I have just killed aprox 9.5 million people in 3 hours!!

[sas]

This game can certainly make you feel like a monster , making razing cities so easy and preferable to keeping.

Btw, i only keep citys with wonders in it. What do you guys do ?

[Alex]

Depends on the situation. If the city is on a nice spot, and if I feel that I have a chance to keep it (without running the risk of cultural defection), then I try to keep it. Otherwise, it's just blood and tears among the defeated, until nothing more lasts...


(EDIT: some corrections)

[Moraelin]

Personally I just avoid thinking of it as real, in an attempt to keep whatever sanity (or "humanity" if you've played White Wolf games) I have left.

It's sort of weird. I can play violent games, but somehow I think of those enemies as "targets" or "npc's", never as people. And given half a choice, I'll prefer a peaceful game like Tropico or (don't laugh) Creatures 3 or The Sims.

Sometimes it's not easy to ignore it, though. I tend to take city building or empire building games more seriously, for some reason. I try to make my people happy. I try to avoid wars. I get pissed off when the AI forces me into a war. And I'll want to hurt it when it razes one of my cities.

There was only one Civ 3 game where I've actually started a war myself, more to see what it's like. I've wiped out the mighty Iroquois, just because they and the Aztecs had all the Silk squares. Then I stopped and thought about it. And I felt like a mutant rat. I mean, for f-word's sake, some million people died... for SILKS? Not even oil or uranium. Silks. I'm a monster.

[Dis]

hey silks are important! I like hot women in silk panties and such. hmm? oh yeah, back to the thread

the sims a peaceful game? not the way I play it


I avoid atrocities. I now build settlers/workers to get a captured city down in size. No more Stalin like starvation for them. And I have never razed. I do use forced labour though. I can't help it if the weak workers die in factories. they should be wearing safety gear.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Remember- history is always written by the victors. It's why we don't call the Punic Wars the Roman-Phoenician Wars.

Myself? Only if it has a wonder or lots of good resources nearby. If it's wonderless, and it has resources in its old territory but would take a while to reach (remember-- conquest resets a city's culture rating), I don't hesitate to raze it-- unless it's a large, very-well-established city.

Then there's the factor of how many enemy forces nearby. If it's at the end of the turn or close to it when I capture a city, I might consider razing it (since it's harder to follow up). If I capture it right off, then it'll most likely stay, since it'll probably be completely secure at the turn's end (unless the enemy launches the mother of all counteroffensives in their turn).

And of course, capitals always get leveled. Symbolic value.

[Calorman]

I think the razing of cities is terrible. Even a small town has a population of more than 10 000. Totally wiping out the city should rank as an atrocity on par with nuclear attacks.
Unfortunately as people have pointed out this probably wouldn't work very well with the city revolt mess being the way it is. Until Firaxis 'fix' it so that large cities can be captured and held without the sudden loss of an army, razing cities is a necessary option.

[oriel94]

Is there some way of editing the game with the game editor so that razing makes the other civs mad at you?

[sas]

Its allso amazing to watch your population cheering you on in the "razing game".

Its got the feeling of a "nazi like" system (no matter what government) , only the people knows what is happening.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by oriel94
Is there some way of editing the game with the game editor so that razing makes the other civs mad at you?

I read in the manual somewhere that razing a city does have a negative effect on how other civs see you, but it's not as pronounced as nuking a city.

I don't see razing a city as killing everyone in it, I believe it's just destroying the infrastructure of the city and driving the population into the wilderness. There would of course be lots of people dying when this happened, but it's not the same as genocide.

I'd like to see some further consequences for razing in future Civ games. For instance, I'd like some way of seeing the population of the squares that don't have a city built on them but are settled by that civilization. Enemy troops moving through would displace these people, possibly leading to overcrowding in neighboring squares. Razing a city would cause the population to rise drastically in the neighboring squares and spread further as the turns go by, as the wave of refugees spreads out. This could lead to the population in neighboring cities going up, which could be a good or bad thing (bad if the city can't afford it or the refugees are fleeing to a city of another civilization, raising it's foreign population).

Showing non-city population would make the early game more realistic, too. You could expand culturally before encountering any neighboring civs, as the populated squares near your cultural border would have a chance of building cities of their own and joining your civilization.

[nato]

Razing was a great addition to civ, and a good idea.

However, since I don't enjoy pretending I'm Gengis or Attila or Hitler or someone, I never ever raze cities. Thats just not fun to me ... for entertainment I like to pretend I'm the good guys. Even when I'm conquering a lot, I want to be a nice conqueror (ha ha).

I tried pretending razing wasn't so bad, but who was I kidding. If you "get into" the game at all, razing is just what it is, killing millions of civilians.

What I don't like is that Civ3 really encourages you to raze. Even with a large cultural lead, rush building temples, and all that (which yes I do), it is much more efficient to raze. But I just can't enjoy pretending I'm this invading holocaust.

Thats why I really like my idea of having units in defecting cities removed to your territory instead of deleted. Razing wouldn't be such an almost necesity then.

I do agree that it should be harder not to be a razing monster, and to try to be "civil". I just think it would be funner if not razing was a little more feasible.

[Moraelin]

Actually, IMHO razing should be LESS of an option.

Let's take WW2. While the nazis did plan to exterminate the Polish race, the plan was to do it until 1975. Yes, over a whole 35 years. NOT to just raze cities as they come to them.

Why? Because when you push people TOO hard, you get... Warsaw.

What do you think you get when you try exterminating a 1 million people city, with a 20,000 men division. Now think of what happens if you try to do it with some 1000 archers. Right. They will NOT just line up for the slaughter. They'll fight back.

People may accept "hey, they took another neighbour to the death camps, but maybe it won't be me next." Out of sheer fear for their lives. MAYBE if I obey, I'll survive. But when it's sure I WILL be next, for sure, then that fear works the other way around. I have to fight or I'm dead. I'll fight.

IMHO in both cases, both when you try to raze a city AND when they want to culturally deffect, there should be a revolt. A fight between armed civilians and your troops. They'll count as conscripts, but they WILL fight your troops. In a city. You might still win, or you may lose some (or all) of your troops in the fight.

That way, razing in the middle of a war would be less of an attractive option. When you might lose some units if you try to raze, then you might save them for the fight instead. And conversely, knowing you may get to keep the city even when it tries to deffect, you might as well try to keep it.

[CharlotteCivver]

I think what is really missing is a size limit for razing.

I can see Ghengis Khan razing a city of size 3. But think of how much easier Hitler's job would have been if he could have just razed Paris. The problem is, Paris is a bloody big place. You cannot just make it not exist anymore.

My suggestion would be that razing should be impossible for a city above size 6.

[Argos65987]

I don't necessarily agree that razing a city should be limited by its size (tell that to the citizens of Carthage).

However, it shouldn't have to be such an encouraged and necessary thing. Maybe if the number of military units in a city could discourage revolt to join another civ, that might make it better. Station a large garrison, the city shouldn't revolt as easily.

The thing that bothers me is losing your garrison in a revolt. There is no way your army should join a rival civ because the city is revolting.

I try not to raze cities, usually only out of revenge , or if it is an overseas war. I usually try to bombard the city until it is size 3 or under. Then I have a better chance of completing some improvements and keeping the captured city.

[star mouse]

Rome's checklist when they sacked Carthage:

1. Kill all the men.
2. Sell the women and children as slaves.
3. Loot and pillage.
4. Burn the city to the ground.
5. Plow the fields and sow them with salt so nothing will ever grow there again.

[ChrisShaffer]

Of a city population that may have exceeded a quarter of a million, only 50,000 remained at the final surrender. The survivors were sold into slavery; the city was razed, and the territory was made a Roman province under the name of Africa.

http://phoenicia.org/punicwar.html