Best way to take land?

[Rosicrucian]

So you attack some territory. You have several choices.

(A) Raze, and build your own
(B) Raze, and leave fallow
(C) Take over


(B) suffers from a big problem, that the AI moves in. This is undesirable since that is why you attacked in the first place!

(A) and (C) suffer from the fact that the cities will be corruption ridden suck holes until they eventually wait long enough to produce temples, courthouses, cathedrals and factories. By this point though, you have probably already won the game!!

What do you think? What's the best way to deal with this?

 

[civOphile]

I see it like this you have two options:

a) Annihilate all the AI players.
b) slash and burn the existing cities if their culture is higher than yourse and rebuild or just capture the city.

In the case of b the only things I find these cities usefull for is claming the teritory and producing conscripts.

 

[Shabbaman]

It depends of your goal of course. If you're looking for a domination victory, you should claim all cities, unless when you're afraid they might flip back, then you should raze 'em and rebuild.

If you're aiming for a cultural or UN victory, there's no need for extra territory (under certain conditions, d'oh!) and you could punish the AI by razing his cities.

All in all, it depends of the situation.

 

[kb2tvl]

[/quote]
(A) Raze, and build your own
(B) Raze, and leave fallow
(C) Take over [/quote]

your choices depend on the stage of the game really. In the early stages of this game, I will almost always assimilate another nations cities.

Latter on, I will take cities near to my borders unless they crowd some of my existing cities. I try to get a buffer layer of cities for my core. This way I can lose that layer of cities and not worry about having a core city attacked.

Once I am in communism, there are two things that matter.
1. cities that can work every square
2. secured resources.

Cities that will be difficult to defend or without justifyable existance are razed. I try to keep cities with useful wonders otherwise I will raze wonders as well.

PS I wont fight much beyond my borders in a govt other than commy. Cities degrade quickly into very corrupted places.

 

[Jimcat]

D) Assimilate through culture flipping.

 

[bobgote]

the answer you are looking for is "communism". Those high corruption cities become decent production cities, and given the chance - top cities.

 

[MadHatter]

E) Take city. Abandon city. Build your own.

No culture-flipping worries, no reputation hit. Flexability to ensure best city placement.

 

[Pickled Corpse]

I generally look at taking cities as territorial gain.

I usually raise the city :die: and have a settler waiting in the wings to immediately build a new city.

This also gives a good building point for the next city....