Why can't I take over a city now?

[warbean]

Hello,

After starting a new game as the Indians, I became embroiled in a war with the Chinese. They drew first blood, taking one of my cities and burning it down.

However, when I took one of their cities, I was not given the usual optrion of "installing a new governor." Instead, the advisor just said, "we've taken xxxx and burned it down, liberating 5 gold."

The city was in a good location, so I would have wanted to keep it.

What is going on?

 

[Sman]

I think u installed the new patch... so now u can't always keep cities sometimes they get destroyed.

 

[Mad Dog]

Cities seem to lose a pop point when conquered now, so size 1 cities are destroyed.

This is presumably an attempt to reduce the power of early game despot rushing. You can no longer "stalk" settlers with attack units, wait for them to found cities, and attack and capture a new city as soon as they found it,

 

[Sam_Catchem]

After the patch size 1 cities get burned to the ground. Unless they are capitals. I have taken size 1 capitals and was able to keep them...anybody else notice this? I admit it is pretty rare for a capitol to be size 1..but the English had a poor starting point. They were in the hills...and they could really get to much going. After I took London the capitol moved to Hastings..and it was size 1 also. I was able to keep that city too..even though it was complete junk.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

OK..now I am confused.

I thought the auto raze was set in stone. It sure felt like this weekend. I played a little last night...and I managed to capture 3 size 1 cities. I am confused...maybe it isn't always?..or they allo were on the verge of going to pop2?

 

[eMarkM]

It's not size 1 cities that get razed now w/ the patch. It's any city that hasn't built any culture, regardless of size. This was confirmed by one of the Firaxis programmers on Apolyton.

Those size 1 cities you captured probably had temples. I've had some size 2 cities razed on me when I wanted to take them over. If they haven't generated any culture, they come down. Obviously a capital will never come down because it has the culture generating palace.

Mad Dog is correct, it's an attempt to stem the early despot rushes. It was way too easy to capture each and every city you conquered and have it producing for you instantly. Taking it and turning it into your next warrior producing machine.

I like the change, clever of the programmers to handle rushes this way. It won't stop rushing, of course, but it should make it more of a challenge.

e

 

[Sam_Catchem]

Cool..thanks for the info eMarkM!

I thought I was goin nuts.