Removing cities

[Grump]

Two things are bugging me about cities. I've conquered a bunch of AI cities and being built by the AI they are retardedly placed and I need to find an easy way to get rid of them without committing an atrocity I think starving them might do it but do it but is that alone enough and what additional steps do I need to take.

Also I've conquered a faction and make it join a Pact. How do I keep them from starving my cities with all the ones they found all over the place?

 

[FlayerSlayer]

I don't believe you can starve them out of existence, but what I've done before is starve them down to 1 population, then build a colony pod. When the pod leaves the city, it will take the last population and poof, no more city and no atrocity. Plus, now you have a colony pod to replace somewhere more intelligent.

Barring that, I can only think of terraforming around it to drown the city, which may be faster but will also leave you with a new lake you might not want.

 

[Grump]

I don't believe you can starve them out of existence, but what I've done before is starve them down to 1 population, then build a colony pod. When the pod leaves the city, it will take the last population and poof, no more city and no atrocity. Plus, now you have a colony pod to replace somewhere more intelligent.

Barring that, I can only think of terraforming around it to drown the city, which may be faster but will also leave you with a new lake you might not want.

How do you prevent a surrendered pact member from founding cities like crazy in your territory encircling your bases with their own and starving them? Its very annoying...

 

[FlayerSlayer]

Oh gosh... if you find an answer to that one, please let me know! Some of my best squares and highest producing bases are getting strangled by a surrendered enemy expanding right up against me.

 

[Grump]

Oh gosh... if you find an answer to that one, please let me know! Some of my best squares and highest producing bases are getting strangled by a surrendered enemy expanding right up against me.

I've had that problem ever since I started playing years ago. If there is some mod or way to do something as simple as increasing the distance cities can be founded next to each other someone let us know.

 

[xerkon]

I made the mistake of accepting Miriam's surrender instead of wiping her out. I ended up breaking the pact and taking the hit in my integrity rating. It was worth it to wipe her off the face of the earth.

Do factions swear a pact to serve you before you've almost wiped them out? If you've almost wiped someone out I'd say just finish the job and take the bases of theirs that would end up stealing your resources.

 

[sendos]

I don't believe you can starve them out of existence, but what I've done before is starve them down to 1 population, then build a colony pod. When the pod leaves the city, it will take the last population and poof, no more city and no atrocity. Plus, now you have a colony pod to replace somewhere more intelligent.

Barring that, I can only think of terraforming around it to drown the city, which may be faster but will also leave you with a new lake you might not want.

(In red) is that actually possible? Because when you build a colony pod at a base of 1, a popup appears, giving you three options. Perhaps that is one of the options. I need to go and look into that.

You know, you can "lift" atrocities by repealing the UN charter. Do that, then destroy the unnecessary bases.

 

[Grump]

(In red) is that actually possible? Because when you build a colony pod at a base of 1, a popup appears, giving you three options. Perhaps that is one of the options. I need to go and look into that.

You know, you can "lift" atrocities by repealing the UN charter. Do that, then destroy the unnecessary bases.

I just tried it today and yes it is possible. Still looking for the pact solution though. Territory management is one of the few significant advantages the newer civ games have over SMAC

 

[Petek]

Two things are bugging me about cities. I've conquered a bunch of AI cities and being built by the AI they are retardedly placed and I need to find an easy way to get rid of them without committing an atrocity I think starving them might do it but do it but is that alone enough and what additional steps do I need to take.

Also I've conquered a faction and make it join a Pact. How do I keep them from starving my cities with all the ones they found all over the place?

IIRC, submissive pact mates won't found bases in your territory. They may cross your territory with a Colony Pod and try to found a base in a "hole". You can prevent this, I think, by asking them to withdraw when the CP is within your boundary. A submissive pact mate will always honor a request to withdraw. The other way that they will infringe on your territory is to build bases right at the edge of your boundaries. I don't think there's any way to prevent this without modding the game. You might want to experiment with changing the following line in Alpha(x).txt:

8, ; Territory: max distance from base

Change the 8 to a higher value and see what happens. I'm not positive, but I don't think this will affect sea boundaries.

 

[FlayerSlayer]

No, surrendered factions will NOT build INSIDE my territory. This is true. But in cases where they already have a base close to me (because they built their bases as close as possible to one another and their last base is now a mere 3-4 squares from my conquered bases), they have territory so close that they can sometimes build WITHIN MY BASE SQUARES. And they do. Every time. I believe it's intentional. They "surrendered" and they're "subservient," but this is the passive aggressive way they have left to continue attacking me.

 

[Petek]

No, surrendered factions will NOT build INSIDE my territory. This is true. But in cases where they already have a base close to me (because they built their bases as close as possible to one another and their last base is now a mere 3-4 squares from my conquered bases), they have territory so close that they can sometimes build WITHIN MY BASE SQUARES. And they do. Every time. I believe it's intentional. They "surrendered" and they're "subservient," but this is the passive aggressive way they have left to continue attacking me.

I know of no sure way to prevent the behavior you describe. You might try building a couple of mind worms. The "release them into the wild" near the base before it can build a garrison. However, even if the mind worm destroys the base, the AI will send another CP to the same location.

 

[xerkon]

(In red) is that actually possible? Because when you build a colony pod at a base of 1, a popup appears, giving you three options. Perhaps that is one of the options. I need to go and look into that.

You know, you can "lift" atrocities by repealing the UN charter. Do that, then destroy the unnecessary bases.

I think on lower difficulty levels building a colony pod won't reduce the population below 1, but on the higher one's it will, which is maybe why Grump did it and you can't. Maybe. It seems like I read somewhere that you can't reduce pop to below 1 with a colony pod unless difficulty level is at Librarian or higher (I think that's the cutoff but I could be wrong.)

 

[Petek]

At Citizen and Specialist (the two lowest levels) building a Colony Pod in a size one base doesn't reduce the population.

 

[vyeh]

I answered the question of eliminating a base at Citizen and Specialist. To starve a base of 1 to 0, you use a crawler or crawlers to send nutrients to another base.

 

[Volcanon]

Surrendered pact brothers are a great resource. 99% of the time they will give into your demands and I've never seen one break the pact because of a demand. They value newly made cities very low, so just demand the city the turn they make it. You will 99% get it.

The same goes for money (every 5-10 turns you can get a windfall) and techs (may apply if they have enough viable cities left to be able to do teching).

 

[General Tso]

I haven't tried it, but it looks like editing this line in alpha.txt (and alphax.text) would allow you to obliterate cities without a problem.

1 ; If non-zero, obliterating a base counts as an atrocity

 

[vyeh]

That is correct. If it is set to 0, obliterating a base wouldn't affect your commerce although it would affect your diplomatic relations with the previous owner of the base.

 

[sendos]

I know of no sure way to prevent the behavior you describe. You might try building a couple of mind worms. The "release them into the wild" near the base before it can build a garrison. However, even if the mind worm destroys the base, the AI will send another CP to the same location.

Same question but for this (underlined): is that possible and if yes, what button do I press?

 

[vyeh]

I believe you right click on the unit or select the action menu when the unit is active and you will see the option when the unit is a tamed mind worm.