What will happen to population when a city is razed in Civ6?

[stroypa]

Imagine Canada would invade todays USA and raze New York City (8-19 million people) ... a serious game like Civ cannot just eliminate all those people ...

You underestimate the Canadian death marches and concentration camps.

 

[bookman_]

There should be no city razing past renaissance era, it just doesn't make sense from realistic point of view.

But only if you have the "2nd amendment" civic card in play.

That civic should also greatly reduce growth.

 

[Psychotronics]

To me, the most important question is: what'll happen to the districts? In Civ 5, all the buildings were inside the city, so, once you razed, they were all gone. Therefore, Civ 6 spreading your cities around should have a big impact on the razing mechanic. Would the districts just stay behing, like improvements on 5? Would razing burn a district a turn, showing on your map your glorious destruction? If the former is true, what would happen if I settled a city around those districts? Would they become mine? I can't wait to hear from Firaxis on this.

 

[Ryika]

Maybe they stay around and have to be cleaned up or added to someone's terrain and if that doesn't happen they start turning into barbarian camps over time.

 

[Psychotronics]

Maybe they stay around and have to be cleaned up or added to someone's terrain and if that doesn't happen they start turning into barbarian camps over time.

Given that barbarians in this game are much more organized, that'd be terrifying! Could lead to some very interesting strategies.

 

[chaosprophet]

To me, the most important question is: what'll happen to the districts? In Civ 5, all the buildings were inside the city, so, once you razed, they were all gone. Therefore, Civ 6 spreading your cities around should have a big impact on the razing mechanic. Would the districts just stay behing, like improvements on 5? Would razing burn a district a turn, showing on your map your glorious destruction? If the former is true, what would happen if I settled a city around those districts? Would they become mine? I can't wait to hear from Firaxis on this.

On the E3 video, as Giza is conquered, on the screen with the raze option it says that doing so will clear it of all districts and buildings. Wonders may still be kept though, as one SS shows a wonder outside any city borders.

 

[isau]

I don't know how Civ 6 will handle it, but IMO the requirement to raze the City Center should be to first raze everything else. Only then can you raze the Center.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Razing cities would cause much less damage if you in later eras was founding cities who started with large populations and several buildings already built.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Razing is an awful mechanic. Once a city passes a very modest population threshold, razing should not be an option.

It should always be an option (although in Civ6 the option is only available on initial capture)
However, it should be incredibly costly (rebel units) in a way that rapidly increases with population.

 

[historix69]

"To raze or not to raze?" ... will depend a lot on city-spacing and -placing.
- If minimum distance between cities is 7 tiles, there won't be any overlap and players will have less reason to raze.
- If cities are well placed, players will have less reason to raze.

However often cities are placed in strategic positions to block other players' expansion and when the situation has changed (e.g. no longer other players around), it would be nice to remove or relocate the blocking cities to not block your own growth and economy ...

 

[spfun]

I want to be able to raze every city this time, capitals and city states included!

 

[DarkAlabaster]

I wish that when you raze cities after, say Renaissance era, leaders of other civilization would come to you asking to stop the razing and killing of innocents lives, and if you don't, they would denounce you and become hostile. I can't immagine anybody in the modern era just going every ten Yeats to war and razing cities like flies. Maybe the new diplomacy will help with that.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Maybe the new diplomacy will help with that.

It certainly sounds like a sensible casus belli. In fact, I think that's the best way to implement it, combined with rebels. You can do it but it carries a heavy risk and cost.

That makes an interesting decision: keeping an unwanted city or risk triggering drawn-out wars/rebellion?

 

[historix69]

I wish that when you raze cities after, say Renaissance era, leaders of other civilization would come to you asking to stop the razing and killing of innocents lives, and if you don't, they would denounce you and become hostile. I can't immagine anybody in the modern era just going every ten Yeats to war and razing cities like flies. Maybe the new diplomacy will help with that.

Eras are reached individually by each civ ... one civ might be in industrial age, others in renaissance or still in medieval ...

Global moral restrictions to conquest and "restructuring" continents in later eras will force players to conquer/raze their continent in early eras ... combine this with Civ5 National Wonders which prevent players from conquest in early eras and conquest/war is no longer a viable strategy for the whole game unless you go for a domination victory ...

An example for modern restructuring of a continent is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act. Since Civ games do not allow to move population, moving native american (indian) settlements in the 19th century in Civ would mean razing those cities ... and the 19th century is after the american and french revolution, after the age of enlightenment ...

 

[Seek]

The game design of population = city-population goes back to Civ1, but it is an abstraction ... before urbanization, most people lived on the land and not in cities ... so a more realistic approach would tie population with land tiles ... if a city is destroyed and rebuild, the population in the surrounding area would rejoin the city (unless population was evicted from the region by military units in large scale ethnic cleansing.) Populated Tiles would push Civ more into the direction of realism, Cellular Automaton and simulation ...

I think this is one area where the civ model works really well, actually, particularly wrt 1upt. Pop work the land tiles before the late game where specialists become more prevalent, and if the city is sieged all the citizens crowd into the fortified city as unemployed pop. What's really unrealistic, of course, is moving them all on a whim, which is a big reason why I miss civ4 cottages so much - I hope some mechanic like that makes a return in some fashion.

 

[Krajzen]

Ït should be made harder, but not impossible. Had Hitler captured Leningrad, he would've literally razed it to the ground (ofc he could've changed his mind, but that was his plan, anyway). If I want to cleanse my ancestral lands of parasitic aliens, I should be able to do so at any point in time, provided the citizens have maintained proper adherence to my personal cult throughout the centuries.

Okay, so and update of my opinion:

It should be impossible to raze cities after Renaissance era (conquered nation's era is decisive) unless you have particular "totalitarian" government or ideology tenet

No but seriously, civ5 idea of razing modern era cities was ridiculous. Razing early eras cities makes sense as
a) They were of very limited size
b) They were mostly made of flammable materials
c) Back in early eras world was far more brutal and accepting violence.

Razing medieval city makes sense as that happened to victims of Mongol or conquistador conquests, or to relatively primitive cities attacked by colonial empires.
Razing industrial era city never happened mayybe except of extremely violent WW2 and totalitarian regimes, it is neither logistically feasible nor forgiven by global diplomacy.
As civ6 was announced to make later eras more "civilized" I find the idea od razing modern cities ridiculous. It should be possible only if you have adequately ruthless government type, and each razed city should essentially give you "genocidal monster" penalty with most of the world.

Especially as civ6 gets rid of global happiness, now you won't have the problem of "I counquered so many citie my happiness is -40"

 

[Mustakrakish]

This is how I'd do it, when you push raze that is:

Up to 3 pop city: Raze without problems, basically insta-raze, let's make those far out villages vulnerable and burn them down, no survivors

4-7 pop city: 1-2 rebel units with bad promotions like someone mentioned. Spawns somewhere outside the city, not clustered, NOT next to city center. About 20% population loss immediately and 1 pop per turn as we still need to give time for recapture. About half remaining population relocates to nearby cities (not yours) every other turn, not immediately. That is after initial 20% loss and a rebel unit spawning you are left with 2-4 pop city that takes 2-4 turns to raze and every second turn citizen relocates.

8-12 pop city: Same principle, but 2-3 rebel units with less bad promotions. Spawns somewhere outside the city, not clustered, NOT next to city center.

13-18: Same principle, but 3-5 rebel units with no bad promotions. Encampment of their own somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

19 > : Same principle, 5 rebel units, "organized" promotions with an encampment of their own somewhere on the outskirts of the city with ability to spawn more from the encampment.

Maybe there could be some ability, policy or UA or whatever that makes it possible for "victim" civ to take control of the rebels.

EDIT: Forgot. Starting from industrial, diplo-penalties worldwide (friend or not, unless fighting the same enemy) for razing, proportional to the size of the razed city. The more advanced era, the bigger penalties. Penalties calculated for every civ based on THEIR era, not yours. That is your pre-industrial neighbor won't care even if the rest of the world is modern.

Relocated pop comes to nearby cities as "refugees" - specialists, that is they can't work any tiles and produce no yield, they just consume your food and amenities / housing whatever. They are refugees for 30 turns (10 turns if relocated inside own country), becoming ordinary citizens after.

There could also be a policy that affects how fast or slow refugees adapt, blocking refugees from coming or on the contrary attracting refugees.

 

[historix69]

I remember the idea of random rebels from Civ2 ...

After WW2 (due to reducing size of Germany) about 12-14 million germans were expulsed from neighbouring nations and were integrated into german society. While they were poor, they worked hard and helped rebuild Germany quickly ... (fueled by the Marshall-Plan)

There were no random groups of rebels ... the war had ended in 1945 and weapons were controlled by the allies ... men were mostly PoW or KiA/MiA ...

 

[Callonia]

You can place as many penalties as you want to, it still won't stop me from burning down cities placed in terrible locations even when they have world wonders in it. The most I think I've destroyed was six world wonders in a poorly located city.

I remember all the partisans in civ3 that showed up whenever i destroyed an badly located city. They was excellent exp fodder for my troops. Plus i get to fight more battles which only made razing cities even more fun. In fact, i love it. More battles = more fun for me. ^.^


The destroyed site is either, returned to mother nature or, construction of brand new city several tiles/hexs away in far better location that couldn't get built as long as old blighted city remained in the terrible location otherwise.