Pillaging

[oPunchDrunko]

I’m just wondering if/ when you guys pillage, if at all?

When I go to war I generally like to pillage the other civs cities. I will usually move my army to one side of their borders while I send a calvary unit or two to the other side of their empire to pillage tiles. The only problem I face is being hit by a ranged city attack. That kind of limits my pillaging because if I take too much damage I have to retreat and heal.

What about you?

 

[wesplaysciv]

Yes, pillaging is great and it can be a viable alternative to capturing cities (although AI will sometimes leave things unrepaired for a while).
If I want to capture the city, I don't pillage districts since they are too annoying to repair. It probably still does make sense to, but I'd need a "queue all repairs" function.
The light calvary pillage for one movement point is great, and the Barbary Corsair too.

 

[HalveBlue]

Absolutely!

Pillaging grants awesome yields from most improvements. Districts that have multiple tiers of buildings can be pillaged multiple times, to really milk their respective yields. In my most recent game I managed to pillage enough enemy campus districts that I was able to earn the tech I was working on in one turn.

While pillaging farms doesn't generate gold, research, culture or faith, it does yield health for your forces, allowing to pillage for longer periods or replenish your forces during a prolonged siege.

 

[Chekko]

I pillage if I'm not certain I will take the city down. But if I know I will I don't want to spend gold or a couple of extra turns on a builder to repair all that. But if I was to play Harald and had that increased pillage reward policy I'd do it anyway.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The free city pillage trick is already widely used.

 

[Breadsmith]

If you slot the pillaging policy, it's a very likely possibility that you'll make enough gold/faith from pillaging an even moderately built city to just buy a builder to fix everything.

I just tend to drag a 1 charge builder around with me to fix everything. Just chain them to a ranged unit and you're good.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Even after the nerf to pillaging, pillaging is absolutely worth it.
Now that faith is a very powerful resource, try to pillage those quarries to afford you another free monumentality builder for good effect.
Heck, I've even used it to buy me a great prophet in the early game when needed.
Same with gold, you can easily pillage 100s of gold in one turn, which helps a lot when you're going the domination route to help sustain your army or keep up with upgrade costs.

Sometimes I even hold off on killing a city for 1 turn, just so I can pillage myself an extra 300-400 faith/gold, and then have my builder repair it afterwards anyway.

Note that if you plan to take the city as your own (especially later in the game), pillaging that Campus/Theatre square may not be worth it at all.
At best you will just gain 1-2 turns worth of science/culture, but once you take the city you have to spend a good deal of time repairing those districts.
Well worth it early though (50 culture when you are at 15 culture per turn is often well worth it, as you'll likely slingshot ahead towards juicy stuff like Political Philosophy etc.).

 

[UWHabs]

Even after the nerf to pillaging, pillaging is absolutely worth it.
Now that faith is a very powerful resource, try to pillage those quarries to afford you another free monumentality builder for good effect.
Heck, I've even used it to buy me a great prophet in the early game when needed.
Same with gold, you can easily pillage 100s of gold in one turn, which helps a lot when you're going the domination route to help sustain your army or keep up with upgrade costs.

Sometimes I even hold off on killing a city for 1 turn, just so I can pillage myself an extra 300-400 faith/gold, and then have my builder repair it afterwards anyway.

Note that if you plan to take the city as your own (especially later in the game), pillaging that Campus/Theatre square may not be worth it at all.
At best you will just gain 1-2 turns worth of science/culture, but once you take the city you have to spend a good deal of time repairing those districts.
Well worth it early though (50 culture when you are at 15 culture per turn is often well worth it, as you'll likely slingshot ahead towards juicy stuff like Political Philosophy etc.).

I'm invading a civ suzerain of La Venta, so they basically spammed their empire with colossal heads. With the bonus pillaging card, it's like 120-130 faith apiece to pillage those tiles, and they get completely deleted when I capture the city anyways. It's a no-brainer to pillage, even if it costs me a couple units that they have been able to pick off.

 

[NukeAJS]

Let's not forget being Rome, pillaging everything with legions, capturing the city, and then taking a turn or two for the legions to repair everything.

All the benefits of pillaging and hardly any negatives -- just a turn or two lost repairing the tiles which more than makes up for the turn or two lost yields. Well worth the trade-off of yields for time.