Does pillaging do any real damage to enemies?

[Prometheus]

So Russia declares war on me. I thought I was decimating them. They barely invaded my territories and I had several waves of troops move in over many, many turns and pillaged everything I could. Russia didn't even repair the damage. I figured this would bring about their collapse and they'd be wiped off the map. Instead, out of nowhere and just when I'm surrounding a city with troops to try to seize it, it says I lost in a "cultural defeat."

WTF? Pretty frustrating.

[terry]

Pillaging does hurt the enemy but how much it hurts depends on what you pillage.
But this a classic example of why i dont think the AI is as broken as some people think it is.
The various civs on any playthrough will be going for different kinds of victory so the human player cant ignore all that or the same thing happens that just happened to you.
From a military conquest standpoint, the AI is pretty weak. But you better conquest pretty quick or you end up losing to a science or culture victory.
HINT: If you start the game by rushing to 3 archers and 2 warriors, you can faceroll the ai to a quick(although cheap) victory with only those units. You can even defeat cities with walls up

[paugus]

Pillaged tiles lose their bonuses from improvements. In later eras, that can mean a -3 production hit from losing a mine. Districts stop providing their benefits if they're pillaged. Pillaging every tile is useful if you can't take a city but still want to get SOMETHING out of a war effort, but it's not going to cripple a civ enough to stop them if they're near a victory condition.

[BladeSe7en [ICON_RESOURCE_FURS]]

Pillaging definitely hurts an enemy. Pillage strategic resources and they can no longer build those units. Pillage amenities and it will hurt all of thier cities' yields and protentially spawn barbs, pillage districts and they no longer produce great people points or thier yields. Pillage farms to heal wonder units. On top of that you gain bonus yields for pillaging. Which are doubled of you use the right policy cards.

It's why nukes are so effective. Not only do they kill the cities population but it pillages every tile it hits.