Please just let us raze city states and capitals......

I generally slide the City-State numbers to 0 in my games because I feel that they are a distraction.

I don't think capital razing is a good idea because it eliminates the possibility of civilizations being able to take their capital back and rebuild it. For city-states, it's a little different because Austria exists with the power to take city-states out of game. Whether or not you think that's a good idea or not, there is already a precedent for it happening. I'm honestly on the fence about it.

Also, this caught my eye:

Peng Qi said:

1. There would literally be no reason ever not to raze a CS. Not razing it would mean allowing your opponents the opportunity to gain an advantage by liberating it. Might as well burn it now and build your own city on its ashes. I.E. liberate mechanic would no longer effectively exist.

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I don't see how that's even remotely true. Raze the city and lose all the population and infrastructure that can take a very long time to rebuild? There is the issue of razing it as someone tries to liberate it, but that's not that far removed from selling a city you're about to lose to a different AI(I don't actually do this because I think it's too easy to fleece the AI).

Light Cleric said:

I don't see how that's even remotely true. Raze the city and lose all the population and infrastructure that can take a very long time to rebuild? There is the issue of razing it as someone tries to liberate it, but that's not that far removed from selling a city you're about to lose to a different AI(I don't actually do this because I think it's too easy to fleece the AI).

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I think selling cities you're going to lose is pretty gamey. xP

That was my point; I don't even sell normal cities I capture anymore because the AI will do goofy stuff like this(get equivalent gpt instead of those luxuries and...yeah) for cities near them.

Light Cleric said:

That was my point; I don't even sell normal cities I capture anymore because the AI will do goofy stuff like this(convert those luxuries into gold and...yeah) for cities near them.

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Nice city you have there. I will give you my entire economy for said city!

Razing city states and capitals would get rid of the flow of Civ 5.

I would recommend going back to Civ 4 if you wanted to raise capitals. Other than that, please kindly post the OP into the Civ 5 rants thread. Moderator Action: I recommend that you don't describe other users post as "rant" and that you ignore this thread.

Moderator Action: *snip* not appropriate.

Meanwhile, I think the idea of redistribution a population interesting. That could be a new option when taking cities, where the population is redistributed and the city may or may not be razed.

Sonereal said:

Meanwhile, I think the idea of redistribution a population interesting. That could be a new option when taking cities, where the population is redistributed and the city may or may not be razed.

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I think the cities that absorb refugees should get a happiness penalty to offset the population boost. This would be cool to see.

hobbsyoyo said:

I think the cities that absorb refugees should get a happiness penalty to offset the population boost. This would be cool to see.

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I think it should work like some kind of anti-"we love the king day". Each pop absorbed in the city is a turn the opposite of WLTKD effects happen.

I always preferred playing civ games as empire sims rather than board games so I don't really care about victory conditions. I don't see what would be wrong with having an option to allow capitals and city states to be destroyed similar to the options that allow saving up social policies or promotions. I can already turn off domination and diplomatic victory so why not let me raze a capital city?

Sonereal,

Good thinking. It would even be relatively easy for the devs to add in, IMO.

flap said:

I always preferred playing civ games as empire sims rather than board games so I don't really care about victory conditions. I don't see what would be wrong with having an option to allow capitals and city states to be destroyed similar to the options that allow saving up social policies or promotions. I can already turn off domination and diplomatic victory so why not let me raze a capital city?

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The problem is that even though domination/diplo victories may be off, the bonuses city-states give do not. It would be very unfair to civilizations with city-state UAs if city-states could be razed. The valid solution therefore would be to remove city-states from your game and don't conquer nations completely in the base game if you don't want to hold the capital.

Sonereal said:

The problem is that even though domination/diplo victories may be off, the bonuses city-states give do not. It would be very unfair to civilizations with city-state UAs if city-states could be razed. The valid solution therefore would be to remove city-states from your game and don't conquer nations completely in the base game if you don't want to hold the capital.

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I think that's a weak argument. It's even more unfair to civs with city state UAs to turn off the city states completely. It's unfair to Polynesia to play a map with no oceans. We can still do it.

If the city state focused civ allows me to go around capturing and razing all the city states then they deserve to lose. There are significant diplomatic penalties for declaring war on city states so it's not like they'd be unable to fight back.

flap said:

I think that's a weak argument. It's even more unfair to civs with city state UAs to turn off the city states completely. It's unfair to Polynesia to play a map with no oceans. We can still do it.

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The difference is that I can't destroy oceans in-game if I'm playing America. However, if I was able to raze city-states, I would raze a good number of them to deny my opponent's their Unique Ability.

In a sense, turning off city-states is just as bad, which is why I look down on it just as much as I look down on the idea of allowing city-state razing.

If the city state focused civ allows me to go around capturing and razing all the city states then they deserve to lose. There are significant diplomatic penalties for declaring war on city states so it's not like they'd be unable to fight back.

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Given the amount of advantages a human player has over the tactical AI, going around and razing a bunch of stuff isn't that difficult. Especially fighting a city-state when you're able to get the first punch.

Again, its perfectly fine to mod it in if you wish. Just don't include it in the base game.

I think if you're capable of taking out a good number of city states and dealing with the diplomatic hit then you were probably capable of just taking out the civ in question anyway.

Most of the time you can annex or puppet a city state and the end result will be the same since the AI isn't good enough to focus on liberating them. Austria can already permanently take them out of play.

We can keep arguing back and forth on this but I don't understand the hostility to a request for an optional feature. Nobody would be forced to use it, it would just be there for those of us who don't get so hung up on gamey victory mechanics. If a mod for it existed and playing with mods wasn't such a pain then that would be an option too, but at the moment it isn't.

I'm not sure if people who propose razing capitals are truly thinking it through.

Let say, for one second, that it's true: capitals can be razed. Additionally, capital should be now voluntarily movable like in previous civ games, since that would make perfect sense.

Being able to move and raze the capital would:
- completely mess up many social policy mechanics
- break the Domination victory mechanics
- break the palace building bonuses (unlike in previous games, it has yields)
- force changes to Ethiopia, Rome
- affect the game in some other ways I can't remember now

Being able to raze city states would:
- completely mess up UN victory conditions
- completely eliminate (without chance of rebuilding) game-long investments for several play styles and civilizations (this wasn't the case in any previous civ games. The only two things that can be "gone forever" in civ games are units and world wonders)
- probably mess up the game in some other ways I can't remember now too

All for... *drumroll*...

Being able to move a city one tile to west. Or something.

While I agree that sometimes city placements can be off, and on smaller maps it can happen that some tiles become unworkable, I think players at falling to a trap that I suffered from for quite some time, and that is that they glorify "special tiles", including resources, too much. If you watched the latest maddjinns let's play with Babylon, that's exactly what happened with his "cattle" city up north. In the end, his half-jungle city in the south became more productive in the end, beating the "production city" by 30 or so production.

On the long run, and by that I mean any game that isn't ending by turn 150 domination victory, the ONLY true power in the game is population. The higher you get it, the more powerful your city will be. Even a city without any resource, but placed on a river, with perhaps a few hills around it, will eventually outperform other cities, probably in everything. The only exception to this rule are cities with 10 or more resources, but these are super rare anyway.

What I'm doing here is advocating smarter city placement that will make huge changes to game mechanics (like the ones proposed in this thread) pretty much obsolete.

If you don't believe me, experiment with "resourceless but abundant food + production available" cities.

Peng Qi said:

Pretty sure it's possible. Pretty sure the reason nobody's done it is because it's not a good idea and most people realize that.

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Maybe...

Sonereal said:

K.







That is how these things tend to work.



I want to be able to launch nuclear weapons in 4000 AD. I see that as "fit" because Ancient Aliens told me it was "fit". Therefore, the arbitrary limitation on my ability to construct nuclear weapons is annoying. Furthermore, I shouldn't be punished for not using workers, because I don't see them "fit" in my vision of how I want to play this game.



They should call it "Ignore half the game" option in the Custom Game start-up.



"Ignore Half the Game Victory!"



There should be options to disable happiness, maintenance, religion, espionage, war, social policies, and a plethora of other options as well. That way I have the option to ignore the entire game and not just half of it.

It seems that the solution for part of the "problem" would be to disable city-states in game start-up. The other solution being to play OCC.

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All you have done here is relate that you cannot think in abstracts. Your prevalent concrete thinking is rather amusing. Don't take things so literally.

I don't want to change the entire game. Really what I would love to see is a conquest victory condition. I just enjoyed playing that way. CiV could handle that type of VC. It truly would not change the game that much.

Bibor said:

I'm not sure if people who propose razing capitals are truly thinking it through.

Let say, for one second, that it's true: capitals can be razed. Additionally, capital should be now voluntarily movable like in previous civ games, since that would make perfect sense.

Being able to move and raze the capital would:
- completely mess up many social policy mechanics
- break the Domination victory mechanics
- break the palace building bonuses (unlike in previous games, it has yields)
- force changes to Ethiopia, Rome
- affect the game in some other ways I can't remember now

Being able to raze city states would:
- completely mess up UN victory conditions
- completely eliminate (without chance of rebuilding) game-long investments for several play styles and civilizations (this wasn't the case in any previous civ games. The only two things that can be "gone forever" in civ games are units and world wonders)
- probably mess up the game in some other ways I can't remember now too

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Not if the game's purpose is strictly for conquest victory. If conquest victory is turned on, it would be the only option for victory available, all others would be turned off. A conquest victory simply changes the conditions of the test for that game style. It would be a game in which you have to conquer your rival civs, or enough territory, in order to win. With this type of VC turned on the razing of capitals and CSs would be an available option, this way you can replace these cities with new ones to expand your empire. That is if you choose to do so. Also, you can put cities in better locations if needed. A palace building should be an available building. Which allows the human player, or the AI to build a new captial, or move a capital if needs be.

Conquering CSs and razing them really would be by player choice, it would not be needed to win. Unless a territorial conquest is what you are going for. In which case conquering CSs would expand your territory, thus bringing closer to victory.

In any case there should be two options for a conquest victory condition.

1. Civilization Conquest - Conquer all rival civs on the maps. Capturing or razing all a rival civ's cities takes them out of the game.

2. Territorial Conquest victory. Conquer 66% or 2/3 of the map to win. This is what the current Domination VC should be like in CiV. Not capturing capitals, and leaving civs alive, or else recieving a diplo penalty, as it is now.

The idea of a strategy game is to conquer your rivals, and eliminate them from the map. Not coddle them like fools, so they can backstab you later, either militarily or diplomatically.

CiV GnK could handle this type of VC, with some trivial adjustments.

Also, one more thing. I am wondering if there are any diety or immortal players out there who do video LPs, who prefer to play on large, huge, or giant size maps? I would love to see our best Diety players master larger maps. They seem to stick to standard maps or smaller. These have been mastered quite some time ago, by our best players. Perhaps it is time for them to now master large and huge maps. Anyone agree?

The problem with allowing City-States to be razed is that they become pointless and their influence on the game is removed.

If a City-State is giving you grief because it is allied with an opponent you currently have to consider if it is worth conquering them. If they are on the other side of the map, you might not be able to defend it thus you are more inclined to leave it (or simply risk over exposing yourself). If you are able to raze a city state then you will always go over and surgical strike them, removing them from the game and thus limiting the power of the opponent.

The peaceful Civs will never have a chance because your can simply raze their friends to the ground.


The Capitals is simply a strategic aspect of the game. Yes it is ahistorical; however, much of the game already is. It is merely a strategic addition as you have defined targets for victory. It also makes surgical strike and raze against (generally) a rival's most powerful city impossible.

I, personally, like the way it works and to remove it would hamper the flow of the game.
Yes, changing victory conditions would work and if that were done I would have no problem; however, I completely disagree with razing City States. It is a form of protection for them and is required to keep them relevant.

Why are people so opposed to just giving players the options to raze city states and capitals? It would change a lot of mechanics in the game and therefore probably won't happen, but if no one is forced to play with razeable capitals and CS's, I don't see why it's so controversial.

Just make it a check box on the advanced setup.