Do I raze the holy city or keep it?

[dime]

Here is the situation... (see attached save for more detail)

I am playing Joao and it is 1600BC; after settling, my first city my warrior goes west and immediately stumbles on Charlemange and luckily takes him out before he has time to build a warrior. At the same time, a warrior from Suleiman arrives from the north. I locate him, and attack with Chariots. I immediately take out his second city defended by only 2 warriors and move on his capital, which has just founded Judaism. It is defended by only one warrior so I will probably take it next round. Now to my question:
- Istanbul is 15 hexes away from my other cities and while it is located in an areas with some nice land, there is definitely land in between that I am NOT in a hurry to settle
- I suspect that upkeep from adding Istanbul (I have 2 cities before the attack) will be on the order of 5+ gp per turn in cost. It has nice resources - Banana + 4 sugar + another food resoures - however I will not research Calendar anytime soon and in the meantime it'll probably be a pretty average city, though long-term it is an excellent GP farm
- I haven't been contacted by any other civilization so far. I am playing a shuffle map so it could be pretty much anything; however, with any other map type than pangea, there is a fair chance that I will be alone on my continent as it is fairly rare with continents maps with more than 3 civs on a continent
- The area I have explored is easily enough for 15+ cities without much overlap - the East is fully explored as is immediately south of my capital and north to the Turks, but assuming there is at least some more land to the west the body of land I am on could be big enough for 20+ cities and presumably with no immediate competition for that land

Now to the question... it is naturally very tempting to hold on to the holy city (which looks to have Stonehenge), especially since I have taken a very militaristic research track (iron working is in). Do you think it is worthwile to hold on to it? It seems to me that the trade-off is building 2 less cities around my capital until I can get some more infrastructure up

Thanks
Andreas

 

[jihe]

keep it for sure, the stonehenge GP will build shrine which will
solve all your money problem

 

[Winth]

You shouldn't raze a holy city, because it gives an unique advantage - build a shrine and you have money to fund your latest goals. Also, if it has Stonehenge, which is a very potent wonder - another point not to raze the city. And, if some civs already adopted the holy city's religion, I think you will get penalties with them for razing it, and since you still may meet the other civilization, don't risk too much. And since there is a chance for being isolated, you don't need to rush for religion later. The problem with Istanbul being far, far away is not a big deal - once you get the religion spread + courthouse, this city will pay off really fast.

 

[madscientist]

Former capitals are usually very good to keep as they have good resources and rarely bad tiles. Stonehenge eliminates the need to build monuments or worry about spreading religion to pop the culture borders. The Holy city is the least reason of the three to keep it, but still a good one.

Without looking at the game, you gotta keep the city. Build the next city (You are Joao, spit them out fast!!!) between teh two and get some roads and cottages for commerce.

 

[trafficlight]

Speaking from experience, everybody else in the game gets a little upset when you raze a holy city. I burned one down the Hindu holy city out of spite, but it was the wrong move. Every Hindu was immediately angry at me and all declared war a few turns later. The end.

 

[madscientist]

As early as the OP suggests, noone probably has the Jewish Faith so razing it incurs no penalties.

 

[dime]

Judaism was literally founded like 15 turns ago, and as I highly suspect we are alone on a fairly large continent I am also pretty sure that the religion hasn't spread...

My only concern, though tempered by your comments, is that spitting out new cities will be at the expense of respectable tech rate due to the maintenance. On the flip side, if it turns out I am alone, the military I already built will be quite enough for a while so I can really invest time and hammers into building infrastructure and hopefully get the economy up

I actually never use to build Stonehenge alot, so was a bit surprised at the strong "reviews"... will need to try it... I usually focus on military early no matter which civ as I haven't tried religions much (tested it my first BTS game and built the Apostolic Palace... and managed to spread my state religion to everyone, but still the damned thing never let me vote on diplomatic victories... since, I haven't bothered much)

thxs
/Andreas

 

[Winth]

Stonehenge is an awesome wonder. It comes very cheap, and already gives you a big advantage - you get free culture in every city until Astronomy. While as Creative it can be only used as a free source of Great Person points, you are not one, so you will benefit much. Not needing Monuments in your cities saves much of production. It gives a very valuable, early Great Person, which can fuel some of your expansion costs, especially with a shrine of a popular religion, and can be used in a variety of ways - founding another religion, for example.

Stonehenge can be built pretty early (because AI's tend to build them roughly after 2000 BC date), which compensates after 1000 years of it's builded - the culture will double.

Plus, Imperialistic has a very good synergy with wonder-spamming early - after you build these wonders, you can catch-up with another cities faster.

 

[eewallace]

I haven't looked at your save, but if you really think you are likely alone on the contintent now, I think that works in favor of keeping the holy city--I'm assuming that you don't have one of the other early religions. Yeah, the distance will cost you a bit until you get your infrastructure, but if you are alone for now, you can afford to prioritize infrastructure and expansion (Joao + stonehenge is great for REXing) and not worry too much about military until you suspect someone is likely to make it across the sea.

(If you want to play it careful, and have the troops to do it, you may want to simply besiege Istambul while scoping out the rest of the continent, then decide.)

 

[NintendoTogepi]

I'd raze it.

Usually I keep holy cities if the religion has 15% or more influence, and raze them if they have 15% or less or if I don't want that religion to spread.

Example: I was playing as Alexander and the Greeks and trying to spread Confucianism. I was at war with Brennus. I get to his capital and it's the holy city for Judaism and Hinduism. They each had around 15-20% influence but I didn't want them to spread anymore, so I razed the holy city.

In the game, I did so much war that 5 of the 7 Holy Cities ended up getting razed

Example 2: I was playing as Stalin. I was at war with the Holy Roman Empire and I captured their last city, which also happened to be the holy city for Christianity. Seeing as I was running out of gold (-20 per turn) and Christianity was the biggest religion in the game (every other leader except for me had it as the state religion) I decided to keep it. I didn't have to suffer any diplomatic penalties and I ended up getting TONS of gold.