How Can I destroy a city?

Pratell · July 20, 2003, 14:03

Stupid people keep invading my lands and building cities, which are interfering with my other cities' production. I know I can just change who takes what square for production but sometimes it changes without my input. So I was wondering, is there any way to destroy a city?

Ben Kenobi · July 20, 2003, 15:26

There are a number of different ways.

1. Send spies to poison the water supply of the city until the city reaches 1. Then you attack, capture and raze the city.

2. Capture the city, and then starve the population until the city reaches 1. Then build a settler or engineer to disband the city.

3. If the city has more defenders than population points, simply defeating the defenders will destroy the city.

4. Nuke the city to halve the population, then capture and starve the city.

5. If the city has walls, and you don't want to poison the water supply, you must first destroy the city walls to
reduce the population through defender attrition.

6. Bribe the city and starve the population.

Pratell · July 20, 2003, 16:45

Ah, thank you!

duke o' york · July 21, 2003, 05:39

I agree that it's a pain when the squares change. I tend to check worker distribution at the end of every turn, but in my current game I have a city using a wheat special that just happens to find itself in the middle of the highway the Celts are using to plough troops along en route to crushing the Spanish. I wasn't too bothered that they'd land an elephant on the square and then move on, because I'd just use the ocean to bag some extra trade, but when the worker didn't return once they'd b*****ed off then I just got tired of having to do that every time and stuck an archer on it. Being within my city boundary then I escaped unhappy people and if the Celts decided that they fancied a sneak attack then this outdated unit wouldn't be too great a loss. I do like having an irritant city among the enemy's though, and plonking a decent defender down on one of their specials to steal it for yourself and stacking spies with it. This is entirely legal and entirely annoying for them.

If you can't just leave a dip moving round their territory in the hope that they snap and declare war on you then having a unit in your city radius and theirs is fun too.

rah · July 21, 2003, 09:17

The one nice thing about CIVIII, the disband city option.

Ben Kenobi · July 23, 2003, 03:59

Quote:

This is entirely legal and entirely annoying for them.

Especially on high defensive terrain, such as gold and wine. It is a real bonus if you can found a city on the special.

DrSpike · July 23, 2003, 06:15

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
The one nice thing about CIVIII, the disband city option.

I'm surprised they didn't hail the feature on the box.

rah · July 23, 2003, 13:51

Quote:

Originally posted by obiwan18
Especially on high defensive terrain, such as gold and wine. It is a real bonus if you can found a city on the special.

If it's in the middle of their territory and far from yours, you had better be in Democracy or have tons of cash, because the AI will usually bribe the city quite quickly, when it's small and cheap.

In MP, playing no city bribe, this is always one of the most fun things to do. (especially on gold) the other player will want to take the city out while it's still size one, and will usually expend considerable resources to do it.

Heresson · July 24, 2003, 05:45

Quote:

Originally posted by obiwan18

2. Capture the city, and then starve the population until the city reaches 1. Then build a settler or engineer to disband the city.

No. Capture the city and start building settlers, changing their support city as soon as they are build. Sometimes disbanding a city this way is pretty hard, but at least You've got lots of settlers.

Ben Kenobi · July 24, 2003, 06:02

By starving the city from the outset, you open up the city squares for the established city. Your solution would cost more for a larger city.

Another advantage of starving the city is that you can earn beakers and taxes for Xinning before the city collapses.

Either way will eventually disband the city.

Heresson · July 24, 2003, 06:29

I prefer my way. You see, I always miss settlers. And I don't want to build them in my normal cities, as they would get smaller that way. by building setllers my way, You can get many settlers practically free of population reduction, as a small city regenerates very quickly. Of course, if your only goal is to disband the city, your way is easier and probably better

rah · July 24, 2003, 11:06

Build your settlers when you're celebrating and the pop reduction is meaningless.

Old n Slow · July 24, 2003, 15:58

Before spies, I ususally build a Settler, may rehome or not depending upon other considerations. Sometimes I'll disband the settler as shields towards the next settler.

Be sure to move the citizens to low food, high other things spaces (trees are a favorite) & sell off the infrastructure along the way.

Heresson · July 24, 2003, 17:44

Quote:

Originally posted by rah
Build your settlers when you're celebrating and the pop reduction is meaningless.

I do not understand

DrSpike · July 24, 2003, 18:03

Build a settler and your pop drops 1, so you can't ordinarily produce a lot quickly (even with the resources) without a cost in terms of the state of that city. When you are celebrating (celebrations in republic or demo increase pop) its just the resource cost that is important to weigh.

Ben Kenobi · July 25, 2003, 05:26

Quote:

Build your settlers when you're celebrating and the pop reduction is meaningless.

Yes, this can be quite beneficial since you only need one food surplus in order to celebrate. Anything extra contributes nothing to the population growth, and can be put to much better use feeding settlers or engineers. Also, you can develop your terrain to encourage further celebrations.

rah · July 25, 2003, 08:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Heresson

I do not understand

The best time is when you're waiting for aquaducts or sewers. Your city is at size 8 or 12, you build a settler and it celebrates back to 8 or 12 the next turn.

Heresson · July 25, 2003, 09:10

oh yes, I do it too.

rah · July 30, 2003, 08:20

Yeah, I'll continue to build settlers from those celebrating size 12 city and send them to join those chokepoint/or gold cities that I build on mountains to get them up to size 3 so they can start celebrating. Or just send 4 settlers to found a city that instantly celebrates.

Heresson · July 30, 2003, 08:45

I sometimes miss such details... What do you get when city is celebrating?

DrSpike · July 30, 2003, 09:48

A boost in population.

duke o' york · July 30, 2003, 10:40

When cities under the representative governments (Republic and Democracy) celebrate, then they will grow in size until there is no more food that they can use. This may be as far as they can go in the game, or they may need a harbour, aqueduct or sewer system, or irrigation or farming before then can grow more.

When cities under the other governments celebrate, they get the trade bonuses for the government type "above" them.
A celebrating anarchy

will have the same trade and corruption levels as a despotism.
A celebrating despotism will have the same trade and corruption levels as a monarchy.
A celebrating monarchy will have the same trade and corruption levels as a republic.
A celebrating communism or fundamentalism will have the same trade as a republic or democracy, but their corruption (zero, or as near as makes no odds) remains unchanged.
So by celebrating your cities in monarchy, communism or fundamentalism, you get the trade benefits of a democracy! This can give a great boost to your tax and research, and to your caravan deliveries.

Heresson · July 30, 2003, 10:50

Ah, that explains a lot...
Strange I never took a look at it.

Heresson · July 30, 2003, 10:51

Civ2 is more complicated than I thought.., even after some 5 years of playiong it I learn something new.

duke o' york · July 30, 2003, 11:00

My pleasure

We've got smilies with hats on for the 5th birthday, but we don't have one who removes his hat with a flourish yet. Anyone...

Everyone learns new things about Civ here - even those of us who have been playing since it came out. The recent work on trade commodity prediction seems very complex, but I'm sure that it'll find its way into my own games soon. Stick around, ask and answer questions and we all benefit!

Heresson · July 30, 2003, 11:03

Thanks

rah · July 30, 2003, 14:26

How to predict a repeating Hides demand is what I want to know. Having one in an MP game in a decent trade city is ONE HECK of an advantage.

DrSpike · July 30, 2003, 15:35

I think this is answered in Solo's wildcard research.

rah · July 30, 2003, 18:29

I thought it just explained it, not predicted it.

DrSpike · July 31, 2003, 05:25

No you can determine wildcards based on a load of factors. It's not the sort of thing you'd do in a MP game (I used the research in an Early Landing game), which is probably why you missed this one.