Conquered cities : Raze em, or keep ?

[desemondez]

Title says it all.

My personal rule of thumb would be to keep it only if :

- There were precious resources nearby
- Population is >10
- I suspect it might have a world wonder
- I need more diplomatic leverage and I could return the city back to it's original owner.


Opinions? Besides the additional maintenance costs to keeping it, are there any other disadvantages?

 

[Mewtarthio]

So you're devoting extra resources to building Settlers? And incinerating the places where your army should be resting and recovering? And making anyone you're at war with hate you forever?

 

[MrCynical]

It depends on whether I intend to keep that area of land. If I want the territory and the city is in a logical site, there's no point in burning it even if it's size one with all buildings destroyed. If I'm conquering land, I'll only burn where cities are in stupid places, so I can move them.

 

[Carnage04]

I probably keep a lot more cities than most people, burning only if A. It's on some really horrible terrain..B. Is too far into my fat cross or the fat cross of a really nice city I'm about to capture. or C. Is way out of the way and I just wanted to take it for some mopping up action or D. I'm about to sue for peace and the city is cultural smothered to the point where it will never be useful.

 

[GeezerGamer]

I almost always keep the city unless it's in a poor location.

 

[aberwak]

Unless I absolutely can't support the city, I usually just keep it. In my last game, I captured an absolutely horrible ice city from the barbarians. After building another city on that island, I turned it into a colony.

 

[dutchking]

This is my opinion:
Generally, if the population is below three and it has crappy land with no promises, raze it.
If it has a growing population more than four, and it's promising, I keep it.
Then there's the totally different policy,
If it's too far away, raze it, or keep it for a special resource.