Straving Captured Cities

[SIV]

First time I use this "strategy":
I've captured several cities from the americans (not on my continent) taht are close to their capital.
After one of them had flipped I decided to starve the rest (by making them all enterteiners).

I pan to leave only one American citizen and then to start "producing" persians.

(American culture is almost as my own)

Is it a good strategy for such cases?

[bongo]

It's a good strategy, it's always easier to keep 1 foreign national under control than 6.

BTW. If you wipe the americans completely off the map the possibility for cultural flips dissappears with them.

[Gangerolf]

that's evil

[Demerzel]

it's pretty annoying that unless you can push back the enemy borders via conquest that you have to starve the bejeesus out of the conquered city to get it under control.

Mass murder - yum yum!

It should consider other factors, such as if you have 47 cities and the enemy 5. The game should realise that the city wouldn't exactly flip back to a civ that stands every chance of being eliminated in a heartbeat.

[vmxa1]

Down to 1 or even 2 is my style, unless as was mentioned, the civ is eliminated.

[Arrian]

I decide how much starvation is necessary based on the ratio of my culture to theirs, and how long I expect it to take for me to wipe them out.

If I have a good ratio of my culture to theirs, and I expect the war to be relatively short, I will starve cities to size 4 or 5. The capitol may get harsher treatment. When fighting in the ancient era, I normally have a cultural advantage, and cities are usually pretty small (normally under size 6), so a poprushed spearman and a temple (if religious) ought to do the trick, with little to no starvation necessary.

If the ratio isn't as good and I think I'll be fighting for a while, I will either raze cities or starve them/rush workers or settlers to size 1 or 2.

The last war I fought was an invasion of India (nearly my equal in power, slightly more than 1/2 my culture). I razed several of their core cities and replaced them. Some of the replacement cities were actually built with settlers rushed from former Indian cities. Ethnicity is one of the factors, but so is acumulated culture. Even though I was building cities with Indian citizens, there was no Indian culture associated with the new cities. That, combined with a Palace move to the area and no border pressure, meant they were safe from flips. Now India is gone, so there is zero danger.

-Arrian

[Inverse Icarus]

YES. STRAVE THEM ALL!

you may also want to look into STARVING the people

seriously though, it's a strategy I use all the time. Starving / Poprushing the "lesser" citizens, or better yet, poprushing settlers (can kill off 4 or 5 people in 1 shot) and moving them to your major cities can work quite well.

for some reason, i've never seen major enemy cities i take over to be very effective until long after the war is over, so the unhappiness doesnt really matter to me. the city is worthless for a while anyway.

[vmxa1]

Early war I am fine with what Arrian said. Later wars size 6 cities will cause disorder if you go back to war with their nation. Early cities will become productive and it makes sense to keep some pop, but later ones will not so why not eliminate all but 1 or 2. The culture is thousands of years old and is stronger in later wars.

[Arrian]

Good point, vmxa1. The later it gets in the game, the more likely I am to starve to size 1 or raze 'n rebuild. In ancient times, I never raze and don't starve much. In the modern age, if I actually reach it, I would likely raze all but small outlying cities, unless I wanted to keep the old capitol for pride.

-Arrian

[Skeeve]

Sometimes, when you conquer a very large enemy city, you have no choice but to starve them if you decide to keep it.
The reason is because the citizens only have 9 squares to work from due to your culture = 0 in that city. (Unless is very close to your original borders anyway).

9 squares is typically not enough to support 25 citizens.

[planetfall]

I used to starve to one or two, now I only starve when city's working tiles is less than required to support citizens or we have resisters. I have tried both tactics: 1) starve to 1, and 2) raze and resettle. But in a recent game I forgot to reset working tiles in one city. I discovered this city I forgot to starve was way out producing the neighboring city I starved and let my people move in.

Where this works:
-- old civ area of influence is withdrawing
-- early build of: lib/temple/cathedral
-- valuable improvement:
factory/marketplace/etc
-- good occupation force either in city center or in city boundaries

Where this does not work:
-- old civ area of influence in/around city
-- only a couple military police
-- you are losing war &/or have great numbers on foreign soil
-- no other troops within city boundaries


Where it works with cavaet:
-- know city is liable to flip,
then station most troops next to city center
-- expect a couple flips,
remember after one flip less likely to flip again


-- PF

[vmxa1]

No flips are necessary with the starve method. All citizens are on entertainment, garrison troops and connect to my empire. Smacking near by cities and all but resisters are smiling. Once resistance is over all smiles until down to 1 or 2. They stay happy as well as I jump in a temple often as I want borders to cover nearby open area to control the roads. This works for me on all levels. If I have taken on a very big city and other large one are close then I cut all the roads. My troops are going to be stuck there for awhile anyway and workers can put them back later.

[Theseus]

Starve the mofo's down. Build some workers too, if that's what it takes.

My worldview:
Flipping = BAD.
Anything to prevent flipping = GOOD.

I target 1 to 3 remaining %$#@%#% foreign nationals, depending on culture and relative location of Palaces.

[vmxa1]

Theseus, you know I like your style.

[alva]

I never raze, but do starve them down to one. As soon as possible I rush a library and a temple (in that order) to quicke expand the borders.

btw: better use tax-man instead of happy faces to bring them down to one. Same effect, but at least this way the little buggers bring in a few bucks

@Arrian: Diddn't know it was possible to pop-rush 'foreigners'??, or am I thinking about drafting?? (Hardly ever rush-built)

[bbaws]

Starve using taxmen or scientists. Entertainers are zero profit and all specialists are content.

[vmxa1]

I don't think it matters if they are tax/sci/ent as long as they are resisting. After the resistence ends, then you could do it that way and maybe gain.