Why don't they want to buy my city?

[morchuflex]

Hello.

I have a city for sale. It's far from the core of my empire (that's why I am willing to give it away). I conquered it from another civ because it contained the GLib. But now the GLib is obsolete, and the city fully corrupt, so it's no use for me. Still, it's a nice city with beautiful surroundings.
But strangely, no other civ wants to buy it, even for 1 measly gold.
Is there any rule prohibiting to sale cities?

 

[Tomoyo]

Yes. No one will ever buy a city.

 

[chancellor_dan]

I have never known a city to change hands through trade.

 

[Tomoyo]

You can get cities from the AI in a peace deak if you don't offer anything other than peace on your side.

 

[thescaryworker]

There was a patch released that keeps AI from trading cities except when settling a fight. Players asked the AI to give them all of their stuff for tribute and the AI accepted.

 

[sennomulo]

If you're willing to sell it for 1 gold, try just giving it away. Maybe that will work.

 

[Wazu]

Wouldn't know. My policy is to never, ever, ever, let go of a city. Ever. (Of course I'm not really that good at this game.)

 

[Trotskij]

Uh...I sometimes build cities on places thats bad for them but good for me then sell them to my enemys for tecs and stuff.....works good. Sometimes they dont give good stuff but I can get good deals most of the times. (I got no expansion)

 

[Tomoyo]

It doesn't matter if you don't have the expansion... You just have to patch the game.

 

[Admiral8Q]

Well, this reminds me of the power of the Diplomat in Civ1. Who needs armies where you can buy all your cities!

 

[tao]

When I conquer a city on another continent, I may donate it to my local ally.

But first I sell all the improvements.

 

[tR1cKy]

When I conquer a city on another continent, I may donate it to my local ally.
But first I sell all the improvements.

And you don't even hurt them, since all cultural improvements are lost when a city is handed over a civ.

Wouldn't know. My policy is to never, ever, ever, let go of a city. Ever. (Of course I'm not really that good at this game.)

Sometimes handing over a city may be a good thing overall.
Suppose you've already passed the 2x optimal city number mark. At this point, losing an unproductive city usually results in lower corruption in all the others. Yes, the effect is little, but from some experiments i performed, you can gain up to 10 gold per turn by disbanding it. A gift would be better if you need to have a better attitude with an ally.

@morchuflex: i offer 2 quids for your city. Still interested in the deal?

 

[tao]

And you don't even hurt them, since all cultural improvements are lost when a city is handed over a civ.

No. Of course I hurt them. The cultural buildings are lost when I capture the city. But before handing them to my ally, I sell market, bank, stock exchange, harbor, airport, courthouse, policestation, barracks, factory, etc.

 

[CIV34ME]

The reason why selling cities for anything but peace is because players could use it to cheat. They would declare war, capture a nations capital, offer it back the them in exchange for several other cities and some techs, then capture the capital again, exchange it for some more cities and techs...etc. This way, players could reduce the AI the one city and 0 gold just by putting an army outside the capital. Unless the AI had railroad, they would not be able to move defensive units into the capital in the one turn of peace. Therefore, all the palyer had to do each turn was walk into the capital, offer it back, walk into it again...etc. The patch fixed this, by not allowing you to trade cities for cities or for anything else except for peace.

 

[RegentMan]

Or a player would trade a city in the middle of their empire for techs/gold/luxuries/resources. The city, of course, would flip back eventually, thus a loop hole was exposed.

 

[morchuflex]

All right. Thanks everyone for the explanations.

 

[ainwood]

Sometimes handing over a city may be a good thing overall.
Suppose you've already passed the 2x optimal city number mark. At this point, losing an unproductive city usually results in lower corruption in all the others. Yes, the effect is little, but from some experiments i performed, you can gain up to 10 gold per turn by disbanding it.

I'd like to see that experiment - the only time it should affect anything is in Communism. The rest of the time, the rank is determined by number of cities closer to the capital (or FP), so you'd only see a benefit from ditching a core city (promoting the others).

You sure it wasn't because of reduced maintenance?

 

[morchuflex]

In a recent game, I made such an experiment.
It was late in the game, my empire was large and productive. I had some unoccupied space near my capital city. So, I built a city there. Sure enough, it increased the rank corruption for all the other cities and I immediately lost about 10 gpt... It took a long time before this additional city actually contributed to the wealth of the empire.

 

[CIV34ME]

You say your empire was large and productive, late in the game. You were probably over the OCN, in which case the corruption in other cities will go down when one is disbanded.

 

[ainwood]

You say your empire was large and productive, late in the game. You were probably over the OCN, in which case the corruption in other cities will go down when one is disbanded.

But the point is - it will only help the rank corruption. Therefore, you have to disband a city close(ish) to the capital to have any noticeable effect. As morchuflex noted, putting an unproductive new city close to the capital can have an effect. Normally, (gross generalisation) with good city placement initially, you can develop a core that is strong early-on, in which case your core cities should be well-developed. With heavy city overlap I can imagine that disbanding a core city may help, but I think its more dependent on the initial core development.

Simply having more cities than the OCN doesn't affect corruption - it just means that cities with ranks higher than the OCN have higher corruption.