Returning cities

[Fredric Drum]

Hi, just a question that I can't find the answer to.

I remember distinctly that when Civ 5 was first releasted, it was possible to capture a city that was already conquered by someone, and then return the city to the original owner. This appears to be impossible now. Has something changed, or am I an idiot? (I'm not talking about city states, btw.)

 

[doomdg]

Only capitals if I recall correctly

 

[pingu53]

yeh and the last time i did this the person who i brought back into the game and gave his city back...he was hostile to to me!

 

[Fredric Drum]

Bleh, that sucks... thanks for your replies, though.

Too much "bleh" in this game

 

[JoeBas]

If they're still in the game, you should be able to just dial them up and offer the city to them as a gift.

If they've been "Eliminated", you have to liberate their capital, bring them "Back to life", and then gift them what you want.

Why you'd want to I don't know, but that should work.

 

[the343danny]

Its not only capitals. I remember clearly liberating the Aztecs in a poor desert town (capital has been long taken by others), though I did kill them again the next turn for their ungratefulness.

 

[JoeBas]

Same here, in my first "Training wheels" game of V I was playing on like Warlord with Alex, just getting used to the mechanics of 1UPT and where to build roads and how culture expands and stuff, but toward the end of the game going for a domination win.

Only had Rome left, and was steamrolling him, conquered one of his innerish cities and it said "You have capture Gao! If you liberate it, they will forever be in your debt!"... I'm like "Really, they made a city state out of frickin' Gao??? Well, whatever, sure, welcome back to freedom..."... and the Songhai rose zombie-like from the grave.

Oops. I'll be right back to rekill you, soon as I finish off Julius here...

 

[Finchie]

As far as I know, you can only 'liberate' a city if it once existed as a player (AI) or City State city, and has been captured by another AI or City State.

By liberating a city, you make the leader of that city 'forever in your favor' (or 'forever in your debt', or whatever fancy slogan Civ5 has for it) which means that they will always vote for you in a diplomatic victory.

They can presumably still be hostile towards you, but somehow, magically, they still feel compelled to vote for you in the UN vote.

 

[Dentalfury]

I've never returned any civ's cities to him except maybe a cultural or maritime city state. Other wise i'd prefer to just keep another puppet.

I'm surprised that more concepts from SMAC didn't carry over into other Civ games. For instance, you can counquer another civ to the point where they 'surrender' to you. At that point they are always submissive and will be in a permanent alliance with you for as long as you want it. They will always vote for you, give you any new techs they research, etc. Essentially they are puppets by another name, but can act independently and are actually quite useful if you gift them lots of units/cities/colony pods(Settlers) to get their empire back into contention right after you destroyed most of it.

 

[Polish]

I almost always liberate city states (unless there is a compelling strategic need to keep them) as liberation really does cause them to "love you long time!" You get a PILE of influence and they give you whatever they have in terms of resources, not to mention food, culture, or units, depending. OTOH, I have never had a good experience liberating an AI player city. You bring them back to life and the next turn they hate you for being close to them.