To Raze or not to Raze, That is the question..

[Artifex]

>>>In the modern era, no one should raze any more. Caputred cities with twenty pop are hard to manage, but there is an easy way out.

After recycling is researched, you can sell the buildings surviving in the city after taking it over for shields as well as gold. The shields count toward a settler which can be built in one turn. Cities never flip on the first turn. So, using this strat, you can blitz without taking along your slow moving settlers and never worry about controlling captured cities. Just abandon the city on the second turn and rebuild on the spot with the newly produced settler. (There is a thread on this from a couple of weeks ago.)"<<<


I tried this and noticed that this doesn't exactly work as fast as you said. You can't build on the first turn, it takes at least 2 turns since the city is always in resistence the first turn, provided you keep a ton of military units in the city and thus totally squash all resistance in one turn, then on the second turn you can do this (so on the third turn you can disband the city if all goes as planed). An enemy city in resistance can not build or rush any settlers. Some of the larger more important cities many times take many turns to put the resistance down as well.

[vulture]

Originally posted by Artifex

I tried this and noticed that this doesn't exactly work as fast as you said. You can't build on the first turn, it takes at least 2 turns since the city is always in resistence the first turn, provided you keep a ton of military units in the city and thus totally squash all resistance in one turn, then on the second turn you can do this (so on the third turn you can disband the city if all goes as planed). An enemy city in resistance can not build or rush any settlers. Some of the larger more important cities many times take many turns to put the resistance down as well.

Nope - read it again. Once you have recycling, selling off buildings in a newly captured city will give you shields in the build box. When you capture the city, complete with resistors, sell off all the improvements you can (aqeducts and hospitals can't be sold) and you'll easily get the 30 shields needed for a settler. Next turn, probably while the city is still in resistance, the settler is produced. Abandon city, refound and you now have a resistance free size 1 city. On the second turn, not the third one.

[Artifex]

Isn't recycling a pretty late tech? I mean for 90% of the game what do you do? Whats your strategy throughout the middle ages and industrial period? That is when the game is really decided for me.

It's hard for me to decide when to not raze a city still. For example, I just captured thebes in my current game. Egypt is Impressed with my culture and my people are dismissive of egypts, their are no borders around thebes, But thebes did have 2 wonders in it so the city is full of serious culture, after 1 turn with a large force of mine (15 cav) in the city 75% of the populace is still resisting. In this situation I find it very nervewracking to even consider trying to keep this city. I think having 15-20 of my cavalry in the city trying to supress the rebellion might not be a good idea..

Then the IDGAF strategy is kind of an oximoron..because if you don't ever have troops in the city it is constantly gonna be in resistance so what is the point of keeping it? It can't build anything and will probably flip and you have to retake it ad nauseum. 6 squares under your control isn't all that helpful in slowing an enemy down generally for a headache like that. Also, It really annoys me when I am conquering a continent like in my current game and then all the other civs come in with hordes of settlers and settle the open areas where I had to raze the cities. They do this like flies to Sh*t as soon is an area is razed...I can hear the song "send in the clowns" playing in my head.

So basically the best I can come up with after reading all these posts is basically you gotta raze all the time, and then that ofcourse means that all the other civs are gonna come back and settle that area..so youll have to come back and take over all the new cities. Very annoying. Unless you wanna build hordes of settlers to take with you on your campaigns which I don't because that is way too tedious of a solution.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Artifex
Then the IDGAF strategy is kind of an oximoron..because if you don't ever have troops in the city it is constantly gonna be in resistance so what is the point of keeping it? It can't build anything and will probably flip and you have to retake it ad nauseum. 6 squares under your control isn't all that helpful in slowing an enemy down generally for a headache like that.

The IDGAFIYF strategy would counsel leaving a cavalry or two in the city (knowingly risking them) in order to slowly suppress resistors (make sure you're starving the population as well). Keep a pair of cavalry right outside the city (on a hill if possible). If the city flips, the AI civ will get a defender, and may try and draft one or two -- in most cases, your two cavalry outside the city are sufficient to retake the city with ease (which also reduces the pop by one). Be sure to reinforce your IDGAFIYF troops as you (at least I) will want to keep at least one troop in the city to slowly whittle resistance down.

Also, It really annoys me when I am conquering a continent like in my current game and then all the other civs come in with hordes of settlers and settle the open areas where I had to raze the cities.

Game annoyance often calls for re-evaluating play tactics. I hardly ever raze cities, and despite my posts on JJ's funny acronym IDGAFIYF, I usually don't emply that strat -- I try and garrison the city and subdue resistance quickly. I still sometimes lose a garrison to a flip, but since I've learned never to put all my eggs in one basket, it is not a "game-wrecking" event in the manner that it seems to be for some. The trick to avoiding the need to raze or to employ IDGAFIYF in every instance is to build and maintain a culture worthy of respect from the barbarian civilizations that happen to be inhabiting your world.

Catt