City improvements in captured cities

[wisecat]

Do all city improvements get inevitably destroyed when a city is occupied?
At least that what happends in my expirience. Is it normal or is it a bug?

[HugoHillbilly]

In my experience one of two things could contribute to this:

firstly, the AI does not put a high priority on city improvements, so you may have gotten a city it hadn't built any in yet.

secondly, I never get AI cities with improvements mainly because my attack strategy includes bombarding the crap out of the city first, invariably destroying all the improvements.

This is an interesting dilemna, is it better to waste more units and take whole cities with improvements, or take cities easily by destroying all of them(improvements) first?

[0:) Innocence]

Originally posted by HugoHillbilly
secondly, I never get AI cities with improvements mainly because my attack strategy includes bombarding the crap out of the city first, invariably destroying all the improvements.

Hehe... my preferred method as well

This is an interesting dilemna, is it better to waste more units and take whole cities with improvements, or take cities easily by destroying all of them(improvements) first?

Dunno, but bombarding it is definately more fun

[Yaga]

Seems they always get destroyed, regardless: One of my better cities, near the border, deposed my rule and defected to the Russians. About 4 turns later, they deposed the Russians and came back to me. Not a single shot was fired, but in those four turns everything I'd built in the 3500 years previous was gone - temple, barracks, cathedral, library, marketplace, 1 knight and 2 pikemen - everything except the aqeuduct, presumably because it was a size 10 city.

Yaga

[quinalla]

I read in another post (sorry, can't find it right now) that when you take a city by attacking (even if you don't bombard it) your troops destroy improvements and there is a certain percent chance assosiated with different categories of improvements. I don't know about cultural take-overs, though I suppose the civ could have sold off the improvements before it reverted back to you.

-quinalla

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Yaga
Not a single shot was fired, but in those four turns everything I'd built in the 3500 years previous was gone

Then it must be (another) bug, because I once conquered an Iroquois town which had (presumably) a temple, because the town had extended borders. Once I entered the town with knights, I got 1 gold (I think) and no improvements at all. And in other Iroquois cities I didn't get any improvements either.
I know that in previous Civilization we got a low chance of getting any improvement intact, but in Civ 3 we aren't getting either money or improvements!

[wisecat]

Thanks for help everybody!
Another thing I noticed - when I captured a city only improvements I found were those that my Wonders provided for i.e. I had Sun Tzu War Academy and so I had barraks in newly cuptured cities.
Another point - even though I had these barracs my troops seemed to be unable to heal in captured cities as long as any resistance remained there.

[smellymummy]

in my experience, most of the improvements always get destroyed (or maybe sabotaged by teh retreating forces? who knows) with the exception of a few improvements such as:

barracks - not always still present, but often enough to make it in this post

aqueducts - especially in the late game nearly all cities I capture seem to keep these even though the pop would be under 6 (however the city was previously above 6 pop)

hospitals - rather rare, but I've obtained these when getting size 12 and higher cities

improvements which deal out culture almost ALWAYS dissapear. There are rare exceptions, once I captured a city and it retained it's cathedral and temple. I was pretty surprised. I think though that I just ended up selling them to rebuild my own for city culture.

It's simple though to see what's gone. Before taking a city, investigate it, then compare what's left to before conquering the city. It's usually relatively cheap to do that.

[Bloodaxe]

I've often found lots of things remain standing in conquered cities in the late game if you don't bombard. I generally just rush in with as many tanks as necessary to take the city and heal them later, your losses are minimal.

Things left standing are marketplaces, banks, aquaducts, hospitals, graneries and barracks. All culture related buildings are always destroyed. I like it when a marketplace is left standing for the extra it produces.

[uh Clem]

In Civ2, I preferred to capture cities with as little damage as possible. Now I bombard the crap out of them. Every pop lost is another citizen who won't be a resister. Simplifies things greatly when you can deal almost exclusively with your own nationality, not foreigners.

[0:) Innocence]

Originally posted by uh Clem
Simplifies things greatly when you can deal almost exclusively with your own nationality, not foreigners.

Unless there's a useful Wonder in the city, I usually raze it and immediately build a new city at the same spot, then add a few of my own Workers to the city if I want it to grow fast. The captured workers I send back to work the fields This way you avoid other nationalities in your cities while gaining a handful workers each time.

[kailhun]

If it's true that a captured/turned city hardly ever has any improvements, this sucks. In my opinion anyway.
I also don't see the point.

Robert

[uh Clem]

Unless there's a useful Wonder in the city, I usually raze it and immediately build a new city at the same

Yeah, that's probably more effective. I'm so used to using the captured city as a place for units to heal, etc, that I haven't done this. But considering what a pain newly captured cities can be, you're probably better off to start fresh.

And as mentioned, it's not as if you're losing a lot of city improvements when you raze. Captured cities are practically naked.

[xane]

Are you investigating the city beforehand ?

I often wonder that the AI has a super-optimization code that only builds improvements when they are actually needed. I often go on a improvement spree with a city and try and build everything I can, but sometimes I just wonder if I am wasting my time spending resources on items that offer little in return, I can't really calculate the micromanagement on that level, but I'm sure the AI can.

As regards improvements missing from cities you recapture, the same super-optimization code could equally sell anything it doesn't need. I also tend to think the AI sells or even just abandons those improvements it does not have the technology for.

The AI is always saturating itself with excessive numbers of military units, and it can only be building those if it is not building improvements. Think how the City Governers work, that is most probably the way the AI works too.

We often think of excessive units as a waste of maintenance, but as army size is vitally important in intimidating your enemies it may be far less costly in the long run, if the AI puts a higher worth on volumes of military then it will have the sacrifice improvements.

[rah]

In the mid 1900's I took the French Capital to trash their spaceship. (razing the city doesn't destroy it, you must occupy it)
It had quite a few improvements, Including an Airport which allowed me to airlift in support units. And a few obsolete units to disband to build the temple and cath. before resistence had ended. This in combination with making sure (every turn) that every citizen not resisting was an entertainer, allowed me to hold the city in the middle of all their cultural strongholds. The city had actually cultured up to expand it's influence even before all the resistance had ended. (and taking away their only uranium and aluminum resources to boot......, can we all say TOAST).

Generally all the culture improvements are destroyed. I've never seen a temple, but very rarely I'll see a Cath.

RAH