Some thoughts on preventing city defection

[Alexander's Horse]

I've been trying to minimise city defection when I'm in conquest mode. Here are a few observations:

On the whole its better to raze cities than to take them - particularly if the city's pop is above 1 or it is close the other civ's main cities. The only cities I keep are those with Wonders in them.

If you take a city, you should try to reduce its population down to 1 as quickly as possible. Repopulating with your own workers also helps.

You should try to connect a city to your empire as quickly as possible. This means road routes or a harbour. If the city is receiving luxuries from your civ it is less likely to defect.

Contrary to what the game advises, you should only put a minimum garrison in a captured city i.e. 1 unit. If you think its going to defect, leave a stack of units beside it to retake it immediately.



Points others have would be of interest.

[Thoth]

I've found that rushing a courthouse as a first improvement seems to cut down on defections.

[Alexander's Horse]

Fair point but I'm not prepared to waste units or resources on cities that are likely to defect anyway.

[Dienstag]

My favorite way to avoid city revolts is to completely conquer a civ as quickly as possible. Just tonight I conquered the vast English empire only losing 2 cities (and therefore 2 units) to revolts. I don't know exactly how many turns it was...comprised two short wars, but in the 2nd my demcratic war-weariness never got that bad.

So basically, to avoid revolts, don't give them anyone to revolt to.

Sidenote: I rarely raze cities. Although wouldn't it be nice if you could "set an example" with a city or two? That would show 'em!