I'm playing a nice BtS game, battling against a (much larger) empire as the Ottomans and glad that I have a huge tech lead--drafting Janissaries really turned the game around! However, my current success has caused a problem: in the first war with Caesar, I captured one of his cities near my border and traded it back for peace; however, I held it for a few turns while I waited for Julius to be willing to chat with me.

Now in the second war, newly armed with my Janissaries, I want to raze the city and found a replacement one tile away (to pick up a food resource), but I don't have the option to raze it when I capture. I assume this relates to my culture already being present, but am I correct? If so, is there any way for me to get rid of the city, either though a hidden "delete me" option or manipulating a friendly AI?

I play with World Builder locked out, or I'd simply open it up and delete the city. Is there anything I can do, even if it means manipulating the save file?

The only reason I would think this wouldn't happen would be because you have set "Do not raze cities" at the beginning of the game...

A save game, as usual for these questions, would help alot :D

This happened to me once. I captured a badly placed AI city which I planned to raise but I forgot and kept it. When I realised what I'd done - it was 1 square away from the ideal place which meant missing an iron resource and some useful grassland - I left it undefended so the AI would capture it. Eventually they did, and I took it back, thinking I could raise it. The option to raise didn't appear! It must be because I had previously owned the city. I was so :mad: I immediately went into world builder and deleted the city. Probably the only time I have ever used WB except for testing how things work.

In your case Alternator I don't think there's anything you can do :sad:

Actually the problem is slightly different to your problem.

In YOUR problem, you forgot to raze it, and as a result, you are stuck with that city forever.

In the OP's problem, he never even got the option to raze it (obviously when he captured it, there wasn't a "Install a new governor" / "Burn baby Burn" option... it just went straight to the "What do you want to build in this city?" screen.

Also, you can raze cities with your culture in it... culture doesn't even matter :P

In the OP's problem, he never even got the option to raze it (obviously when he captured it, there wasn't a "Install a new governor" / "Burn baby Burn" option... it just went straight to the "What do you want to build in this city?" screen.
The OP did get that option the first time he captured the city....

If you have the save from before you took it the first time, you can load it and raze it in the first place. Otherwise you are SOL.

In the OP
Now in the second war, newly armed with my Janissaries, I want to raze the city and found a replacement one tile away (to pick up a food resource), but I don't have the option to raze it when I capture. I assume this relates to my culture already being present, but am I correct?

Um... no. He didn't have the option. It wasn't that he chose to keep it, he simply never got that option to raze it.

And if you think that re-capturing a city is the problem, look at EVP I: The destructive Vikings. In that game, I captured the Indian city, lost it, and RECAPTURED IT, and RAZED IT the second time.

I'm playing a nice BtS game, battling against a (much larger) empire as the Ottomans and glad that I have a huge tech lead--drafting Janissaries really turned the game around! However, my current success has caused a problem: in the first war with Caesar, I captured one of his cities near my border and traded it back for peace; however, I held it for a few turns while I waited for Julius to be willing to chat with me.

Now in the second war, newly armed with my Janissaries, I want to raze the city and found a replacement one tile away (to pick up a food resource), but I don't have the option to raze it when I capture. I assume this relates to my culture already being present, but am I correct? If so, is there any way for me to get rid of the city, either though a hidden "delete me" option or manipulating a friendly AI?

I play with World Builder locked out, or I'd simply open it up and delete the city. Is there anything I can do, even if it means manipulating the save file?

Um... no. He didn't have the option. It wasn't that he chose to keep it, he simply never got that option to raze it.

And if you think that re-capturing a city is the problem, look at EVP I: The destructive Vikings. In that game, I captured the Indian city, lost it, and RECAPTURED IT, and RAZED IT the second time.

From the sound of his first post, he captured it (he chose not to raze) and then re-captured it after gifting it to the AI.

OK... I wouldn't have thought that would be significantly different to capturing it, losing it, and then recapturing it, however... but in that case, it could be because you gifted the city... and that is the only (?) reason.

This has happened to me before, although it wasn't like I wanted to raze the city in question, but after recapturing a city of mine, I wasn't given the chance to raze. I just figured if you recaptured it fast enough that you wouldn't get the chance, but if you waited a few turns, you would once again get the option to raze the city.