How to manage conquered cities

[kurdi]

I read in this forum somewhere that caste system is the warmongeror's best tool for managing captured cities. I assume this to mean the following:

- Since new cities will have maintainance costs and will not generate income, they will drain my economy and therefore lower my research

- Therefore, get caste system and force 2 merchants who will generate +6 commerce between the 2 of them, transforming the city from a commerce drain (minus) to breaking even or even generating + commerce

Is this correct?

My question is: whenever I do so I invariably starve my new new cities, turning them into mediocre cities with no production to speak of. Is there something I am missing?

Also, is it desirable to starve captured cities, i.e. drain those citizens who want to rejoin their motherland.

 

[TBox]

No, what makes Caste System rock in conquered cities is that the effect of a Revolt (That little fist icon next to a city) is to give your city no culture radius. Your citizens are not unhappy, they're just unable to work any tiles. If you conquer a city with 12 population, you get 12 citizens doing nothing. If you have caste system, you can have unlimited artists... so make 12 artists in your newly conquered city. That's nearly 50 culture for each turn of revolt, when your city can't produce anything anyways. You can spring out of revolt with enough culture in place to spring your borders a couple times. If your massive armies can clear out the neighboring cities, the city's ready to support itself on the spot.

 

[picus]

The artists thing is good, but I normally do the merchant thing. When I'm warring I'm taking over a lot of cities - that leads to a big financial drain. Caste system lets me put a bunch of merchants in the cities which helps me war longer. There's a good write-up about this in the "Roman War Machine" thread.

 

[TBox]

Does a city in revolt produce commerce? I know it doesn't produce food or production, and I know it *does* produce culture... if you have Sistine Chapel or use Artists, but not about commerce.

I still think the big bonus from Caste System comes when the city is still in revolt, not after.

 

[kurdi]

Oh... while still in revolt?? ... I had no idea.

I could have sworn that I **tried** to force specialists while the city was still in revolt without the computer allowing it to happen. This might explain why everybody's raving about the Roman war machine while I'm overexpanding and being foiled every time.

In my current game, my first on emperor, I found iron and stone near my first 2 cities, and managed to build pyramids (for representation and +3 happiness in the 5 largest cities and +3 beakers per scientist) as well as a praetorian every other turn. I thought I had a great start, but nonetheless I was soon bankrupt, overextended, and unable to produce enough defenders to keep my frontier cities, which anyway were being squeezed by other civs' culture and flipping over.

Eventually I was roundly trounced by china's knights, which seemed to appear much earlier than I thought possible.

 

[dowski]

I had never used Caste System before last night. I can't remember the drawbacks off hand, but for some reason they turned me off.

Well, it worked pretty well (love those scientists) and this bit of info is even better!

Thanks for the info.

dowski

 

[TBox]

Well, I play spiritual, and I remember looking at a newly conquered city and admiring all the not-unhappy citizens, and switched to Caste System to see what would happen. I didn't even have to force it, they just all flopped to artists automatically. But maybe I'm misremembering, will have to try it again.

Although I really think I'm right, since you can find comments about the Sistine Chapel "bug" in other threads. (Sistine Chapel makes all specialists -- including Citizens -- give +2 culture per turn. A newly conquered city is all citizens...)

True, *after* the revolt, they quickly starved from size 12 down to size 3... even with the culture boost, I couldn't compete with my neighbors for the farms that used to feed the city. But the instant radius spread right over some water, so I only had to rush a lighthouse to have it start growing again. And I'm not an aggressive person. This was one city right on the border. If I had conquered the next city over, too, this city would have had a full radius instantly.

 

[ZippyRiver]

From what i have seen (not using caste). Nothing gets produced for the city DURING the revolt, but everything get accumulated at least from the specialists. For example, I captured Rome with a pop of about 15. For 10 turns or so the city was in revolt and it would appear that nothing was being done. I put a theater in the queue anyway. The very turn it came out of revolt, there was a considerable amount of hammers already applied to the building and was able to finish it the next turn. It also had a border the next turn because of the accumulated culter from those workers (1 hammer/2 culture each).

The faces that are red in a captured city do nothing, as expected. But any normal citizens throw in their antes and wait for the cards to be dealt. I am not sure however, if tiles that you can put ppl down on also (from a culture border from a neighboring city) accumulate, but see no reason why they wouldn't. I am about to redeclare war on Rome and finish him off and will do a brief test when the oppertunity arises. I am limited as to the amount of testing I can do as my system is very slow loading. It will not be a large city (preferably one that has about 5 turns of revolt). I myself want to know for sure about whether or not food gets saved up. If it does, it will help reduce population lost from starvation as there will be some in the box. (I hope)

 

[alexti2]

I prefer to use slavery in these circumstances. AI tends to have large cities and you while they were ok for AI with all his bonuses, for me there would be few unhappy people even if almost everybody else wasn't complaining about me being at war with their mother nation. So my solution is to quickly use up all those unhappy people to construct some useful buildings and make city profitable

 

[magerain]

Personally I believe using caste system civic in such way is exploitation of game mechanics. Cities in resistance should produce nothing. And the fact that nobody actually feeds your specialist, but they don't starve, alarms me too.

 

[ZippyRiver]

And the fact that nobody actually feeds your specialist, but they don't starve, alarms me too.

They are eating up all the food stores that were present before capture. Thats why the food box is empty when the revolt ends....

Hell, look at the Y2K fiasco. Gorcery stores got emptied and revolt was not an issue (just a threat). All those popheads stocked up.

 

[TBox]

I can invent several reasons why it's okay for it to work that way, but I agree it feels a little funny.

Bottom line is I'm weak willed and will exploit this for as long as it lasts, though. Besides, it's kinda fun to imagine everyone in military camps, not allowed to wander the tiles without a permit, forced to build religious gewgaws and/or write nationalistic poetry...

 

[loveandpolitics]

For a start I think city gifting should NOT be removed. After all, we want MORE diplomatic control don't we? Obviously the AI has to get clever though.

One thing that I would have liked is the ablity to raze your own cities at will as well. After all, it has happend in history where leaders completly destroyed cities that were revolting against them. Of course razing your own city should be allowed only under certain civics etc.

 

[kurdi]

Personally I believe using caste system civic in such way is exploitation of game mechanics. Cities in resistance should produce nothing.

I dont think its an exploit. I mean, conquerors in the real world have often resorted to creating an artificial "cast system" where they created an elite class out of some minority, and this elite class essentially ran the country for them as their quasi agents, typically, with disastrous consquences for the country in the long term after the conquerors left. Think about such civil conflicts as involving, for example, the Tutsi in Rwanda (special relationship with the Belgians), Maronites in Lebanon (special relationship with the French), or the Sunnis in Iraq (given the power to lord over other factions first by the Ottomans and then by the British).

Ok perhaps I'm getting a bit too esoteric, but I really dont think it is an exploit. It simply seems untenable to be playing as a warmongeror successfully on emperor without using caste system.

 

[magerain]

I'm still convinced it's an exploit. They eat much more than food supply left. And nobody's feeding them.
But I don't mean to convince you if you have fun playing with it. I have belief about exploits too. If exploit makes game funnier for you,then it's a feature

 

[salty]

I think it's an exploit. There is a wonder that gives you a free specialist per city. I don't *think* that works in revolt, so why should caste system? Anybody have it handy to check?

 

[obsolete]

They way I look at it, the AI on higher levels cheats like a mother****er! A little help is ok. We are not going way out of line by preventing the AI from building a space-ship or anything...

 

[magerain]

If it's exploit it's a minor one. All it does is speeds up city radius growing from "thin city square" into city fat cross. And latter mostly saves a couple of pops from starvation. Starved ones are most likely unhappy anyways.