How about let enemy's public treasury be captured when taking a settlement?

[Julianus]

Excuse me if this has been proposed before but I didn't find it.
I mean after you take a settlement, even if you're a most benevolent conqueror and do nothing evil to the residents like sacking or enslaving, it is beyond any doubt legal (according to the law of war) to take the enemy's public treasury. The conqueror should get a proportion ( decided by the population and importance of the settlement ) of the enemy's treasury, either he choose to let the residents as they are or expel, enslave them.
What's your opinion? Is this advisable and possible?

[Cambyses]

The advantage of not exterminating is that you get a higher tax income on a compound basis.

[G. Septimus]

well, if you don't exterminate or enslave the population, it will rebel.
Well, sacking the opponents captured city is a rule of war. If you don't do that , the population won't rebel but you're own army will rebel against you.
Well, It is the rule of war, nobody wont dare to change it...

[Cute Wolf]

well, if you don't exterminate or enslave the population, it will rebel.
Well, sacking the opponents captured city is a rule of war. If you don't do that , the population won't rebel but you're own army will rebel against you.
Well, It is the rule of war, nobody wont dare to change it...

And in EB, the unselfish general will get nightmares from that action
Maybe we should add some public order bonus for unselfish general? so they can doing their job "peacefully?"

[Julianus]

It's not a matter of sacking / exterminating or not, this is done to civilian residents.
What I mean is the seizure of enemy's public treasury which belongs to the government. Since according to the law of war the conqueror take over the government of captured settlement, so taking enemy's treasury should not be considered sacking I believe - although I never heard of conqueror who would also like to take over the debt of the conquered. Hence the conqueror should immediately get some money no matter what he decides to do with the residents, if you just reduced the capital of an insanely rich faction, you have good reason to expect to find a lot of money in their royal depository or somewhere, likewise if you just lost a settlement, you should lose some money too.

PS: It might be a good idea if failing your soldier's expectation by not sacking captured city will reduce their morale, we can give the general who never sacks a city a trait like "discontented troops" or something. I remember reading in Gibbon a Roman emperor who was killed by his troops because he won't let them loot captured cities. I don't remember his name, he was not a really legal emperor, more a tyrant ruling in Gaul, but it seems that he is too benevolent to be a tyrant.

[Hax]

Which could be bound to the government buildings. Yes, so a type I Government would give you x amount of money, type II y, and type III z.

[G. Septimus]

And in EB, the unselfish general will get nightmares from that action
Maybe we should add some public order bonus for unselfish general? so they can doing their job "peacefully?"

hmm....
That's the rule of war. you can't change it ,man. even an unselfish general can't stop doing that. Because, money is everything
A general always wants the best for his troops

[Cambyses]

I cant help feeling like this would be best modelled through a "supply" and morale system - a la stainless steel and its sub mods. The reason being that in ancient times very few societies had much in the way of a public purse. Resources were almost always owned by individuals. If a general were to capture a sizeable chunk of cash from a defeated army or settlement he would likely use some of it to reward his troops and make sacrifices to the gods, most of it to assure the continued support of his subcommanders - and then stick the remainder in his back pocket.

In a monarchy things would perhaps have been a little different, but even a brief look at Greek/Roman history will indicate that one of the largest problems classical non-monarchic societies faced was how to raise and organise state funds. Individual soldiers were often expected to supply all of their own equipment - including food sometimes on campaign. Better equipment - or shall we say a higher investment - would tend to put you into a military/social category with higher survivability. Pay would frequently not cover the costs of being absent from home - and it was often down to individual generals to reward their soldiers with land etc on their return. As such adding sums to the public treasury seems to be incongruous with the historical reality. However, increased moral to the army and authority of the general does seem appropriate.

In relation to the three options in MIITW on the capture of a settlement. While there is a clear trade-off between looting and exterminating (options 2 and 3) that work well in game play - I do agree that the "occupy" option rarely has any purpose after the initial part of the game where the time taken to regrow the population to a reasonable size massively outweighs any financial benefits of looting the place. If the occupy option cannot be modded to at least give a short term public order boost, maybe some benefits in traits or ?initial recruitment pool limits? might be a good fit instead.

Historically extermination/enslavement was often used to punish a place/send a warning to others/quell rebellious elements, rather than purely as a means to enrich the conquerors.

[Ca Putt]

This would probably work very well If money was not global so you have to choose where to store your money and eg a "man of the hour" could not instantly buy a huge contingent of mercenaries just because his king has a total of 50000 mnai in his coffers. In RTW(and most other games of the genre) FMs walk around with credit cards to access a international bank account, not to forget the cash machines that can be found almost everywhere...
back then(And even today) it was already a big challenge to get money to where yopu need it.

if games would have this(not very convenient) feature you would probably be able to decide how much money is kept in a certain city or with a general so you could decide how much money the enemy gets when he gets hands on the "warchest".

Well lets not dream of games where training soldiers takes 20 years and so on..

I personally role play that the "looted" money is the hold of the Warchest/public treasury and that depending on how much freedom i give my soldiers I have to compensate them from the war chest thus how much I can keep for mys.. the empire. this takeing into account that "I" don't get any of the loot directly only if I destroy buildings.

imagine the situation:
FM: well lads good job, but we'Ve got orders to do the citizens no harm and ...
army: BOOOOOO!!!!
FM: ... not set any buildings at fire...
army: Aww, that sucks, no fun!
FM:... and not to loot the City, ...
army: Marcus Appius Stinks! ... He has no balls!... this is a waste of time
FM: BUT Look what I've found and gonna share with all of you*holds up war chest*
Army: Hail Marcus Appius!!!!

ps if someone has the nick marcus appius I would like to apologize I just chose some random roman name.

Still I'm a bit sad that I don't get money from killing FMs commanding large (expensive) armies as they would probably at least have the pay for one season with them in gold mnai.
and governments could give a bit more cash as a 99% destroyed gov building barely feeds the men through the winter. :( but afaik that's a hard coded percentage of the build cost eh?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

This thread is operating under so many misconceptions it's astonishing.

Chief of which, however, is this: the "Public Treasury" would be in the factional Capital, and yes even for the KH that would be true.

[Subotan]

This thread is operating under so many misconceptions it's astonishing.

Chief of which, however, is this: the "Public Treasury" would be in the factional Capital, and yes even for the KH that would be true.

I remember there being an enormous kerfuffle when the Delian League's treasury was moved from Delos to Athens. Treasuries were very important.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I remember there being an enormous kerfuffle when the Delian League's treasury was moved from Delos to Athens. Treasuries were very important.

Quite, there was another one when Caesar took the treasury in Rome and doubled the pay of his soldiers.

[Ca Putt]

Chief of which, however, is this: the "Public Treasury" would be in the factional Capital, and yes even for the KH that would be true.

yeah, that's why I was speaking of the warchest rather than the public treasury. btw I totally for got that: I would be cool when it was a bit more rewarding when you conquer an enemy capital... IF it's more difficult to aquire cash than in EB1

[Kikaz]

This thread gives me an idea.. Perhaps a way to exterminate the populace within a city you control could be created. Of course using it would have a negative morale effect on the army, a negative moral effect on the governor, and unhappiness in other cities.