No soup for you!

[AHO]

I started a thread like this a couple days ago as a fact finding effort, but now I'm really starting to become annoyed with this problem and want to know if this is happening to anyone else. EVERY time I capture an enemy city ALL the improvements are gone. I know that some of them will be destroyed in the course of the battle, but not ALL of them and not EVERY time. What makes this so exasperating is that if you're on a major military campaign and systematically sweeping across the continent, city by city, when you capture a size 11 city (I'm in the 1100's, we don't have hospitals yet) even after you quell the resistors, the people are sooooo pissed off due to the lack of cathedrals, colosseums, or even a stinking temple, that you have to take nearly the whole population out of the fields and turn them into entertainers. As a result, there are so few workers that you can't get any production, and, what production you CAN muster is eaten up in corruption at a rate of 90% because you're so far from the capital, so you can't build anything to appease them. (76 turns to build a Temple?) The starvation causes the population to dwindle, which actually succeeds in quelling the resistance, but then you basically have to start from scratch in every captured city!

OK, enough of the rant. What I want to know is, has anyone captured an enemy city that had any improvements left in it?

[RichM]

There are things that you can do to alleviate some of these difficulties. They wanted to make the game so that outright military conquest wouldn't be the easiest way to win. Capturing large, intact cities is not very realistic. In RL cities captured in war are often completely destroyed. If you want to get a city up and running you have to quel resistance and spend money. One way to minimize resistance is to have some of your workers join the city to even things out a bit and minimize the chance for revolt.

[Timeline]

Nope.

I have captured cities with major wonders in them, but never any improvements - and I think this sucks big time.

Usually the city pop dies off well before I can get them happy and working again. Size 12 cities shrink down to size 1 in no time. I might as well just raze the thing :rollseyes: - I think this needs more tuning.

I can see not being able to get shields or commerce from a recently captured city, but not being able to get them to grow food for themselves and their children?? - it's ridiculous.

[RichM]

Stalingrad, Nanking, Berlin, many examples of cities needing complete rebuilding.

[Barchan]

I've actually captured a few cities in later-game wars that have had some cool things left in them, including harbors, factories, hospitals and aqueducts. Granted, all the cultural items are gone (which, IMO, makes little sense. Not everyone shares the Taliban's views toward other cultures. Besides, intentionally destroying places of worship is a crime under the Laws of Armed Conflict....) but the amount of other stuff left seems to depend on the intensity of the conflict, particularly the amount of bombardment the city is subjected to. If you pepper the city with round after round of artillery shells, then yup, it'll all be rubble. But if you use cruise missiles (which I've found particularly useful for eliminating (yes, killing dead!) Mechanized Infantry) the overall level of destruction is greatly reduced. Plus, if you're lucky enough to only encounter a single defender or an unoccupied city, you should have a greater chance of capturing infrastructure.

But you'll still have the no shield/no entertainment/no future problem for the citizens there. I guess you either have to build them out as workers, rush build things there to calm 'em down, or let 'em starve. I usually just let 'em starve.

I agree that it shouldn't be so easy to occupy a city and get it humming at full production the next day. But when even in the modern era turns are a year each, it just seems to take way too damn long to get the city even functioning on its own, let alone begining to approach its former glory.

[Peterk]

I've captured cities with lots of stuff still in them. It seems to depend on how heavily defended the city was to begin with and how much bombing and bombardment you had to do to get it. Pretty realistic.

[Arrian]

Basically, all culture/happiness improvements are automatically destroyed when you capture a city (including cultural assimiliation). All this really means is that you must slow the pace of your conquest - consolidating your conquests is going to be a bit more difficult than in CIV II. If you're still a despot, no problem, get out that whip! A city w/11 pop = nearly instant temple/cathedral. If not, it is very expensive. Thus, if you want to go on a rampage and wipe someone out, send in settlers behind your troops and, after razing the opponent's cities, rebuild your own. Otherwise, starve 'em. That will drop the population down to a more manageable size.

-Arrian

[AHO]

Thanks for the insight, guys. I'm glad to see that other people are annoyed with this too. I can respect the historical references of Berlin et al, but come on--in every city captured in the history of the world, not a single library or temple survived? But what the heck. I'm a game player. I'll learn to win within the constraints of the rules, no matter how unusual.

[TCO]

For reference, how does the destroying of things compare to Civ2? Here is a very good description of how the system works in Civ2. How is it different in Civ3?

CIV 2 CITY DESTRUCTION (credit to Slowthinker)

Some additions to section 5 (a new Attacking cities section?):

A city can be captured (OK, sacked ) if there is no enemy unit inside (including units with 0 defense). Any ground unit except a Dip/Spy and a Caravan/Freight or air units with range 0 (helicopters) can do it. The unit may capture from both ground and sea squares.

City improvements are divided into three groups:
Group A: Temple, Courthouse, Cathedral, Hydro Plant.
Group B: Barracks, Library, City Walls, Bank, University, Colosseum, Manufacturing Plant, Recycling Center, Stock Exchange, Supermarket, Research Lab, Coastal Fortress, Harbor, Airport, Port Facility.
Group C: Granary, MarketPlace, Aqueduct, Mass Transit, Factory, SDI Defense, Power Plant, Nuclear Plant, Sewer System, Superhighways, SAM Missile Battery, Solar Plant, Offshore Platform, Police Station.
(It looks that items in group A are choosed firmly and group B and C holds remaining improvement from even resp. odd lines of rules.txt)

Subverting a city preserves all improvements.
Inciting a revolt causes a disappearance of group A.
Capturing by force causes a disappearance of group A and just one of group B or C (there is a 50% chance for a group to be selected)

The following effect is equal for both bribing and taking by force:
After succesfull capture of a city, the civ that agressor gets a part of treasure of the civ that was sacked as a spoil and chooses one enemy's advance. The formula for amount of gold taken as a plunder is here

Edited: link
Edited: only air units with range 0 (helicopters) can capture a city.

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by AHO
Thanks for the insight, guys. I'm glad to see that other people are annoyed with this too. I can respect the historical references of Berlin et al, but come on--in every city captured in the history of the world, not a single library or temple survived? But what the heck. I'm a game player. I'll learn to win within the constraints of the rules, no matter how unusual.

Soren stated that any culture improvements (library & temple) are destroyed once a city is taken over. You don't want an enemy civilization spreading their culture through their temple (artwork, beliefs, etc.). For the library - you have to rewrite the history books to make history look favorable to you & thus spread your culture more. Historically, Soren said this was accurate as well.

And the AI isn't much for improvements so early on in the game many cities are empty. Also Soren might have programmed a few of the AIs to sell their improvements in cities heavily under attack. Who knows? If I knew I was going to lose a city that's what I would do.

Soren also said there is a 50% chance each non-culture building is destroyed. That seems high to me. Wonders (and culture wonders) in my opinion should NOT be destroyed from conquering a city.

[dexters]

Re: No soup for you!

Originally posted by AHO
I started a thread like this a couple days ago as a fact finding effort, but now I'm really starting to become annoyed with this problem and want to know if this is happening to anyone else. EVERY time I capture an enemy city ALL the improvements are gone.
OK, enough of the rant. What I want to know is, has anyone captured an enemy city that had any improvements left in it?

Well, it's a design decision. If you capture a city, all the cultural improvements are destroyed. 1st, this is a gameplay descison since everytime you capture a city, its culture starts with zero. If you capture things like temples and such, you'll have to sell it and buy your own. Firaxis wisely sidestepped this potential gameplay hassle by destroying these improvements for you so you start with a clean slate. Historically, it has been demonstrated that invading armies do indeed destroy cultural landmarks of the invaded so its not un-realistic.

I'm not clear on non cultural improvements, but i think half of them will get destroyed -- maybe more, especially if you bombard the cities before taking them. But on easier levels, the AI builds mostly cultural improvements, so if you take their cities, you won't see any improvements at all.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by RichM
Capturing large, intact cities is not very realistic. In RL cities captured in war are often completely destroyed.

In RL captured cities are sometime destroyed but many times they are not; examples include the capture of Paris & Rome in WW2. Both captured largely intact. The fact that you can NEVER militarially capture an intact city in Civ3 just goes to show how poorly thought out and unfair the warfare system is.

It should be difficult but not impossible to conquer the world. Why doesn't Fraxis get this?

[RichM]

I think at that point Bismark went to Joan and said, I'll give you a peace treaty for a peace treaty and PARIS! Oh but I guess the culture improvements would still be destroyed in that case. Never mind.

[Deathray]

It is true that some cities have been taken intact, but for the most part they are destroyed or severly damaged in war. The cases where they are taken pretty much undamaged are usually due to there being no or little resistance. Paris in WWII was a good example of this as the French army put up almost no resistance whatsoever due to a variety of reasons, the main ones probably being political instability and their general lack of preparation for the German blitzkreig attacks.

Also, I am glad that cultural buildings are destroyed, as otherwise I would have to sell them each time I captured a city. Of course, most of the time I destroy cities, use the captured workers as slave labour and build in the gaps according to my city grid.

[dexters]

Originally posted by Oerdin


In RL captured cities are sometime destroyed but many times they are not; examples include the capture of Paris & Rome in WW2. Both captured largely intact. The fact that you can NEVER militarially capture an intact city in Civ3 just goes to show how poorly thought out and unfair the warfare system is.

It should be difficult but not impossible to conquer the world. Why doesn't Fraxis get this?

The argument is false. The examples you give is two cities in god knows how many cities that were decimated. The Americans levels most Japanese cities except for Kyoto, the cultural capital of the Japanese.

And if you think about it, capturing a city with a wonder does not destroy the wonder. The cities mentioned, Paris/Rome are important cities. You can liken them to having wonders. Could they have been destroyed? sure. In the case of Paris, as stated before, The French fell, so no fighting was needed. But I'm sure Hitler wanted to capture it in tack as well.

But in the course of human history, a disproportionate amount of cities have been leveled. Far more than the few that were captured in tact.