How to destroy your OWN cities?

[Theseus]

When one gifts a city, what does the receiving civ get in the way of free units (if any)?

[Handel]

It is not incommon the conquerer to raze the city (even the big city) completely. Alexander the Great razed Thebes and there are more examples, but I am too lazy to Google them and to find how the ancient names are written in english. Besides keep in mind the Civ cities are often placed on bad spots, and the real cities are not "placed" but evolved because they were founded on suitable places. So even if the city was razed, it soon (relatively to ancient times "soon" means centuries) is rebuild. There are cities which are rebuilded many times.

[Josephias]

Just wanted to point out something that I find important and I've not seen mentioned here.

I've always found abandoning cities a useful tool for "reorganizing" your empire. You know, the AI does not always has the same building patterns that you have, and you find cities that "fight for space", or that are not covering a land area (or resources) you want to cover.

The "cleanest" option for me -of course, if no wonders are involved- has always been abandoning some of the AI cities while building others to cover the exact space you want (this might only mean build one tile to the left or to the right, but makes a big difference)

I see it also as logical, history-wise. In many historical times conquerors have found their own cities as administrative centers, "substituting" the conquered ones. I guess there have also ben ocassions when a city has been re-founded just a few miles away of it's starting location because environment knoweldge (or changes) made the second location more appealing.

Therefore, I'd hope an option to abandon (or "demote" - maybe converting it into a town) a city returns in some way, allowing the conquerors to reorganize the power centers in the conquered lands as they wish. (Without needing to raze everything as barbarians :P and build from zero)

[LzPrst]

@ Handel

yes I know, and I agree, carthage is one example. but after the romans wrecked it, lo and behold, it grew again under roman rule. when napoleon invaded russia the russians scorched earth it. they burned it and left a ruin for napoleon to conquer. but it grew back.

yes, in real life cities are often settlements placed not by states but by tribes and villages cause its good to live there. however, most cities in civ are founded cause its a chance that it becomes a good city so they too should grow back by themselves if we followed more realistic rules. as a result, to simulate this destroyed cities should grow back quicker than "new" cities cause they get an influx of citizens from people who used to live there.

so again, I say that cities built on ruins should get growth and production bonuses (until they reach ca the size it was when it was raised).

also, about the barbarians. they should, if they have several cities with bordering culture have a chance of founding a civ (only possible if they have contact with Real civs). heres an example of how it would work, I play a terra map with 3 opponents, england, france, russia. I play germany. so we discover the new world and settle there. the germans put up a few cities next to the barbarians and lose them. as do russia and the barbarian now has 4-5 cities that are within a barbarian cultural influence. the barbarians have culture, military, improvements even, they only lack organization. so they look at our civs and think, hey that organized central government thing might be cool, and lo and behold, the cities within a single barbarian culture area Ascend and become.... the American civilization.

very realistic, very interesting, very dangerous. makes you wanna kill off those pesky barbs even more then usual. is this a good idea?