Destroyng a city should take armies and time

[Trifna]

Pristina, Kosovo's capital, was burnt and destroyed by Milosevic. But it wasn't automatic, it took Milosevic's armies to do so, and it was gradual.

So in Civ III, destroying a city after conquest shouldn't be done instantaneously. It should simply be done at your will on a city which you have control on. So if an enemy is coming to take back the city you took to him, you still can bring army in and terrorise, as it is soemtimes done in reality I guess

Destroying a city as Los Angeles, Bombay or Paris would take some time, I'm sure. Enough to make so that it could be conquered back before you destroyed it all. Of course, the pace of destruction of a city is reliated to the army you involve in the destruction. And, I guess, population will about necessarily revolt.

[Cookie Monster]

Interesting thoughts. I agree it should take time to destroy a major city. I wonder if the minimum time scale for the game is 1year = 1 turn?

In the beginning of any civ game a game turn is usually about 20 years. Then it is entirely plausible that a city could be destroyed in one game turn. The question is, does it take a year to destroy a major metropolis using conventional military weapons?

[Steve Clark]

That would be the correct reply. It is truly a scale issue. Each and every action represents a minimum of 1 year's time to 50 years (in the regular game). Remember, everything is abstracted to a global scale covering years of time. It's not like a tactical RTS game laying siege to a castle in sped-up real time. When you think about forming a 10,000 unit army or moving a unit one tile covering 200 sq miles or building a city, keep the turn length in mind. It is hard to do, but this is the best method for a game that covers 6000+ years over a world that can be as large as 3500 miles x 3500 miles.

[player1]

"Pristina, Kosovo's capital, was burnt and destroyed by Milosevic. But it wasn't automatic, it took Milosevic's armies to do so, and it was gradual."

It's untrue, Pistina was quite intact.

[Trifna]

Was it??

Then, if it's not Pristina, these images I saw were of annother Kosovar city I guess.

[Trifna]

There also could exist the resistance from population from population as a factor. Some populations only flee away while some others will try to resist and will cause problems, defending their cities themselves with the weapons they found.

[saracen31]

Just to keep it in the abstract, it should take at most 3 turns. 3 turns would allow the enemy civ a chance to try to take back the city before you burn it to the ground.

Anything longer than that, and it would be about as much of a pain as the old starve & build settler strategy for cities under size 3.

[GaryGuanine]

Also, I think that as the game time passes, the ability to rapidly destroy a city increases. While conceivably you could be extremely backwards technologically, a group of phalanx could destroy an ancient city in 20 years, but an armor division probably could destroy a modern city in one year. Not amazing cities like LA or New York, which would be represented in the game by populations of 20+, but something like Cincinnati or Utrecht could probably be pretty well leveled in 365 days.

Gary

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by Trifna
Was it??

Then, if it's not Pristina, these images I saw were of annother Kosovar city I guess.

You probably mean Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, which was beleaguered and shelled for three years by the Bosnian Serbs.

[Gangerolf]

Destroying a city could take less than a minute if you got enough bombs...

[WTE_OzWolf]

I find it impossible to try and imagine it: a city like Los Angeles, Sydney or London wiped off the map entirely. Nobody living there, no population.

It's one thing to destroy the infrastructure of a city, another to entirely wipe it and its population from the map. So, in my opinion, a one-turn destruction is more possible in modern-future ages due to the amount of firepower at hand, but I find it difficult to believe that a medieval army would be able to destroy a city such as medieval London completely, no matter what the time period given. The citizens would revolt. They're not just gonna sit around the table, hear a crash and simply comment:

"Those #@!% are at it again. They've just destroyed the Jones'. We're next, I suppose."

But I do it all the time in CTP2 Capture an enemy city thats in a shocking location, starve 'em, overwork 'em, then disband the city when its size reaches 3.

[Christantine The Great]

It would be extremely easy to destroy any city. I bet all of you have saw the films of the jetliners crashing into the Twin Towers. Now think what would happen if they crashed into the bottom of the towers. Now think what would happen if you did that to every building in a city. Now think what would happen if you packed all of the people into subways, large buildings, underwater tunnels, etc and blew them all up at the same time? I know this is a morbid subject but it is extremely easy to kill 6,000,000 people in the space of one year.

Now an ancient city could have its relitively small citizenry packed into wooden warehouses, large ships, etc and have them all burnt/sunk.

They aren't aiming at taking the city apart brick by brick like a Lego model. They are going to blow up EVERY building and EVERYONE inside of that city and they won't care how evil or how damaging it would be.

[GaryGuanine]

You don't have to worry about the people revolting, since you're demolishing the city anyway. You're not trying to convert the population, you don't care what happens to it. You just kill them.

Gary

[Mihai]

Originally posted by Christantine The Great
They are going to blow up EVERY building and EVERYONE inside of that city and they won't care how evil or how damaging it would be.

In modern times you have more fire power and in ancient times you have fire
Nero burned Roma. Not to the ground, but an enemy army could easily distroy a city if that was that they want.
In 1812 russians burned Moscow and French army couldn't stop the fire.
Carpet bombing leveled Dresda and Tokyo (or distroyed most of them)