Captured cities, burn and build new?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Fleme
Even an artist isn't enough at times. Also, even if the enemy does capitulate your cities that are left under his/her cultural pressure are likely to flip back anyhow.

Unless you've enabled it in a Custon Game, cities cannot flip back to the civ they were conquered from. Only a third civ will be able to flip it. However your own cities are fair game.

[Fistleaf]

Originally posted by Willem


Well if it's really an issue, just starve the resident population down and eventually replace them with your own citizens when you start growing it again. Or if you're in Slavery, simply whip a few buildings until there's only one or two natives left, then let the city grow again from there.

I thought this method only works for Civ3. In Civ4, there are no "natives" per se. It's the cultural influence over the whole of history on that particular location that counts.

[Garth Vader]

Originally posted by Fistleaf


I thought this method only works for Civ3. In Civ4, there are no "natives" per se. It's the cultural influence over the whole of history on that particular location that counts.

That's right.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Fistleaf


I thought this method only works for Civ3. In Civ4, there are no "natives" per se. It's the cultural influence over the whole of history on that particular location that counts.

True, but a city is less likely to revolt if the majority of the citizens are your own. There's more than just culture at stake when it comes to uprisings. Many of the old citizens will "Yearn to rejoin their motherland". Eliminate those and you'll have less of a problem with revolts.

[Supr49er]

If you don't love the location burn it. I keep only great cities, or those with wonders I want.

If you do keep the city, I would agree with whipping your temple, courthouses, etc. Convert it to your religion, and garrison several units.

[Hauptman]

If your city is beeing culture pressed, build culture buildings first and LEAVE your main army stack in it. Enough units (like 9 or so i think) remove the chance of a revolt. each unit present reduces the % chance of revolt, so even if you dont have enough to spare every little bit helps.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Supr49er
If you do keep the city, I would agree with whipping your temple, courthouses, etc. Convert it to your religion, and garrison several units.

That's why you need to be in Slavery when doing any serious conquer and keep action -- as soon as that city comes out of revolt zero hammer whip the granary, courthouse, theater, or whatever building you have enough population to whip-- the population is just going to starve otherwise.

Sounds like I keep more cities when conquering than many -- I tend to raze and rebuild early (like sword era), but beyond that, cities often have a little bit of infrastructure build, so I'm likely to keep them. My strategy for dealing with border culture is usually just to conquer the whole civ. The "take what you want and vassalize the rest" approach works too. Sometimes you are forced to take what you want, plus a little bit more. Then burn the little bit more to get some breathing space. All of it requires just a little bit of forethought prior to the comencement of hostillities.

[logicman49]

This happens to me all the time. But I have one more grief. I finish off the civ I am attacking quickly enough but the next civ over (who I am trying to avoid confrontation for now) gets all the borderline cities. This is nerve racking and nothing can be done as far as I know.

[joncnunn]

Re: Captured cities, burn and build new?

In BTS, by default a captured city will not flip back to the previous owner. The worst that will happen is repeated revolts. There is an advanced option though that would allow it to flip back.

In general though, cities that would be under strong 3rd party culture from a civ I've not already at war with tend to be raized to the ground.

A city that I'm doubting the ability to defend will also be raized to the ground.

But I'll tend to keep the rest, but that is in large part because I usually don't stop a war until they capitulate. Now if your planning on stoping the war pre-capitulation your better off raizing the last cities you capture because said cities won't work many tiles with all that foriegn culture.

Originally posted by Lancer
It doesn't usually take too long in my games before a captured city has a revolt, then flips. Usually alot less time than it takes to build cultural stuff in them like temples, libraries...and in the middle of a war I don't want to be building a library. I know it's not a historical game, just modeled on history, but when in history did the pilaging conquerers stop raping long enough to build a library? Particularly when I really, really want to

"BUILD CITY WALLS!!!"

So, how do you guys handle this problem?

[joncnunn]

And also note in Civ IV that culture is also in the ground if you raize the city. So if you found a replacement city nearby it's going to start out as foreign.

[Entropic]

I don't like to raze captured cities because that means I'd need a settler to settle it... and that means hammers are used up... which could have been used on other things. Furthermore, if the city is size 5 or larger, it'll take quite a bit of time to grow a new city to that size again.

[Blake]

Don't burn unless it's size 1 and rubbish, or you can't afford to keep it.

When you think about it, getting a city with a few pop and a couple of buildings, like a granary and forge or something (also perhaps religions and stuff), has a good ~50 turns head start over a new city.

Since good city placement tends to involve EVERY plot being worked by a city (with overlap being better than too few cities), it doesn't matter terribly much where the cities are actually placed. If a city is ill-placed later in the game, that just means you have the "well placed" cities steal away it's tiles.

[Yosho]

New border cities, you want to keep. If you've got your cities on one side and his cities on the other side, that's a perfect border city; you won't have a whole lot of squares to work in that city, but it'll make sure the next layer of cities has it's full cultural terrain at least.

Only time I raze a city is either if I can't hold it millitarally (like, I take a city from the guy I'm at war with, but he's about to roll right back in with a big stack of knights), or if I can't hold it stratigically (I take a city from player B, and it's now totally culturally surrounded by player C, who I'm not at war with; or I take a city that's in the middle of nowhere, nowhere close to the rest of my empire but close to other AI players, both making it economcially almost useless and meaning it'll fall in the next war)

Also, after BTS, I raze bad cities on another continent. You can hold another continent yourself and make a profit without messing around with colonies and such, so long as you only keep the 5-6 best cities and just let the culture from those cities expand and take up the whole contient. Colonial maintence only gets crazy if you have a lot of cities on one single foreign continent.

Edit: But yeah, never burn a city if you will eventually want a city there yourself.

[Velociryx]

When you go to war, IF you're not planning to kill your rival outright, the best overall approach would be to capture whatever cities you *want*, and then attack and burn the ones adjacent to it that would culturally swamp the ones you just took.

This creates a buffer zone between your new territory and that of your rival.

Better still...just keep attacking until you eliminate said rival, and then all his culture goes away...

-=Vel=-

[Lancer]

This is all great stuff, very helpful. Alot of the info is new to me, for example 9 units preventing revolutions...

Truly great posts.