If you:
- do some war with some AI
- can capture AI's capitol city in the process, but
- you wouldn't like to puppet or annex it, because it's in some crap location and/or you don't want happiness/culture/science penalties which comes with it, and
- you wouldn't like to gift away that AI's capitol city to some other AI:
then read on.
The game won't allow to raze it literally, as everyone here most surely knows. However, i have found a way to reliably (almost) hand any AI's capitol to a city-state, which works in vast majority of cases.
For it to work, you'll need to have:
- technological lead over the AI (or at very least, being about the same level in terms of military units);
- a city state which is on the same landmass with the AI and borders its territory (note, it does NOT have to be adjucent to the capitol city itself - it just has to border _any_ of the AI's cities, at least a bit);
- overwhelmingly strong army (in compare to AI's);
If you don't have the above, then it's possible the method will fail at some point. The method itself is:
1. Capture AI's regular cities between AI's capitol city and the city-state, EXCEPT a single line of cities which are exactly between capitol city and the city-state. This will form a "road of conquest" for the city-state. You can keep any of captured cities at this stage, if you so desire. You can also raze them, but it might be helpful (for several reasons) to halt the razing for cities which are directly around the "road of conquest" until city-state captures the AI's capitol. Halting razing process at size 1 minimizes happiness hit; "avoid growth" allows to keep those at size 1. Also, those AI's cities which are left to be in AI's possession (for now, - forming the "road of conquest") - those are better to be at least 8 population each; better 10+. It reduces the risk that city-state wouldn't make it all the way to the AI's capitol to nearly 0, provided all the following is done right.
2. Once p.1 is done, or even several turns before it's done, start to gift melee units to the city-state, preferably ones which do not need any resource (unless city-state has needed resource, of course). Late-game, mechanized infantry works very well for its extra speed and nice combat strength, and it's relatively cheap to build. Also, build them (and possibly also buy some, if needed to keep the pace of 3 turns per unit gifted) in your best city in terms of producing units. If you have right wonders and buildings, then you can make 'em with 60 (or more) experience points, and already having Drill 1 promotion; this allows to get Drill 2, Drill 3, and either 2 attacks per turn, or March promotions (for gifts to a city-state, i guess the latter is better: two attacks per turn with no heal-on-the-go results in quite much damage taken, and the city-state is not any much intelligent about healing wounded ones up, it seems).
3. Once p.1 is done, make yourself the ally of the city-state (if not yet). If it's your ally for a long time already, - then possibly don't start with p.2 too early; boosting city-state army too early may trigger city-state offensive "campaign" in the wrong direction.
4. Keep taking out any AI's units on and around the "road of conquest" mentioned above, and around capitol city itself. Once city-state units move out to attack the nearest AI's city, damage that city to 0 health every turn, but do not capture it yourself. With the city at 0 health and some units from p.2, the city-state will capture it in no time.
5. Repeat p.4 for next city. The city-state will burn any captured cities, unless it's a capitol, of course. However, provided the city-state is still supplied with yet more (preferably fast) melee units as described in p.2, AND provided city-state offensive force is not distracted to any "sideways" targets (which p.1 and p.4, if done right, makes impossible), - in a few turns it takes for "previous" city to get burned down, the city-state will happily capture "next" city on that "path of conquest". Which eventually brings the city-state to capture the AI's capitol.
That's it.
AI's capitol is now captured by a city-state. Even if you lose your ally status with the city-state in the future - it most likely would still remain a territory you can pass through (being friendly). If you manage to keep ally status - then you get all the resources from that city territory (and there is a policy which gives bonuses to gifted luxures even if you have 'em yourself, i believe), and, needless to say, a more powerful overall city-state ally.
I just did this whole thing, once again, in my latest King / huge Earth / Epic speed game, during 1980s. The victim, Amsterdam, was 95 combat strength, 22 population city. Mechanized infantry with 90 base combat strength was mch more than enough to capture it. There were 3 other (regular) Dutch cities between the city-state and Amsterdam - half a continent away; that was not a problem at all.
P.S. Oh, and, of course, if you took out all other AI's cities by the time the city-state captures the AI's capitol, - then you wouldn't be held responsible for taking out whole civilization. City-state would be. How convinient, eh? ;·)
P.P.S. It helps very much to be Freedom ideology and to have that tenet which boosts influence from gifting units to city-states; then you'd get up to several hundreds points of influence during doing the thing, too.
- do some war with some AI
- can capture AI's capitol city in the process, but
- you wouldn't like to puppet or annex it, because it's in some crap location and/or you don't want happiness/culture/science penalties which comes with it, and
- you wouldn't like to gift away that AI's capitol city to some other AI:
then read on.
The game won't allow to raze it literally, as everyone here most surely knows. However, i have found a way to reliably (almost) hand any AI's capitol to a city-state, which works in vast majority of cases.
For it to work, you'll need to have:
- technological lead over the AI (or at very least, being about the same level in terms of military units);
- a city state which is on the same landmass with the AI and borders its territory (note, it does NOT have to be adjucent to the capitol city itself - it just has to border _any_ of the AI's cities, at least a bit);
- overwhelmingly strong army (in compare to AI's);
If you don't have the above, then it's possible the method will fail at some point. The method itself is:
1. Capture AI's regular cities between AI's capitol city and the city-state, EXCEPT a single line of cities which are exactly between capitol city and the city-state. This will form a "road of conquest" for the city-state. You can keep any of captured cities at this stage, if you so desire. You can also raze them, but it might be helpful (for several reasons) to halt the razing for cities which are directly around the "road of conquest" until city-state captures the AI's capitol. Halting razing process at size 1 minimizes happiness hit; "avoid growth" allows to keep those at size 1. Also, those AI's cities which are left to be in AI's possession (for now, - forming the "road of conquest") - those are better to be at least 8 population each; better 10+. It reduces the risk that city-state wouldn't make it all the way to the AI's capitol to nearly 0, provided all the following is done right.
2. Once p.1 is done, or even several turns before it's done, start to gift melee units to the city-state, preferably ones which do not need any resource (unless city-state has needed resource, of course). Late-game, mechanized infantry works very well for its extra speed and nice combat strength, and it's relatively cheap to build. Also, build them (and possibly also buy some, if needed to keep the pace of 3 turns per unit gifted) in your best city in terms of producing units. If you have right wonders and buildings, then you can make 'em with 60 (or more) experience points, and already having Drill 1 promotion; this allows to get Drill 2, Drill 3, and either 2 attacks per turn, or March promotions (for gifts to a city-state, i guess the latter is better: two attacks per turn with no heal-on-the-go results in quite much damage taken, and the city-state is not any much intelligent about healing wounded ones up, it seems).
3. Once p.1 is done, make yourself the ally of the city-state (if not yet). If it's your ally for a long time already, - then possibly don't start with p.2 too early; boosting city-state army too early may trigger city-state offensive "campaign" in the wrong direction.
4. Keep taking out any AI's units on and around the "road of conquest" mentioned above, and around capitol city itself. Once city-state units move out to attack the nearest AI's city, damage that city to 0 health every turn, but do not capture it yourself. With the city at 0 health and some units from p.2, the city-state will capture it in no time.
5. Repeat p.4 for next city. The city-state will burn any captured cities, unless it's a capitol, of course. However, provided the city-state is still supplied with yet more (preferably fast) melee units as described in p.2, AND provided city-state offensive force is not distracted to any "sideways" targets (which p.1 and p.4, if done right, makes impossible), - in a few turns it takes for "previous" city to get burned down, the city-state will happily capture "next" city on that "path of conquest". Which eventually brings the city-state to capture the AI's capitol.
That's it.
AI's capitol is now captured by a city-state. Even if you lose your ally status with the city-state in the future - it most likely would still remain a territory you can pass through (being friendly). If you manage to keep ally status - then you get all the resources from that city territory (and there is a policy which gives bonuses to gifted luxures even if you have 'em yourself, i believe), and, needless to say, a more powerful overall city-state ally.
I just did this whole thing, once again, in my latest King / huge Earth / Epic speed game, during 1980s. The victim, Amsterdam, was 95 combat strength, 22 population city. Mechanized infantry with 90 base combat strength was mch more than enough to capture it. There were 3 other (regular) Dutch cities between the city-state and Amsterdam - half a continent away; that was not a problem at all.
P.S. Oh, and, of course, if you took out all other AI's cities by the time the city-state captures the AI's capitol, - then you wouldn't be held responsible for taking out whole civilization. City-state would be. How convinient, eh? ;·)
P.P.S. It helps very much to be Freedom ideology and to have that tenet which boosts influence from gifting units to city-states; then you'd get up to several hundreds points of influence during doing the thing, too.
