I'm wondering if you can essentially "delete" a city that you own. I didn't see a way to do it, and it seems like it could get ridiculous with how many minor factions pop up building cities everywhere.

You can expand your city to another using influence points. There is no wiping a city out of existence other than nuking it (which in a realism point of view is standing, you don't delete a city with it's people).

Hey there,

As Ilans mentioned, you can merge two cities you own by spending Influence. You can unlock this feature by researching the Military Architecture Technology (Medieval Era).

You can pillage your own cities. that works just like it does with foreign outposts: put a unit on top of it and hit the pillage button. Always takes only 1 turn. After that, the territory is blank again and you can put down an outpost immediately and attach the territory.

Sorry for the double post, but it seems that I can't find the edit button today...

Razing your own cities is usually the better option in the early game because it is fairly cheap, just a few hundred influence to found the outpost and attach it (also because it's the only option until the medieval era :p). The disadvantage is that you destroy all districts in the process, which you can keep if you merge the two cities for the rather hefty influence cost. 

Siptah wrote:
You can pillage your own cities. that works just like it does with foreign outposts: put a unit on top of it and hit the pillage button. Always takes only 1 turn. After that, the territory is blank again and you can put down an outpost immediately and attach the territory

Interesting. I wonder if that's an intended mechanic. Either way will surely be helpful in gaining the lands independent cities spawn on, especially late game.

I really can't imagine it's intended, but I use it all the time.

At first I was afraid (I was petrified!), I only razed cities that I had captured in war while the war was still going on. Then I found you can raze those cities after you win the war. Then I found you can raze any city you own at any time for any reason. I don't remember if the districts always turn to rubble - I distinctly remember one recent city kept all it's districts when I attached it to an existing city.

Anyway, since the button is not clear, I think ti's not intended. But there should be a way to demote cities since we have a pretty strict city cap.

I think so, otherwise it would take your pillage strength into account and not always raze the city in 1 turn.

FYI, Independent cities shouldn't exist in the late game. Each of their cities decline after some time, and there aren't supposed to spawn after early modern. If you see some later on, it would be a bug, I guess.

Ilans wrote:

You can expand your city to another using influence points. There is no wiping a city out of existence other than nuking it (which in a realism point of view is standing, you don't delete a city with it's people).

Siptah wrote:

You can pillage your own cities. that works just like it does with foreign outposts: put a unit on top of it and hit the pillage button. Always takes only 1 turn. After that, the territory is blank again and you can put down an outpost immediately and attach the territory.

Thanks! I was wondering about doing it both of these ways, so this helps a lot! I was just into the medieval era, so I never got to see tech and didn't think to try pillaging.