Capturing a size 1 city

[Fake Boris]

Ha, just when we thought that the Civ3 forums were slowly fading into Civ2iness, a newbie question.

Why do sometimes the size 1 cities that I capture are destroyed, and other times captured? I can't figure it out.

[vorlon_mi]

Size 1 cities captured from the AI are auto-razed,
unless the AI has accumulated some culture there,
say, from building a temple or library. If it has some
culture, then you will be given the option to keep or raze.

Size 2 and above, you are given the option. This leads me
to sometimes wait a few turns before taking a city,
if I want to keep it. Then again, I play at the lower
difficulty levels, where every turn is not as precious as
at the higher levels.

Does anyone know what happens if an AI city was once
size 2 or 3, and has shrunk to size 1 ... say, through
pop-rushing, starvation, or drafting citizens? Does it
remember its former size, and so not auto-raze?

vorlon_mi

[vmxa1]

It will autoraze at size 1, regardless of any former size, if it has no culture.

The level really only comes into play for capturing small towns, in that the flip risk are typically higher. This stems from the AI having most of the wonders and being able to build infrastructure.

If you are say Monarch, the AI will have fewer wonders and not have temples/lib/cath all over the place right away. It will very late in the game in large cities, but not in the middle game.

If you are at Sid, they have such a discount, that they can toss up a lib quickly even in a smallish town. They will also have lots of troops and can afford to build that lib/cath.

So it is not uncommon to see double your culture and more and that makes capture and hold risky, unless you are going to eliminate that civ soon.

[Fake Boris]

True. I'm playing at Demigod, so culture isn't much of a problem.