Bombarding before taking a city?

[LaRo]

During a war with the chinese, I was bombarding a city to destroy all their improvements and reduce the population to 1. After taking the city, I went for the next one and the next one...
This way, I was avoiding cutural flip back and lost of units.

Is it better use this strategy or try to take cities with all their population and improvements?

 

[Graeme the mad]

I dont think this strategy is at all useful since fi you are to put down cities to one pop to avoid resistane there is a much quicker way as bombardment takes so long - just build a load of settlers and take them with your army, when a chinese city gets captured raze it amnd then build a city in its place - same effect, quicker and no chance of resistance.
Of course this is all necesary if you have a pathetic little country

 

[Cerberus]

I'm not sure how much of an effect on flipping is caused by resistance heads. I don't think it's the major factor, although I'm not sure. Anyone know? I do know garrisons are of minimal help.

 

[Graeme the mad]

I dont mean to be nasty cerberus (oh sorry yes I do) but there is a thread about all the factors of corruption in the general discussion forum and the most recent link on the news page is to it - go looksy and find out all the facs of flipping

 

[BillChin]

I have several ideas on this subject.
Plan A: If you can take another city within two turns it is feasible to take the city with all its improvements. Danger of culture flip is greatly diminished if you can take another nearby city very quickly.

Plan B: If you can not take another city quickly, but want some wonders in the city. You can bombard as it does not destroy wonders. As for preserving other buildings, you can take the city whole and then post most of your troops outside of the city. This way, when it flips due to culture you can take it back. This costs you troops and may have to be repeat several times, but the buildings will be preserved. As an aside: I think most soldiers would hate to serve under a commander who valued buildings more than their lives.

Plan C: The city has no valuable buildings or you can not afford to lose more troops, but the location is important. Raze the city, and plunk down a settler nearby.

The worst thing you can do is to take the city with all the pop intact, and garrison all your troops inside the city. When the city flips due to culture, all your troops are gone.

 

[eyrei]

Originally posted by Graeme the mad
I dont think this strategy is at all useful since fi you are to put down cities to one pop to avoid resistane there is a much quicker way as bombardment takes so long - just build a load of settlers and take them with your army, when a chinese city gets captured raze it amnd then build a city in its place - same effect, quicker and no chance of resistance.
Of course this is all necesary if you have a pathetic little country

Don't get me wrong. Your strategy works perfectly, but I think it detracts from the realism in the game. Since there are not that many things we can say are truly realistic in civ3, I prefer to use my discretion to add a few more. For me, bombardment, and lots of it, is an absolute necessity. Improvements be damned.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Wow!


I have yet to capture a city with some, most, or all of it's improvements intact. Everytime I capture a city, even if it is a size 12 city, I never have any improvements in them. I have to start from scratch. Oh well what can you do?


Note that I only bombard with one or two units prior to attacking a city. I never bombard until there is nothing left so you would think there would be some improvements left for me to take.

Anyone else have this problem?

 

[zzcczz]

Most of the time after capturing a city, there are still a few buildings, but sometimes there is nothing (even if no bombardment was used). So yeah, I've seen that too.

A few times I have seen the AI just up and abandon a city when I'm on my way to attack, so I'm beginning to wonder if the AI sometimes sells everything off during a desperate war.

 

[diamon]

Most of the time after capturing a city, there are still a few buildings, but sometimes there is nothing (even if no bombardment was used). So yeah, I've seen that too.

A few times I have seen the AI just up and abandon a city when I'm on my way to attack, so I'm beginning to wonder if the AI sometimes sells everything off during a desperate war.

That would explain a lot... I'm prosecuting a war against the Americans and have yet to take ANY city (up to size 20) either with bombardment or not with even a SINGLE improvement. Not a barrack, not a manufacturing plant, NOTHING at all.

Flip-back was enough of an annoyance for me that I simply took to wiping out all the cities I defeated, and backfilling behind my wall of battle with workers (size6 methodology) and settlers, just making my own cities in strategically blocking areas.

I can't say I've seen the AI abandon a city, but in spite of being up against the biggest power in this game (higher score than myself even, by far!) I have yet to see any worthy units or improvements in cities I have assaulted.

Maybe their score is based on population points? Ah well. Off to kill them some more!

 

[jackburton]

Has anyone ever captured a city with a wonder in it? I don't think I ever have... and it was strange. I once let down my guard briefly on one of my main production centers that had several wonders in it. The computer seized the opportunity to take over the city. However a couple of turns later it culture flipped back to me. However, all of the wonders (not to mention the improvements) were gone!

I thought that wonders always stayed in cities, it was small wonders that were lost or destroyed. Am I wrong on this?

 

[Ironikinit]

Wonders stay, and later in the game it seems more likely to take cities with improvements intact, if you don't bomb them out.

The AI might be selling off its improvements. You could use the embassy to check. In Civ 2 most improvements were destroyed upon taking but I've captured some that have several.

 

[Moulton]

I have taken a number of cities with commercial imrovements... harbors, airports, banks and marketplaces. Never a cultural improvement. Maybe that is just as well, as the cultural buildings built by the others would be likely to make it flip.
If you watch the bombardment results it tells you what is destroyed. If you can see it has an airport and/or a harbor, and it is not destroyed, and then is not ther... you have to wonder what happened to it.
Maybe they did sell it.
Wen I was ceded Babylonian cities, they had NO improvements. None. The English cities did, as I remember.

 

[eyrei]

Aqueducts and hospitals tend to survive conquest as well. Makes it pretty easy to build the city back up to at least a semblance of its former glory.

 

[Sodak]

Wonders remain in conquered cities.

Some improvements that did not get destroyed by bombardment, but are not there at conquest, may have gotten sold off to rush build defenders. Particularly if you have squeezed the civ financially all game long!

In CivII, there were 3 categories of improvements, one of them was automatically wiped out if the city was conquered. Maybe something of the same nature is at work in Civ3.

 

[Ironikinit]

I was watching to see what improvements remained in my game. Mostly I saw that size 6 and bigger cities still had aquaduct, 12 and bigger had the hospital. Other than that, a few marketplaces. And wonders, of course.

 

[King Gil]

Nothing borer me more than lost a conquered city over and over, mainly if you want a wonder placed there. Strong garrison should be enough to prevent flip. I didn't like this rule of the game. I think the best we can do is raze the city, or re-edit the rules.(CIV3editor)