City Conquest

One empire controls each city. The empire who controls the flag at the town square controls the city. To gain control of a city, the flag at the town square must be captured.

City Capture

Each avatar and troop present influences a flag according to their empire's political stance toward the holder of the flag. Enemy flags are lowered to the bottom of the pole then changed to your empire's flag. This is symbolic and does not require you to have a flag in your possession. Friendly flags are raised to the top of the pole.

Military flags increase the difficulty of capturing a city. You cannot raise or lower the flag at the town square unless all of the military flags of the city are controlled by empires that are friendly or neutral toward your empire.

When no avatar or troop is standing at a military flag, it slowly returns to the empire that the population is loyal towards. To hold a military flag, at least one avatar or troop must remain at the military flag until the town square flag is changed. the town square flag will only change if an avatar is at it.

This means that if no troops are stationed to defend the military flags, they will return to the original owner of the city. The original owner then only has to capture the town square in order to regain control over the city.

Pillaging

When a city is captured, the local banks are pillaged of all funds from the government and citizen accounts. The loot is split equally between the conquering avatars present in the city. All avatars in the city get an equal share, whose empire is an enemy toward the losing empire at the time the city is captured.

Loyalty

Citizens of a city are loyal to their empire. Loyalty is reported as a percentage on the city status report. This is the percentage of the citizens who are loyal towards the empire who controls their city.

When citizens move into a city, they are not immediately loyal to the controlling empire. Their loyalty is gained slowly, one citizen per city report cycle. It is typical for the loyalty percentage to change a lot when the population of a small city grows quickly.

When a city is conquered, citizens remain loyal to their previous empire. This is reported as disloyalty to the occupier in their city reports. The disloyalty of citizens drops slowly, one citizen per city report cycle. When the disloyalty level reaches zero, the citizens change their allegiance to the empire who controls the city; then loyalty toward their new empire begins to rise.

Occupation

A city that is disloyal toward the controlling empire is an occupied city.

Occupied cities may send city occupation reports to their previous empire at the same time that they send city reports to the controlling empire. The likelihood of a city occupation report at each city report cycle decreases as loyalty toward the previous empire decreases.

While a city is occupied, the controlling empire cannot construct or demolish any buildings or roads. Construction must wait until the citizens change their allegiance. The controlling empire also cannot change any manufacturing or manage building specific functions while the city is occupied.

Disloyalty towards an occupier affects the productivity of the citizens. Citizens become more productive as disloyalty decreases. While disloyalty is high, construction and manufacture by citizens is slowed.

Occupation affects the morale of citizens. Citizens incur a morale penalty that decreases as disloyalty decreases.

Occupation prevents drafting of citizens. While a city is occupied, troops cannot be drafted from the populace by Military flags. The only way to increase the number of troops in an occupied city is to bring them from elsewhere and order them to garrison in the city.

Surrender

Surrendering a city to the Imperium.

It is possible to surrender cities to another empire.

Quotes from patch notes

Related patch notes

Client Update: 2012-03-22: Pillage City Fixed code that pillages local banks when a city is captured. Previously only the government account was pillaged and that money was split evenly between the conquerers present in the town square. Now all money in the government and citizen accounts is pillaged. The loot is divided evenly between all people in the city who are enemies of the city's empire at the time the town square is captured. When a city is pillaged, the conquerers each get a log message informing them of their share of the loot. Update 2015-02-27: Pillage City Broken When the town square of an enemy city is captured, the local banks are pillaged by the conquerers. All funds in the citizen and government accounts are split evenly between all avatars present in the city when it is captured. You have to be in a development or on a road of the city, not in a design studio, and you must be an enemy toward the previous owner of the city to get a share of the loot. A thought message informs each looter of their share. Oops, this wasn't working. Now it's fixed. Update 2015-08-06: Flag Capture Rule Change After some discussion on the forum with battle hardened players, a significant change to the city capture rules was implemented. City flags now return to the empire of allegiance of the citizens when they are not occupied by enemy units. Previously, flags returned to the empire who owned the town square flag. This change requires that a captured city be physically occupied until the allegiance changes. This change is intended to slow the marauding squads of players who used to be able to capture most of an empire in an hour. If the political stance is neutral, of the citizens' empire of allegiance toward the owner of the flag, the citizens do not influence the flag, up or down. Update 2015-09-22: Troops Leave Their Post Troops placed at a flag abandon their posts and the flag goes back down. First some notes on how flag and city capture work. After a flag is captured, the empire that captured the flag differs from the Empire of Allegiance of the local citizens. Captured flags return to the EoA when not actively guarded. The EoA changes slowly toward the owner of the town square flag. This is reported as the loyalty of the citizens. After the EoA changes to match the flag, the flag is no longer captured. Rather it is now in its new normal state, awaiting capture by some other empire. Several factors contributed to the problem reported. When not in any scene, all but one of the troops at a flag are returned to the garrison. Troops leave flags unguarded to go to work in a weapon or shield base. After a troop is moved to a weapon or shield base, a replacement emerges from the garrison to guard the flag and to be ready for assignment to a base. In an occupied city there is usually no troop in the garrison to replace them. The garrison is not filled from the local populace in occupied cities. Here is the solution implemented in this update. Troops at captured flags no longer return to the garrison when not in any scene. The last troop at a captured flag will not be reassigned to a base.