Why conquer when I can Raze?

[pcasey]

I have to confess that I'm a bit of a pacifist turtle in these types of games. I keep my head down, farm my patch of ground until I get a technological lead, and then expand and conquer the world. So I come to CIV III with my own set of biases, but with that said ...

I've been playing some with military conquest as my goal and I'm having to rethink my initial assumptions. Specifically, I've sort of come to the conclusion that *conquest* doesn't work. I don't mean a military win doesn't work, I mean that *razing* is the way to go.

1) I can realistically only use about 20% of the map. After that, cities are so far away from my palace or forbidden palace that they're utterly useless as anything except pop-rush farms and I think pop rushing is sort of tedious.

2) Taking big cities from an enemy is bloody hard b/c of the resistance factor. Through experimentation, I've found that if I keep one non bombard/non air unit in the city per population point I can prevent the city reverting. Still, thats 25 modern armor in a lot of cases. Do you know what else I could be doing with 25 modern armor?

3) If a city is going to be useless anyway, and its going to cost me 25 modern armor for 3 turns to whip it into shape, why take it? I can just raze it and take 5 cities the next turn with my armor and raze them too.

It just seems to me that CIV III makes conquest per se difficult because of the culture reversion thing, and pretty useless because of the crazy way corruption ramps up. So why fight the tide? Burn everything to the ground. Its faster, and its not like you lose out on the production you might have gotten from the city anyway.

Oh, one other comment.

I *love* the religious trait. I can play peace in democracy all the time and drop to communisim whenever I'm in a way without a serious produciton hit. This is way more useful than militaristic in my opinion.

[vmxa1]

I was playing a raze when you can game, but the considerations are 1) they ad to your score 2) if you hold them then you can use the RR's on them. Do not take the city with more than 3 pop, bomb or art it down to size to make it hard to revolt. If you are in comm or despot you can sacrifice some population for say a temple that will work for a more than 4 size. Just do not leave more than 2-3 people.

[Pedders]

That's right. Most people conclude that you want to keep the city, not the native population

[Nagel]

If you are in a really tight war, if the AI is pushing you, you simply cannot take cities. You can't afford to. The raze option is too good. But try to think about this IRL... how do you RAZE a ten million metropolis? Build a huge gas chamber or make lots of chains for millions of people? This is almost impossible. We get war wariness, but no one complains when we kill off millions or people or make them slaves?

Well what the heck. I have a few cities to raze.

[Moonsinger]

I raze only cities that are closed to each other. If I'm in Depotism, I would use the citizen to hurry up the temple, library, coliseum, university, and so on. The bigger size of the captured city, the better. By the time, I'm done with it (normally within 3 turns), a size 12 cities would become a size 3 cities. If I'm in Democracy, I would pay to hurry up a temple, a library, and and so on. Under a democracy government, I would normally generate more than 1500 golds per turn anyway, so purchasing a brand new library or a temple is really no big deal. Beside, you can always let them die of hunger which would bring the city size down to any size you want.

[vmxa1]

I have never gotten that kind of cash flow, even on chieftain. As you move up the levels it gets very hard to hold a city of 12 for even three turns. Last night I had two cities of 6 or so revert to China and they had only one city left and it was on an island at the time. hence no culture or connection to capitol. Temples did not save it. I would not put any money into a city like that, it is just a waste. The city will never generate any income due to corruption. It just makes no sense. Just beat it down to around pop 3 (pre patch down to 1 or 2). If you have Suns wonder you get a barracks and can put in a temple and maybe a wall and nothing else. We are talking about a point in the game where you already have a large empire, so these cities are going to be far from the Palace or FP.

[MadWombat]

Oh... I can GET that sort of cash flow, but I sure can't maintain it. =P I'm usually running at about 300-400 gc/turn with 100% science by the early modern age on emperor. If I dump my science down, I can certainly pump it up.

By the late modern age, I'm usually around 50% science, 400gc/turn, 4 turn tech. I stop selling tech when I no longer need to in order to maintain 4 turn advances.

[pcasey]

I run all my wars in communism, so I've definately gone down the conquer and pop rush road, but I honestly find I'm better off razing the city and found a new one. Here's why.

To conquery and pop rush a city down to a manageable size I have to garrison it for, say, 3 turns until the resistance ends run a constant risk it'll revert back to its home civ, even after resistance is over.

Then it'll take me 3 turns and 15 population to get a temple, library, and cathedal build. I end up with a size 3 city with some improvements about 80% of the time and a size 8 revolting city I have to reconquer 20% of the time.

If instead I raze it and found a new city on its site, I have no garrison requirement, and inside of 6 turns I'll have a size 3 or 4 city of my own people, albeit without improvements.

I just don't think its worth the garrison requirement and revolt risk to try to pop-rush a captured city down to a manageable size. I seem to do much better just razing the city, founding a new one if its close enough to a palace to be worth the trouble, and moving my assault force onward. No messy garrison requirements, no risk of reversion, and I'll have a good sized city in that site in a few years anyway since the whole surrounding area will be farmed and railroaded already...

[MarshalN]

I think it depends on what period you're talking in. In the ancient era, razing and then rebuilding costs a lot in terms of production/population. If your culture is semi-decent, you should be able to keep the city since in the ancient era you shouldn't be way off your continent attacking anyway.

Later on though, I think I agree that razing is the way to go. Otherwise it's too expensive (the opportunity cost of 25 modern armour sitting there) and too risky.

Which brings a slight problem -- if you're conquering for resources, you HAVE to bring a settler along or you might be waging a war for nothing when the city defects 10 turns later.

[rah]

I'll keep a major city or two for a couple of reasons.

1. I have no problem with reversion. Haven't lost one yet, through starving and rush building and a few workers to even out the Pop %.

2. Good place to heal your troops.

3. Destroying all the city square improvements give their bombers something else to do instead of nicking all your armor.

4. Sometimes the city has an airport that can be real useful lifting in support troops. (if on another continent).

5. I'd rather be on territory that I own during that first blitz counterattack of everything they have that can attack. As soon as your army is healed, you can finish off what's left. By then they're down to conscripts/draftees.

6. When you take the next city, leave one weak unit it in. The bombers move first and will decimate the territory, then they'll take the city back. hahahahahahahaha

RAH

Hopefully the patch will help against the bombers.
The last game, one of my bombers actually shot down an intercepter. I laughed for a while.

RAH

[ChaingKaiShek]

My Tactics

Well this is what I find works rather well.

Unless I have another civ right on top of my own I tend to avoid warfare until I at *least* have the calvary. After a bit of troop massing on the borders I would order those shining horsemen to charge forward and sac the nearest enemy town, leaving just one unit within the city I would charge my army forward to the next nearest enemy town and raze it (thus removing the culture circle from anywhere near my own captured city.)

Following turn I order all of my troops back to the single captured town - and however cheap this may be, it helps alot when trying to defeat that sometimes pesky AI. Wait in the city, eventally massive armies of the chosen foe charge blindly at the captured city (perhaps in hope of conquest). Their best units first, but quickly you notice only spearmen are rushing you - and then warriors. It seems the AI Blindly charges all of it's units at the one captured city, leaving it no problem for 9 calvary units to grind them all into the dust.

What then? Advance and repeat, of course many cities will be found to be undefended so it will make your task of wiping the AI off the map a bit easier.

And yeah, I guess this does count as exploting a flaw in the poor AI. But hey, it works.

Chaing

[pcasey]

If you're the first one to cavalry, I agree that you're crazy not to rush an AI civ. Its just too good an opportunity to miss.

Don't miss out in an ancient era rush though. Depending on your play style I find horsemen and war chariots work wonders against anyone except the greeks (dratted hoplites).

Or you could just do swordsman/legionaries/immortals, but they can't retreat like the faster units so don't usually work as well imho.

For better or for worse, I'm a born again rusher in civiii. Kinda makes me sad actually as it sort of ruins the game that there are certain key technologies that if you get first, let you get a free rush off.

[ChaingKaiShek]

My Tactics

Well this is what I find works rather well.

Unless I have another civ right on top of my own I tend to avoid warfare until I at *least* have the calvary. After a bit of troop massing on the borders I would order those shining horsemen to charge forward and sac the nearest enemy town, leaving just one unit within the city I would charge my army forward to the next nearest enemy town and raze it (thus removing the culture circle from anywhere near my own captured city.)

Following turn I order all of my troops back to the single captured town - and however cheap this may be, it helps alot when trying to defeat that sometimes pesky AI. Wait in the city, eventally massive armies of the chosen foe charge blindly at the captured city (perhaps in hope of conquest). Their best units first, but quickly you notice only spearmen are rushing you - and then warriors. It seems the AI Blindly charges all of it's units at the one captured city, leaving it no problem for 9 calvary units to grind them all into the dust.

What then? Advance and repeat, of course many cities will be found to be undefended so it will make your task of wiping the AI off the map a bit easier.

And yeah, I guess this does count as exploting a flaw in the poor AI. But hey, it works.

Chaing

[gnomos]

I'm currently playing the second tournament, 8 civs standard 80% water archipelago, monarch. we're well into industrial, and I'm still playing despotism BY CHOICE and loving it.

At first I thought I'd switch to communism, but at this point I don't want to put up with 5-6 turns of non-production. Anyway, when I conquer a city, I look at all that population as free improvements. I dump a pile of units in the city to quel resistors in 1 turn. Typically I get one shield built for that, which halves the cost of a build.

I then just crack the whip, baby. Free improvements. Pop rush a temple, a granary, a barracks, a harbor, units, whatever. The bigger the city the more you get out of it. Once you get the city down to 1 pop all that unhappiness is manageable. Now you just pop rush units. Soon as it hits pop 2 that's another pikeman or something.

I built tons of pikemen to start, had my tech turned down to 10%, fought the first war with swordsmen, and bartered tech to the max. Since I pop rush builds, I don't need cash except to buy tech, and I don't need to research anything either, so I've banked a lot of cash, upwards of 7K in the 1600s. I just pop rush improvements and units, and conquer other civs. I am a despot, after all!

I've found that later in the game it's a good thing to take the city, not raze it, so you get the culture footprint. This way you can use road/railroad movement, and not be restricted to moving 1 tile per movement point when you're inside the enemy culture border. Sure, I suppose you could build lots of settlers, raze and rebuild, but why build settlers when you can build more units instead, and have cities for free?

I get a lot of damaged cavalry now taking a city, even with lots of bombardment, so a ready made city with a pop rushed barracks in it is nice for healing up units. Generally I have enough units for 3 fights, so 1 group is fighting, one moving, and one recovering in the last city I took, providing my garrison force for free. Back home I'm drafting like mad and pop rushing more units to provide garrisons when I'm ready to move on. It's a good idea to build lots of spearmen early via pop rushing, they will upgrade all the way to mech infantry. All the workers I capture build my railroad (free slave labor roxors)

[vmxa1]

I just tried the strat that Vel mentioned where you just starting making units at the first city right away. I just keep cranking them and run over the top of all nearby civs with Jags and then when I got Horemen I switched to them. As I got Swordsmen I used them. You get a few cities captured and can get one more to make units for a while and the others can toss out a settler now and then. You do not need to grow at a fast pace as the others are not going any where. I did this on a small size and now I am getting ready to go to the two Islands of Romans, all others are gone. I could not get over there early has I needed navigation to reach them. This is the earliest win and the easiest I have played. Ancient wars are just too strong, the AI can not cope.