Don't get me wrong, raze can be useful, and good, it's just depend on people way to play, if people don't seek settle city and want slow a.i down and a.i might not resettle, then this is useful, but if people want to resettle a better spot, this can be bad and raze seem not helping. I hope they don't removed raze, it's just I hope they add a optian of gameplay, whatever if raze city to ground, that ground is ruined or that ground heal overtime, or that ground go back way it's was before city founded. That's big problem, city on ground, not raze itself, raze can be useful tool for army or nation, but could be useless for other reason, if reason to resettle city to get better spot, then raze in this .912 is useless, on otherhand, if player not care and not want build more city, but slow a.i down or stop a.i become too powerful, then this raze is very useful for that reason, in this .912 version.

For me this have nothing to do with balance, but the inner gnome inside me that wants to build up everywhere, I want to colonize the entire little world, and make it look like a big city, so when I am disallowed to build cities on 3/4 of the map I immediately end that game, cause it gets boring...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I note that there have been a couple of responders to this thread who said that they like, or are comfortable with, this change.  However, it is clear that the vast majority of people who have commented, do not like this change.  I would like to add my vote/voice to the group who have requested that this change be rescinded. 

The change is not reasonable.  Razing a city should at most permanently damage only the city square; it should not permanently destroy the fertility, and material resources, of all 8 surrounding tiles.  Practically speaking, usable tiles for new cities are already pretty rare; and this change reduces viable locations too much. 

This change is purposely restrictive, and resultingly annoying.  For my part, I am one of those players who does not actually like to build a lot of cities.  (I don't enjoy city micro-management; and I routinely build 1.5x, to 2x, as many outposts, as cities, partly for that reason.)  I also do not care to keep many captured cities - usually no more than half of them.  On the other hand, some folks love to build and manage cities.  However, this change removes choices/options for all of us, narrows gameplay artificially, and frustrates most of us. 

The simplest corrrection (rescinding this change) is best.  I understand that there are a couple of spells that could be used to restore fertility, but they are not readily available (until late game); and may not be available at all, if you don't pursue the right magic path (earth magic).  Also, some folks have suggested that fertility be restored naturally after a "cooling off period" of perhaps 25-50 turns.  However, I think these (and other mitigating changes) are needlessy complex (and mostly unsatisfactory) solutions.  In this case, simplest is best:  don't permanently destroy the city tiles, or at least, don't extend the permanent destruction beyond the city center -- don't affect the 8 surrounding tiles. 

I'd close, by saying that this is "just my opinion" ... but I think we are close to an emerging consensus here  ... 

Just one additional note, regarding my previous reply (above).  I said that it is not reasonable to expect or believe that razing a city can, or would, permanently (completely) destroy the fertility, and the productivity (resource availability) of the city.  Even worse, it wouldn't/couldn't permanently destroy such a large surrounding area, as the 8 surrounding tiles, in the FE game. 

In the real world, this has never happened in recorded history.  AND please don't fall back on the Roman destruction of Carthage!  Sowing the fields with salt, to prevent all future fertility (as the Romans liked to brag that they had done) is about 3/4 mythology.

Quoting from Wikipedia's entry on Carthage: 

"Following the Third Punic War, the city was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC. However, the Romans refounded Carthage, which became the Empire's fourth most important city and the capital of the short-lived Vandal kingdom.  It remained one of the most important Roman cities until the Muslim conquest when it was destroyed a second time in 698."

I agree with making razing no longer removing fertility, but pioneers would need to be made more expensive and actually cost maintenance in this case.

Currently Pioneers are used for both city founding and outpost building. If you up the cost of poineers, there might be trouble with the outpost-spam.

I just had to try this out, so I loaded up a save where I was trying to win with spell of making that I had this random tech (it's the absolute LAST tech of the magic tree - takes like 400 seasons to get)... and... it doesn't work on city tiles (which is what is left behind when a city is razed). Why you do this Cari???

After spending about 3000 mana trying this thing out (it takes 300 mana per cast and affects a 3x3 area)... it seems it only transform the arid lands (brown) into good ones. It doesn't work on deserts either. Although it seems like you don't need earth 5 to cast it (I did have one, but it showed all my heroes being able to cast it).

Oh by the way, if they were suppose to be Kingdom/Empire exclusive, then something is probably broken, because I got both spells as Gilden.

I pretty well hate this mechanic as well.

If the tiles around a city really mattered, it would be cool to have magic ruin the tiles, but it doesn't appear to.

The only thing this mechanic does is punish people who are unlucky enough in the early game (WELL before we have access to the revive magic) to lose a city to wandering monsters, or punish people who want to play expansionist and would prefer to rebuild rather than suffer piles of unrest.

I'm not opposed to scorched earth mechanic, but in the current city and magic setup it REALLY doesn't make any sense. It provides piles of punishment for players with no apparent reward.

I think that it should be changed to reduce tiles in 8 cell radius to 1/1 grain/production, and it should take 20 turns per grain/production for the land to be restored back to its normal health.

I agree that in terms of gameplay, it's an unfair mechanic. If anything, the ability to destroy terrain via razing a city should be balanced by the ability to undo it - at similar levels of spellcasting/research levels. Thus, the land revive Earth spell Birth Of Summer would be the counterpart to something like a level 5 Fire spell called Armageddon which torches the friendly city, all the units, and turns the terrain into desert. Quite simply, being able to scorch earth via whatever mechanics too early is too powerful, because it takes way too long to undo it.