Should you take the last city?

Gucumatz said:

Yep just take him out. One less voice to denounce you for eternity might help you land some more friends.

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This.

AriochIV said:

It's always nice if you can encourage a city-state or another civilization to take out the last city, but if that's not feasible it's often best to take it out yourself, unless you're having an Unhappiness problem.

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Oh yeah, this is another good point. In some situations you might be able to get an AI or a CS to do it for you. But that really only works if you don't want that city or land for yourself, and don't mind a new neighbour.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot a quick little how-to. Just get a few siege and melee units around the city and bombard it to nothing. If you have a bordering CS, try and Ally it, it will declare war on them and maybe send a few units. If you've already weakened the city and leave an opening for them, they should conquer it no problem, but they have a habit of razing cities that aren't capitals or wonder cities. If you get a nearby AI to declare war the procedure is much the same, except they don't have a strong tendency to raze cities (or not all, at least).

Hpuk said:

Wiping out AIs completely reduces the turn times, always worth taking a small diplo hit for that.

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Gucumatz said:

Yep just take him out. One less voice to denounce you for eternity might help you land some more friends.

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Peng Qi said:

Yup, as the announcer in Mortal Kombat would say...

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smallfish said:

Take it, and then raze it to the ground.

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Some great advise in this thread!

triheptyl said:

If you have a bordering CS, try and Ally it, it will declare war on them and maybe send a few units. If you've already weakened the city and leave an opening for them, they should conquer it no problem, but they have a habit of razing cities that aren't capitals or wonder cities.

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A city-state will always raze any city they capture unless it's not possible (such as if it's a capital or another city-state). So be sure you're ready for that.

In a recent game, my neighbor England declared on me early and I ended up taking her capital. She had one other city and I left it alone. However, because it was a decent city in terms of tiles and pop, she was still able to build wonders and even worse, because of her UA (extra spy), she was constantly throwing coups against my CS allies. All game I regretted leaving her alive, particularly since it was pangaea and I went for a domination victory (eventually ticking off the other civs regardless).

In vanilla it was worth keeping civs alive just so you could sign RA's with them at some later time (even if you had to fund both ends of the deal). But since you need a DoF now to sign RA's, and you will never get a DoF with a civ in which you took their capital, it's not worth keeping them alive in most cases as they just end up being a pain in the butt in the long run.

In my current game Washington DOW'ed me. I took his big capital and then razed his little second and last city. Not one civ was angry for it, but my track record till then was perfect.

AriochIV said:

A city-state will always raze any city they capture unless it's not possible (such as if it's a capital or another city-state). So be sure you're ready for that.

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Not entirely true. If a city has a Wonder in it they won't raze it, despite it being possible.

triheptyl said:

Oh yeah, this is another good point. In some situations you might be able to get an AI or a CS to do it for you. But that really only works if you don't want that city or land for yourself, and don't mind a new neighbour.

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Well, most of the time a CS will raze the city (but they will rarely keep the city, even if it is possible to raze the city). So if you want the land yourself and are okay with settling it, you can let the CS raze it.

In fact, due to the weird bug, an ideal thing would be to let a Mercantile CS raze the city because for some reason, it causes a Jewelry/Porcelain to be left in the razed city ruins (often the type that the Mercantile CS *doesn't* have). Then you can resettle the spot and get a free, permanent Jewelry/Porcelain!