how to abandon a city

[emotopher]

I dunno if this is a mac thing, or just a general new civ4 thing (haven't had it that long) but how do you abandon a city?

 

[Antilogic]

As far as I know, you can't. But then again, I have never wanted to, so I've never looked for the option.

And, by the way...

WELCOME TO CIVFANATICS!

 

[Lord of Civ]

Im not really sure about this. Maybe the Abandon City option is available only when the city is not growing like you built the city on a desert with no fresh water. The message might pop up and ask if you want to change product or abandon the city.

 

[br_casino]

Yeah, I don't think you can abandon a city either. I like the option in CIV II (I think) where if a City was at Population 1, you could abandon the city by building a settler.

 

[crunch]

You cannot. You can try to gift the city to an AI (but they won't accept all cities). You can also leave it vacant hoping that barbs will take it.

 

[Soil]

Yea, gifting is your best bet. If you want to totally destroy the city though, you'll have to then declare war on the civ you gave the city, conquer it and raze it.

 

[Ambreville]

Maybe the reason for no longer being able to destroy a city is to prevent an all-too-easy strategy of burning down a city when facing certain defeat. I could see doing this if I had no way of reinforcing a city and was left with too few surviving units to defend it after a battle. No doubt, I would definitely lose that city on the very next turn. In this case (and provided I had no chance of retaking it anytime soon) I would choose to destroy it rather than leaving it to an invader. That's pretty cheap and frustrating to a live player (imagine if the AI did that!)

 

[ainwood]

My guess was that not being able to abandon a city was a fix for the Civ3 Palace Jump 'exploit'.

 

[Ambreville]

My guess was that not being able to abandon a city was a fix for the Civ3 Palace Jump 'exploit'.

I didn't know about that one. What happened then? Did a palace instantly appear in another city?

 

[flamingzaroc121]

short of going into worldbuilder the rest are right no abandoning cites

 

[ainwood]

I didn't know about that one. What happened then? Did a palace instantly appear in another city?

Yes.

If people wanted to move their capital, then instead of just building another one (or using a great leader for it), then they would starve-down their original capital, and abandon it. The new capital would appear in another city. The city that it would move to could be manipulated (it depended on city size, number of other cities near it, and troops stationed in it - put a big stack of units in the city that you wanted for your new capital, and you could control where the new one would be).

 

[Bierp]

Maybe the reason for no longer being able to destroy a city is to prevent an all-too-easy strategy of burning down a city when facing certain defeat. I could see doing this if I had no way of reinforcing a city and was left with too few surviving units to defend it after a battle. No doubt, I would definitely lose that city on the very next turn. In this case (and provided I had no chance of retaking it anytime soon) I would choose to destroy it rather than leaving it to an invader. That's pretty cheap and frustrating to a live player (imagine if the AI did that!)

While I'm not advocating the ability to raze your own cities in game, there is a historical precident for this style of defense.

Russia burned their cities in front of Napoleon's invading armies. A strategy that proved very effective.

The Civ4 parallel? Well, not having to actually feed your army keeps the supply line issue at a minimum, but armies in enemy lands do cost more. When that army conquors a city there is a financial reward. Razing your cities in advance of an invading army would prevent them from recovering that portion of their costs.

It's not exactly starving and freezing an enemy army in a Russian winter, but it's something.

So far as I know Russia never razed their own city because they picked a bad starting location, but I'm no history expert.

B

 

[Ambreville]

While I'm not advocating the ability to raze your own cities in game, there is a historical precident for this style of defense.

Yes, of course. There are plenty of examples of that in RW history. I was just talking about game mechanics and perceived game balance. The latter is maybe the reason why Sid's team blocked that alternative...

along with the hilarious issue of moving one's capital to another city.