Abandon City?

[aahz_capone]

In civ3 I would go nuts conquering enemy cities that were badly placed. I didn't like razing them as that gave you a bad rep. So I rushed lots of settlers and just spread the populance into the rest of my empire. It made sence, more so than just abandoning 70,000 people inhto one settler unit.

However, I see that can't be done with the new settlers not actually decreasing the city population (I think, don't know, haven't got the game yet).

I'm definately for a system which lets you abandon/relocate a city's populance without resorting to giving them away and then razing them. Lets push for this patch!!!

 

[KizilKar]

Sorry, this is a bit old in this discussion but I read that you all said that the only current way to get rid of a city is to gift it to an AI. But it seems the AI now have some sort of 'measurer' to determine if a 'gift' will actually help it or rather hinder it. So the AI would probably refuse if you tried to give a very weak city to it. (Except if it had even weaker cities.)

 

[juno]

The idea about refugees sounds fine to me; they maybe could cause some unhappines in cities they settle later [people don't like to be forced to move].
Actually there could be more than 1 option in the game:
1) a "raze" that would produce bad reputation + swarm of angry barbarians [ex-citizens of the razed city] + some refugees [some population would die, some become barbarians, some become refugees; for example, raze a city of 10: 3 die [some forca was used to raze city and they tried to defend their homes], 5 become barbarians, 2 become refugees].
2) an "abandon" that takes some time [opposed ot an instant "raze"] but nobody dies and produces very few angry barbarians.
Simply raze/abandon would be too unbelievable -- nothing vanishes without a trace.

 

[GrendelS]

The idea about refugees sounds fine to me; they maybe could cause some unhappines in cities they settle later [people don't like to be forced to move].
Actually there could be more than 1 option in the game:
1) a "raze" that would produce bad reputation + swarm of angry barbarians [ex-citizens of the razed city]

Barbarians would be too much. Make it better refugees who are unhappy when added to a city for a given time, much more realistic.

 

[Zippyfrog]

Well, someone show me the proof of a country in which a single person is ruling for 5,000 years and has complete control of all aspects of government and economy NOT disbanding an entire city, Hmmm?

 

[Zippyfrog]

Well, someone show me the proof of a country in which a single person is ruling for 5,000 years and has complete control of all aspects of government and economy NOT disbanding an entire city, Hmmm?

 

[Cu Chulainn]

Abandoning a city should cause an empire wide happiness hit for 10 turns and should be impossible in cities over a certain population. However you should be able to refuse culture flips.

 

[Thalassicus]

I've never actually encountered a situation where I didn't want a city, but I think it'd be easy enough to have an "abandon city" option at size 1 that turns the city into a settler and leaves ruins.

 

[DemonDeLuxe]

Taking away the option to abandon a city in the very first game in the CIV series where gaining a city does NOT necessarily bring any advantage (and sometimes quite a disadvantage) is crazy IMHO.

Even dumber is the fact that you aren't asked when a city wants to join your empire for cultural reasons - you realize it the moment when the game asks: "What do you want to build in this city?" and nothing can be done to get rid of it. That's not exactly the feeling of an almighty leader / emperor. Someone at Firaxis must have slept very soundly when deciding this.

 

[brokguitar]

Very poor oversight to not allow any abandon button in this game. I don't care if it has certain criteria that needs met. Please, everyone keep talking about this until they read this post and put the options back in. While I'm here, i would like to complain again about not having the option to cancel a settler's build city order. Sorry for the broken record post, just disappointing.

 

[Funkin]

EDIT: I was being a dumbass apparently

 

[Thalassicus]

Actually, you can click a tile in a city's window that another city of yours controls and it transfers posession of that tile to the city. So if a city is taking up valuable tiles, just give control of them to other cities.

 

[Funkin]

I tried doing that, but the tiles I wanted were permamently shaded for one city and only available to another. Maybe it's bug in my game or something....

That's weird, I tried it on my friend's PC and it works! However it doesn't on mine for some reason! I guess it's my game that is screwed rather than the rules. Oops.....

 

[Dominus]

I cannot believe we can't raze or abandon a city in Civ IV. That was one of my favorite additions to the later Civs. Some people may not want to do it, but the option should be there. I mean if I'm the Emperor and I want a city wiped out, then it damn well better be wiped out!!! I don't care if there are repercussions or not.

And as far as a real world example: In WWII, after Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated, the Nazis completely eradicated the Chzech city of Lidice. The village was razed and bulldozed to the ground, and then it was wiped off all of the German maps like it never existed. It was a small village, but still. And don't forget that the Romans razed Carthage to the ground, and then salted the earth.

Basically what I'm tying to say is that it is a very realistic way of ruling, and it should definitely be added sometime soon.

Rant over.

 

[Wodan]

While I'm here, i would like to complain again about not having the option to cancel a settler's build city order.

Yeah, it's called the "load last save" option.

Wodan

 

[verb]

I also think the ability to raze a city is critical, more so in civ IV than any previous editions. Here you have culture flipping of cities, high cost of cities and settlers do not take away population. There are may times that I have a city for one reason or another I would like destroyed or moved. I had one recent game where I had built a city and four turns later a resource appeared(tech discovered) just out of range. If I could have moved the city I would have. In alpha Centauri (still one of my favorites) I would spend a lot of time slowly starving a population then building the last one or two colonists pods if that is what it took, now I don't have that option. Sure it was mean, but for the glory of all and for leaders it fits in with there personalities. I just loaded the first patch but I still don't see an option to abandon, but maybe they were to worried about bugs and not about game improvements.

 

[handy900]

You can raze a city you capture, so if you're really desperate you can gift the city, then attack and raze it. Although it would be simpler if they just added "abandon city" back into the game.

They really should add this back to save us the trouble. A major flaw of C4 is the lack of options a player has for self imposed variants. No abandoning cities should be a self imposed item, not forced. Caravels should also be allowed to carry troops. No troops in caravels turns AW continents into a total snoozefest in the middle of the game. No armies as an AW variant? Sorry all AW is army free now. Just my worthless opinion.

 

[ChrTh]

I like the idea of a "slow" abandon, however, it needs to remove your population first, and there has to be the opportunity for it to flip to another (the original) Civ once the abandon clock starts ticking.

EDIT: It should also cause a negative diplomacy effect -3 You starved my citizens or -1 You tried to starve my citizens (depending on whether it flips back or not) ... obviously not an issue if you're abandoning your own city.

 

[Suki]

I tried a 'one city challange' round of SMAC this weekend... I was taking over everything with gravships -> you can't raze a city with grav ships but you can raze a city whenever you want with any other unit type. 'obliterate base' they called it. so whenever I capture a city I have them build a scout patrol (read:warrior) to obliterate the base, most of the cities were in the ocean so he's dround too... it got really bad when I started taking down the gigans, who had some 30+ cities. That you can order a small unit of troops from the city to kill 300 000 of their own people and droun themselves. Insane. I like the three headed system.

1) raze/obliterate- should not be easy, should produce partisans like in civ 2 ( in fact just taking the city should, razing it should produce more. needs to be below a certian size to do this, otherwise you need to depopulate..

2) depopulate- why have as a irreversible option? why not just have a 'migrant' unit reduce the city's size when built. Not 100 % efficient, people are still lost... the inefficiency, and unhapyness, needs to be enough that it's only sometimes worth it to build a second city which will grow faster and 'farm' migrants to get your core cities up to size quicker... the unhappyness here reprisents also them being unemployed/homeless when they first show up..

3) reject/turn over to the barbarians.. which is what should happen if you reject a city flipping to you.. but makes more sense if barbs are just a temporary grey area between civs so once they calm down a little they might start their own civ.. with all the faction spawning, succession goodness...

hmmmm, i have to go find that thread on culture flow and succession.....

 

[Jack Naples]

Hello Civ Fanatics

'Abandon city' without vast unhappiness is definitely an exploit. Slaughtering your citizens and getting away with it ought to put the others a little on edge.

Since workers and settlers don't cost population points now, if one of your cities is unhappy or unhealthy, you can't build these units to stop it. Starvation is your only short-term option - and seeing their fellow citizens starve should set those little alarm bells ringing too.

Suggestions

1) Abandon City: the place disappears instantly. Partizans? Maybe. Defnitely a big temporary national happiness penalty, depending on lost city size.

2) Build Migrants: You can build these units using food + production - they can only join another city. Either (a) you can create them freely, in which case it you'd only get 1/2 pop point per migrant (ie a food bonus) so it's not exploited,

3) Depopulate City: you get 1 pop point per migrant but this is an irreversible (and unpopular) option.

4) Or, to save the hassle of moving the migrants about, you could simply select a city to 'feed' the population points to, adding to its food level or something. The amount added would probably need to be distance dependent.

5) Starvation causes a +1 unhappiness penalty in the affected city.

PS Re: undo Settler's 'build city' button. Why not just press the B key to build cities?