No soup for you!

[CyberGnu]

Dexter, Japan is not a good example. No japanese cities were concquered, the nation capitulated without a single allied soldier on japanese soil.

The reason the cities were devastated were Allied bombing raids.

But even in the European theater several cities were taken intact. Vienna, Prague, etc... It just depends on if staying in the city would cut of the defenders from the main armies.

It's hard to simulate this in the city-based game that civ is, though... Since no one really cares about country side.

[CyberGnu]

What bugs me though is that if I take a size 10 city, about 8 of them will be unhappy (after quelling the resistors). After making two thirds of the city entertainers, they inevitably starve...

Now, what are they thinking here? 'oooh, those nasty Romans burned our temple, so we're gonna starve to death just to spite them'.

Instead, how about having a new specialist, 'Concquered worker' or something like that... That will harvest the normal amount of food, but only produce half or a fourth of the normal production/income.

Right after quelling the resistance, pretty much every single one (barring wonder effects) would be a concquered worker. When you build your first temple, you can convert two conquered workers to normal citiens, and so on.

[Navyman]

How about upping the luxuries? If I am not mistaken, that is another way of making people happy.

[AuraSeer]

Historically, it has been demonstrated that invading armies do indeed destroy cultural landmarks of the invaded so its not un-realistic.

When the Romans made a conquest, they allowed the people to keep their own religion and culture. They realized that this would keep the peons happy, and this is one reason why Rome was able to amass such a relatively large empire.

When my civ army occupies an enemy city, I don't want them to go around burning books and toppling statues; that'd be plain stupid. Instead, I want them to man the walls and run the airfields, but otherwise leave everything alone. I want the people to go about their lives as normal, except that their yearly income tax will be mailed to a different address. (Maybe there should have been a new tech advance that would represent this idea.)

As with many aspects of Civ3, this was an attempt to increase realism, but it turned out just to be stupid and annoying.

[Timeline]

Originally posted by AuraSeer
As with many aspects of Civ3, this was an attempt to increase realism, but it turned out just to be stupid and annoying.

Umm, I think it was more a game balance decision, to make conquest less profitable, not an attempt at realism.

[TechWins]

Sorry but I haven't read any other posts, except for the original post, because of lack of time. In fact the only reason why I came to this thread (I only periodically check up on the 'general' forum now) was because of the catchy title (gotta love Seinfeld).

The reason why I think the AI has so few improvements in their cites is because the AI does NOT pay attention to infastructure. Ok, Yes the AI will try to build an occasional wonder. For the most part, though, the AI is so fixated on building another settler to either plop down in the middles of your well developed empire or to place in tundra in a far away continent that infastructure can not be built. What does this mean, the AI is easy as hell. Yeah the AI may have 200+ cities but they are all at pop size 2-3 with the minimal amount of infastructure. In the game that I am playing (actually I won't finish it until the next patch because of the reasons I'm stating right now, which makes the game boring for ME*) the Germans in early AD had already had to start using names such as New Berlin, New Hamburg, New Cologne, etc... because they had already used all of the other names allocated for them. To stop detouring from the main topic, you won't find many AI cities (continue to read because I know you are thinking yeah right I won't find many AI cities) WITH a large scale of infastructure. Oh who am I kidding, you won't even find an AI city with even very little infastructure.


*Ok I think the game is pretty good, but the AI is way the hell too easy (yes not hard). The excessive expansion the AI performs just decreases it chances of winning because it fails to concentrate on infastructure to the least bit. Now don't get me wrong, AI expansion is great as long as it is benefiting their empire. Too many times (more like all the time) the AI sacrifes infastructure for expansion, which largely hurts its empire. Now for those of you who still can't understand my point of view I'll put it into simpler terms for you.

Beneficial AI expansion =
Unbeneficial AI expansion =
Beneficial AI infastructure building =
Unbeneficial AI infastructure building =
AI sacrifcing beneficial infastructure building for unbeneficial expansion =
AI sacrifing beneficial expansion for unbenefical infastructure building =
AI balancing beneficial expansion and beneficial infastructure building =

[Dis]

starve them down do nothing. that is what I do

[TCO]

Anybody want to discuss the specifics of lost improvements? Is it the same as Civ2?

[Dis]

no its not the same as civ2

I always seem to lose ALL improvements. but I usually war in ancient times to conquer my continent.

so its not like I'm using bombers to carpet bomb Dresden or something. These are gusy firing arrows and destroying temples with them (maybe they are fire arrows ). Although one could make the argument that the military commanders had the town's infrastructure burned to the ground once they realized their defeat. Again this is another freature Firaxis used to prevent human power civs from rolling over civ ai's and using their infrastructure (barracks, temples) against them.

[MarkG]

my tactics

- keep the city out of disorder even if it means starving it
- rush buy happiness city improvements(if it takes pop points even better!)
- add workers/settlers of your own nationality to the city

dont worry if it starves, usually the ai has improved the terrain pretty good and growth is quick

[Kc7mxo]

Wouldn't it be nice if the manual actually gave real information so we wouldn't have to take a poll to decide if it was possible to capture a city with its improvements intact?

[Dis]

face it, manuals are a thing of the past. Black and white being an example of this. I didn't learn anything from that worthless book.

[johnny faustus]

captured cities don't have to starve

CyberGnu wrote:

"What bugs me though is that if I take a size 10 city, about 8 of them will be unhappy (after quelling the resistors). After making two thirds of the city entertainers, they inevitably starve... "

Conquering a large city doesn't mean it will have to starve... but they won't comply with your production orders either. A city in civil disorder that is producing enough food to feed itself won't starve, but it won't grow or produce.

The only way to keep a large city large and productive is to quickly connect it to your trade empire (for luxuries) and to stop the war with its mother country (even if you're not a republic/democracy). The city doesn't want pantomimes on every corner after all.

[mharmless]

To stop detouring from the main topic, you won't find many AI cities (continue to read because I know you are thinking yeah right I won't find many AI cities:lol WITH a large scale of infastructure. Oh who am I kidding, you won't even find an AI city with even very little infastructure.

In my current game, I am the Zulus. World is full of islands, standard size, eight civs. On my island are the babalonians, english, aztecs, americans, and one other civ.

Killed the americans right off, they declared on me. No improvments in ANY of the cities they owned.

Next up, English. they settled two cities just off the coast. I crushed them and took all nine of their cities. All coastal cities save one came with a harbor, most of the cities had an aquaduct (6 of 9), four came with a barracks, and london had a marketplace.

Next up, Aztecs. 10 cities total, 3 as little one city island colonies and 7 mainland cities. One of the three islands had a harbor, others were undeveloped. The mainland I captured barracks in six of the cities, four harbors, five aquaducts, four marketplaces, and one bank.

I haven't yet turned my attention on the Babalonians, but the one city of theirs that switched to me on account of culture came with a marketplace and a barracks.

Finaly, I am positive that I seized several factories from the Germans a long time ago. The world came down to one egyptian city, with the remainder beind divided pretty much 50/50 between Germany and I. The world was one asia sized continent with a tiny two city island on the other side of the world, no land at all in southern hemisphere. Germans declared war in the modern era, and I crushed them badly. Seized eight cities and won by domination, and at least half of those came with factories and tons of other improvments.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Kc7mxo
Wouldn't it be nice if the manual actually gave real information so we wouldn't have to take a poll to decide if it was possible to capture a city with its improvements intact?

The strat weeny guys on this board have done a very good job of testing and figuring out the details of Civ mechanics...