Quote Originally Posted by forestzoe View Post
It says that if a players last city reaches 0 when they are offline, it will disappear. Immediately?
Yes, basically once they are dropped to zero, the next hit, and they're removed from the map, and on next login will be placed on the map again. The benefit is twofold, inactive players are removed. Active players are given a new home and a unknown address, allowing them a chance to start rebuilding.

... shouldn't be too hard to put a countdown on it surely?
Adding a countdown to it would have added a layer of complication without a significant benefit. A city would sit as a lame duck, exposed to the people who zeroed them, and a target for renewed attacks if they begin to rebuild. By vacating the area, they'll have the chance to rebuild without being immediately attacked, and then if they so choose, teleport back to their previous location.

Whilst I agree dead cities are a massive problem, it seems very harsh not to give folks time to sleep, visit folks, attend doctors appointments etc and I think there at least should be some time allowed for them to get online, or at least leave what little resources they may have left so that they have a fighting chance
Players will have the same chance of being attacked as they had prior to any updates. That has always been the case in Evony, and they have the same resources available to them as always. Truce, Holiday. As for the resources, when an account is zeroed, in most cases they'll have lost all of their soldiers, gold and resources. This will not change that. We noticed in testing that players were using these cities as basically a savings account of sorts, that won't be possible anymore. Additionally, when a city comes back they'll be able to produce resources as they normally do, they'll also be in an unknown position preventing them from coming under fire immediately. In their new unknown location they'll have the chance to rebuild, rearm, and return fire.