Each unit has a Ransack button - move the unit/army over the city, activate the Ransack button and within a turn it should burn the city to the ground. This works for any city or an outpost, be it yours or an AI's.

You can always first empty that city of population by building the cheapest unit possible. Then move all those units to your closest city and disband then - you will thus transfer the population and won't be murdering anyone. And hey - ransacking happened a lot through history and during wars. :)

When it comes to the independents I like to assimilate and absorb ( assuming you have the tech to absorb) that way you get free troops out of it and if you dont want the troops just take them to a city and disband them for free population increase

Melliores wrote:

Each unit has a Ransack button - move the unit/army over the city, activate the Ransack button and within a turn it should burn the city to the ground. This works for any city or an outpost, be it yours or an AI's.

You can always first empty that city of population by building the cheapest unit possible. Then move all those units to your closest city and disband then - you will thus transfer the population and won't be murdering anyone. And hey - ransacking happened a lot through history and during wars. :)

The ransack option isn’t there in this case. You cannot move onto the city without instantly taking it, and the button is grayed out before that, saying there’s no valid target within range. So you can’t click ransack and then select the target city, as you can with Lairs and sanctuaries. 

DNLH wrote:
There's no valid ransack target, because enemy town centers are probably only thing you can't ransack. Take the city and ransack it once it's yours.

Thank you for this - it should have been obvious but when I went back and looked I realized that when I took the cities, my unit didn't move into the city on that turn.  That's why the ransack button was grayed out.  I was looking in the city window for a way to abandon or raze the city and there wasn't one, and then on the unit who wasn't actually in the city.  Thanks for the help.  Now I can try to keep playing this game rather than start over

@Thelo329 Did you manage to ransack the city once it was yours ? That is how the mechanics currently work regarding city centers. :)

Melliores wrote:

@Thelo329 Did you manage to ransack the city once it was yours ? That is how the mechanics currently work regarding city centers. :)

Yes once my unit moved onto the city center, I could ransack and on the next turn drop an outpost in the territory.