Livonian gold mine...

[Kristaps]

hehe, Livonia should have "gold pile" symbol attached to its resource list. this province is a real cash cow to my poverty sticken Polish empire: just conquer it, don't assign a governor, don't build anything else except a fort and a harbor, and on top of that raise the taxes to maximum and leave a unit of peasants to guard it...

what happens next: almost assured annual rebellions (I guess, later encouraged by foreign spies who sneak in through the harbor). those, of course, get dealt with in the stricktest manner by the Polish king or his princes depending who needs military training at the time most. this cheezy tactic reaps the following benefits:

1. nice cash flow (about 1K up to 6K max so far per rebellion)
2. + stars to the generals driving peasants (occasionally some tougher mercs the rebels have lured into serving them) off the map
4. maximum dread to my king and generals (just have to slaughter the first thousand of rebels the army captures...; have to be careful not to repeat otherwise the morale of the army suffers...)
3. + valor to troops participating in the slaughter...

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

can you say "cheeze"? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Kraxis]

Seems to me you as a person should get the Vice: Creator of Genocide. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

But really, that is an old cheese... I fell over it at the com after two days of playing. I have never done it myself, I always try to be a benevolent ruler. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif

A thing to consider now that you actually do this. The money you get is directly comparable to the worth of the surviving rebels, so archers and killing captives is bad for the moeny you get from them. But at least once should you try and get the Vice Butcher (you have to kill 1000+ prisoners in one battle).

[Kristaps]

Hehe, I did notice it: a couple times the rebel army just stood there scared of my mounted sergeants http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif so, in the end, the AI assumed I had captured all of them (about 2600...) so my payoff in captured land was about 6K...

[cugel]

Well, if you're going to use tactics like that, why not go the "whole hog"? Just build about 15 spies. Send them into a province to make the loyalty drop and there's a rebellion. Now conquer or bribe the rebels. You now have a new province and didn't have to go to war with the faction that owned it to acquire it. Rinse and repeat until you have taken over the map.

That is the MOST CHEESY TACTIC Award Winner http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Kraxis]

Perhaps it is, but it has gotten very hard after the patch. So it isn't all that cheezy anymore.

[Kristaps]

The tactic actually doesn't sound that cheezy and unrealistic to me. A king might as well have a province that he dislikes a lot so he imposes extra burdens on the local population inducing lots of rebellions (a historic example would be the Tzar Russia's behavior in Lithuania: they basically tried to eliminate ANY memory of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, sacking the aristocracy and the catholic church, refusing education to people, killing agricultural income through taxes, etc., basically driving the nation back into the stone age in the XIX century. and.. revolts did happen...)

Also, I understand that a "cheezy tactic" would be one not used by the AI. The AI actually does use the aforementioned tactic but probably not in such a conscious way. How many times you have seen the AI capture a province, then under-protect it and under-build it to lose it to rebels in a move or two. In a year or so, the AI faction is back to reconquer the province from the rebels just to lose it again in the next move... I've seen this happen so many times in Portugal, for example.

Another note to "protect" the "Livonian gold mine" approach (substitute "Livonia" with "Portugal", or "Scottland") is that you need to dedicate an army to quelling the rebellions. And, after the patch, the rebellions have a chance of getting pretty good troops: i.e., i've seen Livonian peasants send full armies of Italian infantry and longbowmen sent at me... And, in some instances the do kick me in the ... (my Polish kanja slurping King general was a drunkard with an odd number of toes and a low command rating to start with...)

[Kraxis]

Kristaps, the AI does it uncontiously... it is notoriously bad at undermanning a province, but it never overtaxes a province, it always goes on auto-tax.

But the strategy is to leave Livonia alone with Very High taxes and station a large army in Lithuania or anywhere where you can reach Livonia in one turn to defend it right away. The AI hardly ever does that.

[Kristaps]

The AI also usually "chickens" out if it sees a peasant/spearmen/archer army 6 times the size of it's own army.

As far as leaders'/generals' vices go -- in my opinion, the 'genocide' policy should earn some pretty bad vices for the faction leader. however, my kings just go on earning stars, valor and virtues like 'fearless', 'specialist field defender', and 'skilled last stand' for driving crowds of peasants off the map... a few times I just charged my 'butcher' king right into the middle of the peasant army while my mounted sergeants (valor 5 before general's stars kick in) watched in awe. the whole mob routed, never looking back.

there is an additional bonus to the 'genocidal' king's approach: the royal offspring that's raised in Livonian war tents playing with peasant skulls frequently comes out with higher stars than their daddy...