Abandoned Cities

[Nubclear]

Here's an interesting idea for Play the World (although I doubt they'll impliment it)

Why not be able to abandon cities? Abandoned cities would lose their city radius and the cultural border they provided, and everything they did for the (former) owner would stop happening.

So if someone made a Great Library, and then abandoned the city, then the Great Library would stop working for that person. The culture it provided would stop....

Then all that would have to be done to capture it would be to get a worker and "join city", so that citizens are flooded in and everything begins to work again. All improvements are retrained, and it begins producing culture again. AND all the wonders in that city would begin working for whomever is the knew owner.

What does everyone else think?

[Gatekeeper]

Tassadar5000:

Uhm ... what's the point of having abandoned cities? As it stands now, you can lose them to enemies or barbarians, or you can cede them or you can disband captured cities. With that in mind, having abandoned cities sounds like overkill. Unless, of course, abandoned cities turn into goody huts.

Gatekeeper

[kring]

You can abandon cities now. They just disappear, no settler or worker to replace them. It sounds like you mean just leave a city with zero pop and everything else as it was. If that is the case, I would agree to the last post: Why? An interesting question would be to abandon a city, and immediately build a new city on that exact spot to see what happens. Probably nothing.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
Tassadar5000:

Uhm ... what's the point of having abandoned cities? As it stands now, you can lose them to enemies or barbarians, or you can cede them or you can disband captured cities. With that in mind, having abandoned cities sounds like overkill. Unless, of course, abandoned cities turn into goody huts.

Gatekeeper

Maybe for possible scenario use. Having a couple of abandoned cities in the center of a huge map that are technologically advanced, or have wonders in them and you have to race to get them.

Or yeah, if a city goes into civil unrest, there is a chance that the city will abandon and you'll need to sacrafice a worker (or possibly increase this number) in order to regain it, or risk it:

1. Begin taken over by a rival.
2. Turning into a goody hut
3. Becoming a technologically advanced barbarian camp.

Although in order for number 3 to be effective, barbarian camps would need to be improved upon quite a bit.

Or using them to settle cities elsewhere (although that may make them way too powerful...)

[Gatekeeper]

Tassadar5000:

It's an interesting idea you have, but one I don't think Firaxis will focus on. But you never know.

Gatekeeper

[Darkworld Ark]

I hope that something to this general extent would happen with the city ruins they've shown in the E3 movie, so if a city with a wonder gets destroyed, you can have a settler or worker go to the ruins, refound the city, & get back the wonder.

[Christantine The Great]

That's lame. I once had to make a hasty retreat from a massive Immortal horde heading towards a recently conquered city. It had the colossus. I destroyed the city before they could strike so they wouldn't have it.

Now they could just take it back, making my Pyrric victory completely useless.

[Quasar1011]

One thing I always wanted to see in Civ2, and now again in Civ3, was a "ruins" symbol. Sometimes when I am playing, I take over a foreign city and raze it. Later, I move in my own settler to the site, but can't remember exactly which square the razed city had occupied. A "ruins" symbol (you know, the 3 triangular dots you see on some maps) would be a good visual aid. At a glance, one could tell the extent of former empires that now lay in shambles. It could be an optional feature to be toggled on/off if some users didn't care for it.

[kring]

Ruins are supposed to be in C3PTW. I tried to post this a minute ago, so I hope it doesn't dp.

[jsw363]

I would like to see ruins after a city has been destroyed or abandoned. It would be great if the ruins could provide some additional benefit to another city founded on the spot like culture points, basic city improvements, etc.

[Andreiguy]

i like the idea, very nice, we atleast need some ruins graphic.
I prefer the goody hut idea.

[Christantine The Great]

I think ruins would be a great addition since it reminds me where to build cities.

I'm not big on eye candy.

[JoeDaddy715]

Just my opinion.....
Ruins are a great idea, so-called abandoned cities isn't. Nobody could maintain the buildings in the city, you can't just shut down banks and leave money in the vaults. If nobody maintains that aqueduct, it's gonna stop carrying water effectively or even burst. Wonders usually need maintained too, look at the improvements on the statue of liberty that occurred recently.
Ruins would be cool because they would add realism, perhaps though they should foul the land they were built on, especially for large or advanced cities. I wouldn't expect crops to grow on destroyed buildings and rubble remains....
It would be cool to see the ruins, kind of a path of destruction.... They could make a cool city animation to go with razing the city pretty easily, which could then be replaced by the ruins graphic.

[jsw363]

Originally posted by JoeDaddy715
Just my opinion.....
Ruins are a great idea, so-called abandoned cities isn't. Nobody could maintain the buildings in the city, you can't just shut down banks and leave money in the vaults. If nobody maintains that aqueduct, it's gonna stop carrying water effectively or even burst. Wonders usually need maintained too, look at the improvements on the statue of liberty that occurred recently.

I disagree about maintainence of buildings, wonders, infrastructure. There are still Roman roads in use today though no one has maintained them. The same goes for Incan agricultural terraces and aquaducts. Yes, some buildings and wonders do need constant care, but others like Stonehenge or Mayan and Aztec temples, or the Great Wall are still valuable despite their abandonement.

I understand that banks will not be able to funciton without funds, but what about harbors which have been dredged? They wouldn't close for many years. Or walls that have been built?Many city improvements would still function after years of disuse. I don't think you can dismiss the benefits of ruins so easily.