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Got a question for all of you. I would test this myself... but haven't the time.
If you invade an enemy province that is unoccupied by the AI with one unit... does this minimize the damage done to the buildings... so, does building damage directly correlated to invading army size?
As far as I'm aware the size of the invading army makes no difference. I think the whole thing about destroying structures is entirely random.
There is only 1 way I know of to take the province without damaging the strucures and that is to bribe the besieged garrison. This makes it so that you are relieving a siege and no damage will be done. I remember trying to bribe some Italians, the genral had the vice that gives minus 50 percent to bribery cost and could'nt assault it as the loss of troops would have not allowed me to hold that province and it was going to hold out for 2 years and I did'nt want the Italians to have an opportunity to releive the siege. Unfortanately he was to loyal and chose to starve to death.
with VI, larger castle _tend_ to provide some protection to buildings in the province, but don't be shocked when even a prov with citadel gets heavily pillaged.
Also, besides bribing a sieged garrison, using a spy to open the gates during a siege prevents all damage (this may be with VI too). Only thing is, for a spy to succeed, a siege must be into the 4th or 5th year at least, which means this only works on very small besieged garrisons. Even though you lose the prov's income while waiting for the spies chances to improve, it's often worth it since you won't be spending years (and florins) rebuilding all the structures.
try using upgraded spies and also be sure to use packs of them for decent chances.
for any agents, I tend to use packs as they work better that way.
I would always use 5+ and usually a dozen with 20 slightly overkill.