[Feature Request] Raze your own city

[Mercestes]

it's finally happened. I found a really sweet city with 2 ores and a mithril just ripe for the taking.

So I took it, kept it, opened up the fog of war, and found two Ymar crystals literally on the border of the zone of control.

So now I'm trying to lure creeps to it to take it over so I can take it back over and raze it.

Please add "raze city" option to owned cities.

Thank you.

[Tyrus]

I would second this. The option to "raze" a city is something that seems like it is a standard option in games like this, and while I have only been playing for a few days, I have already come across similar situations where you don't fully see what the surrounding countryside presents as options until after you take a city, also sometimes, you think it might be a good city, but then find it is not once you capture it and want to settle some place else. So please add the ability to raze a city.

[yllbardh]

Razing the city Imo should have moral consequences throughout of your empire and mostly to the race wich the city belonged, but by a recruiting a settler from the last thousand of city inhabitants automatically city should disband by itself, which in PQ does not.

[Yco]

I Disagree with this; people will just end up razing their own city when an enemy doomstack is about to conquer it.

I.e. it potentially allows the player to bypass several core gameplay mechanics!

[Azdgari]

Yco, a delay on razing would avert this. Something where the city gradually reduces to 0 population.

[Yco]

Yco, a delay on razing would avert this. Something where the city gradually reduces to 0 population.

1000 pop per turn?

This would allow you to mess with the unrest and income mechanics, by pruning pop so rebels don't appear in your cities; or delaying empire growth while your granaries get built.

Theres no penalty for doing it.

[Azdgari]

Pretty steep cost to it, if the end result is that your city disappears.

Was that not obvious?

[Yco]

Pretty steep cost to it, if the end result is that your city disappears.

Was that not obvious?

if raze is a toggle, you could switch it on and off. This would allow exploits etc. There might be fewer exploits if it's an irreversible action, true.

Still allows cities with 2 pop or less to self-raze before an enemy stack reaches them. So the penalty could be that you lose gold as if the opponent had conquered the city. Perhaps, in exchange, you get some of the garrison troops released to use later on.

Id rather see it as a mechanic for the nomad race, or something

[OneFiercePuppy]

Id rather see it as a mechanic for the nomad race, or something

That would be neat, if it's not too hard to implement. Something where you could even keep your population intact while moving the city, instead of starting at 1k? Very nomadish. Maybe even just have a city that gets movement points (ever read The Belgariad? The nomads in that series had a lovely "city" that they dragged around with enormous teams of...oxen, maybe it was. Or draft horses. I forget)

Regarding your self-razing concerns...assuming you cast and store on turns when you aren't casting the really important spells, you probably always have half a dozen Slaveworks on standby. Maybe more. If going to 0 let you evaporate a city, you could do it from much higher than 2k pop, since Slaveworks, unlike "buy now" lets you immediately complete the task. You could queue up four settlers, Slaveworks (once each if you've got High Men, or Expansionist) to crank them out, and repeat. Should be able to evaporate 15k pop in a turn, easily.

[Azdgari]

if raze is a toggle, you could switch it on and off. This would allow exploits etc. There might be fewer exploits if it's an irreversible action, true.

I was operating under the assumption that it was an irreversible decision. Yeah, if it was a toggle, then that would be incredibly exploitable.

Still allows cities with 2 pop or less to self-raze before an enemy stack reaches them. So the penalty could be that you lose gold as if the opponent had conquered the city. Perhaps, in exchange, you get some of the garrison troops released to use later on.

I don't know that being able to scrap such a small city so quickly Is that big of a deal. I have an idea for how to avoid this even so, though. Instead of "raze" being a command, make it a "packing up" or "caravan" building that needs to be built. Only once the "caravan" is constructed does the city-removal countdown begin. This means that you'd have to either buy the building outright (expensive) or build it normally (takes time). At the end, you get a settler unit again, to move the city. In this way, it's not so much "razing" your own city as "disbanding" your own city.

Another idea is that city production (but not upkeep) is suspended during the disbanding process.