Raze or Keep

[lordqarlyn]

Can you give examples of the factors you look at and what influences your decision?

I tend to raze if:
Distance makes maintenance costs too high
too many cities overlapping (increases maintenance but limited potential)
Too many coastal tile, but the city is not on the coast (means limited use sea tiles)
Other bad locations, little or no resources, or little food potential meaning I could not use it as an effective SE city.

Otherwise, I will keep the city.

Edit: I should add if I am pissed at a particular civilization, I will raze cities as part of a scorched-earth vengeful policy. Perhaps not smart, but can sure be fun!

 

[Heathen_Penguin]

Just wanted to add that another disadvantage of razing is the possibility of partisans.

Heathen

 

[TM Moot]

The more Cities you have the higher your CIty maintenance is. Not sure of the figures mind.

I try to keep any I conquer, but will raze if it won't enhance my Empire.

One thing I found to my cost recently, everytime I razed a City, half a dozen partizan defenders sprouted up and attacked my invading force.

 

[UncleJJ]

The more Cities you have the higher your CIty maintenance is. Not sure of the figures mind.

The maintenace cost of a city has two components, one due to distance from palace and the other due to number of cities. The problem you get at the start of the game, and this is why people fear maintenance costs so much, is as you add cities the maintenance costs of all your existing cities is increased regardless of their distance and size. Fortunately, the number of cities component is capped at 6 gold in all cities (at Emperor level) and a courthouse reduces that to 3. Once that cap has been reached (at about 14 cities, IIRC) you only need worry about the actual cost of the actual city you're keeping as other cities are no longer affected by the decision to keep the city. A city will then cost 3 + distance cost (depends on city size and distance). In the late game the distance cost can be removed entirely by running State Property so the cost then simply becomes 3 per city.

One thing I found to my cost recently, everytime I razed a City, half a dozen partizan defenders sprouted up and attacked my invading force.

A good reason not to raze I have to admit, I have not intentionally razed a city in BtS yet so I guess I'm not exactly well qualified to comment in this thread.

 

[CivMcNut]

Cities with a lot of grassland or floodplain tiles are good choices to keep, especially if they are fairly good size. They will eventually pay for themselves and contribute a good amount of science/espionage/hammers towards propelling you to victory. Cities on ice, desert, and tundra I tend to level as they will just kill your maintenence costs. Cities on plains, or with a lot of ocean tiles are on the bubble depending on resources present.

One thing to keep in mind is if you have repairable relations with the civ, and you think you might need them to be an ally later on and you're fighting them, then you might not want to attack any cities you would have to raze. As razing a city gets a -2 penalty on diplomacy and this does not go away with time. So if you go in and burn down 3 border cities, and sign a peace treaty, you've still got a permanent enemy that will (depending on the AI) go after you any chance they get.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this yet:

If you're pursuing a Conquest Victory, raze all but the "best" cities to keep yourself adequately beneath the land area %.

 

[Crowqueen]

Just wanted to add that another disadvantage of razing is the possibility of partisans.

Partisans? Haven't come across them yet in Civ 4.

I always keep. I do it for the territory, and have fun renaming something like Tokyo or Moscow after tiny villages in my area when I'm playing England.

Mostly when I am conquering I am doing so in the modern era, so I have upwards of +100/+200/+300 gold per turn so I can afford the upkeep.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this yet:

If you're pursuing a Conquest Victory, raze all but the "best" cities to keep yourself adequately beneath the land area %.

Or just vassalize your opponents without taking much land. They contribute only 50% towards domination but 100% towards conquest.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

There are also some late game reasons to raze an enemy city. If the city is on another continent and you can't keep it anyway due to the counter attack or oppressive culture that has been long established then a quick naval invasion can steal the city which is razed. Other cases of late game razing is when the other civ is going for a cultural victory or even a space race.

Late game culture sabotage is a very good reason to raze. Probably the only one I ever use. You don't want to garrison and risk the city going back into AI hands in that case. Razing the city totally acheives the objective in one hit.

Space race I am not so sure - maybe if you know where their iron works city is and its very close. But losing one city doesn't dent their space ambitions too much. Unless they are mainly coastal then a full scale thermonuclear war might be the best option. That usually slows down the space race a little.

But in any other case of intercontinental invasion I will keep the cities. By the time I can do an intercontinental raid I can easily afford the maintenance either by building FP, running state property or just setting up a colony. Any of these is better than razing.

 

[Heathen_Penguin]

Partisans? Haven't come across them yet in Civ 4.
<snip>

I do not raze often. But in some games where I have razed the cities, partisans have appeared. They can definitely slow the advance. Sometimes they appear around the razed city; sometimes in the capital. They are not a specific (weak) unit as in previous versions, but are units of the era and can be a real hinderance.

Heathen

 

[ck07]

Or just vassalize your opponents without taking much land. They contribute only 50% towards domination but 100% towards conquest.

In a recent Warlords game I killed everyone but my vassals and did NOT win a conquest victory.

CK

Suggestion on razing: It's all about CoL. Before, keep what you can afford; after, you can afford almost any city.

Q: Razing makes them hate you, but does it affect the threshold at which they will capitulate?

 

[InvisibleStalke]

In a recent Warlords game I killed everyone but my vassals and did NOT win a conquest victory.

If all your vassals are from capitulation you will win a conquest victory. You are only prevented if one of your vassals volunteered to become your vassal.

 

[nbcman]

@InvisibleStalke
I won a Conquest victory (Tiny, Prince) with a voluntary Vassal (Wang Kon). Hannibal attacked WK. The turn I finished researching Feudalism WK offered to vassalize to me. I then attacked Hannibal and captured all of his cities. When Hannibal's last city fell I received a Conquest victory.

 

[J4Ck]

didnt won any prince or harder level games... but considering keeping or razeing, i tend to keep most of them especially if they are on the good spot (lots plains/hills/resource tiles). if two or more cities are overlapping i'll keep one (best location) and raze the others.
razing is problematic if you're after conquest or domination (my favorite) cause after some time enemy will found city on the same location if its possible, so sometimes ill keep even those cities that are on very poor locations.

maybe razing and leaving some army on the spot would not be a bad idea

 

[Cutlass]

I have very rarely deliberately razed a city unless it was a situation where it just wasn't practical to keep it.

 

[DMOC]

I rarely raze cities. Even when I raze cities in the ANCIENT era I get partisans every single time...anyone know how to stop this?

 

[CivMcNut]

I rarely raze cities. Even when I raze cities in the ANCIENT era I get partisans every single time...anyone know how to stop this?

Yeah I would like to know what makes this trigger. I've had trouble with this in every era this current game I'm playing. That can be a big deterrant to razing a city.