This is definitely a good idea.  Monsters destroying an entire city is just stupid and makes the game way less enjoyable.  The stacks are often way too powerful and impossible to defend against til late game and most games it happens to me at some point even if i dont build my cities over a monster camp  Damage population, damage production, destroy random improvements, increase unrest for x turns but dont  destroy the whole city.

Great Idea I support it.

Monsters should damage cities and improvements but not destroy cities.  Perhaps they can destroy improvements.

Only other players should be able to Raze cities

What's extremely frustrating to me about monsters razing cities is that they still destroy the fertility of the city site, many months after the pre-release FE patch that supposedly removed this behavior. It is one of the most infuriating mechanics in the game. I stopped playing FE for months after a wandering abomination mowed through my armies and razed my capital city, and I've been extremely disappointed to see that nothing his changed.

I mean, as ridiculous as it is to have a city razed by wolves or bears, there are scarier things out there that can crush you even if you're fully prepared. Even without turning the world difficulty up, sometimes there's literally nothing you can do to save a city. A city can be attacked by freak creatures that are more powerful than your entire kingdom/empire put together. You can see some mega beast coming, but even stationing all your best troops in the city only gets them all killed.

I like that creatures powerful enough to wipe out a whole kingdom exist, and I don't mind if some dragon or elemental lord or titanic named creature that probably crawled out of a unique location actually razes the town after conquering it. I mean, unlike a cave bear or whatever, I can actually believe that this dragon turned an entire city into a ruin. What I do not like that they somehow destroy the land itself, making a rebuilding process impossible, even after you slay the monster or watch them move on.

Maybe if it did something interesting with the land, like turn it into a haunted ruin, or a huge lair for the creature, I wouldn't mind so much. But having the land reduced to unusable featureless flatland just feels broken and bad.

The idea of monsters not always razing cities is a very good one! My proposal regarding this subject is the following:

Monsters reduce city population by a number directly proportional to their power (wether if the ratio is 1:1, 1:2, or something else would be decided through play testing). If the new population is 0, the city is razed. If the new population is above 0, the city survives but there is temporal unrest representing citizens afraid of monsters not being able to fully concentrate on what they do (the text in the unrest pop up would say something like "we are afraid of monsters!") and this unrest is slowly reduced over time as citizens recover their confidence. 

I have a different suggestion.

Have the monsters "wipe" all the buildings in town. Leave the city itself alone.

At the very least the founding square should be able to be built on again, ie. not be salted as what happens currently.

We can.  There is no 5 turn limit any more.  Though you may have to see "More Options" to see the "Raze" function.

Three random guys with clubs (starter militia) can kill a bear cub or wolf in this game easy. If your city gets attacked by say an ogre army and the militia defends and mostly dies (but holds them back), then the bear cub comes along and sees an undefended city, suddenly the population of 500 people can't pick up sticks or rocks and chase out said bear cub? That bear cub is then powerful enough to destroy every single building in a level 5 city and desecrate the land it was built on in a single season? No amount of "hur, dur, FANTASY" makes that OK. It's not about making the game easier, it's just something absurd.

Gameplay wise I don't even care. I would just reload, autosave is set to every turn. I haven't lost a city in LH yet though.

They should reduce population and destroy some random buildings... and that's it, not raze the city.

+1 to change mechanic.

I think the desaster should be different depending of the type of monster & strengh :

- beasts and smaller monsters just kill some people and eat some food.

- Bandits & other monsters of same type kill peoples, steal food & money. Stronger version can destroy some buildings. Could lead to a quest : Bandits taking hostages/slaves that you could rescue.

- Stronger monsters do the same but with more damages EDIT: they could capture the city, damaging/killing people each turn, the player need to recapture it.

- Dragons & others nasty monsters can destroy a whole city > Create a set of lairs/quest to complete for free the land and be able to build a new city here.

When a city get looted, the empire get an unrest malus for x turns.

AHhh I see so you CHEAT the rules and mechanics of the game.....thanks for letting us know that you're a CHEATER and not to be trusted.

Because changing a slider in the options menu is totally cheating. In a non-competitive single-player 4x. The SC2 ladder forums are that way. ->