Is is possible to "starve" a city?

[Bechhold]

I use the word "starve" as in make the city useless. No production, no food output and so forth. I have been unable to take this city, even though I have captured two of, I believe, four cities. This one just won't fall even with %0 defense. So I wonder if I could just go total war type and pillage every improvement and trade connection to it. Kind of like starve it out until the AI either surrenders or abandons it. I don't want to just keep feeding my units as fodder to the city.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/8042/starvejustinianxo2.jpg

There is only 1 connection left to the city AFAIK. I just want to know will this work or does it have any affect at all?

 

[Xellos-_^]

I use the word "starve" as in make the city useless. No production, no food output and so forth. I have been unable to take this city, even though I have captured two of, I believe, four cities. This one just won't fall even with %0 defense. So I wonder if I could just go total war type and pillage every improvement and trade connection to it. Kind of like starve it out until the AI either surrenders or abandons it. I don't want to just keep feeding my units as fodder to the city.

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/8042/starvejustinianxo2.jpg

There is only 1 connection left to the city AFAIK. I just want to know will this work or does it have any affect at all?

why go through all that effort, just take out the defenders.

if possible i never destroy any tile improvements, as i like to keep capture terrority as intack as possible.

 

[Joshua368]

Quit dancing around the city and just capture it instead.

Use seige to bombard defenses, then suicide some seige into it to weaken them, then use combat units to capture it.

 

[mechaerik]

it is possible- almost.

Simply put at least 1 unit in every tile in the BFC.

However the city will still utilize the tile its on.
But far simpler is to simply capture the city.

 

[Joshua368]

It won't actually accomplish anything though in regards to taking out the city.

It may starve to size 1 but the AI will never "abandon it" or empty its garrisan.

 

[Bechhold]

I nuked the city, problem solved. Thanks for the help.

 

[Xellos-_^]

I nuked the city, problem solved. Thanks for the help.

what was the reason why you couldn't capture it?

 

[Bechhold]

what was the reason why you couldn't capture it?

After I got the satellite tech I finally found out how they city kept getting reinforcements a inland city which was originally, I assume, a Barbarian state. It wasn't even near where I was looking so it was a pretty large city with a cap of 15. I thought the civ had a port city somewhere on the map so I pretty much wasted my navy turns looking for it. I also should have kept the city totally surrounded but was unable to due to only having one stack. But I while fighting them the Russians attacked me and I got distracted and techs came and went so I finally got tired and nuked the city which they became a vassal state.

 

[Spartan117]

Well remember from the picture it seems you are only on like some 3 tiles. The ai has a population of 15. He can simply work the other 17 tiles that his city borders cover. Especially considering that he still has access to the wheat farm.

You can starve a a city back to 1 population however if the city has already expanded its cultural borders to include the total 20 tiles it will be quite difficult unless the cities population is quite big. Turn on the view that indicates the production, food, and commerce on all the tiles. 2 pieces of bread supports 1 population. With some simple math you can determine whether or not your "siege" will work and starve his city.

This particular city will be difficult because of all the grasslands. You will lower the ai's commerce and production but the city is not likely to starve.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Don't attack from across the river. That saps 25% of your strength.

 

[say1988]

The only times I have found it useful to starve rather than assault are:
1) Privateers on coastal cities or other ships on enemy cities you won't get an army to soon (say you are fighting near your border, starve their rear production cities that rely on seafood). On an archipelago map you can put every city to size 3 or 4 max with like no commerce or production.
2) If you have the cultural power but don't want war and you had previously owned the city, you can take up its tiles and make it useless to the AI, in fact it becomes a drain. If you never owned the city, you will just flip it. But this is extremely rare.

You cannot defeat a city without an assault. I think it should be possible (historically so many sieges were not decided by an assault, but the lack of supplies or a battle with the relief army), but it isn't.

 

[Spartan117]

I forget to mention that since each citizen costs 2 food, unhappy citizens cost food but arent able to do anything and for each unhealthiness point it is minus 1 food. So if your total unhealthiness is 5 more than healthiness than that city will have minus 5 pieces of food. For the most part it is better simply to attempt to take te city than starving the city. If you arent able to take the city you should take into consideration the difficulty of starving the city. Maybe it might be wiser to simply destroy improvement if you can.