I know and I clearly wrote that it's not the same but it's as close at it can be, or do you think you can create a gazillion minor states when a civ collapses ? Geez it seems to me that you don't want to listen what others are saying.
Forgot which thread this was in...
Anyway, the "collapse" of the USSR is much better approximated in-game as Russia handing off imperial possessions to neighboring countries. (Ok, i can't support all these cities anymore, here, let me liberate your city).
This still also assumes the relevance of the USSR to the original claim, in which i stated no country with a well-developed economy collapses for economic reasons. The USSR arguably had a terribly developed economy, and thus despite being recent, isn't at all relevant to the claim.
You aren't putting your faith in any historian but just in yourself, in fact if you had read that wiki link, you'd find out that there are listed there loads of theories from historians and of them only one, supported by the large number of 2 historians, is the theory that the Roman Empire collapsed because it had nothing else to loot. Before YOU dismiss what I wrote with no evidence why don't you go about reading a bit. And I gave evidences btw, compared to the whole ancient history, Romans didn't really loot and plunder that much. How many cities have they razed compared to how many have they taken and even improved ? It's even one of the UHVs goal in RFC to make sure that cities of a certain dimension are at a good cultural and infrastructural level.
I did notice there are a number of theories there. Many of them are not mutually exclusive. A number of them are famous theories that are likely pointing to symptoms (effects) rather than root causes. Of course, determining root causes in history is hard, but we really could walk through all of them and think through the implications of the historian's arguments. However, nothing on that page contests the nature of the Roman economy as based on plunder - something which you are arguing isn't true. (This is where i'm more likely to take the word of a published historian.)
Razing cities is not the only way to plunder them. Unless of course you're going to consider the British expatriation of archeological material during the colonial period as something other than plundering - which strikes me as a ridiculous stance. (See, for instance, the case of the "Elgin" marbles). By a plunder economy said historians and I mean a system by which material wealth was confiscated by the victorious army and taken back to Rome. That the Romans did this is a matter of historical record - the treasures of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem were specifically hidden to avoid the Romans plundering them - their reputation proceeded them. (Not like this was all that different from other conquerors).
Razing a city is not something generally done on conquest unless you really have a grudge. The best documented example i can think of in the ancient period involves Alexander the Great. He didn't raze cities on conquest, but in one instance where a region rebelled against his rule and used guerilla tactics, he slaughtered every man, woman, and child in one of the cities as an example to the guerillas in the hills. (Ie, razed the city). The region stopped rebelling after two cities were destroyed in this way, as i recall, but i could look it up to confirm. (The real point here is that he didn't raze them on capturing them, though he almost certainly looted them, but instead occupied them).
Similarly, a plunder economy is really easy to understand in civ terms. Whenever you capture a city you get some gold. So long as you can continue to capture cities rapidly enough, you can deficit spend to support the cities you have. However, your economy quickly collapses if your conquests ever stop, because you possess far more cities than you can afford. While the real-life homolog involves a little more complication than this, its fundamentally identical.