Attacking Capitals -- What does it do?

[Siris]

My Scipii Campaign got boring, I never wanted to play as the Romans at the start, months ago when I learned about this game and the fact that I could play as the Spartans & Greeks, I KNEW that would be the faction I'd be, to for my Spartan Empire & crush all enemies.

After I learned about the game file mod that allows you to play all factions, I quit my Scipii Campaign & started as the Spartans. Sparta is my Capital right now, I own Athens, few others, an island, Syacrase on Sicily.

From the 2nd turn, Scipii has fought for Sycrase about 7 times, all lost, as I personally defended the city. I'm holding them off well, but now the War they started has four factions vs. 1, me. All the Roman families, & the Senate. Not counting Macedonia, Carthage, & another. Which havent bothered me in a while since they to came under hard oppression from Rome.

I personally dispise the Romans in my game. In the battles, they've thrown away the lives of thousands of their men in hopeless attempts to take down my armies. (playing with unit size Large, 81 men a unit)

Juli hasent really bothered me much, just landed an army of 1,700+ men by Athens, which was whiped out horribly 1,700+ killed enemies to less than 400 losses. Mostly Scipii & Bruti, that have hurt me so much. Their at last pushing me back & I'm now at defence stance, just holding them off. I just recently broke three seiges of my main cities in my Home Land! Reason they gained so much lee-way to much home land was because I divised a devine plan, to bring the fight, to the enemy. I built up a strike army, of 5,000+ men. I then built a massive fleet, to transport them. I sent my Emperor with them, to make himself a name to live on.

We shipped out to the west once all the ships were combined together in a gigantic fleet. I sent two fleets to bock the straight between Sicily & the boot of Italy, to ward off any enemy ships, & scout the way to ensure a save journey for the army, & to protect them.

All was clear most of the journey, but then when they shores of the heal of Italy were at last in sight, that move ended. The next move, they moved in, and then the enemy must have gotten the word of our plan, and had placed a fairly large but sophisticated fleet in our path. We fought hard, no one lost any ships, but some of mine were routed. The majority made it, and I landed about a good army of 4,000 strong on the shores. Which in the biggest unit mode is like 15,000 men or more.

Their on a suicide mission, they wont be returning to the Capital, or any of our home lands. Their on that peninsula for one thing, the destruction of the Romans.

Our first strike is to take out the Bruti Capital, which is like 100 miles (or one move) away from all of my forces. This is not going to be your typical attack. I'm going to use many fire units & seiege weapons. After I crack a nice massive hole in their walls & blast down their main gates, I'm going to fire upon the city itself & their units. Once I'm all out of the ammo, then the calvery will charge in, followed by a nice phalanx of my soliders. I'm going to try & make the seige last forever with us inside of the city, to make the fires burn out of control & highly damage the city. Once I take it, I'm going to exterminate the populace. And if its possible like it was in Medieval Total War, I'm going to destroy every single building that I can there, make their Capital their decimated city.

Then I'll move on to Scipii's Capital, which isnt but a few moves away, and do the same. Then if I have the strength, Rome, and if strength still remains, the Juli Capital. All four capitals sqacqued. If I do this, even to just Bruti alone, what will occur to their Empires? Will they be civil wared? Or just continue on, with the horrible losses they sustained?

[aw89]

great plan, i quess they'r capitol is the ai's main army making place so it will be a setback for them.

[Siris]

Bruti's Capital has about 1,400 men defending it, I'm hopeing they'll sally forth & be crushed by my army as we come near, then should be a piece of cake.

But still, what should it do? Will they crumble? Continue?

[Bob the Insane]

Beware the revenge of the ninja peasants!!!!!!!

[Siris]

What the Spartan Empire is about to do to the Romans is not revenge, its genocide.

Its our 2nd to last ditch effort to turn the tide of war, before we fall into total defensive stance in our home land.

[dedmoroz]

nice plan siris
as for your question, many times i destroyed capitals of different factions while they still had more towns and it did no real effect on them. you will definitely slow them down but a huge investment you made in your striking force may well be higher than the damage you will be able to inflict upon roman factions...

[Siris]

In the long run it may pay off. I'm going to try to like in Medieval Total War, destroy every building that they've built, and kill off the populace. That means, that if I can demolish the buildings, and without the populace, they wont be able to make any new units, only the outdated units that suck! Also they wont be able to upgrade their cities any time soon from the horrible population losses. So once I kill off their good units, then they'll be sending sucky ones, and my battle hardened units will mow them down, giving us a wonderful path to the Romans end.

[Sin Qua Non]

Don't expect anything astonishing. Taking the capital will hurt them because the AI usually doesn't move their cap around, and it will be a highly populated production center, but that is probably the only effect you will see. There won't be a civil war (I've never had one or ever heard of anyone having one), and the AI will choose another capital instantaneously. Now if they choose one that happens to be away from the center of their empire, there may be some public order issues for them, but it's not too likely. There really should be some major negative effect for losing your capital, like having no center of public order for a turn, or something along those lines. Of course then the AI really has to guard their capital. Historically, losing your seat of governmental power had unpleasant effects.

[Siris]

Yes, their army is already in sight, they have about 600 outside, about 800 inside, around 1,400 facing my 4,000+ strong.

I cant play until Friday night, but I'll post here the results & if I was able to head on to Scipii, Rome, & Juli's Capital. See my PC wont run the game, but my G-Parents will, and I go there every Friday, there all Saturday, and most of Sunday, when I play.

I should be able to take the Bruti capital with ease, I've already estimated losses to be around 1,000-2,000+ men at the most.

[Bob the Insane]

Assaulting a city, destroying the buildings and leaving the Walls the Government building damaged and exterminated the population and then moving on to the other cities of that faction must have an effect.....

But as I said "beware the ninja peasants", they will rise up in response to your aggression and cast you out (or at least try to... ),,,

[Siris]

Peasants make no matter, they'll be easy killed in the field itself. So revolts I'm not concered about, I'm not taking these cities for keeps, just for devestation.

[Sin Qua Non]

um... these aren't your ordinary peasants.

[phred]

If they're gold chevron peasants, watch out. they won't be pushovers..

[TinCow]

I think it sounds like an excellent plan. Destroying their buildings will set them WAY back if you can manage it and slaughtering their population in several cities will give you lots of spending cash. This is a very good strategy to tear the heart out of the enemy when you don't have the strength to hold the provinces you take. Let us know how it turns out.

[snake0606]

If your are going to wipe out the Romans you need to wipe em ALL out or they will breed like rabbits.

Playing Carthage I cut the Brutii off at the knees (they have two tiny cities on the west coast of Greece) and sent the Scipii to live with their gods. After using their people to replenish my army and build me a tiny fleet to go home to Africa I reduced their Italian cities to ruin and put to the sword their people. But the Julii are slowly picking up the pieces in the Italian boot. But I do own Sicily and they will NEVER take it from me.

I have a feeling I will see the Julii in the future.

[Sin Qua Non]

Also, I forgot to mention that if you do raze the capitals and let them revolt immediately, there is a good chance the city will revert to its original owner in a few turns. I shot myself in the foot doing that once.

[son of spam]

Taking a capital will sometimes turn the entire faction rebel.

This will only happen though if every other city in that faction is revolting. However, taking Memphis (eggy capital) is often a good tactic to wipe out the egyptians, because without the pyramids all their other cities start revolting :D

[Vlad Tzepes]

WoW! It really got personal, didn't it? Must be fun to hate somebody so much

[Sizzlorr]

Taking the fight to the enemy is a good thing. But beware, as has been mentioned. When your occupying army leaves the city, next turn it will probably revolt and revert back to the previous occupier (I think, I have seen this with happen when I was trying a similar strategy with Gaul), and the peasants had like 3 gold chevrons, and weapons +3. There may be gladiators as well, with similar stats. If you wipe out the capital, only to have 10-12 units of Roman ninja peasants (remember, 3 gold chevrons is 9 experience, and if I recall correctly they get +1 attack and +1 armor per experience level, add to that weapons +3 and they have an attack of 12 or so and armor about the same) next turn. That's kind of a scary army to have at your back as you leave to attack the next capital, even if they are *only* peasants.

As for destroying buildings, remember that you cannot destroy the government building (Imperial palace, governor's palace, whatever) or the walls, or the farmland. So if you roll into Arretium, and they have a latifundia, or good farms built, and burn everything down, they won't have to rebuild the gov. building, but if they haven't built up to Imperial Palace, you're right it will take a while to grow back to build it but their population will grow pretty quickly because they already have the farms built. Having said that, if you breached the walls, burned and pillaged and came back in a few turns, you would probably notice that the walls are still breached, and that the buildings you burned during the seige weren't repaired. The AI isn't smart enough to repair stuff generally. Stupid AI.

Oh, and retrain your units before you destroy all the buildings. That will help your suicide army out.

Good luck.

[Empedocles]

I play as the Brutii and the first faction that was destroyed by my armies was... well. the Greeks.
I fought really nice battles and they won most of them (I was learning AGAIN to fight battles in TW because of the "new and better changes"), I took Sparta (they fought to the last man) and later landed on Athens that was their capital. (corinth was in the hands of the macedonians and the Greeks also have those cities in Asia)
Two turns after I took Athens all their cities in asia revolted and suddenly, the greeks were no more!!!
So I believe that when you conquer somebody's capital, their cities revolt due to the failure of their masters to hold invaders.
It was great and easy to me but I loved to fight spartans!!!

Diego, from Argentina

PS: After I take Rome I will also play with greeks

[Zatoichi]

Blimey! Remind me never to spill his pint!


Playing as Carthage, I wiped out The Scippi, the Julii and the Senate, but failed to get into Croatia to take out the Brutti, being too busy with the Gauls who are in 'perma-siege' mode with my freshly taken north Italian cities. I'm regretting my failure to take out the last of the Romans, as they've since had the Marian reforms, and are gradually sending bigger and better armies at me. But I like a challenge.

Anyway, trying to get this back towards some kind of point, I've had a nasty experience with Roman ninja peasants backed up by some seriously miffed gladiators when trashing Italy. I'd recommend slowing down your slash and burn just slighlty - hire mercs to garrison the cities you take, use the extra income from these cities...

Oh hold on, you're out for revenge, not conquest, right? In that case, kill them. Kill them all!

[Khorak]

I'm pretty sure that if you're on the Italian mainland, they'll absolutely shit kittens and do nothing but try to get you off of it. Just keep winning battles and they'll keep throwing troops at you (the Senate army will come after you as well). Simply by pissing on the shores of Italy you'll have gained an advantage as long as you're there.

[andrewt]

Why not try to hold at least one of the cities? That way, they'll stop annoying you in your mainland. If you hold on to a few of them, those cities will be almost as advanced as yours. It's not too difficult to placate them anyway, especially after exterminating them.

[Quillan]

Raiding like that does hurt them, even if it revolts back to the prior owner, but not as badly as one would hope. The governmental building cannot be destroyed, so even if the city was reduced from 8000 to 2000 people by extermination, they will still be able to start immediately rebuilding the barracks/militia barracks/legionary barracks line. The will have to start at the beginning and work up in sequence, which costs money and takes time. That is where the real hurt comes. You take the city, end the turn there by replentishing your troops, then when ready to move on, just destroy all the buildings you can, collect the money from it, and leave the city empty. If you really want to, you can have a diplomat gift the city to one of their enemies, like perhaps Carthage. You can earn quite a lot of money from a combination of exterminating and building destruction, especially if the city is very large.

[Siris]

Hm, giving the city to one of the Roman's enemies, or neutral factions which the Romans in turn will re-attack to gain the city, and then have yet another war on their already troubled hands, that is smart, but it will take time to get a diplomat out to a strong faction to give the city to.

I will try two things, first, I'll raze the city to the ground, and kill them all, then, move on to Scippi's Capital, then Rome, & then Julii's. If the revolt thing occures & they return stronger, then I will exit, & try taking Bruti's capital with minimal damage, & then making it my defence city, holding off their armies as they try to ward me off Italy. In doing so, they'll not be sending as many armies to my home land, lightening the load up over there, so I can then press further upwards out of Greece again.

I did it before, stealing it from Macedonia, but now Bruti is pushing me back down, all the way to my home lands. This is to take the fight, to the enemy, and to kick their butts. So I'm going to kill all the military in the city, should the inital plan not work, I wont save it, exit, and do the holding the city as a fort idea. I'll kill the entire military there, sparing no one, and then exterminate the populace to make order. I will then start producing units each turn to re-inforce it; then go into defensive stance should they begin to send the armies vs. me, or go into offensive stance & fight from Capital to Capital. I think I'm going to do it this way instead, it has more of a kick to it, and its more of a definate to the downfall of my enemies.

[Siris]

Heh, it would be nice if the enemies, especially Bruti's faction, go into a civil war when I take the Capital(s). Would estremely lift the pressure on me & allow me to continue to build.

See what I liked in Medieval Total War is that typically no one attacked you right off the start, and you got to build up. This is what I hope to achieve, total soverignty, no wars, so I can build a grand army of tens of thousands of men. And then start my World Campaign, to capture the known world in there.

[Sizzlorr]

You know, I actually took Capua the other night (playing as Brutii) after the civil war started. The Scipii had 4 family members in the city. After the seige, the faction had been eliminated, and rebels took over all their cities. Imagine my delight! If you are lucky, you can certainly eliminate the faction, if they have all their family members hangin' out there.

[bmolsson]

Maybe there should be some extra incentives for taking a capital and an extra punishment for loosing yours.....

[Siris]

I've just thought of this, what if I just march towards Rome, (of course I'd be flanked by Bruti, Scipii, & Juli, so just wouldnt work out that way), but if I marched on Rome, & took it over, would all of the Roman factions then in turn, go into civil war on who will re-claim it & rise above the others to power?

Heh, trust me, I'm going to leave a patch of devestation of literally, total war upon Italy. Its our second to last ditch effort to repel them. Its going to be hard, but I'm still debating on massacring the populace, or just keeping it for my slaves, which I have extensive number of.
(just theoritically speaking, from all the Macedonian cities I took, and enslaved all of those citizens)

[Oaty]

Sack the city and have a diplo hand it back. That way there is no revolt and in reality there should not be a revolt in a freshly conquered city that is left vacant by your troops.

Sacking the enemy capital may cause them military harm but may actually economically help them as it seems the capital gets moved to a central area wich means less corruption and higher income.

I know financial chaos historically would happen but it's just a game and the poor A.I. does'nt need anymore hurting