Raze or occupy?

[MikeEdward]

One of the problems I have early on in the game is if I defeat a civ's army in a city, I need to garrison it with enough units to keep it under control. This leaves me less units to attack the next city with. But if I raze it, I can keep the army moving, but then another civ might settle the land, leaving me with little reward for my hard work.

Do you guys raze or occupy?

 

[BlackMage]

It really depends on your objectives and the placement of the city. In the very early game, where civs are spread far apart, raze, because if you don't your economy will tank from maintenance costs. If it's a later war or a war as a land grab, occupy.

 

[Sisiutil]

Going by what BM said, it often makes sense to raze in the early game, let the AI resettle the area, and then keep that 2nd city when you take it in late game.

I always find it a tough call, and there are no hard rules, other than keeping any holy cities or ones containing World Wonders. Before the final unit attacks, I consider things like the city's population, its location, access to resources, distance from my capital (and therefore its likely maintenance cost), available units for garrison duty, and especially my strategic objectives.

For example, in my most recent game, I razed a good sized (pop 5) city in a pretty good location because, first, I did not have a lot of units, and second, my next objective was a city on a hill garrisoned by Longbowmen, so I knew I'd need every available unit for that assault. That hill city was also more valuable: pop 8 with gold mines in its fat cross, while the one I razed had a wheat tile, I think.

Keep in mind that if the AI resettles a razed city site, if you can get back to it quickly enough, that city will probably be lightly defended and have little or no cultural defense.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

Always raze unless:

a) it's a holy city you want to hold on to
b) the city has a wonder that will be useful in the future
c) you want the city as a military base
d) (early game only) you were going to build a city there yourself and the AI beat you to it

In practice I end up razing about 60% of the cities I conquer, keeping the rest.

I guess one question you need to ask is why you captured the city in the first place... was it to gain territory, or was it to put the hurt on a competitor? Middle Ages onward, most of my wars tend to be punitive in nature, i.e. invade the tech leader and leave him with two tundra cities and a whole lot of empty territory...

 

[TheDervish]

If I have a goal I really want to accomplish, i.e. getting rid of two cities of my opponent, and I find that I can't hold a city AND conquer more, I'll raze it -- usually I am a keeper, though

 

[cabert]

i'm a keeper at heart, but i try to get rid of this addiction.
currently i use this ratio:

early wars:
unless wonders/holy city, i raze everything short of a near capitol city.
capitol cities have usually some good bonuses, and i try to capture them last, so no problem defending.

middle age wars
unless wonders/holy city, i raze everything short of a capitol city and one big size+perfect place city

late wars

i keep one city for bombers, raze the rest unless wonders/holy city, or needed for land grab = at least 6 tiles between 2 cities I keep.

 

[Sisiutil]

I should add that another consideration is whether or not a city is coastal.

I usually aim to conquer my entire continent. It makes it a lot easier to pursue my chosen victory condition, as the AI is more reluctant, and finds it much more challenging, to attempt an intercontinental invasion.

If I raze a coastal city, the other AIs inevitably jump on the opportunity to send a Galley or a Galleon with a Settler and a defender onto my continent. Which is annoying at the very least, and possibly dangerous.

So I'm now starting to keep coastal cities, even lousy ones on tundra or ice, to keep the continent to myself. If I raze, it's inland cities, and I'll cancel Open Borders if I see a shipload of settlers approaching my land mass to try to claim those spots.

 

[pigswill]

One of the many things I need to work on is attack order. It makes more sense to attack the cities you're going to raze first and leave the cities you want to keep until the end of the invasion. Obviously lots of other factors involved but it's one of the considerations. As well as considerations re holy city, wonders, resources etc you also need to think about how these all fit in with your current empire. In one sense it doesn't really matter if another civ occupies a spot you didn't want anyway, its likely to be pretty naff and at least you can negotiate with other civs which isn't true of barbarians.

 

[ChicagoCubs]

One of the problems I have early on in the game is if I defeat a civ's army in a city, I need to garrison it with enough units to keep it under control. This leaves me less units to attack the next city with. But if I raze it, I can keep the army moving, but then another civ might settle the land, leaving me with little reward for my hard work.

Do you guys raze or occupy?

In your case, you need to bring along additional troops for garrison forces. Warfare is more than just the attacking force.

 

[Tephros]

It makes more sense to attack the cities you're going to raze first and leave the cities you want to keep until the end of the invasion.

For better or worse I normally attack what I call the "core cities" first, i.e. the civs primary production or commerce cities, which are often near each other. If I can cripple their research and/or production the rest of the war is much easier, and I am much more likely to finish them off quickly. I'll send a couple of garrison troops with my attacking force. Sometimes I will also send a smaller force to take out, say, their only iron source so they can't build more knights or whatever.

As far as razing in general, I look mostly at the population, development, resources, victory condition I'm going for, and the state of my economy. In my current game I razed the jewish holy city not just out of spite, but because I had my own religion and the city was surrounded by desert, resources I already had, and a population of 2... Though I must admit nothing is more satisfying than burning Isabella's precious holy city to the ground. Another small city was in the middle of the jungle before I had iron working, but I kept it because it guaranteed me access to ivory (if I could have just one resouce, ivory would be it). If I'm going for an early domination win I'm going to keep more cities than I would if I were going for space, and I'd keep more with space than if I were going for cultural.

 

[cabert]

for cultural you "need" 6/9/12 cities (well, you get away with 4/6/8, but it's harder work) depending on map size. The point is to have cathedrals of every available religion in every legendary going city.

And they don't need to be all very good cities.

But you need to avoid wars as much as possible in the end-game.
So i go with sisutil on this. Don't let a foreigner build any city on your borders = keep cities to block AIs off your territory.
What they don't see does not tempt them.

 

[Killroyan]

I hardly ever raze a city and don't see the use of it much. Maybe it has bad placement sometimes but taking over a city with say pop 5 and some buildings is always better then razing and starting from scratch imho. The only thing you don't have to worry about with razing is cultural border pressure or loosing it to the enemy. Maybe I haven't been in enough games yet where I had to fight really hard to get and hold some cities.

 

[cabert]

I hardly ever raze a city and don't see the use of it much. Maybe it has bad placement sometimes but taking over a city with say pop 5 and some buildings is always better then razing and starting from scratch imho. The only thing you don't have to worry about with razing is cultural border pressure or loosing it to the enemy. Maybe I haven't been in enough games yet where I had to fight really hard to get and hold some cities.

you only see half the point
the city you capture is hurting you in 2 ways:
- immediately, you need troops to defend it. Troops that would be put to better use in capturing the next city.
- in the long run, if they don't pay for themselves. Don't forget city maintenance can be high if you have too many cities.

the key is to keep only cities that are beneficial in the long run, and to take them when you have troops at hand to keep them

 

[Silver Marmot]

Whenever I'm at war, I tend to aim for the core cities first, which are the most likely to have good wonders and/or be holy cities. I keep the core cities because of the wonders and the fact that my troops are in poor health and I want them to recover quicker. Then I use my recovered troops to hit the other, smaller cities. I raze those and replace them with my own.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Whenever I'm at war, I tend to aim for the core cities first, which are the most likely to have good wonders and/or be holy cities. I keep the core cities because of the wonders and the fact that my troops are in poor health and I want them to recover quicker. Then I use my recovered troops to hit the other, smaller cities. I raze those and replace them with my own.

I do it just the other way.
First raze the cities next to the ones I want to keep to get rid of their culture.

 

[Andorim]

I do it just the other way.
First raze the cities next to the ones I want to keep to get rid of their culture.

I think I like that idea. I'll have to try it. What I usually do is start at one end and bulldoze through to the other, keeping or razing as appropriate. I think this idea has some real merit (at least for my games).

 

[Valpo]

I prefer to occupy simply because I don't want to spend the time getting settlers there and its easier to just beat down the resistance and build some culture producing buildings.

Plus its nice for the units to have a place to heal up after they conquer it.

Although your right it does slow your invasion down a bit.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

One of the problems I have early on in the game is if I defeat a civ's army in a city, I need to garrison it with enough units to keep it under control. This leaves me less units to attack the next city with. But if I raze it, I can keep the army moving, but then another civ might settle the land, leaving me with little reward for my hard work.

Do you guys raze or occupy?

It depends on the nature of the war, and your available military units. I find that if you are waging war very far away, and with little hope in garrisoning effectively, you should raze the city. This is especially true when you are fighting a desperate war where all you want to do is knock your enemy out. Razing even just a couple of valuable cities, especially the old ones that have been around for 5000 years and have every tile improvement and building in them, will go a long way to crippling your enemy's ability to wage war.

 

[cabert]

I prefer to occupy simply because I don't want to spend the time getting settlers there and its easier to just beat down the resistance and build some culture producing buildings.

Plus its nice for the units to have a place to heal up after they conquer it.

Although your right it does slow your invasion down a bit.

i don't want too many cities (maintenance !), but i do want the land grab
that's why i leave 6 tiles between 2 cities i keep (on average), so i get all the land after i put some culture in it (culture bombing, or just buildings + artists+slider)

 

[Jayhawk_Colin]

You also have to consider wether or not you can keep teh city.

I had a hell of a time taking a city earlier today. I had 10 Horse Archer v. 4 Longbowmen. I lost all but 2 of my units. The city was in a nice location and was home to Stonehenge. I decided to keep it, but I should have razed it. I ended up losing the city and it took another 10 troops to take it back.