Capturing Cities

[rdomarat]

I'm working on a Strategy Article and would like to get some input from the forum on ways the game works that I just don't have the time to properly figure out. My first question is about capturing enemy cities and the infrastructure that remains in the city after you capture it.

From previous posts, it looks like the consensus was that all cultural producing buildings are destroyed when you take an enemy city, but other improvements remain. Is this a valid statement? Will barracks and marketplaces and factories and other non-cultural buildings remain in a captured city?

Also, can anyone guess as to whether or not the AI is selling improvements when a city is about to be taken? I seem to think that what was happening in Civ2, but now that I think back, maybe the improvements were being destroyed when I captured the city.

Thanks,
Reg

 

[eyrei]

I think that improvements such as banks are downgraded to marketplaces when the city is taken. Hospitals and Aqueducts seem to survive more often than not, as do harbors.

 

[sealman]

I have only captured harbors and acqueducts.

 

[loki]

I remember capturing barracks too.

loki

 

[Shaitan]

I frequently capture barracks, aqueduct and marketplace. I don't tend to capture anything more advanced but this is likely due to my assault technique. I bomb the living snot out of developed cities in the later ages before I use my ground troops.

 

[chiefpaco]

Originally posted by rdomarat
I'm working on a Strategy Article and would like to get some input from the forum on ways the game works that I just don't have the time to properly figure out. My first question is about capturing enemy cities and the infrastructure that remains in the city after you capture it.

From previous posts, it looks like the consensus was that all cultural producing buildings are destroyed when you take an enemy city, but other improvements remain. Is this a valid statement? Will barracks and marketplaces and factories and other non-cultural buildings remain in a captured city?

Also, can anyone guess as to whether or not the AI is selling improvements when a city is about to be taken? I seem to think that what was happening in Civ2, but now that I think back, maybe the improvements were being destroyed when I captured the city.

Thanks,
Reg

Good luck. From my experience, I agree with you. Here's what I've seen (or at my best recollection):
Always surviving:
Great wonders

Most often surviving:
Aqueducts, Hospitals

Sometimes there:
Barracks, Marketplaces, Harbours

Never there:
Small Wonders, Palaces (wouldn't that be cool, live in someone else's castle) Culture stuff, temples, libraries... and of course, any military units are destroyed (ships, artillery, etc) and workers captured.

Can't remember:
Factories, Banks, Courthouses, Granaries, Walls

I think I've seen improvements destroyed while capturing the city, perhaps easily seen if an Airport or Harbour is still there after capturing. I'm not sure of the criteria of what survives the assault.

Best way to research, though tedious, would probably start an easy game & do a lot of city investigation before conquering. Not sure if anything changes with difficulty level. I'm not sure about downgrading though, sounds funny to me.