Strategy Informer Preview: City Destruction

[marioflag]

There should be more serious consequences in modern times to razing cities, not only with the civ which has got its city razed but also diplomatically with other civs.
It's not that easy today to raze a city of a milion souls and have the world community not react to it.

 

[wolf_brother]

It's not that easy today to raze a city of a milion souls and have the world community not react to it.

I think you have a serious misunderstanding of how the world works. All one has to do is look to any non-western country and you can see large and small cities being razed all the time. Until the last 30-odd years or so, and even to this day, its still common practice to 'raze' a city in many parts of the Western world in order to make room for a lake, mine, etc.

tl;dr - city razing happens all the time, and its been apart of the civ franchise for years. I don't see what everyone is getting so up in arms about

 

[Schuesseled]

The problem in terms of realism is that razing a city means killing the population, and giving an order to murder an entire city's worth of your own people is the kind of order that can result in the giver not being in charge anymore. I know there are historical examples to the contrary, but these are the exception rather than the rule, and usually involve internal ethnic conflict. Don't expect an "ethnic cleansing" option to be in a game like this.

In a game like Colonization, where the population is mobile, it's a different matter... you can just evacuate the people and goods ahead of the invasion (which felt oddly realistic). In that case an argument could be made for city self-destruction, because it was just the structures being put to the torch. But in terms of gameplay I think that takes too much of the fun and reward out of conquest, if all you can expect to conquer is a smoking ruin.

uhh dude, razing invloves setting fire to the city, not the people. Obviously a lot will die but they could also flee.

 

[Magma]

Seems like a good change. I hated when I lost a city in Civ4 - one of my good ones - and the AI decided to just raze it. O.o

@The-whole-destroying-your-own-cities-debate: It's called scorching the earth. It works and has been used countless of times throughout history. Leave nothing standing for the enemy to take - They'll find nothing but a waste of ashes!

 

[Tylerryan79]

Someone has said this in another thread, if I could find it I'd give them credit!

Basicly when you choose to raze a city and it takes x turns, the pop should turn into soldiers outside of the city, and try to defeat you/take the city back. Much like in Civ IV when you razed a city, sometimes 3 or 4 guys would spawn. So there could be a chance of spawning, and the larger the city the larger the chance. Also if this happens to your cities, it could help you out too. You may have a few forces left and be on the brink of destruction, but then a few pop spawn and boom, you turn the tide and destroy the invader, and recapture your city!

 

[migkillertwo]

One piece that was new to me was this:

The defensive stats of a city can be improved via garrisoning units.

I have never heard that before, and I was under the impression that cities are like units in and of themselves and that units cannot occupy a city. I certainly think that it is better for a player to be able to garrison units in a city.

However I dont think it should be limited to one unit per city. I think that as a city becomes larger and larger, you should be able to garrison more units in that city. I'm thinking 1-7 citizen-cities can hold 1 unit, 2-14 citizen-cities can hold 2 units, etc.

Though this could be balanced by the fact that all units will take damage from artillery bombardment.

 

[k-a-bob]

One piece that was new to me was this:

I have never heard that before, and I was under the impression that cities are like units in and of themselves and that units cannot occupy a city. I certainly think that it is better for a player to be able to garrison units in a city.

However I dont think it should be limited to one unit per city. I think that as a city becomes larger and larger, you should be able to garrison more units in that city. I'm thinking 1-7 citizen-cities can hold 1 unit, 2-14 citizen-cities can hold 2 units, etc.

Though this could be balanced by the fact that all units will take damage from artillery bombardment.

That's kind of what I was thinking. Realistically, a city under siege would go through large amounts of damage over time and see the city size decrease as the buildings are destroyed. Street fighting should be the last line of defense, preferring to meet outside the cities if possible to keep the city more intact.

Also, it is about time they switched to the hex system. Back in the 70's and 80's, all the Avalon Hill games (Squad Leader, Thrid Reich, etc etc) were hex based. They also had a 2 counter (unit) maximum per hex. I wonder why it took so long to get to this point.