Enslaving the Populace

I've played the first 5 or so hours of the Julii campaign without enslaving the populace, thinking that I would maintain higher populations and climb the tech tree faster. But, after taking some Greek cities I found that the only way to hold them and make them useful is to enslave the populations, reducing all kinds of city management issues, and gaining population in manageable cities. I was wondering if anyone else has come to the same conclusion, or or is it best just to occupy the settlement and focus on cultural and growth build policies?

After my first two or three cities, I have used the ensalve option almost all the time. I have come to the same conclusion as you. (So far.)

Greeks seem obstinate. I expect the Egyptians will be worse.

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Originally Posted by mynameisjonas

After taking some Greek cities I found that the only way to hold them and make them useful is to enslave the populations, reducing all kinds of city management issues, and gaining population in manageable cities. I was wondering if anyone else has come to the same conclusion, or or is it best just to occupy the settlement and focus on cultural and growth build policies?

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I've given up on occupation and enslavement. I'm like the Daleks from Doctor Who now -- Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!

Seriously, when it comes to foreign cultures, it's just not worth the headache. They make bad citizens and worse slaves. Kill 'em all, and repopulate with Romans.

I went through three rebellions in Alexandria that were big enough to throw out my garrison and generate a 20+ stack of rebellious Egyptians. However, after two exterminations, they got the idea. They've been quiet since.

I saw the same conquering Carthage. And when they revolted it was a stack with four elephant units. I tried enslave once. The next time they revolted I exterminated them. They were much more docile after that.

I almost always use the 'Enslave' option as it indeed leads to less problems in managing the population and it gives a population boos to the rest of the cities. However, for populations that are 'close' culturally (e.g. Greek cities and Seleucids), if you have a strong army you can get away without enslaving the population. On the other hand, playing as the Seleucids, the happiness penalty in captured Egyptian cities can be up to 50% if you do not enslave them, so you really have no choice there other than to rnlsave them, or put them at the stake if they turn out to be too problematic.

Enslaving actully builds you're overall population faster than the occupying. When you occupy you keep the same population in that city, but of course you have a lot of trouble with order. When you enslave, the population is distributed between your other cities. I just went on a rampage through greece and took over four cities in four turns. At the end of the four turns, by enlaving every populace, I actually got four cities upgraded to the next level.

Enslaving is almost always the best option.

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Originally Posted by Cennyan

Enslaving actully builds you're overall population faster than the occupying. When you occupy you keep the same population in that city, but of course you have a lot of trouble with order. When you enslave, the population is distributed between your other cities. I just went on a rampage through greece and took over four cities in four turns. At the end of the four turns, by enlaving every populace, I actually got four cities upgraded to the next level.

Enslaving is almost always the best option.

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That's a very good point. About the only argument against it that I can think of off the top of my head is, the cities that gain population are already behind you. I like fully populated new conquests so I can upgrade and rebuild troops "at the front."

do you think all that enslaving might take the form of slave revolts later? because the slaves are spread troughout your provinces anyone think that would happen?

How come during revolts, characters are always affected.
Does it mean they died?

I'm finding the further out I expand the more I exterminate. When you first start you need the population. The first couple of towns taken get enslaved and half the population gets divided up between your towns with governors. (As an aside, you get trade income from this slave trade - look at the trade details and you'll see the manacles). Then later on the cities with governors are usually fighting with squalor and a rise in population would really make things worse so more slaves would just cause problems. And you don't have enough governors to sit on the towns that would benefit from the population increase. Coupled with the distance from the capital negative to public order and cultural differences negatives...
put them to the sword. :charge:

I agree with Zentuit. Enslaving is probably only useful in the beginning, when your starting cities are really small, and you want to grow them. But towards mid-game, when you're up to your neck in ...squalor, the last thing you want to do is to further increase your populace in your huge cities...
And since you have no control over how the slaves are distributed over your cities, it's probably better to just exterminate them. In the long run, it's better to have the small, slowly developing cities on your borders, with good civilized roman citizens, than to spend fortunes in trying to keep them from revolting all the time, tying lots of troops there, etc.

At one point in the game I had a gladiatorial revolt in one of my cities, I was wondering if that had any connection with enslaving a few cities just prior. has anyone seen the same thing? The "Gladiatorial Revolt", the rebellion was actually called that, had a many powerful gladiator units, and the senate paid handsomely to retake the city (took some time though).

I try to roleplay some of my generals so the faction they are conquering plays a role in my decision. For ex: I slaughter the Carthaginians, enslave Egyptians and try to live peacefully with the Greeks, etc.

"At one point in the game I had a gladiatorial revolt in one of my cities, I was wondering if that had any connection with enslaving a few cities just prior. has anyone seen the same thing? The "Gladiatorial Revolt", the rebellion was actually called that, had a many powerful gladiator units, and the senate paid handsomely to retake the city (took some time though)."

I think I have seen one of these. I hadn't ensalved any cities prior, but the revolt was composed entirely of gladiator units I think. (I had built an arena in the town)

It was in the prologue though.

The city was tarentum and I had originally just occupied tarentum - they revolted, through me out, I came back and enslaved them. They *still* hate my guts and since it's a huge city (like 30k people) my garrison can't possibly keep them all in check.

I picked up my all my men and left the city, they instantly revolted.

I am going to retake the city (especially since the senate will reward me for doing so) and this time there is going to be much extermination and razing of buildings.