Q:Starving down captured cities

[samizdat]

When starving down newly captured cities with high culture, is it better to starve them to 1 or can you get away with less? Also, is there any way to keep the city workers as entertainers without resetting them every turn? I'm assuming there is and I just am missing it. Thank You.

 

[Angmar]

Every turn you will have to tell them to go back to entertainers. Its a bit of a headache, but then the game designers didnt assume that you would actually want to kill off your population

I always starve them down to 1. The only time I dont is when I see an end in the next couple of turns for the civ entirely. ie: The last couple cities I take before their final one probably wont be starved.

I find that a city that was once 12+ will grow back to that size very very quickly. In theory ( if you didnt bust everything ) it is already roaded/railed/irrigated.

 

[wilbill]

If it's a city that seems in danger of flipping I starve it down to 1 or 2. If there's little or no danger of a flip, AND there's sufficient food that I can start populatiing it with my citizens in a few turns, I only starve a couple of population points down, sometimes none.
After several really annoying mistakes and a lot of reading about the culture flip formula, I've gotten pretty good at estimating how much population I can leave. Haven't had a city flip on me in quite a while.

 

[Zouave]

Doesn't the total lack of realism bother you about all this even if the unethical genocide doesn't?? I mean, let's have a LITTLE realism and historical accuracy here.

Mass starvation; Flipping Formulas; bah. I thought PTW allowed one to turn it off.

 

[wilbill]

It does, Zouave. And you can use the editor to eliminate or minimize almost any feature of the game you don't like.

I didn't like culture flipping the first time I lost a city. Or the second. But I learned to deal with it and I don't think there's been a third time. Civ 3 has already held my interest longer than the earlier games in the Civ series because it has challenges (like CF) that require me to think past "what's the next city I should conquer?"

I don't like CF. Or War Weariness, or Resource Depletion, or losing tanks to spearmen. But instead of eliminating them or minimizing them, I try to learn to deal with them and still win - usually.

As far as "unethical genocide" is concerned - it's a game. Starving population, razing cities, dropping nukes, and using captured labor are part of the game. If I use a cheat to beat you in a MP game, that's unethical. BTW I almost never raze cities, use nukes only as deterrance, and only use captured workers until I don't need them, then give them back. It helps my reputation with the AI's.

 

[Charis]

I lost whatever pretense of not liking 'starving down' when I saw a city with our rushed Forbidden Palace, *AND* an ARMY and a stack of nearly a dozen units FLIP. I don't mind the concept of flipping in general, but that's just absurd.

It's game mechanics. If it's a flip risk, starve 'em down to 1.
Neither shall ye starve to 2, nor shall ye starve to 4.
5 is right out!!!

Actually, if they're out of resistance, I'll often rush out a worker or two along the way if it's initially a large city. After Nationalism I seldom capture and keep anymore, as the AI will draft them into such unhappiness I'll never get anything useful out of the city. Of course, sometimes you just want the city long enough to that you can move troops through it to the next city. Even then, starve 'em.
As already mentioned, yes, you must manually put them back on entertainers.

TIP! Don't make entertainers. If you're going to starve, set every single last citizen to taxmen. Not just one or two or enough to starve, but every citizen. Why not get some cash out of the city. You sure don't need clowns!

The only real exception is if you plan to wipe out the civ in course of the next several turns, when the flip risk goes to zero.

Charis

 

[Bismarck]

Originally posted by Zouave
Doesn't the total lack of realism bother you about all this even if the unethical genocide doesn't?? I mean, let's have a LITTLE realism and historical accuracy here.

Mass starvation; Flipping Formulas; bah. I thought PTW allowed one to turn it off.

Starving cities down is a response to an already unhistorical feature, namely, cultural city-flipping. Sometimes it's necessary to counter down an unrealistic feature with an unrealistic strategy.