Razing cities

In MTW and RTW, if you were faced with a powerful opponent and found yourself stretched far too thin, you could conquer a weak city and then destroy (almost) everything there, and then leave the province to become rebels....or possibly to fall back into the hands of its (now weakened) original owner. This was great, but don't you think with the (re)addition of gunpowder weapons it should be possible to simply destroy a city? Burn it to the ground with the garrison still in it? Bombard it with flaming projectiles until there is nothing left?

Personally I think this would be a great gameplay addition, in the sense that more freedom of decision is great for any strategy game....although I am not sure if there are any historical examples to support this. I would certainly imagine that if there are small wooden "fort" settlements it would be possible to at least burn the "town" part (which would probably be mostly wood) to the ground, in, for example, the early period.

Before the inevitable inundation of "what's the point?" rebuttals I will remind you that this type of tactic would be used where the enemy is too strong, and you do not have enough troops to occupy the town, city, fort....whatever. Historically I suppose you could say that William Wallace did something similar. A "sack" option could consist of something similar on capturing a town, where you would first remove all its valuables and THEN burn it to the ground....but in this case we are talking about never setting foot within its walls but rather just setting the place on fire with artillery and watching it burn to nothing with its garrison untouched.

Anyone?

Yes...if I cant have it nobody can, let them start at scratch. I like the idea. Especially since farms and roads cant be razed and farmland would be the first to be destroyed.

HA HA HA HA my kind of thinking I like you let it burn (TROY)
One thought would you get any PILLAGE from something like that or would it all just melt.

You can dp that to a city in RTW. I've seen the screens to prove it, but you need to play with no time limit and arcade battles.

How? When I tried burning all the buildings down (with flaming ammo from onagers) and then withdrawing it it came up as a loss and I lost the entire army.

I didn't say don't win the battle. Just that you can burn a city to the ground. Then exterminate and leave.

I already mentioned that you could do that in the first post.

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Originally Posted by GFX707

In MTW and RTW, if you were faced with a powerful opponent and found yourself stretched far too thin, you could conquer a weak city and then destroy (almost) everything there, and then leave the province to become rebels....

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Actually, it was sadly not doable in RTW, because the rebels came in enormous numbers, and the razed-then-exterminated city was usually much stronger after a revolt due to the 2000 or so three gold chevrons men.

I liked the MTW way, where you actually could weaken an enemy by burning and ravaging his lands, without being forced to actually conquer them.

I want the option to loot and ravage and raze without making my oponent stronger !

Yeah, that wasn't so goood....but the loyalist rebels didn't happen every time....in fact I think those only came along with one of the patches....

That was common during the Crusades where it would be agreed to raze a disputed city. Alexius Comnenus took cities in the Anatolian interior, moved the Greek population to the safety of the coast, and demolished the city, leaving the remnants for the Seljuks. It would add a whole angle to the game in that a player could attack a faction and demolish several cities and then leave. The cities obviously could be rebuilt if the resource are available. Hordes can do something similar already, but what I envisage is a more thorough demolition.