Holy Cities: To raze, or not to raze, that is the question...

[XxtraLarGe]

I am on the verge of capturing an enemy's holy city, which is a religion different than my own. I'd like to stop the spread of that "heathen" religion, which is the state religion of only that state. Should I raze it or should I keep it? How will this affect the game?

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Don't raze it. Who cares if the religion spreads? It has no effect on your own empire. If you're afraid that some other nation will adopt the different religion, just be more agressive in spreading your own faith. The income from the shrine (if it exists) should always be welcome. If there is no shrine, then good! You can build it yourself later.

 

[Zanmato]

Keep it then spread the heathen anyway. You can build more buildings like temples and once you switch to the Free Religion civic your empire will be much more stable. The money from the shrine is also very helpful, more so with Wall Street.

I have razed a holy city myself by accident. It only had 1 population and I didn't think it would automatically raze it.

 

[gunkulator]

Keep it for sure. If the other religion is more widespread than yours, consider eventually converting to it.

 

[Doomed_UK]

Keep it (if you can).

 

[Gumbolt]

you want to raze a holy city??

If you build the relevent building for the religion you could be taking in 10-30 gold a turn pending how far the religion spread. On my current game i have 4 holy cities each providing 10-20 gold a turn before benefits of banks etc.

Sometimes it doesnt hurt to adopt someone elses religion if you can spread it among your cities. It will keep the AI more happier with you.

 

[Bungholio]

if its a big religion keep it, if not, do either

 

[CHRISROOM]

holy cities bring lots of commerce. In one game that I played, I captured all holy cities. And after the riots, $$! (+273 Per Turn)

Edit:
Ya! 50th Post! W00t!

 

[karlhegna]

keep it definitly

 

[Naismith]

I razed the Christian holy city once. I had already captured three holy cities, only a couple of cities in the world were Christian, I was drowning in city maintenance problems from recently captured cities, and the holy city was off on a peninsula, mostly tundra.

 

[King Flevance]

It would be nice if there was a reason to burn down a holy city. But civ 4 isnt that complex. Keeping is is the only good option. There is no negative to owning a religion's holy city even if that was the main reason you went to war.

 

[Chazumi]

If it isn't my religion I burn it depending on what age. If it's medieval or later I usually burn it, because my income is like +50 anyways at 90%. Plus it makes everyone really mad at you, and starts a holy war (the best wars imo), nothing feels better than sliding a long iron blade into the gut of a heathen native.

 

[jimbob27]

If you could do with the extra money keep it. Holy cities in which the AI has built the shrine already are almost always self sufficient, so it won't be a drain on your economy... the only worry is defending it.

Sometimes I raze holy cities just to be a jerk If an AI declare war on me, quite often I'll label their civ and all their friends as being "evil" and i'll sit and brood for 500 years, before I'm ready to unleash my vengance for their crimes against my good people.

 

[Zombie69]

If you can defend it, keeping the city is way superior to razing it. You should never raze a holy city.

 

[BCLG100]

i've razed a holy city once. It was following an attack when i couldnt hold it or recapture it the next turn.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

If its early, always keep it...later in the game, keeping it isnt always the best policy.

For example, its on the other side of the world, surrounded by hostile nations, and the only reason your there, is to stop the war that someone else started, then keeping it may cause more trouble in the long run than its worth, and razing it at least means noone else will ever get the cash from it..

And wars of retribution often mean I raze everything in sight, holy or not, but thats when I get a little cross with a certain AI (not a good strategy)

 

[Dagoril]

Razing a Holy City is like pillaging your own cottages. Unadvisable.

 

[hanskung]

It would be nice if there was a reason to burn down a holy city. But civ 4 isnt that complex. Keeping is is the only good option. There is no negative to owning a religion's holy city even if that was the main reason you went to war.

I dont see many reasons why in real it would be favourable for a nation to burn down another religions holy city.
Any historical examples for this?

 

[picardathon]

Just because there was no good reason didn't stop the crusaders!

 

[Monado]

I've raised a holy city once because I didn't know that is was a holy city. The worst part about it was that it was my state religion holy city, as well as most of my allies. I got a -2 "for raising the holy city" with every civ that had Judiasm as a state religion.