Occupy / Sack / Exterminate a settlement.

[Oaty]

Sacking a catholic settlement also damages your relations with the pope, though not quite as much as extermination.

The French exterminated a city of mine and went from 6-8 crosses to excommunication. Funny the outcome of the pope forcing me to cease hostilities.

It appears most warnings are double warnings. When I get warned not to attack them, they are also warned.

[Daveybaby]

The French exterminated a city of mine and went from 6-8 crosses to excommunication. Funny the outcome of the pope forcing me to cease hostilities.

It appears most warnings are double warnings. When I get warned not to attack them, they are also warned.

Yeah, i think they all are. Had opponents excommed several times when they attacked me after i got a warning from the pope to cease hosilities with them.

So i now try to goad them into attacking me after getting a papal warning - by constantly moving small stacks in and out of their territory to (a) piss them off with me even more, and (b) present a nice easy target to take out. Once they attack and get excommed, i am then free to invade with impunity, and the pope will actually thank me for it (as long as i dont exterminate or sack captured cities).

[TheImp]

Personaly, i always sack settlements. Cause war needs money, especially at the beginning of a campaign.

[Kraxis]

Sacking large cities is extremely profitable...

Sacking Milan and Genoa generated more than 30k florins each. The same with Budapest. And with the heartland of the HRE being highly developed I don't mind if there are few buildings lost. After all the HRE is Nothern European while the other two are Southern, which cause some unrest due to cultural differences (as in Rome).

But those money are always great for heling me to keep my heartlands producing buildings. The sack of Milan even paid for three cathedrals the Pope liked very much (6 crosses to full).

[Oaty]

After all the HRE is Nothern European while the other two are Southern, which cause some unrest due to cultural differences (as in Rome).

Not quite sure how that works, but I occupied an Egyptian castle as England and had no unrest. My guess was in beta they looked into keeping cultural penalties but left it out. But it is still used in sieges for what the castle/cities looks like.

Also I noticed it appears sacking a castle seems to keep everything in tact, but sacking a castle with 10,000 population is a lot less profitable than sacking a city with 10,000 population. by 2 to 3 times.

[kercool]

if not a christian city n im playing christian i exterminate it so no hostilities

[Kraxis]

Ah well... even without the cultural penalty the sacks aer more than just worth it when you have a nice empire going.

[Lord Condormanius]

Also I noticed it appears sacking a castle seems to keep everything in tact, but sacking a castle with 10,000 population is a lot less profitable than sacking a city with 10,000 population. by 2 to 3 times.

Sacking castles and cities does some damage to buildings. I'm not sure if it happens every time, but it definitely happens. I have also noticed that sacking a city generates more money than doing the same to a castle. Probably because cities tend to have more money laying around than castles. There is more economic acticvity and the people are likley better off than the poor peasant farmers you would find in a castle.

Just a guess.

[SirGrotius]

Wow, I've been exterminating constantly because of my longstanding dread of squalor but now it seems that I have damaged my relations with the pope and missed out on a lot of cash, which I'm always in need of.

How does population affect unit recruitment or retraining though? If I exterminate the population, am I limited in soldier numbers or unit numbers? Are you unit numbers based on buildings (i.e., 2 feudal knights per x building) or poopulation or both?

Sorry if this is too much a tangent.

[Lord Condormanius]

I'm not sure if unit recruiting subrtacts from existing population as it did in RTW or not.

[Kobal2fr]

I'm not sure if unit recruiting subrtacts from existing population as it did in RTW or not.

It does not. Recruiting and pop are fully separated now. By the same token, disbanding a unit inside a town/castle will not increase its population.

Which is a good thing, because as a modder said it was very hard to balance growth when people played with different unit sizes.

[Lord Condormanius]

Which is a good thing, because as a modder said it was very hard to balance growth when people played with different unit sizes.

I always liked it. At this point I think it would be, as I found it in the past, a valuable tool in balancing population. The unit sizes aren't as big in MTW2, even on huge, which is good.

[mor dan]

in reality, how much would you really benefit monetarily from destroying a city? is this just looking at the robbing people's homes and the artwork and such from the businesses?

personally, i never exterminate and i never sack a settlement. my infrastructure is always built to a point that supports my military needs.

[Kraxis]

Today you wouldn't gain that much to be honest.

But back then you would gain a whole lot. All money was valuable and there was no such thing as paper money or cards. At best there were vouchers.
So if you ransacked a city and took all the money within, you would gain a good deal. Add to that that most armies had merchants tagging along, hoping to get a good deal. So you could sell them all kinds of stuff. Metals (always valuable), art, weapons, slaves (a bit on and off for the catholics) and such. And the idividual soldiers would gain things that would help him on the march. Pots, light equipment, expendible supplies (candles, food, firewood, ect ect).

[yankeefan32]

Seems to me that the only option is to sack. I've taken settlements, saved the game, and compared after both occupation and sacking. Both decisions revealed the same results. I checked buildings and finances and not a single stone or cent was changed.

A note on the Pope: In the game at least, he's not so righteous as he ought to be. Station a Diplomat outside Rome to gift him with 100 Florin and maybe map information. He'll forget all about any misdeeds as fast as the money hits his pockets.

[PseRamesses]

Sacking and exterminating settlements will hurt your global reputation! In my Polish campaign a while back HRE´s last king was assasinated and some 8-9 settlements went rebel. I swiftly moved in and secured all of them sacking everyone and my global reputation went from trustworthy to dubious.

[Frankmuddy]

Yup I sack too, its the best option.

A fun thing to do though is, I was at war with danes I did not want Farnkfurt but attacked anyway. I sacked them, then sold all the buildings. I made over 30K just doing this. Then I abandoned it.

The only thing I did wrong was destroy the church, which was really bad for papal relations, I went down to one cross from 5. So next time I won't touch the church.

Playing as Russia I was at war with Poland and Denmark. I was holding my own, but I was going broke doing it and unable to expand. So I loaded an army onto ships, sent it to sweden, and sacked a couple of danish cities I found there. Then I sold all the buildings and ditched the cities. The downside is that a few hundred years later both of those cities have full stack garrisons of high-grade rebel troops. I've broken two armies on the streets of Upsalla.

[Philbert]

I'm wondering what the effects are of sacking and exterminating Muslim cities on your reputation as a catholic ruler.
I sacked Jerusalem in a crusade, but they quickly revolted and threw me out. I went back in and exterminated it. My king still has 5 points of chivalry.

I can imagine that being cruel to the religious enemy may have the opposite effect to being cruel to fellow catholics. Does anyone have data?

[JCoyote]

Chivalry is not reputation.

[HoreTore]

What I know about occupying, sacking and exterminating, is this:

Trais on the General taking the settlement:
- Occupying gives you a 100% chance of StrategyChivalry
- Sacking gives you a 20% chance of Despoiler
- Exterminate gives you a 100% chance of StrategyDread and Genocide and a 10% chance of Bloodthirsty. Note that the first level of the Genocide trait is at treshold 3, you'll have to exterminate 3 cities with the same guy to get it. It also gives you a 50% chance of DiscontentGeneral if you exterminate with more than 4 chivalry on your general.
- Your leader is not affected traitwise by what his generals do to cities. So you don't screw up your noble leader if you exterminate to train a fearsome general.

Reputation:
- Occupy increases it
- Sacking decreases it slighty, even against rebels
- Extermination decreases it a lot, even against rebels
- in addition, your pope rating will decrease if you sack or exterminate a catholic city

Building damage:
- No damage from occupy
- Sacking has a random chance of damaging, but not destroying, buildings
- Exterminating has a random chance of destroying buildings

Sacking gives you the most money, but when deciding what to do, you'll have to consider all of the points above to decide what to do. It might not be the best thing all of the time.

[ASPER THE GREAT]

"OH NO, WALLACE JUST SACKED YORK " I sacked as England to get the cash and now as Spain I have been sacking but, the Moorish cites are starting to be a pain . I think I will exterminate and build from scratch???? I only get wall/gate damage when I sack never no buildings??? Haven't payed to much attention to my rep. seeing how I will rule the world or die trying. . I play slow and like to please the "Pope" even when I own him . I do miss the control you had over population in "RT" that was easy to make a bunch of peasant and send them over to a city and disband, or if a city was being a pain to hard to control just take the peasants out to the country and disband . "Hore Tore" is right on .

[Lorenzo_H]

Are you sure about that Monarch? I've looked at the buildings a settlement had before I sacked, then I sacked and they were exactly the same...

They seem to receive some damage...

[HoreTore]

Regarding sacking and damage:

Yes, you DO damage buildings when sacking. But it's not a given. It's a random chance(can probably be found in a data file).

I'm playing my moorish campaign now, and I captured Pamplona. I saved the game, then sacked. The fortress and barracks was damaged. I reloaded, and sacked again. This time, the fortess, bowyer and blacksmith was damaged. I reloaded and occupied, and only the fortress was damaged, but that's because I crushed it in the siege.

[locked_thread]

Sacking and exterminating settlements will hurt your global reputation!

BINGO. And then all your neighbors will declare war on you. Unless you want to be at war with everyone all the time, "occupy" should be the rule not the exception. Except when taking large cities of different religion in which case you may be forced to exterminate.

[Razor1952]

IMHO to sack/occupy/exterm depends on your stategy and situation.


If you are blitzing , ie. trying to win as quickly as possible then sacking is best as it gives the $'s necessary to field large armies and build what you want.

If you have a particularly unruly province far away from home then you may consider exterminating, though generally most places can be controlled without this (unlike RTW)

If you like to have chivalrous generals and a good reputation then occupy is the way to go. Chivalry gives +0.5% growth and therefore more tax $'s. Your population will also be happier. I virtually only use this option as I like to play the chivalrous guys. IMHO it builds a slow but sure road to success.

[Elijah]

Choosing to occupy a settlement gives steady population boom but lacks immediately financial advantage. Sacking yields sizeable cash with a population hit, while exterminating presents some cash but calls for rebuilding. The stability relies upon for your short-time period wishes and long-time period method. Refer to the guide for extra special statistics at the results of each choice.