Quote Originally Posted by Hurin_Rules
The last thing I wanted to do when taking a city is exterminate the population. But I've realized you simply have to do it, and do it often. It makes the game so much easier. I think it's a bad design of the game to force you to keep exterminating populations, but that's the way things are right now.
It's realistic though. When Romans took Carthage at the end of the 3rd Punic War, they went from house to house killing everyone they saw before razing the city to the ground; if anyone survived, they were sold into slavery. That was the Scipii family; a certain member of the Julii family put a huge dent into the population of Gaul in his expeditions there, again by slaughtering villagers during, after, and between battles. I can't think of a famous example of Brutii brutality off the top of my head, but I strongly suspect that they weren't humanitarians either.