City Razing

45°38'N-13°47'E

45°38'N-13°47'E

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Jun 7, 2008
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Just wonder...
Just a proposal.
I very seldom raze cities myself, but I never play with No City Razing. On the other hand having a big city razed in modern times is harsh and a bit unrealistic too. In my effort to make revolutions stronger anyway, I've seen rebels razing cities, especially when rebels are barbarians. So my proposal/question is: should we prevent city razing above a given size and if yes, which size? Should it be dependent on Era? Should it be forbidden for Barbarians only?
My idea would be to forbid city razing above size 12 (which is 200'000 population). Razing a city above that size would cause it to fall back to half its size and destroy most of its building. I would not restrict this to any era or to barbarians, but I'm open to advices in this sense.
What do you think?

On a side note about cities losing their size, I've added the "No nukes" option back in 2013 when AI wasn't capable of using nukes. I'm considering removing that option now that AI knows better how to use them: there are many ways to prevent nuclear attacks, so I don't think this option is really necessary. Opinions?
 
In our latest game, once i was able to build enough javalineers, i used them to conquer 2 of the three cities of my ethiopian neighbor. they didnt have any wonder neither great person, they were not big (4 size capital, and 3 size the second city) and it would have been very easy for me to raze both, and rebuild them later in game while i assure they dont found them again... 0 problems. Instead, i kept them, and since then i have been heavily slowed down, suffering strong revolts in those two cities (even had to give Aksum to a new Malinese civ!) and also in three of my five cities.
What i mean is, shouldnt we make it era-dependent? from size 4 in ancient era, to 12 in industrial or something like that. It may make a difference for early wars, especially for humans.
 
I almost always raze cities. I generally play Mastery games that end long after the world is conquered and I raze any city that doesn't have a Wonder or a holy city in order to avoid revolution problems. I would prefer keeping city razing the way it is. If you want to make city razing less viable, maybe you could increase the number of units generated by the Partisans event?
 
Another option that we don't have when a city is captured is the Sack option; you would get more gold than you would for a capture, and reduce the city size, but you wouldn't capture the city (unit returns to the tile it came from). This would need some additional code to prevent a city from being sacked 20+ times in one turn.
 
What if you enforced a 'peace treaty' with that one 'free' city.

After its sacked, you cant' enter that city for a set amount of turns, scaled to speed.

Your army is 'bounced' out of that cities 'zone of control', similar to the castle effect, but runs over 2/3 levels

The previous occupant, get some free defenders, who can't move for the time of the 'free city' status. Similar to the bandits pillaging the crops.

Previous occupant, may move NEW troops in and out, noncom's etc. Run the city as usual.

Or too much coding, for potential exploit. Could gang up with another player, take turns sacking cities.
 
On that topic: I'm aware that Abandon is OP, but is it possible when a city flips to you via culture, that you get an option to abandon that city? It's super frustrating to have useless cities that you can't abandon. For an example, in my recent game, where England settled an unclaimed island surrounded by my culture, which then flipped to me, but being useless, it's now just adding extra maintenance to my civ.

Or maybe if we could just abandon cities if they have <6 pop? I dunno.
 
Ok, my idea is that razing cities makes the game far too easy when humans are doing it and far too annoying when AI is doing it on human cities when they are well developed.
Adding a big number of units generated by Partisans event might be the easiest solution: you raze the city but you know your next city will be more heavily defended. But the problem is that it's kind of counterintuitive: if you raze a city it means you're far stronger than your opponent and those fleeing the city should not be able to pose a real threat, not to mention they move instantly to possibly distant cities. Also, no matter how big the partisans units are, I don't think they will ever make a conquest that much harder.
The sack option might be ok, but it's not that easy to code. There have been some attempt before, even Afforess has tried something like that but either he didn't complete the project or he scrapped it at some point. I'm not sure how to solve the problem of preventing a city being sacked repeatedly in the same turn, and it's also difficult if not impossible to "force a peace treaty" with a single city, excepet maybe making it independent, kind of what happens in the "puppet states" mod.
Another option I've found could be this mod: http://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/watiggis-raze-city-mod-warlords.4818/
It's meant for Warlords, but I think I can adapt it to RAND. I would remove the option for razing and fortifying. You could still be able to raze a city but it would take turns depending on city size and possibly number of occupying units: you can pillage the city to the ground while the city is in rebellion. After the revolt is over, you can't raze the city anymore. Trying to integrate it with Revolution, I might make it so that if the city is revolting again, you can pillage again, possibly even razing it to the ground when population reaches 1.
What do you think?
 
But if that mod would not work here's an other idea:

If the city is too big* the Raze city option is replaced with Ethnic cleansing. Choosing this option will remove all foreign culture and a percentage of the population as well.

Example: England captures a Japanese city (size 10; culture: 80% Japanese, 10% Ottoman and 10% English). Ethnic cleansing would turn it into size 1 city with 100% English population. Available UB and UU would also change from Samurai and Shale Plant to Red Coat and Stock Exchange.

*Too big in the sense of population or culture, which should be era dependent.
 
A lot of interesting ideas here. Honestly, as far as preventing annoying city razing, I think if you just had criteria for the barbarians it would be fine. I don't see AI civs excessively razing cities and it can be a useful thing to do. I just really dislike seeing a large scale rebellion result in nothing but half an empire razed to the ground. In the early eras it's fine, but later, barbs should really capture rather than raze cities. Would be nice if they then had a chance to settle if they survive long enough.
 
Ok, I've mostly adapted Watiggi's Raze City Mod. When you capture a city now, you don't get the choice to raze it or keep it or build a fort anymore. Instead, you control the city and during the revolt period you can pillage the city reducing its population. One unit kills one population so in theory you can still raze a 35 size city using 35 units in one turn. Pillaging a 1-size city razes the city. When pillaging you prolong the revolt period. Pillaging many times can also increase the number of turns the city will be in revolt. When the city is razed, you might get a free specialist relocated to one of your other cities. Big cities, holy cities or cities with wonders can produce more specialists that will relocate to your cities. I'm considering to add that when a specialist relocates, it also adds some foreign culture of the razed city in the city it settles in, but I haven't coded this part yet. I'm probably removing the part about the fort building: if you raze the city in one turn you should be strong enough to bring some workers with you to build one, if it takes more turns you have time to bring some workers and/or a settler.
Still testing anyway.
Opinions?
 
Would this also apply to Barbarian Cities? Because, wow, if so, all the more reasons to raze Barbarians!

(also anything to comment about my ideas on city flipping thanks)
 
Tolni said:
Would this also apply to Barbarian Cities? Because, wow, if so, all the more reasons to raze Barbarians!

(also anything to comment about my ideas on city flipping thanks)
Click to expand...

Barbarian cities don't give specialists.
About city flipping, I thought you always get a message when a city from another civ tries to join you, and you could answer Yes, No or Never, but maybe that only happens when a civ is too small to survive.
Anyway I don't want to reintroduce Abandoning Cities, I'll think about some other solution.
 
For some reason (not sure if due to Rev), the city in question just flipped without a message and it led me straight to the city build screen.
 
Noyyau said:
What do you mean with "specialist" exactly? A free Priest/Engineer/Merchant/etc in a random city, or a Great Person?

Also, this looks like a great chance to ask if it would be possible to implement Platy's Migrating Great People modcomp as well? http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/migrating-great-people.495961/
Click to expand...

From Watiggi's description:
-when the city is razed, you might get a specialist relocated to one of your other cities. This specialist is much like the Statue of Liberty type of 'free specialist' in that you both need to have the free slots from buildings or civics in order to make it useful. Otherwise it will be a citizen until a better choice becomes available.

Also, I liked the idea of Migrating Great People but I think I recall some players didn't like the idea (maybe Vokarya too?), so I abandoned the project.
 
sorry in advance, i know it's slightly off topic: i haven't read anything related to city razing in the latest patch notes and right now the launcher gives me a blank page when i try to access them again. since the latest patch i haven't been able to raze cities anymore, i don't even get the prompt install/raze/fortify/watch, all i see when i set foot into an enemy city is "what do you want to build now".
i got this in an ongoing game with romans, modern times, and with a brand new game with mongols.
i always play custom scenarios and of course "no city razing" is unchecked.

is it a bug? is it a feature? am i stupid and missing something?
 
MadMaxHellfire said:
sorry in advance, i know it's slightly off topic: i haven't read anything related to city razing in the latest patch notes and right now the launcher gives me a blank page when i try to access them again. since the latest patch i haven't been able to raze cities anymore, i don't even get the prompt install/raze/fortify/watch, all i see when i set foot into an enemy city is "what do you want to build now".
i got this in an ongoing game with romans, modern times, and with a brand new game with mongols.
i always play custom scenarios and of course "no city razing" is unchecked.

is it a bug? is it a feature? am i stupid and missing something?
Click to expand...

Do your units have a "pillage" action when onto the revolting city, like when they're on top of improvements?
 
wut? what is this? some kind of sorcery? i need to check this. world builder! to me!

edit: glorious! it works! *_*
and we're fine with razing, but it's strange that such a huge change hasn't been mentioned into patch notes.
now, what about fortifying? i researched mathematics already. has it been moved farther down the tech tree or removed altogether? it'd be a shame, i loved using and abusing it.
 
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