Hey guys,

I just spent about 45min to find out how to sell a building in Civ 3. How does it work? I don't find any youtube video or whatsoever. It should work by right-clicking on the name of the improvement in the list of city improvements. But it doesn't. I can only watch the information about it, but there's no option for selling?

Is it a bug or what's the reason?

Thank you very much!

Vincent

It should be a simple matter of either left clicking or right clicking on the building you want to sell in the "Improvements" section in the lower left of the city screen. If you see the menu for details, "Sell building for X gold" should be an option if the building can be sold.

However, there are several possible reasons you can't sell a given building.

1) A few buildings can never be sold once built. I know the aqueduct falls into this category, and I think the hospital does as well, likely because these buildings support larger populations for the city. Wonders of the World also cannot be sold, whether Large (Pyramids) or Small (Forgotten Palace). Your palace cannot be sold. Except for the palace, all of these buildings will remain in the city until/unless it is completely destroyed (your palace can be manually moved by building it in another city).

2) You can only sell one building in a given city per turn. If you sold a Bank this turn, you'll have to wait until next turn to sell a Barracks. You can sell buildings in different cities on the same turn (ex. Rome can sell a Granary while Cumae sells a Barracks and Antium also sells a Granary), but only one building can be sold in a given city during the same turn.

3) If a building exists in a city solely because of a Wonder, then you can't sell the building.

For example, the Temple of Artemis places a free temple in every friendly city on the same continent. If Rome didn't have a temple previously then the Wonder gives it one, but you can't sell this temple because it is provided and supported by the Wonder.

If Rome already had a temple, then you won't have to pay maintenance on the temple as long as the Wonder is in effect since the Wonder gives Rome a free temple; you can sell Rome's preexisting temple, but you'll be selling the one that Rome actually built, not the one provided by the Wonder. If you don't sell the temple, then when you acquire Education, Rome will still have a temple but you'll start paying maintenance on it again. If you did sell the temple, then Rome's temple will vanish with the acquisition of Education because the Wonder is no longer providing the freebie.

It is worth noting that if a wonder is providing a free building to a city, then that city is unable to build that building, even if the wonder is about to stop functioning. This is probably most visible with the Temple of Artemis, since those temples might be the only culture producer for multiple cities in your empire.

For something like the Pyramids or Art of War, you might consider selling all the individual buildings you built for extra cash since these two wonders don't expire (assuming you aren't at risk of losing them). For the Temple of Artemis, I definitely wouldn't sell prior built temples since the Wonder's effect is definitely going away eventually.

4) I'm actually not sure about this point, but I could see it being a potential vector for your problem. You might not be able to sell a prerequisite building if the city either has or is building another building that relies on the pre-req. For example, you might not be able to sell your Marketplace if the city either has or is building a Bank. Again, I don't know whether this is actually the case; I do know that later buildings in a chain don't disappear if the prerequisite building vanishes (easiest example being the Temple of Artemis. If the city builds a Cathedral, the Cathedral will still be functioning even if Education causes the temple to disappear by deactivating the Temple of Artemis).