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

[Dr. Nick]

All I know is that I want a real fascist patch this time... secret police, reign of terror, propaganda, the whole shabang...

[Moraelin]

Well, yes, but the point is that:

A) At the time of surrender, the population was pretty low, compared to the might of the Roman army. Not quite the equivalent of 1 impi unit razing a size 12 city.

B) They didn't slaughter the population, they took them as slaves. In game terms, that's the equivalent of turning them into workers.

[Thomas Paine]

I've never had a major problem with controlling occupied cities. Until now.

Currently I'm in the middle of a game where I have fallen behind in culture points. The game placed my Germans in an isolated, barren, and somewhat dinky little island, which made for a rough start. I decided to stick it out, just for the hell of it.

Fast forward five millennia. 1000 A.D., and the nasty Egyptians have made it more than clear that the Teutonic barbarians (me) will not be tolerated on their Pharaoh's soil. Naturally my knights plow effortlessly through their cities; but will the citizenry capitulate? Never! Every Egyptian city I capture reverts back almost immediately, rush-built temples not withstanding.

Why? It's all in my advisor's report. "The Egyptians are not impressed with our culture."

It is now 2010 A.D. There are still thriving cities in Egypt, cities with names like Nuremburg and Bonn, where once stood proud Thebes and Memphis. And the proud culture of Pharaoh, with his Colossus and Sistine Chapel? Ravaged! Erased! Viciously torn forever from the pages of history! The price for unholy pride.

Later the Greeks paid the same price. Purged. Eradicated. Not one column standing.

At the game's onset, I hadn't anticipated becoming the scourge of the Civilized World. It was a mantle thrust upon me by circumstance. Much like Attila and the Khan, my people's native soil was poor. No iron, no horses, no saltpeter. It was kill or be killed. In this game, things got brutal. I didn't care for it, but razing cities became a German thing. By the Industrial Age, I had become quite used to slaughtering millions; genocide became businesslike, precise, disciplined. Germanic. And necessary.

The moral of the story: If you loathe to raze others, raise a culture that others will love.

[sas]

The moral of the story: If you loathe to raze others, raise a culture that others will love.

Good point Thomas
My main problem with the current system though can be summarized in 2 points:

1: The number of troops stationed in the city should affect the chance of converting back. I think its ridiculous for a size 6 city with 15 of my troops in it to revert back.

2: Based on my experience, the cultural effect is too powerfull. I understand and like the new consept of culture, but i think it needs further tweaking before it works satisfactory.

[frankdog]

As history (via movies) tells us, the Romans had trouble in occupied cities....

BRIAN: Are you the Judean People's Front?
REG: F*** off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: ****ers.
BRIAN: Can I... join your group?
REG: No. Piss off.
BRIAN: I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate the Romans as much as anybody.
PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA: Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.
REG: Stumm.
JUDITH: Are you sure?
BRIAN: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
REG: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really hate the Romans.
BRIAN: I do!
REG: Oh, yeah? How much?
BRIAN: A lot!
REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f***ing Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

[Marquis de Sodaq]

To those of you who wish to be kinder, gentler oppressors : City razing results in the creation of workers, each worth a population point. You raze a size 6 city, you get 2 workers. What happens to the other 4? Some die, others flee. That's what refugees are. So no, you didn't just kill the entire population, only a third of it.

In game terms, what happens to the culture points of the city? I imagine the previous ruling civ keeps all the points it collected since settlement. Do the current points just start adding to your own civ's total?

I only raze a city if...
1. I cannot defend it from counterattack, or
2. the AI settled in such a lame spot that it isn't worth keeping.

I jog in a pile of workers to make the majority of the citizens of my nationality. I've yet to lose one. [crosses fingers...] Altho I haven't invaded a fully settled foreign continent yet, either.

[FNBrown]

Originally posted by Marquis de Sodaq

I only raze a city if...
1. I cannot defend it from counterattack, or
2. the AI settled in such a lame spot that it isn't worth keeping.

I adhere to the same policy. Most cities are worth more standing than they are as smoldering piles of ash, unless they're completely poorly located. I've razed cities on three kinds of occassions:

1. I'm attacking an opponent who has a ton of reinforcements nearby. Losing the city may have negative tactical implications, and always has negative financial ones. I hate how a percentage of your treasury is distributed across all cities - including the newly conquered ones. I mean, as if the first thing I'm going to do is cart a truckload of cash into a war zone.

2. The AI has put its cities too close together, especially if my objective is conquest of an entire region. If all I'm doing is establishing a tactical base of operations in a foreign country, or flexing a little muscle, I usually don't mind being crowded, but if I'm trying to capture a continent, I think long-term, and if the cities are too packed together, I'm going to thin them out a bit.

3. The AI missed an obviously superior nearby location for the city. This happened just once. Where there's a narrow land bridge between continents, putting the city on the "bridge" square makes it a convenient canal, and can make naval travel much more efficient. Last time I conquered Germany, they had missed the "canal" square by one, so I razed the city, and re-settled where it suited my needs better.

As for the moral implications of razing a city, well, I personally can't wait until I can play a game long enough to get ICBM's and start nuking them. But, hey... that's just me. ;-)

[dainbramaged13]

ive never razed a city

i always win by domination, military, and sometimes culture. I do the 'surgical strike' type of attacks and take out many cities quickly, in a couple of turns, usually with many fast units. I also always keep a high culture rating at home, so i dont usually have to worry about cultural defection. Therfore i never raze a city and i find it much easier to do that than to rze and rebuild with settlers... after all they cost 2 pops a pop! ( :-D )

i build a big base through early conquering, then stay to myself for 300-700 years, depending on how long it took me to conquer, and then kill the remaining civs one at a time

[FNBrown]

On another note, I'd like to add that I dig the title of this thread. ;-)

[Grrr]

I love razing cities, but I hate the enemy doing it.

For instance I was playing against a friend and he nuked and razed ROME in the year 1980AD, as an obvious result, my Civ fell apart, mainly due to the loss of about 10 wonders.
Methinks a solution to this problem would be NEGATIVE culture. eg if I raze Delhi which has a cultural value to the Indians of 2562, I should lose say 1281 culture points, and this will definately prevent razing. Personally I only raze cities in stupid places, like glaciers. Another point, it should be possible to raze cities at any time. I would find it useful to be able to raze my own cities if under attack and 99% likely to be taken over.
Another useful thing would be an ETHNIC CLEANSING order for military units. OK, I am not the new hitler. But it would be nice.

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by sas
1: The number of troops stationed in the city should affect the chance of converting back. I think its ridiculous for a size 6 city with 15 of my troops in it to revert back.

It does, actually. Stationing a number of troops equal to the city's population should usually do the trick. Doing this, I rarely lose a city to reversion. Of course, it's pretty crippling when you do.

[zorbop]

i really like razing. in ctpII i had so many problems because i had to many cities and it made the citizens mad. most of the AI cities are just corrupted, production wasting money gobblers after you capture them. then there always revolting because "i'm to aggresive to there mothercountry" then with 0 culture and no cultural buildings in the any of the captured cities exept wonders... and then i have to defend them and they take forever cause they waste there shields... razing is one of the best attributions to the game.

[GeneralTacticus]

I like the idea of having the citizens of a city fight back when you try to raze it. I think that it should be something like this:

Every two citizens is counts as the most recently obsolete draft unit for the defending civ (even if they don't have drafting), so when they've got musket it's pikemen, rifles it's muskets, etc. When you try to raze the city, you fight them. Every two of those units you kill, the city loses a pop point. Once you've killed all the defenders, you raze whatever's left. And I think that the same mechanism should apply when the city tries to defect, only you don't burn everything afterwards, and at some point they should give in.
I think also if you attack a city, there should a somewhat randomised system, with one of each of these 'armed citizens' joining the fight per three or four pop points. That would mean that it would be even tougher just to take big cities, not only to hold them.