Destroy vs Capture a city

[Dastari]

This is a computer tactic that has stymied me again and again throughout the years. I've just started playing this game again fairly recently and I've come up against the following. Another civilization has its final city to close to one of my cities. I attack and wittle them down to a city size of '2'. They have no further armies within the city. Normally, I'd capture a city in that state, but since it's close to one of my cities and I don't want them competing for resource squares I wait, assuming that they'll repopulate with an army next turn and I can completely destroy them. They don't. They sit and wait until they're a city size of '3' again and only then add the extra army. I knock them back down to a '2'. The process repeats. It seems like one of the computer's cheats, because it seems like there's no way to get the timing of city size increase and getting the new army in the city that synchronized otherwise.

Short of a horde of barbarians showing up and capturing it for me, which would allow me to then destroy the barbarian city, is there any way for me to destroy this city?

 

[webciv]

Surround all tiles that generate a lot of food, keep tiles that generate little food with some production

 

[Dastari]

I'd thought about this. It'd require over a dozen troops and goodness knows how much time, but I guess it is an option. Here's another idea. What happens if I capture it and it becomes a city of a size of 1. Is there a way to then starve the city until it disappears? If there is, does it produce a negative effect to the rest of my civilization other than a drop of 10,000 population? I'm guessing even the city square by itself probably provides enough food for a size 1 city (I think its a plains square), but I'm curious if this is a viable idea.

 

[Mize]

Sure, you can starve out a size 1 city by building settlers before it pops to size 2. I don't think the computer really cheats all that much as far as growth is concerned, rather on high difficulty levels the AI requires much less food to grow than the player (6 rows instead of 10 on emperor, IIRC). Also, mind out when trying to destroy enemy cities - sometimes they might look like size 1, but when you refresh the view you'll see they've actually grown to 2. The same bug/effect is noticable when you grow with WLTPD - if you just hit 'end turn' while celebrating, even though the city is growing the digits on it won't update unless you refresh the view.

 

[Autumn Leaf]

If the AI city is on Grassland or Plains then you can't starve it out. If you can totally surround it with units, the best you can do is keep it at one pop and meanwhile half your army is sitting on its butt.

Assuming you're playing above Chieftain level, the easiest way to get rid of an unwanted AI city is to capture it (knocking it down to pop one), garrison it with a feeble unit (e.g. a Militia) supported from another city or (better) from NONE, set production to Settlers and put its sole worker on a mountain or a forest. The mountain is best because it provides no food, although if the city is on grassland and you're Monarchy or better it may still have a positive food flow. If it's gaining shields but not food, eventually it will produce a Settler and be destroyed. You can get away with a feeble garrison unit because since the city has only one pop, if an enemy kills that unit the city is destroyed without the enemy gaining technology or loot from you.

If you're in a hurry and you have the cash, then once it has at least one shield in the bin (and/or if it's getting close to filling its food bin and expanding to size 2) you can change production to Barracks or Temple and rush-buy that, then before the end of that turn change the production back to Settlers. The city will build a Settler next turn and be destroyed. The new Settler will be supported from your nearest city (since you say you're nearby). If your nearby city can't support an extra Settler you can then simply disband the Settler (such a waste). Otherwise move it somewhere useful and make a new city.

Edited to add: if you don't like playing the production switcheroo (Temple>rush Temple>Settler) because you feel that's cheating, then buying just the last few shields to fill the production is not as absurdly expensive as buying a unit from scratch. So for just double the cost of rushing the Temple then switching, you can just rush the Settler directly.

 

[Posidonius]

... I wait, assuming that they'll repopulate with an army next turn and I can completely destroy them. They don't.

Similar odd trouble in my current game. I had the Egyptian capital surrounded but didn't want to knock it over for some centuries, until i had sentinels posted around the world to keep an eye out for the Aztecs who would appear once Egypt is destroyed. And i did not want to own Thebes because there was no RR under the foundations. So i used a flurry of Diplomats to knock over the City Walls, and my cordon of Knights waited until it was time to pounce.

Knocked once on Thebes, killed a Mil and a citz, then ended my turn. That's how you bleed a civ dry, only attack once per turn; knock them down by a citz each turn and force them to make a new garrison unit from scratch each turn. But Egypt just never built another unit. Thebes at size-5, and my Dips told me they had plenty of cash in the treasury, but they just refused to try and defend their last city. In your case it went a couple turns, in my case, this went on for centuries.

Finally gave up waiting, rolled a Knight into the empty Thebes and looted their substantial treasury. But that gave me a size-4 city which i wished was dead. The good thing about taking a city is that it often comes with a full foodbox. Thebes did, and next turn was back to size-5. But there's the good thing: just after they popped back to 5 citz, the foodbox was empty. Simply arrange the peasants to negative food, and since it's size-5 you can make everyone a Taxman. Extra bonus: even when the place starved down to size-4, Taxmen stay Taxmen, and don't revert to Elvis. I squeezed about 80 free coins out of the place while i starved it down to 1 citz, then bought the Setty and wiped the place out.

But it was odd, a rival completely giving up on defense. Maybe because i had surrounded them for so long without attacking, they didn't consider me a threat? Maybe they felt safe in the cocoon i had pouched them in? I don't know, it's a puzzler why Egypt went undefended for so long. Maybe on the next planet, the Egyptians will know better than to trust me? Hah, fat chance.