I want nation building!

[bahoo]

This is the modern age, we should be able to do more than just occupy a city or raze it, that's just plain barbaric!

In the modern age, war is all about nation buliding.

We ought to be able to take over cities that are culturally and governmentally backwards and install new, advanced governments (separate from our own).

Quite often, when attacking one of those rogue nations, I'm forced with the inevetiable decision of taking in a city I don't want or want to deal with...or razing it to the ground (which my fine democratic citizens don't approve of). It'd be nice if I could liberate them from their oppressive regimes, install a new government with officials (who would of course be like lackeys to me, at least for a little while ) and maybe give them a few soldiers to defend themselves and help them out financially.

[sprudl]

Why not take the city, keep it a couple of turns for strategic purposes and then donate it to one of the weaker civs?

[Monoriu]

Not a bad idea. I know Europa Universalis 2 has a similar idea that enables a player to grant independence to part of his territory.

But I don't think the current diplomatic model of civ 3 can support it. We need new mechanisms on alliances of more than 1 civ, formal vassels, non-aggression pacts, asking a civ to declare/stop a war and so on to make it work. There is also the little problem of reaching the max. number of civs in the game. Say the game already has 16 civs, if you add another that will be more than the game can handle.

[Andrew_Jay]

I find 'selling' cities a really good way to get extra money. I've normally gotten as much as 30 gold per turn plus a luxury or two from the AI for a city I took from another nation but didn't feel like keeping. The best thing is when the country you are at war with is not at war with the country you sell the city to, that way they CAN'T tale it back, regardless if they beat you.
What I'd really like would be the ability to reinstate a defeated civ. Say you and the English are allied against someone else, and the English get conqoured, it would be nice to be able to give them cities still, it couldbe like their government fleeing to your empire after defeat.

[Zeb_Fisher]

This hasn't happened to me yet, so I don't know ...

Let's say you're in a Mutual Protection Pact with another civ ... one of your cities is attacked and taken over by an enemy civ ... the civ you're in a pact with then retakes over that city .... My question is:

Does the city, which is your city, get liberated and returned to you? Or, does the friendly civ keep it for their own ... in effect being at war with you?


Zeb

[Andrew_Jay]

That would be really nice too, but I haven't experienced it. I heard that a friendly civ will actually choose the rebuke rebels choice if one of your cities try to defect to them. I would hope that the AI would recognise that:
a) this city originally belonged to somebody other than the civ I just took it from and;
b) I'm good friends with that civ.
However, I heard somebody say that they had a problem with being in a military alliance and their ally taking cities that they had lost to the enemy and then razing them.

[Furtigan]

I have made great use of client states. It works like this: Take city from smaller nation X. Keep it or, better, burn it to the ground. Then declare peace as soon as possible. They are now your b****. They won't screw with you, and can sometimes be coerced into signing mutuals. The trick is, when you get a country on the ropes DON'T finish them off. They will still hate you, but will function as a vassal.

[dconner]

Originally posted by Andrew_Jay
I find 'selling' cities a really good way to get extra money. I've normally gotten as much as 30 gold per turn plus a luxury or two from the AI for a city I took from another nation but didn't feel like keeping. The best thing is when the country you are at war with is not at war with the country you sell the city to, that way they CAN'T tale it back, regardless if they beat you.

Technical question about doing this sort of thing - what happens to the military units inside your city when it changes hands? Do they just leave the city, or become controlled by the new owner? (Potentially there are good points about either - you might sometimes have reasons to *want* to give military units to another civ.)