Starving Cities

[Zild]

Whenever I conquer a city, the first thing I do is starve its population out. Why should I suffer a dozen English citizens in my city when I can cut that down to one? I can build the population up pretty quickly afterwards, and it helps keep the population very happy. It also helps prevent culture flips, and makes rebellion or culture flips in my favour more likely if the city is ever taken from me.

But doesn't this strike anybody as a little cheap? Okay, so I lose the pop (and their production) for a few turns, but that tends to make little difference given the high corruption. What I'm doing is systematically exterminating the majority of the population - why aren't I being punished?!

Does anybody know if there are negative reputation effects (or any other effects) when undertaking this course of action? I play PTW, but if this is any different in Conquests I'm just as interested...

 

[LLXerxes]

Don't think so. In RL it would but I dunno about Civ

 

[Turner]

No, there are no negative effects for starving a city.

 

[majk-iii]

i reccon it's faster to just money rush a couple of settlers/workers to lover pop. and put a couple of your own in instead. ... plus you can use them, (on the other side of your empire) foreign or not.

 

[Zild]

I used to do that, but having a load of foreign workers/settlers is almost as bad. Plus I dedicate production in captured cities to culture-generating improvements, as early as possible (rushing one every other turn per city, given enough money).

I think I should try militaristic expansion with a communist/despotic government in future - that way I can rush-build AND kill the pop at the same time!

 

[Crimso]

Yes, I starve cities. It is just so easy and rewarding. I try to capture citise as fast as possible, and letting another civ take the last one if possible, so the citizens of captured cities act just like the ones in my homeland.

 

[Zild]

Well this is the other thing, though... Whilst members of a fallen civ might well remain as happy as the rest of your empire once their civ has fallen (which is the way it seems to me, even if I destroy their civ myself, bizzarely), I think that they would be equally happy if the city they were in was taken by a third civ. Part of the reason behind starving them all out and replacing them with my own people is to gain that much extra weight for resistance and culture flips if another civ steals such a city from me... Make it as hard for them as possible!

I think what makes my use of the strategy even worse is that by the time I start expanding, my cities are all at their pop limits (almost always 12, as this is some time before hospitals), and have built all of the worthwhile improvements (or in many cases ALL of the improvements available at that stage in the game). This is why I switch them over to military units, which allows me to conquer enemy cities, with the occasional worker in preparation for railroads, pollution and, of course, to fill up the captured cities extra-quickl.

I seriously think that this is too strong a tactic in PTW! I almost feel as if I'm cheating!

 

[Jack the Ripper]

Hey, Stalin (tried) to do it. If it weren't for the US intervening, 75% of the pop inside germany's borders would be russian. Of cource, he needed to actually succeed in STARVING the citizens b4 he tried to build it back up.

 

[Crimso]

Kept sneaking wiener schnitz' and 'slaw when he wasn't looking... beer too.

 

[rysingsun]

usually i starve citizens only until two criteria are met. first is that there are no resistors left and second is that there are no enemy cities close enough to infringe on the 21-space workable land surrounding it. after this the chances of a flip are somewhat reduced. typically (though not always) i keep military units out of such a city until the second criterion is met since a culture flip while i have 5-10 units in it fighting off resistors is kind of painful. matter of fact a newly conquered city often remains defenseless for a little while because i do fear flips. and yes they DO go out of their way to sneak a cavalry or something into that city but most of the time that doesnt make much difference. i just kill that pesky cavalry and get back into the city. no big deal doing that really, i mean not compared to the original attack against 5 infantry defenders.

 

[Zild]

I'm never worried about my cities flipping back as I always have a culture rating far superior to that of the other civs (usually my culture exceeds all of theirs combined by the time I start attacking, although this is with a 4-civ Tiny world.)

Didn't Stalin ever consider using the Nazi extermination camps? Horrible as this may sound, it probably provides a quicker, less painful altervative to starvation, and it would have been a rather effective tool for him...

In the game (but not real life!) I would probably go for the extermination-camp option if it existed, but not if such an option came with a severe penalty - which I imagine it would. But starving the citizens out is effectively the same thing!

I'm now even more convinvced that starvation should have a negative reputation effect. I believe it should apply even if you starve your own citizens, and even if it is an accident or the result of mismanagement. That said, by that judgement slave labour should also have a negative reputation effect, but where would I be without rush-building?!

 

[eldar]

Similar to rysingsun... I starve until the city is out of flip danger, and resistance is gone. I then put it on a subsistence diet for the remainder of the war, and put specialists to good use (especially at C3C). Subsistence diet is usually quite productive, given the AI's preference for irrigating everywhere. Especially with rails.

Neil.

 

[stachnie]

I don't starve cities, I keep producing workers until size 1. If I have Replaceable Parts, I may consider to make some CE and build a Temple/Library first. Usually I end with tons of captured workers and let my domestic workers join cities.


Best regards,

Slawomir Stachniewicz.

BTW: it was my 100th post at this Forum

 

[Renata]

@Zild -- I'm pretty sure there's no point to rushing culture in captured cities past whatever's needed to make your borders expand. IIRC, the flip-chance formula compares your own culture in the city to the original civ's culture. In almost all cases, you'll never catch up. (Ex. : you capture a city in 1500 AD and immediately rush all cultural improvements. You're now increasing your own culture in that city by -- what is it, 15cpt? whatever, doesn't really matter -- but the AI probably has 1000+cp accumulated there. You won't catch up in any worthwhile time frame.) The exception, obviously, is for cities you capture very early on, where the AI hasn't had much time to accumulate culture yet. And even in those cases, it's usually a waste of cash you could be spending on other things.

On the original question: I starve cities only if two conditions are met: there's a long way to go yet in the game, and the city's original owner is going to be around for a significant period of time. Otherwise it's just not worth the effort.

Renata