Defeated factions: eliminate them or contain them?

[econ21]

I know the conventional advice is to contain defeated factions in one province, rather than eliminate them, for fear of them re-spawning with better troops. However, the downside of this is that it seems hard to make peace with a contained enemy faction and hence you can't make alliances with those factions it is allied to.

I noticed this in an early HRE GA game. I was allied to almost all Christian factions in the beginning. When Denmark made a suicidal attack on me, I lost half my allies as they preferred to keep the Danes as allies. Then when Italy attacked me, I lost the other half as they preferred the Italians. (It was a little strange, as I was the strongest on the map both militarily and economically.) By 1130, diplomacy seemed pointless - no one would ally with me or arrange marriages with my HRE. This was a problem, as I enjoy "role-playing" games where I turtle, avoiding wars of aggression and trying to crusade/meet other GA goals. I find amassing mega-armies to take over the world too time consuming (in terms of real-time battles fought) and too ahistorical to be interesting.

Next time, I think I'll wipe out the Danes, drive the Italians to their islands and be done with it.

What do other people think?

One minor query: suppose you drive a faction - say Denmark when you are HRE - to its last castle, occupying all its provinces. If you then pull-out to a neighbouring province, letting it re-occupy one province, will you be at peace? (On the grounds that it had no provinces bordering yours?) Just a long shot - but something someone said suggested this might be so.

I have noticed that if a faction re-emerges in your land and you vacate the province(s) without a fight, you remain at peace.

[Nelson]

You are correct about the up and down sides of either approach. So the question becomes, what is more dangerous? The potential sudden appearance of a large well equipped pretender army? Or no allies?

I believe any army can be quickly defeated if you’re prepared to move enough troops. Regardless of how long it takes though, enemy armies can be destroyed because you can always raise troops.

Marriages on the other hand often can’t be had if you stay at war with a faction having lots of allies. This can lead to bachelor crown princes that in turn can result in civil war. Civil war is the greatest catastrophe in the game and armies offer no security against them. Only heirs do.

So I say eliminate a faction completely rather than fear its return. It may not come back at all.

The Papacy could be the exception to this rule when it is profitable to have the Pope around.

[Bob the Insane]

A risky tactic I sometime use is a dead ground approach. I reduce the enemy to a single province, then poorly treat the provinces around it so much they rebel, then I withdraw leaving the old enemy faction surounded by rebel provinces. This has the advantage of allowing peace to return and allowing some rebels to protect my borders for me. The risk comes in the form of Loyalist rebels jioning the enemy faction... But that is a case of swings and roundabouts...

[Bob the Insane]

Also, in a GA game you have to remember it is hard to stay at peace with a faction when you are sat on their GA goals, especialy their homelands..

I another tactic I use is revenge. If I am at peace with a faction and they backstab me, or a faction are just causing a lot of trouble (AI wars have a habit of destroying ports and thus your trade income) I will put together a large army, preferbly mercenary and send it on a made attack of the enemy lands, usually there is not much fighting as the enemy reteats from my large army to gather it's forces, but when you take a province destroy all buildings (except ports) including the castles, set the tax rate to very low and move the whole army to the next enemy province, don't try to keep the province and don't get bogged down in seiges, break them or move on. The lowering of the tax rate should avoid any loyalist revolts until the enemy retake the lands themselves. Once you have done this to all the enemy lands you can reach, retreat behind your own (well defended) borders and disband the mercenary army. You will have made a ton of cash and crippled an enemy, but left him with his lands so their is a change of returning to peace.

Think of yourself as a sort of medieval UN..:D

[Lord of the morning]

I usualy play GA with HRE too and I recognise the problem, when the HRE grows everybode will go to war with you I dont like it since i too try to play similar to what you are trying since I dont think I have time for five realtime battles each turn. Anyway the largest problem for a large empire such as the HRE is celarly all the reemerging armies and rebellions, the rebellions can be controled whilsst the reemerging armies cannot, therefore I usualy only eleiminate the pope (if he excomunicates me) but let the rest of fractions on the brink of extinction remain in oneprovince, I also sometimes use the rebell protection that mr insane speks about, that tacitc can also be used in attck on larger factions, if you dont have the army to controll a land you can just tajke it and then leave it, wich most often produces massive rebbel armies that your opponent has to face. The protective tactic is vewry usefull against the golden horde, but in the case of the horde you should give some provinces to another country, (with whom you are at war) and theyll battle the horde whilst you can take a grab of their lands.

[Gaius Julius]

Quote[/b] (Simon Appleton @ Jan. 14 2003,07:13)](It was a little strange, as I was the strongest on the map both militarily and economically.) By 1130, diplomacy seemed pointless - no one would ally with me or arrange marriages with my HRE. .
Actually, this isn't that strange.
Since you are the strongest, and the richest, the other factions will keep an eye on you.
They don't want you to get any stronger or richer.
So if a opportunity arises for them to slow you down, they probably will.
As far as eliminating or containing, deafeated factions, IMHO, either keep them weak( attack them just enough to keep them around), or cause a rebellion in their province( place multiple spies) in the province. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif
This should keep them out of your hair for awhile.

[LittleRaven]

Huh. I just wipe em out. With proper management, respawning is fairly rare, and can be contained easily. Plus, the map gets that beautiful mono-color look... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Ulug Beg]

As the Byzantines I had the Egyptians confined to one province (Sinai). They refused offers of peace but we never fight. Then a Spanish crusade passes through, the Egyptians retreat to the castle, they have no border with me. Next year the crusade passes on and I'm no longer at war with the Sultan

They won't ally with me but at least we can trade, and I'm at that stage in the game when I need as many trading partners as I can get.

[Exile]

I think its better to wipe them out unless there's a way you can get them to accept a ceasefire. I dont have many problems with re-emerging factions, maybe because I have very few unloyal provs or rebellions.

[Foreign Devil]

I agree with Exile and LittleRaven, just wipe them out. The headache of dealing with a resurgency is a lot less, IMO, then the headache of activly containing a province over a number of years.

[Lord Romulous]

Quote[/b] (Bob the Insane @ Jan. 14 2003,09:52)]Also, in a GA game you have to remember it is hard to stay at peace with a faction when you are sat on their GA goals, especialy their homelands..

I another tactic I use is revenge. If I am at peace with a faction and they backstab me, or a faction are just causing a lot of trouble (AI wars have a habit of destroying ports and thus your trade income) I will put together a large army, preferbly mercenary and send it on a made attack of the enemy lands, usually there is not much fighting as the enemy reteats from my large army to gather it's forces, but when you take a province destroy all buildings (except ports) including the castles, set the tax rate to very low and move the whole army to the next enemy province, don't try to keep the province and don't get bogged down in seiges, break them or move on. The lowering of the tax rate should avoid any loyalist revolts until the enemy retake the lands themselves. Once you have done this to all the enemy lands you can reach, retreat behind your own (well defended) borders and disband the mercenary army. You will have made a ton of cash and crippled an enemy, but left him with his lands so their is a change of returning to peace.

Think of yourself as a sort of medieval UN..:D
what difficulty do you play on.

i have tried this on hard and all the provences i have just captured and burned all loyalist rebel the moment i move my army to the next provence.

i even tryed to put spies in the provence but it seems that without a army of at least 600 the provence will sink to below 80% loyalty and loyalst rebel next turn. (this is with very low tax btw.

any opinions on wether it is a disadvantage or advantage to raid, burn and abandon. (on harder level of difficulty)

on one hand you are destroying all the buildings the enemy has spent years building but on the other when the provence loyalst rebells you give them a brand new high tech army.

[Sandy-San]

sorry to go way back to the top of the thread, but Simon, you said that if you abandon a province to a re-emergent faction then you stay at peace with them? is that right? the turks have just popped up with some hard core armies in my back yard, and i don't have the troops to deal with them... i can afford to lose the provinces, but i'll be damned if I'm handing them over if the turks are going to come after me anyway.

[econ21]

Sandy-San - that is my experience. The Aragonese re-appeared in one of my provinces and there was no way I could defeat them straight away. So I vacated the province immediately and was pleasantly surprised the next turn, when the province became theirs and I was at peace with them. (You can check if the Turks are at war with you the turn they re-appear; I suspect they are not.) Of course, the Turks may launch a war against you sooner or later anyway, but it is my belief that the war is not automatically declared if you give up the lands they re-appear in.
This, combined with the diplomatic problems with containment, mean that I am going to try eliminating defeated factions in future. Except the Pope (boy, did I learn that exception the hard way&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

[Bob the Insane]

Quote[/b] (Lord Romulous @ Jan. 14 2003,21:19)]what difficulty do you play on.

i have tried this on hard and all the provences i have just captured and burned all loyalist rebel the moment i move my army to the next provence.
I also play on hard (don't like the AI cheating of expert..). What you describe can happen, but can some times be an advantage, especially if you have maintained a good defence of your own lands.

In that you destroy all the buildings, steal cash and the AI picks up a few new units, thus finds itself unable to pay for the units it has and start to run out of money..

I think it depends on how well quickly the enemy retake the province, I often find that you move into a province and the enemy abandon it or retreat to their castle. If they abondon, drop the tax rate and your large (at least 1000 troops) army should force a loyalty of 200% anyway, this will drop when you leave, but if the enemy immediately move into retake the land, it does not have the opportunity to revolt. If they retreat to a castle, things are a little more tricky. I often just leave the province and castle (you do damage and ransack the place anyway, but return a few times. The really beauty in this is sending your first heir along as General of the mercenary army, as he can pick up some good virtues this way with only minimal risk.

Sometimes it does really backfire, and you end up triggering loyalist revolts with professional troops and even Knights, but it is worth the risk.

[Sandy-San]

thanks simon - the clock struck 2am, i decided the turks could wait until another day so i haven't tried it yet, but i shall see what happens tonight. ta very much