Cities Too Far - Please Help

[Jonno4]

Hey, I'm currently a game on Warlord and I'm the most powerful nation, by a lot. I got into a war with 2 of my neighbours and ended up expanded my empire way too far. All my cities are connected to my main territory but some of them are too far from the capital and are costing me more money, due to corruption, than they are making me. The cities make less money than it costs to support the units defending them. I'm looking for some advice on what to do...

I was thinking of giving the cities away to another nation, a weak nation. I don't mind losing the cities, I just don't want to give them to another nation. I'm thinking of giving them to a weak nation in hopes that they will become strong enough to threaten some of my other competitors. Basically, I'm asking if you guys think it'd do more harm than good to give the cities away.
Thanks,
Jonno4

 

[Renata]

What goal are you playing for in your game? Sounds like it's not domination/conquest, anyway.

I don't see any real downside to giving away the ultra-corrupt cities. What I'd do first, though, is starve them down to size one to make them even more useless, sell off all the buildings the game will let you, *then* give them away. I wouldn't bother trying to prop up the weak civs by doing this; it sounds like you have the game in hand anyway. Just give the cities away to the farthest-away civs - by the time they can even manage to build defensive units for all of them you'll probably have won.

Renata (by the way, there *is* a way to make ultra-corrupt cities pay for themselves and even turn a (small) profit, but it takes a little effort ---- get the city up to its maximum sustainable size then turn as many its citizens into taxmen (or scientists if you need them more) as you can without starving the city, and sell off most of the improvements)

 

[DaveMcW]

Sell off all the improvements in the cities. (Except the culture improvements if you like culture).

Disband all the units defending them. You only need defenses in your border cities.

 

[Takeo]

Once you have done what Renata and DaveMcW have advised, set production in worthless cities to something really big. Start on a University or Factory and just let it build at the 1 shield per turn rate. All you are doing is slowly storing up shields for a future military unit. Then, when you research something like motorized transportation, switch all those cities to tanks. Suddenly that dozen or more worthless cities spit out a bunch of tanks the same turn you have it researched.

Takeo

 

[ToddMarshall]

Such cities can also be a source of workers if you need them, and in general, you can never have too many workers.

Annother thing to look at is how many coins the city is generating, if it is more than one, the city can often be saved by rushing a courthouse and putting it into WLTKD when it reaches size 6. You would be positivly amazed at how far out from the palace/fp you can get salvagable cities that you think are hopelessly 1/1 with these and later with police stations too. On large maps, ive managed to salvage cities well over 20 tiles away on occasion once I reached Republic/Democracy with its much lower corruption. Even if you can only improve them to producing a meager 4-6 shields, they can at least make some units for you. Of course, w/o seeing a map, I can't really tell if such cities are likely too far away to be of any use or not.

 

[Uncle Dynamite]

Welcome to CFC! All of the above advice is great, although I would lean to ToddMarshall's idea. Since you're probably aiming for a more peaceful victory, all those workers will help build your infrastructure to maximize those cities near your capital in order to squeeze out cultural improvements or space ship parts.

What you didn't mention is whether or not you've built your Forbidden Palace. Unless you're playing on a really huge map with a lot of continents, a well placed Forbidden Palace will render nearby cities productive and the rest semi-productive, enough to do some good. Aside from that, if you wind up in another war, all those cities will be useful to buffer attacks, since the AI will be mired down trying to dislodge the few defensive units you've stationed there (particularly if you built a wall, which is super-cheap even for a 1-shield city).

Just my two gold.
Uncle Dynamite

 

[MajorFallout]

Another point worth mentioning, is that any city that is really far way is still worth keeping if it's borders encompass an important resource, eg. oil or iron.

I often have to search for a resource or luxuries on a distant land, settle there, and rush a harbour or airport so that it is distributed throughout my empire.

If that city's resource runs out, and disappears from the land, you can send a transport ship to the city and off load it's defenders and workers back to blightly, and put them to better use. And you can also produce workers while the ship takes it's time to reach it. Then abondon (via contextual menu) the city.

 

[Jonno4]

I ended up giving up the cities after milking them dry. Thanks for the help ,
Jonno4

 

[Moonsinger]

I think you give them up too soon. With proper management, you can convert those cities into the gold mine. For example, in this city (see attachment), with 100% happy citizens, I would collect 8 gpt while spending only 5 gold for upkeep.

Expend:
Maket - free upkeep because I got the Adam Smith
Granary - free upkeep because of the Pyramid
Aqueduct - 1 for upkeep
Hospital - 2 for upkeep
Mass Transit - 2 for upkeep
Total upkeep = 5 gold

Income:
7 tax collectors = 7 gold
city center = 1 gold
Mininum total of income = 8 gold

Note: If I don't care about citizen happiness, I would have easily have at least a dozen more tax collectors. Therefore, that would raise my income for this city to 20 gpt while spending only 5 gpt for upkeep.