer but also singleplayer would suffer.

[Dida]

Can we give the city back to the orginal Civ, but only with some tough conditions? for example,
: you stop building nukes, sign peace treaty with me, and give me 50 golds per turn, I will give Berlin back to you.

[jsw363]

Originally posted by Dida
Can we give the city back to the orginal Civ, but only with some tough conditions? for example,
: you stop building nukes, sign peace treaty with me, and give me 50 golds per turn, I will give Berlin back to you.

This sounds quite plausible to me. A great way to enforce tough treaty conditions that the civ otherwise wouldn't agree to.

I think that the raze city option is especially helpful when AI cities are badly placed. But at least I won't find random cities appearing in the middle of my empire because of the borders feature. I always hated that the most. Razing a city would only be useful with blitzkreig tactics. In most other situations, you'd probably want to be able to "harvest" the settlers from the city.

[BeBro]

Originally posted by DonJoel


Everybody who says that you should be able to do this and that in a turn because its a year is plain stupid and doesnt know **** about civ.
Is it realistic that armor moves 3 squares in a year?
Is it realistic that it takes 20 years for a modern ship to move around the world?
No, but its ****ing fun.

Btw, i dont think you should be able to destroy cities in a turn. the gameplay in especially multiplayer but also singleplayer would suffer.

Oh, I wasn´t aware that this topic is hot enough for a flame war. However, feel free to go on, since your opinion is obviously always right...

[Daoloth]

Well I posted the original thread at CivFanatics, and I would like to mention something about the screenshot I linked: The cities were destroyed in the 13th and 14th centuries...We do not know yet whether they can be destroyed in modern age. And yes, modern cities have been destroyed: Stalingrad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, that small city the Nazis destroyed, etc. But those have really been rebuilt. Dan's reply was just one paragraph, so there's undoutedly something more with such a large feature. Personally, I think it's great.

[PGM]

Originally posted by Dida
Can we give the city back to the orginal Civ, but only with some tough conditions? for example,
: you stop building nukes, sign peace treaty with me, and give me 50 golds per turn, I will give Berlin back to you.

I don't see why not. It is now your city, you can trade any of them, just offer the city in the diplomatic negotiations screen and see what they give you for it. If the city still has a high inherent value (though city value after conquest might decrease substantially - loss of all accumulated culture points, loss of population, unhappiness, ...), I believe they will be interested. Besides, you have the upper-hand now.

Razing a city: I like the concept very much, but I think there should be a size limit to do that (5, 8, whatever). It's hard to accept a city size 20 being razed to the ground.

Daoloth: modern cities have been destroyed, but not razed to the ground (taken out of the world map) as if they never existed.

We've been told that Great Wonders can't be destroyed. What if you raze a city that has one of these???