Taking over hostile cities

[cph]

Nothing irks me more than seeing a hard won city reverts back to their native country after I've spent mucha shields in producing city improvements.

I've been trying to come up with a strategy to help. Here is my latest one that I haven't tried out yet. Instead of razing which leaves a hole in your influence, can sometimes hurt you future battle plans, and lowers your reputation, try instead to always capture then starve the citizens. Next come up with 11 workers from your civ and repopulate.

Even though a city was conquered, will a 11-1 (or more) population advantage keep it from reverting?

 

[bakant]

If you station military units in the town they are less likely to revert.

 

[Jimmicus]

Yep, in one recent game I invaded the Aztecs to pinch their oil supply (had to trade for it otherwise, which was to vulnerable for my liking).

I eventually took three cities, all of which were within 5 squares of their capital. I took a gamble and didn't raze them as it would take too long to re-build to something useful. I stocked up high on military units (we're talking at least 6 in a city, two had over fifteen), mainly because of very heavy Aztec counter-attacks (some epic battles took place!). Low and behold, no cities ever turned back to the Aztecs, even after 40 or more turns.

So stock up on the military and you should be okay.

 

[eMarkM]

Pay close attention to how they feel about your culture. This is an overriding factor when it comes to revolts. If they are in awe or impressed w/ yours, you can usually hold them w/ the usual techniques of garrison, rush-built temple, making peace w/ AI. You shouldn't have to resort to starvation. I've only lost a handful of cities when I was the superior culture.

But if they are dismissive or disdainful, fegitabotit. Just raze them unless they have a wonder. Go ahead, try to hold a Babylonian city (usually have monster culture from cheap improv they can build). Do you know what it feels like to conquer 5-6 cities and watch EVERY ONE of them revert back within 10 turns? Learned my lessons w/ Babs and now just burn them all to the ground and replace w/ my own. Never had the problem w/ Zulus, who I routinely "out-culture". I never razed a Zulu city.

If you starve them and reduce pop enough, you might as well just raze and resettle it.

e

 

[4Lorn]

Try garrisoning the city heavily. In dev chat it was stated that you can suppress one resisting citizen with each combat unit. It was implied that these need to be units with an attack strength ie: NOT bombers, arty, etc. It was also implied, I have tried this and it seems to work, that obsolete units are just as effective in suppressing citizens.

I moved in one obsolete unit per population point of the city over and above the normal tanks and other modern units. Take counter attack losses into account so that the weak obsolete units are not ground down below the 1:1 ratio of units to population. Under this regime I did not have a single city reconvert even though I was far behind in culture. It seemed to work but I don't know how it would work If I was at an even greater cultural disadvantage.

I was trying to avoid the raze, rush build, starve or stuff them with workers route that costs pop or cripples the city. Your milage may vary. Good luck.

 

[Hurricane]

4Lorn wrote:

Try garrisoning the city heavily.

Yes, but this has its own risks. The chance of the city defecting is clearly lower than without garrison, but there is still a very small chance that the city will defect anyway. And if it does, your mighty garrison will be wiped out. It´s not fun seeing 20 of your units destroyed by an angry city mob.

So I have actually started to only have one unit in each city. It easy to recapture the cities later in your next turn. On the other hand, this tactic only works if you are clearly stronger than your enemy (so that they can´t move any own units into the defected city).

 

[jc011]

The best way is to first rush a temple in the city that you've captured, this will increase it's culture, and lower it's chances of reverting...keep a few strong units in the city, but not too many incase it flips.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

I thought rushing a temple would be good enough..sometimes it isn't. It depends on the AI's culture. It is pain if you are doing a d-day type of invasion

This weekend I was fighting the Persians who were leading in land mass, culture and I needed to take him down. He was on another continent. I took a couple cities and fortified them with plenty of infantry and so forth..and rush built temples..but they fell anyway. He also had tone of dudes streaming at those cities to take them back. I lost them via culture. I was ticked! I then launched another assault and just razed his cities. I cut his production down considerably and his culture. He would go and try to rebuild those cities..but the damage was done. He would have to start from scratch. I chose his best cities to raze..I looked for his highest pop cities and razed them to the ground. After razing a few cities..I was able to take some cities and keep them..because his culture was waning cause he lost all those improvements. Kinda nasty..but it was the only way I saw to take him down. It took a while to dwindle his 35 city empire into rubble...but razing his best cities was the only recourse.

 

[eyrei]

The problem with cities taken on another continent reverting is caused by proximity to the capital. Yours is really far away and theirs is very close. I wonder if proximity to a forbidden palace is also a factor. If true, in a massive invasion, if you get a leader you could rush the forbidden palace on the new continent, and have proximity on your side. I also wonder if a city with the forbidden palace could revert.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

That is a good question about the Forbidden Palace. I wonder if it would? I find it hard to get a war going on another continent early in the game..two in a galley and three in a caravel make it very difficult to wage war. I tend to wait for transports...but by then..you have built the Palace.

It would be an interesting experiment.

 

[History_Buff]

Another way to bo it is to build settlers and workers. You are able to select the citizen that leaves, and you get a large workforce. However, dont build settlers to build cities, because you end up with a size 1 city with only foriegn nationals.