Some good points here.

Maybe just as simple as having the enemy destroy one building per turn until they are eradicated or the city is destroyed would be a good compromise.

I never have a problem with this, but I am worried for my beloved AI. Even after the bug is fixed that seems to get them killed s easily, they are going to have problems with the monsters. Adding a whole new game mechanic or destroying buildings may not be necessary. Perhaps the capital city should just get more defenders for being, well... the capital city. If we had 4 stock defenders for a capital, problem solved. No change to game mechanics, no extra coding, and monsters don't become mere annoyances to cities. 

On top of that, make a total of 3 defenders from Bell Tower and 2 more from Fort and now we have a realistic early game defense against monster rushes. It will also prevent early factions from wiping each other out of the game. You can expect a quick core mod if this problem persists on release. 

Problem solved because of auto defenders? Well maybe we should add just an auto army of the best units in each AI city to prevent player conquer AIs cities with 2-3 heroes...

Thats not the point! There is absolutly nothing we gain here. Whats the difference of having this monsters/barbarian when they do absolutly nothing just waiting to be killed for XP?

Destroyed buildings hurt a bit but its far away from cripple an AI. For sure the AI as well as the player needs to make decisions here to either defend with more or less (to risk something some time)!

FE lacks on decisions! Not sure you see that but in moment the whole game is build on random stuff (heroes always go random quests, get random perks (we usually take rarest when fit), etc.) and not-important stuff (weapon a or b, just build every building, research give nothing really needed for specific tactic), the real decisions are to build pioneer now or after next building.

So for sure wilderness should influence the game somehow and for sure there needs to be some decisions made!

(and I'm the last one not thinking on a challenging AI)

The advantage of stronger pre-built militia is that they protect the city, but can't be used to attack other cities.

@calmon,

The 4 guard bonus is only given to capitals. Every other city would have to provide its own defense. The point is to allow monsters to raze an undefended village, but not sack a capital and ruin the game. There should be consequences to not defending. At the same time, it is better game design to keep capitals in the game as long as possible. You don't want to get a message saying the AI has been wiped out by a troll, simply due to lack of defenses. You also don't want to see your capital sacked on turn one by a spiderling. 

I agree with your other point. The game currently lacks decisions. I will wait until later in the beta to worry about this. Much of the problem comes from lack of AI and balancing issues. 

Whether the capitol should get extra defenders to prevent a rush or early game KO by monsters is a different issue.

The issue is that completely destroying a city regardless of its size or the strength of the attacker is an unrefined game mechanic.  No one denies that having enemies overcome your city's defenses should have consequenses, but a city of hundreds of people with buildings that took dozens of turns to build up should not just "poof" disappear.

I did this to an AI player yesterday.  Scouting his border, I noticed an Obsidian Golem, which came after me.  I outran it, and a couple turns later his nearby city of 200+ people vanished.  He was higher than me on the power scale until he lost this city.  If the Golem just pounded on the city for a turn or two and then left for a while, triggering defensive actions by the AI, then he would have kept the city and probably have a stonger military for it.  Losing the city just crippled him. 

My point is that getting attacked should not necessarity be crippling.  It should be bad and it should set you back, but total, instant destruction is very... binary.  Letting some spiders wander into an undefended city should not have the same consequence as summoning a Clambercoil Dragon next to one of your main cities (which I have done.  That was fun), or being attacked by a massive AI army. 

Cities should be destroyed by an invading force. The trick is to balance the game so that a large city can defend itself proportional to the level of infrastructure and number of citizens. Right now a large city has so few defenders that a rather weak unit can defeat the city and raze it. If the defenders are properly balanced, killing them would be the logical proof that razing is possible. 

In essence, I am happy with the current razing mechanic, I just think some balance to defense is needed. It seems like adding new game mechanics is off the table at this stage in the beta. A high risk, high defense system is within current game mechanics. 

Agreed. I find it silly that a lone bear cub can destroy my entire civilization just because I'm not there to defend it. Or there one turn too late.