Capture city: no improvements (erm?)

[Trifna]

I took the time to try Civ4 and still don't get why conquered cities have NO improvements in them. Yes, I do see that AIs don't necessarily manage "improvements" as us. But GalCiv did manage that.


Simple: you capture a city, then there's a roll of dices to determine what's left in the city for you to rule.

From a non-programmer angle, it looks simple, already in other games, and consequential both for fun and making sense. I'm wondering what blocked this to make it in Civ4. Anyone knows?


NB: The overall game is incredible! No doubt it beats every previous Civ title!

[Tattila the Hun]

Mine have, if AI has build them...

[xxFlukexx]

It actually does it exactly how you say, there is a check on each building when you capture a city. National Wonders always get destroyed and World Wonders are always kept are the only exceptions. The difference is that it is a real low chance of saving a building so most cities you capture are nearly empty. This is balance so that you cannot take over a city and immediately use it at a high efficiency.

[clarkcd]

In addition to National Wonders I believe all culture generating buildings are also destroyed automatically.

[Trifna]

Alright, I'm not a big conquerer, but the few times I tried yet I always needed a granary and then culture buildings for expansion.

clarkcd's post would explain for the second part.... and " The difference is that it is a real low chance of saving a building so most cities you capture are nearly empty." explains something...

BUT the final result in-game is still cities emptied of their structures! It could be half-efficient for a while I wouldn't mind but this way...

[bonscott]

I find that large cities have tons of buildings in them when captured. Cultural buildings are always destroyed though. Just in my last game I captured Berlin and it had tons of buildings like forge, factory and such all in tact.