Razing Cities -- A more realistic Solution.

[Kevin Ar18]

To me the current Raze City option is quite unrealistic and inadeqaute.
1. You can't check what's in the city first to see if you want to raze it.
2. After you get the city you can't raze it.


So instead, when you capture a city it would automatically be yours (you would have no option to raze it).

Then any turn during the game you could go into the city and for each unit you could get rid of one citizen per turn till you eventually destroy the city.

This act would be considered a very serious atrocity by other Civs -- on the level of Hitler killing the Jews and Japan's treatment of China. This would give more resolve to the other AI players to ally against you and take you down at greater costs. Except for your current allies perhaps.

You could also do this to your own citizens/nationals in any city. However, say in Democracy it would likely collapse the government if you do it to your own people and may even collapse it if you do it to other nationals. In Communism it might be more allowed in the sense that it would be suppressed.


I think this would slow the raze an entire Civ strategy to a more realistic level. It would still allow it, of course, but it would just take a little longer and be at a greater cost (which is more realistic) as opposed to the way the cities revert back and kill obviously superior units in CivIII.

If you say, start to kill of large portions of another Civ, it should cause ever increasing opposition by other Civs.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Realistic, yes, but a would it improve the game?

Imagine capturing a size 15 city, or even 10. Ten turns of enter, kill citizen, prevent further growth, repeat would add to that Immortal tedium that is a major problem. And if you were on a conquest spree, you might have several cities requiring this at a time! There could be an "automated kill button" though - where you set your governor to demolish the city - selling improvements, killing citizens and maybe even pillaging improvements if you thought you could do better, or you were wary of a liberation.

Or perhaps even just the feature that you get a look at the city screen once before deciding to raze/keep a city. Surely adding a third option to the "Raze" or "Keep" notification which takes you to the city screen first wouldn't be that hard, would it?

[Barnacle Bill]

Razing cities was rather common in ancient times, and nobody got too worked up over it. It worked much as it does in the game - city gone, slaves created. In modern times, you are right it would be a bigger deal politically. However, in real life Canada can't grab a chunck of North Dakota by building a city just their side of the current border, nor will Seatle defect to Canada no matter how many cultural buildings the Canadians build in Vancouver. The only way the game gives you to deal with those issues is to raze the city in question. So, limiting the ability to raze cities in modern times, IMO, requires a fix to those issues as well. Such a fix still needs to provide a path to "cultural victory", though, or the intent to make it possible to win without warmongering is defeated.

[kmill25]

I do something similar to that now. If I don't raze a city but at the same time I don't want it. I'll just starve it and then build a worker or settler. No more city.

[wotan321]

If I get involved with a civ over some patch of land, or I just want to take them down a peg, I take the cities, sell all the improvements, and give the city to a 3rd civ who's capital is far away. It also helps if this 3rd civ is someone I'd like my present antagonist to be enemies with. That way, I don't have to pay the price of razing a city, so my present adversary will more quickly agree to peace when I have achieved my goals. Secondly, it makes the 3rd civ I gave the conquered city to more friendly to me. And I don't have to deal with too many cities. I've noticed that if I start razing a lot of cities, my enemy refuses to talk, and a war can drag on and on long after I have acheived my goals, and that war-weariness is eating me up. Not good.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I admit, that does work for me too. Usually I can take the city back with culture, too. But I just keep giving the same Civ, or another...whatever - the same city. And it means that in the future I can use the place as a base for my War Machines - often without having to beat the Post Office Tower out of it first, eh WOTAN?

(Sorry if you don't understand my thinly veiled in-jokes there, but the WOTAN I know of was from the 60's)