No option to pillage a city and leave?

[John-SJ]

And perhaps if abandoned by both sides it would remain as a small barbarian city? Might be interesting.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by khearn


Carthago delenda est! - Cato the Elder

Have you ever heard of the city named Carthage? It was in northern Africa, on the Mediterraiean Sea, just across from Sicily. They were originally a Phoenician colony and built up a nice trade empire, until they got in a few wars with Rome (the Punic Wars). They did fairly well at times, you may have heard of a fellow named Hannibal. He was a Carthaginian general who marched from Spain, across the south of what is now France, and over the Alps with an army that had a few dozen elephants and attacked Rome from the north. Didn't take Rome, but controlled much of what is now northern Italy for 15 years or so before he went back to Carthage. That was the second Punic War. Eventually Rome got upset enough (lspurred along by unceasing efforts by Cato the Elder) that they conquered Carthage (Third and last Punic War) and razed the city and slaughtered or enslaved most of the people. Some say they plowed salt into the fields to prevent the survivors from growing crops (although the evidence for that is weak). A century later, the Romans built another city at the same location (it was a good location), but it certainly wasn't Carthage.

Only 100 years later? That's only 3-5 turns, typical period of unrest before the city comes under control of the new conquerer.

Carthage is a pretty unique case, and it's total destruction was almost certainly exaggerated by the Romans - as you mentioned, the part about salting the fields has been proven as almost certainly wrong, and since I can find no other cases of large cities being totally destroyed by an army it seems likely that the rest is also legend. A good city site would not be uninhabited for long even if the Romans did in fact kill or enslave every last inhabitant, as the vast majority of the population in those days did not live in cities. I'm sure that by the time Carthage was 're-built' by the Romans there was a lot of people living there, and that's even if the stories about it's total depopulation are true.

Carthage was probably just reduced to size 1 or 2 for a few turns, and it was built up again after the period of unrest was over.

[goshhash]

i think you should be able to just "pillage" without destroying the city/changing gov hands/etc.

its soldiers running into town, taking what they want, shoot off a few bullets to scare the few civilians around (since the military has been wiped out by this point), then leaving, probably very drunk. (happened in almost every war this century, so realistic enough).

city warfare is kinda lame honestly. i was palying a game last nite, and i had just built up a fleet of destroyers, but after wiping out my opponents navy, i had nothing to do with them. sure i can bombard some cities defenses, but after that, kind of pointless if you dont have the land units on hand right then.

so im staring at my computer at 3am, and sat there thinking "thats pretty lame". i have 4 destroyers sitting off my enemies city, and i cant shell them? i cant possibly blow up a building or two, or per chance to scratch the enemy? cant do it with any artillery piece or bomber planes either. so i cant shell the place up, i cant go in and loot the place, i cant even go in and kill off civilians (should the eviil want arise).

for all the good this game is (post patch anyways), city warfare didnt seem to give a whole lot of thought, or perhaps TOO much thought. whatever the reason its a lil light. now im not jsut complaining, since this is civ4 and they made it highly moddable, ima go do something about it.

[Blake]

Sacking cities would indeed be fun and a feature I would enjoy quite a lot, sometimes I want to hurt a civ but not actually take their entire empire yet, the problem with taking one city and then making peace is that the city becomes engulfed in their culture. Sometimes I'd like to break their resistence down a bit but not damage them too much - since I'll be inheriting their cities. The ability to sack cities and leave would rule here, a sacking should destroy all cultural improvements (libraries, temples etc) and convert them to some gold. The benefit to you (other than the gold) is that their borders stop pushing on yours.

Regarding razing cities, I don't think it at all realistic that a single warrior unit or a single knight unit can raze an entire large modern city, wtf is a knight going to do to a skyscraper?. The best comprimise would probably be have it so that each unit in the city can kill 1 population per turn, so if a force does manage to sneak-attack and take a large city there will be an excellent chance to reclaim it before the razing is done. On the other hand a stack of doom could wipe out any city in a single turn.

[Enigma_Nova]

So long as wonders aren't razed.

[Blake]

I was thinking about that. Obsolete wonders probably SHOULD be auto-razed, after all, not many of them survived in the real world and it'd be a good way to have atleast SOME wonders end up lost...

Overall war has been pretty hard on the old wonders and cultural stuff, soldiers seem to like using them for target practise .

[Axxaer]

Also in sacking the city one would gain the rewards (gold, resources, whatever) without having to then waste it on maintainence over the next few turns.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Blake
I was thinking about that. Obsolete wonders probably SHOULD be auto-razed, after all, not many of them survived in the real world and it'd be a good way to have atleast SOME wonders end up lost...

Overall war has been pretty hard on the old wonders and cultural stuff, soldiers seem to like using them for target practise .

I think it would be neat if, after a wonder becomes obsolete, it changes into a new 'wonder', like 'Ruins of the Parthenon', which grants a smaller cultural bonus.

[Enigma_Nova]

If Wonders can be sacked ...
Ruins of The Internet! RUINS OF THE INTERNET!