Attacking Capitals -- What does it do?

[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.