Destroying one's own city

[TraHari]

I looked in the archives for help about this, but I only found threads related to Civ II and III.

Is there a way to destroy one of your own city? I conquered a city and clicked the capture option rather than the raze option.

Thanks in advance!

- Tra'Hari

 

[AtriumComplex]

You can't. You can try to gift it to someone though.

 

[LordTerror]

Well, there are two ways to destroy a city:
1) Raze the city after a military conquest.
2) Disband the city after a cultural flip. (v1.52+ only)

The problem is the city is now yours, so you need to give it to someone else. Here are some ways:
1) Gift the city to an AI.
2) Let the AI take the city by conquest.
3) Let the AI flip your city. (This is not possible unless you have a special option on).


Letting someone else have the city then taking it back is the only way to destory the city.

 

[StevenJoyce]

Letting someone else have the city then taking it back is the only way to destory the city.

This doesn't actually work. In my last game (version 1.52), I gifted the Aztecs a city in order to avoid going over the domination limit. A dozen or so turns later, I declared war on the Aztecs and retook the city. To my surprise, I wasn't given the option to raze, and I got the city with all the culture it had when I gave it away. This put me over the domination limit. I suspect that if your culture is dominant in a city, you don't get the option to raze. There may be other factors involved, however.

 

[FratBoy]

The only real way to destroy a city is to use the World Builder and simply erase the city. I don't consider this cheating since they failed to incorporate this important function in the game.