Do you capture or raze cities?

[soxfan2003]

I am never sure what to do when I take over a city, but at least in Deity it seems that capturing a city almost always results in a culture flip, but I hate razing cities with great wonders. What do you normally do?

 

[Tomoyo]

Depends. There was a thread somewhere about a day ago though...

 

[scoutsout]

...but I hate razing cities with great wonders. What do you normally do?

If you capture a city that has something you really want (a wonder), there is a tactical solution to the problem. Put most of your troops outside the city, let it flip, and simply re-take it. This actually has a hidden advantage...the population takes a hit, and you have fewer foreign citizens to starve out of existence...

 

[Bede]

A tactic which has worked for me is to cut off all connection to the original motherland, that means roads and harbors. This works best in cities that are not in the AI core, though, so the likelihood of finding a wonder is diminished.

 

[rysingsun]

i usually get around this problem by not garrisoning captured cities until ive captures any other cities that share a culture zone. they dont really need a garrison if you are at war with that nation anyway since the whole goal of attacking someone is to remove him from the game. this is a general rule of thumb for me. naturally there are exceptions.

 

[Stoo.W]

stop work on all the tiles in the city to starve it down to pop of 1. then leave it to build up with citizens of your empire - this should reduce the chances of flipping. keep troops outside for a while just in case as well and make sure you build some culture improvements as well! I use these v.often and it seems to work. BUT - you can usually do without a lot of the wonders and if you are fighting a superior civ, it may be worth your while raising it anyway - otherwise you are using up troops to defend the city which could be used elsewhere. if you raise there is no option to recapture the city and so if they have to rebuild from scratch - you will have cut their production ability and deprived them of a wonder that could have give them an advantage in the future!

 

[blix]

It depends on the situation and the size of my enemies army.If the city has a wonder that's useless yet has a tactical advantage,yet I know I can't hold it,what do I do?

I burn it down.

If the city has a tactical advantage and a usefull wonder,yet I know I can't hold it.What do I do?

I burn it down.

My #1 strategy when it come to capturing cities,something I learned from a quote from Frederick the Great:

"Never capture anything you can't hold."

When I know I can't hold anything of the enemy but is usefull,I'll burn it down so they won't use it against me.If I can't have it nobody can.

 

[TeeAhr1]

In a perfect situation, I garrison the town with enough troops to end the resistance in a turn or two, then rush out workers/settlers until the pop is down to 1. Then it gets sticky. In the original version of CivIII, if you built those workers back into the town, they'd be your nationality. I don't know if that works on later versions or not (just bought C3Complete, haven't gotten that far in a game yet, I'll let you know.)

Another good tactic, if you have the transport capacity, is to bring along a buttload of workers when you take the town and build them in immediately. If neither of these options are available to me (for lack of time or transport capacity or whatever), I put a match to it. If I can't have the Pyramids, no one can.

 

[ghostbuster]

If I can't have it nobody can.

I like the way you think, thats usually the way I play, but I cannot resist keeping a wonder, but I usually like to take the capital, first or last, if I grab it first, I will garrisson my SOD in there, so it wont get recaptured. Or if I grab it last, they are already too dead to even try to take it back.

 

[primeminister99]

TeeAhr1 in Conquests they are still the nationality of wherever they came from. Ie: an Aztec city where you build a settler or a worker will be an Aztec settler or worker -- unless you have your own nationality in there and then they will pop out as your own (but of course you 'loose' that point of population)

I only raze cities if they are in the way of one of my cities being more productive by using all the tiles around it. Otherwise I usually keep them, especially if they can be useful to me later on. Although some of the otr replies up thread are good strategies because you don't want to loose troops because of an annoying culture flip.

 

[Dr. Beetnuts]

I like smashing ****, so I'll go with option #2.

 

[Bolshevik]

I like to build lots of workers in the city 'till it's down to one, then I usually abandon it. The workers only work at half the speed though, and 'cause riots if you join 'em, so I put all the ones I can't use into a city, then I force-produce military units really fast. Any lost pop points are made up for by joining one of the slave workers. Kind of like a concentration camp, I suppose... But it's only electronic genocide.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

on anything else than Sid late game, capture

 

[Strato]

When I know I can't hold anything of the enemy but is usefull,I'll burn it down so they won't use it against me.If I can't have it nobody can.

That makes perfect sense. Trouble is, I start thinking, if I lose it, I'll get it back again later. I should learn though that I never really do. But it probably is better to raze, especially if it is an AI city that has been built in an area which will give limited usefulness to the empire (and just hope a strategic resource doesn't pop up there later). Why waste the time, effort and effects of corruption on a city that doesn't deserve it.

 

[Chaos_BF1942]

I normally Raze enemy cities when 1) I don't want to deal with all the corruption and waste that the city would make, and would not help out in the long run, 2) I can't hold the city, 3) I'm in a bad mood and/or the enemy civ made me mad.

 

[Tubby Rower]

Doesn't razing cities affect your reputation? or is it attitude?

I typically capture, that way I don't have to waste production on settlers to replace that city. But I don't know a whole lot and am still learning.

 

[TimBentley]

Doesn't razing cities affect your reputation? or is it attitude?

Attitude .

 

[King Flyboy]

Depends on the tactical situation, as others have said.

But let me introduce a new tactic to deal with the same challenge: if I can't hold a city in enemy territory, sometimes I'll give it a weaker civ not at war with my main enemy.

Example: I'm playing the Age of Conquest scenario. I'm England. I took Brest from the French. No way I could hold it, so I gave it to the Incas.

Eventually it'll flip back to France, but in the meantime the French now have a new interloper to deal with, sending out scouts, making a nusinance of themselves.

And if they're not already at war, the French won't immediately start a war with the Incas to regain their city. For some reason, they respect Incan ownership over Brest.

Plus, all my units in Brest got a free ride back to London!

 

[Pentium]

It's good if you're behind in techs. You will get some of them for a city.

 

[Dell19]

If you capture a city that has something you really want (a wonder), there is a tactical solution to the problem. Put most of your troops outside the city, let it flip, and simply re-take it. This actually has a hidden advantage...the population takes a hit, and you have fewer foreign citizens to starve out of existence...

Except when the flip happens after signing peace again...