Abandoning a City

[SerapisIV]

Originally posted by Grumbold
There is absolutely no precedent for being able to totally abandon cities. The civilian population is too large (and usually too obstinate) to emigrate completely

Hey are you telling me that the Simpsons lied to me when they had Springfield use "Plan B" and completely move the town 30 miles away because Homer screwed up as garbage commisioner. If I can't trust the Simpsons to be true to reality, who can I trust?

[rah]

That's certainly solid proof for me.

Thanks,

RAH

[Vrank Prins]

Uptill now it hasn't been possible to abandon a city which is under attack, and !! to remove all your troops from inside a besieged city. (this was part of the discussion running in the thread "the effect of war on landscapes").

I agree with all those who say instantly abandoning a city over seize 1 is an impossibility. Though, that is when you do it the old way, with building settlers or engineers.

Abandoning would be something you did:
1) out of dispair when a selfbuid city is under attack; or
2) when you've conquered a foreign city which is utterly badly siituated on the map.

In CIV-II I sometimes "removed" smaller conquered cities, which meant I had to build settlers/engineers one per (1/2/3/4/) turn(s) (as long as it took). I've actually never encountered a situation where I wanted to abandon a selfbuild city in a hurry. I was either taken completely by surprise or could see things coming in time and do what ever it took to relieve the city.
I can't remember any in between situations where I had to surrender after a long fight which took several turns (a potential situation to abandon a selfbuild city).

I think all this is due to the fact that CIV doesn't give the opportunity to lay siege on a city, and because we have to deal with a AI which, well let's say could be better.

We ought to concentrate on how the game should deal / be in those kind of situations

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
I'm afraid I must disagree with the assertion that no historical precedent exists for totally abandoning a city. The rulers of Moscow DID completely evacuate the city before Napolean arrived, and they did set fire to the city as well (or else Napolean did, that part I'm not so sure of?!) What I am certain of is that the desertion of Moscow left Napolean without a source of food and this forced him to retreat to France (of course, had he won a decisive victory at Borodino, he wouldn't have needed to pursue the enemy to Moscow in the First place!).

The_Aussie_Lurker.

You are correct in as much as the city was stripped of all supplies and most of the civilian population was herded out by the army. That is not quite the same as being able to totally dismantle all the buildings and leave bare earth. The Russian winter and the non-existant supply route were the only reasons Napoleon could not have settled in for a nice cosy winter by the fire. Neither of these things are modelled in Civ so it is more akin to allowing the city to be captured then retaking it shortly afterward. It was the French army which in its anger and frustration attempted to fire the whole city before beginning its long and fatal march back to Poland. Even so, much survived and the rest was swiftly rebuilt in a way that Civ does not allow. If buildings could be damaged and repairable rather than completely vanished then I would be a keen supporter of greater deliberate or accidental war damage to cities.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Vrank,

Thats actually been my point the whole time. In Civ II, when you "Dismantle" a city (or if the population goes below 1), then the city ceases to exist. I find this highly unrealistic. You should be able to abandon a city in Civ III, but still have the city icon remain on the screen (but with a population of 0). This way, if the enemy captures the city, it will have essentially gained nothing (and must bring settlers or workers in to repopulate the city). Obviously some people will be left in the city, but not enough to be significant in the population number system! Obviously, when you abandon a city you should have the option to strip the city of important improvements (like granaries and Market Places), without gaining any cash benefit from their destruction. Making the enemies victory even more pyrrhic. When combined with my supply line idea, it can seriously wreck an enemies attack plans (as it did Napoleans). Anyway, I hope this clears up my stance on this issue.

Thankyou

The_Aussie_Lurker

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Oops!!!

My Above Post is directed to Grumbold, my apologies-I do hope the above post does clear up my viewpoint on this issue.

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[Vrank Prins]

Coming back and elaboratting on what I wrote yesterday there are a few things more I would like to say.

There need to be a clear difference between peacetime/nonwarzone and martial law/warzone conditions.

My idea is that, like in CTP (and why not !?, I think that coming to this CTP made a good point), abandoning a city seize1, 2 or 3 in nonwarzone conditions could be done in an instant. It would give you one settler/engineer CIV-II style.
- You can sell all the city-improvements at once but then at an eight of the regular price.
* There are no social repercussions.

Abandoning a city from seize 4 upward in nonwarzone conditions would mean that you will first have to bring the cityseize down to 3 by building settlers/engineers.
- During the dismantling period you can sell all the city-improvements at the regular price.
* There are no social repercussions.
Actually that means that things from seize 4 up things stay the same as the are now

In CIV-II we already can see guerilla-units springing up from a conqured foreign city (allmost as many as the city is big). It should be possible that REFUGEES-UNITS either spontaneous or ordered “wander” away from a city in a warzone which is under attack or under siege. I propose 1 refugee out of 3 populationpoints. That means that if you add them to a city the cityseize will be increased by 3 points.

These refugees-units should have a different status than settlers/engineers. They should:

1. not be able to build anything. (their just citizens who’ve left there homestead in a rush without being able to take anything with them)
2. have the lowest hitpoint-rate, thus be utterly vulnerable to attacks from hostile units;
3. loóse one populationpoint if they loose a hitpoint;
4. loose one hitpoint every two turns when they're left on the road;
5. thus be brought to a (nearby) friendly city as soon as possible because otherwise they will just starve and vanish from the map;
6. have the lowest movement-rate, i.e. 1. (we’re talking about an unorganized mass of people blocking the road);
7. be a social hazard. When you add them to one of your cities (even the one they’ve left) they would remain unhappy for several turns (they came with nothing and need some time to settle down again.

[Chuckles]

I agree with the idea of using the CTP model of disbanding cities. I thought it worked well. You can disband any size 3 or less city and get 1 settler unit that can't move until the next turn. Any larger city you have to force emigrate first by building settlers at a net food loss.

[wotan321]

Since we will now be able to sell cities in CivIII, abandoning a city will probably occur much less often. On the other hand, since ICS is so frowned upon, abandoning a recently invaded city we cannot hope to hold onto (due to weak culture) will have to be done sometimes. I don't see any need to add new units or rules related to conquered cities because the new culture factor will represent all those difficulties.

I hope the new culture factor will make this a whole new game in many respects, especially in the area of expansion. CivII was fantastic, but the addition of culture really will make this a game of "civilization" instead of a military conquest game.

I noticed in other threads that there is fear that some cap on the number of cities will be part of the game to disuade ICS, but I expect the culture aspect to be what slows expansion. Once you encounter another culturally strong civ, you will think twice about invasion or expansion since their cities' cultural strength will cause anxiety in your border cities.

Likewise, if you try to abandon a city on the borders, that city will likey get swallowed up by your neighbor before you get to the point of turning into a settler as you did in CivII. As for abandoning cities deep within your culture's borders, it could be business as usual, ie sell off improvements and turn the dwindling city into a settler.

[Kc7mxo]

Isn't the desire to abandon a city really just the desire to keep the ai from stealing tech from you? I know thats the only reason I ever wanted to. Well, except when i feel like obliterating the ai, and then spies are wonderfully useful for that.

If we simply removed the taking tech when you capture a city, i think i'd be quite happy. Never saw any reason for it anyway.

[Your.Master]

Originally posted by UberKruX
couldnt you take over an enemy city, (say a size 20 city) and abandon it, load all the settlers on transports, and create a huge island nearby?

sound cheap to me, but p[erhaps i misunderstood.

Ever hear of deportations?

I think the idea has potential, but you do pose an interesting problem. Perhaps the solution would be to either a) say that an abandoned city is made up of a single pop. 20 unit b) cause you to lose say half the population in the abandonment process (making it a tough choice when your island is attacked by superior forces and you could either run out on transport or send the same transports to try to pick up military defenders on other islands on time) c) have these deported individuals be REALLY unhappy and likely to rebel if placed outside cultural borders.

I like option c) a lot. You could have military occupation forces keeping the local population down, or you could just plunk them down near the center of your empire in a ghetto-style city (we're being realistic here) or return them to join the cities as slaves (probably basically normal people but unhappy with a negative cultural influence). But this should cause amazing international incidents and definately get you on the deported city's original owner's bad side. I wonder how you'd get the game to KNOW that you were deporting them, though, and not just pulling them back from the vengeful liberators of the enemy. It probably won't happen but it's an interesting idea, I think.

[Your.Master]

Originally posted by colossus
Abadoning city is rare in history. More often a city disappears when razed down by war, or it suffers a long period of decline before finally turned back to village(city->town->village).

Having the option of razing a city to ground when capturing it is more reasonable. You get more gold(than just capturing it), some culture penalty and the satisfaction that it disappears from the scene, but no settler. Forced migration often meant most people died in the process in history.

It may or may not be rare, but it HAS happened. During the Greco-Persian war in the space of two years Athens was abandoned TWICE and each time the infrastructure was razed, pillaged, and looted by the Persian soldiers. And yet Athens came out of that war the most powerful city-state in Greece (Before that it was Sparta, and soon after Sparta would beat Athens in war, but Athens rebelled and reigned supreme pretty much thereafter, with Roman interruptions). It is a very important ability to leave the city. Plus it would be fun.

I don't think improvements should be sold, however. Who's buying them? That is one of the inherent problems with abandoning a city: when you get it back, little if anything will be left fully intact. You'll have to rebuild. But it can be done (it has to for a pop. 20 city!). Sure, if you had the Palace in the abandoned city you could take some gold and run, but you shouldn't get a huge windfall for running away from a doomed city.

As for the moving one square right: With a 1-3 pop. city, it's quite reasonable and it has happened in history that populations have moved to greener pastures, and located new villages for that convenience. That is reflected in that game decision. With bigger cities, you probably have some improvements built, and therefore moving a city isn't so simple, you lose a ton of time and cash in the move. The mechanics already in the game would seem to balance this possible problem.

[Your.Master]

Originally posted by Kevin Ar18
But as I brought up in another post, I realized this was not a good idea for one reason. That's the whole fun of attacking - to conquer cities and all the stuff in them. Just completely abandoning a city would be terrible. Even partially messing up a city might not be too good an idea either.

That's an excellent point. Perhaps there could be abandonment within limits, however. Abandoning a capital would be pretty good, Civ 2 already lets you pay for instant capital relocation in the event of a capital falling (and if you don't, you just might have half your population turn Babylonian on you!). Another thing would be that you caould abandon areas of strong cultural influence but not ones with weak culture. Perhaps abandonment should hurt your international rep (he's a coward, let's attack, he'll just empty his border cities and we'll resettle). But it's not as much of a problem as you think. For one, there's no guarantee that your settlers will escape the enemy. Two, you lose all your improvements, a HUGE PAIN TO REPAIR. Three, any city that has a wonder in it is one worth defending WITH YOUR LIFE. Although if if the city is gone anyway people might be tempted to abandon just to deny their opponent, and that would be bad b/c historically most wonders would NEVER be destroyed by the civ that created them. Perhaps "wonder cities" shouldn't be abandonable either. And perhaps it should have something to do with improvements: people are less willing (greater % chance to not listen to you) to abandon areas with long histories, lots of improvements, and nationalist people).

These three posts got long but I'm really into the whole idea of abandonment.