City Capture Options

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by isaac brock


Destroying a big city should be considered cool by everyone at apolyton.

hahaha. "Didja see me Raze Yin's capital?"

[isaac brock]

thats my boy

[Blake]

Originally posted by manofthehour
One more point. If they destory a city of yours and than 2 get revenge you destory one of theres you should be punished less.

Nah, then the avenging faction would be no better than the original offender. Altough prehaps as more cities are razed on a global basis the penalty gets reduced for everyone, basically as people get used to the concept of cities being trashed they get resigned to it, and no longer put up such a fuss.

What I think is there should be a pillage city option, the invading army enters the city, pillages it (destroying a couple of pop points, some infrastructure, and gets cash $$$ value of what they destroyed), then that city becomes unusable for a number of turns (say for 10 or 20 turns it suffers 0 pop growth, and produces no production).
This city can be pillaged again, but with the following penalties:
Only once per turn.
No loot cash (everything which wasn't bolted down was stolen the first time round)
One fifth of the population tries to escape, each military unit in the base can prevent 1 unit of population escaping.
Partisans are generated in surronding tiles, the number depending on city population and garrison levels.

For example:
A size 21 city garrisoned by 3 enemy military units is pillaged.
3 population points are controlled by the garrisons
Of the remaining 18, 4 escape.
These 4 create 2 partisans outside the base and 3 population points which are randomly allocated to other bases in the beseiged nation.
17 population remains, of which 3 are executed, leaving a size 14 city.

Overall: 3 population points are killed, 1 is converted to two partisans, and 3 escape to other cities.

[Alfonsus72]

Re: My Two Cents

Originally posted by Daoloth
We do not know yet whether they can be destroyed in modern age. And yes, modern cities have been destroyed: Stalingrad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, that small city the Nazis destroyed, etc. But those have really been rebuilt.

Yep, I guess you would have the option to rebuild the city with settlers or workers, if you are able to retake the terrain, and maybe you could get some population bonus at rebuilding if ruins are still on the map (they disapear with time, don´t they?).

Probably to destroy enemy cities has some very very big negative effect in the other civ´s attitude to you.

[Harlan]

"modern cities have been destroyed: Stalingrad, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, that small city the Nazis destroyed, etc. But those have really been rebuilt"

That's not even true. All those cities continued to exist, and at no time had 0 population (not to deny the horror of the Japanese victims, but the bombs dropped on those Japanese cities were small potatoes compared to the bombs today). Perhaps the only city in modern times to really go down to 0 population is Phnom Penh in Cambodia, under the Khmer Rouge. Yet even there most of the infrastructure remained, so it bounced back quickly after the insane Khmer Rouge lost power.

Blake,
We're thinking on similar lines, but I think my solution is simpler: on conquering a city you can pillage it, which means its pop goes down by 4 to 6, it loses most of its buildings, and you get a big amount of gold (more gold the more valuable buildings destroyed). If the city is only size 4 or so, it probably disappears, otherwise it takes more pillagings to destroy the city.

[wotan321]

I can see the gameplay value of razing a city during an invasion because its a pain to have to defend a city, build walls, etc just to avoid a quick recapture from my enemies who would then gain a technology from me. If I get a technological advantage, I can often use it to produce superior offensive units and go out and unleash some whoopa$$ on my annoying neighbors. But that newly conquered city is wide open for spys and recapture. Better to take it off the map immediately instead of having to starve it down to a one population city.

...then again, with all the anti-ICS built into the game, I would bet bartering or keeping a conquered city would be much more valuable than eliminating it. But I am glad the feature will be there.

[dainbramaged13]

Originally posted by PGM


Lose the attitude kid. If they announced Great Wonders as non-destructible, and introduced us to the city-razing concept a couple of days ago, I think some questions are in order. They will at least have to admit that the concept of Great Wonders as being indestructible is wrong, restrict the use of the razing option, or whatever. Either way, I believe that overlooking game items is not the way to go. At least not for those of us who never played the game, because Mr. dainbramaged13 has already obviously had the pleasure to do so. I love it when enlightened people share their knowledge on these types of questions with a mere peasant... (*humbly takes a bow*)

sorry it just seemed really obvious to me.. i was a little harsh though. sorry

[PGM]

Originally posted by dainbramaged13
sorry it just seemed really obvious to me.. i was a little harsh though. sorry

No problem. I've been surprised a few times recently about stuff that seemed obvious to me. I too think that Wonder-destruction resulting of razing is the most probable way, but you never know. I would also raise suspicions about the option to raze big cities (8/12+).

[ajbera]

How about this: razing a city of size 3 or less destroys it utterly. Razing a city size 4 and up operates similarly to a nuke strike in Civ2 - half the population is killed, all improvements (and wonders) destroyed. If necessary, a city can be razed multiple times to eliminate it. Depending on the era of the game, government, and diplomatic standings, razing causes the esteem other civs hold for you to drop, and successive razings cause successive dipolomatic penalties/esteem loss. Total obliteration of a city produces very harsh reactions.

Razing also causes emigration (nearby cities may gain a refugee pop point) and/or partisans.

Obviously this isn't perfect, but it is a system that reaches a midpoint between playability and realism.