Humankind is the brand new game from Amplitude, the studio behind the Endless universe that encompasses most of their games. It's a 4X hex tile game like the studio's previous game Endless Legend, but Humankind makes changes in how to build a city and establishing a legitimate war against enemy empires, among other factors.
Indeed, while elements like unit types and the historical setting are the major flavor factors separating Endless Legend from Humankind, how cities are established and linked is probably one of the most important differences. Cities and how they are created, expand, and destroyed are a bit more involved in Humankind, so here's a guide on how to raze, or destroy them.
Why Raze a Conquered City?
The main reason people are having trouble razing a city is the lack of an option to do so to a recently captured enemy city. When a city is taken, it becomes part of the empire that conquered it, eventually leading to resources and a place to heal Humankind's units. However, a newly taken city has many problems, so it's often better to raze it. To do so, players must attack the city with an army, selecting the "Ransack" option.
Ransack is a general option that allows a troupe to take resources from something like a natural spawn point or neutral fortification in exchange for destroying it. It can also be used on enemy outposts the same way, and doing so will raze the city after it's conquered.
Adding more units to the army and, most of all, adding more armies is the best way to speed up the process. However, sieging a city this way takes a long time for a single army. Any outposts attached to the city through Humankind's expansion system will have to be razed individually, a time-consuming but profitable endeavor for the armies involved.
Benefits and (Eventually) Solving Problems with Influence
One of the biggest reasons to prioritize razing a city over taking it over is the city cap. This gives penalties if the city cap is exceeded, and while Humankind's city cap can be raised, there are not many ways to do so.
This problem can eventually be solved with enough influence, but the amount required to overcome the city cap can only be consistently reached towards the endgame. Those looking to absorb or conquer cities past the city cap limit in a big way are urged to increase influence production in Humankind by any means necessary. Beyond that, Ransacking a city to raze it is always a viable, if violent, option.
Humankind is available on PC and Stadia.