to qonquer a faction or leave it lifeless in one province?

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Hello again, MTW fans. I read somewhere in these forums, that when fighting a war the main goal is to concentrate on fighting one foe, it is also better not to be an agressor (in terms of loyalty). Logically thinking I should wipe my enemy off the ground to end the war quickly and to start another war on the other front. But some MTW players prefer leaving factions not conquered, but stuck in one province. The enemy then doesn't accept ceasefire (as usually ) and so you're fighting a war without no military actions with that faction. So what is better: to destroy completely, or to make enemy faction almost lifeless. I would be thankful, if someone of the experts commented the advantages and drawbacks of this matter. Thanks.

[Tribesman]

One problem with eliminating factions is that you run out of princesses to marry your heirs to .
Another thing is that if you don't eliminate them you will have to thin them out once in a while or face an army of almost entirely elite cavalry which can be expensive to defeat .
If you can isolate them on an island or a province that doesn't border yours you can make them turn neutral by removing your ships from neighbouring seas , but that seems a bit unfair IMHO.
If playing as a Catholic faction I normally eliminate a few , isolate a few and try to stay at peace with a few , then again every game turns out different .

[Maeda Toshiie]

Hello again, MTW fans. I read somewhere in these forums, that when fighting a war the main goal is to concentrate on fighting one foe, it is also better not to be an agressor (in terms of loyalty). Logically thinking I should wipe my enemy off the ground to end the war quickly and to start another war on the other front. But some MTW players prefer leaving factions not conquered, but stuck in one province. The enemy then doesn't accept ceasefire (as usually ) and so you're fighting a war without no military actions with that faction. So what is better: to destroy completely, or to make enemy faction almost lifeless. I would be thankful, if someone of the experts commented the advantages and drawbacks of this matter. Thanks.

If he is the Pope, leave him there. Otherwise, wipe them all out. No point in wasting troops garrisoning extra borders. No matter how lifeless the province is, there is still some income and it can be turned into a production province. 1 more provincial governor title to give out as well.

[Grand Duke Vytautas]

Thanks, I see you guys are quite principal I too want to eliminate factions rather than leave the job unfinished.

[bretwalda]

Hi guys, I trust that this is not too much off topic: If I push the enemy back into one province that does not have any buildings what will happen? Probably their income will be negative so they can't build anything? Will they do suicidal attack or will they disband any of their troops? You can go into negative for any time interval? Is there interest or any other penalty for that?

[Procrustes]

Hi guys, I trust that this is not too much off topic: If I push the enemy back into one province that does not have any buildings what will happen? Probably their income will be negative so they can't build anything? Will they do suicidal attack or will they disband any of their troops? You can go into negative for any time interval? Is there interest or any other penalty for that?

If it's armies are broken then I think it will just sit there going ever further into debt - it won't build anything or do anything. From what I can see the AI rarely (never?) disbands any of it's units. As time goes on they will start to accumulate royal knights, though.

Regarding whether to eliminate factions or not, I often don't. I like GA mode and rarely play "conquor the world" - the games get boring and frustrating after the balance tips in your favor. As such, it's often better to leave a weakened faction on my border - makes for a more interesting game. Sooner or later one of the other super powers that develops will take an aim at them - I can either join the wolves at the table or play the protector. I like the ocassional reemergences that happen as these factions die off or are picked off. I like the princesses and the trading partners. I like to meddle in their politics with spies and assasins. And if they are too stuck - like some faction that is isolated on some island - I'll invade and wipe them out or use the -ian switch to suicide them so that I can get an interesting reemergence somewhere else.

[metatron]

Conquer.

[henoch]

i tend to herd them to a province not too rich. then attack a few times so their army won`t have a chance against the border garrisons.(leave 100 +1 alive!!)

they will either turn rebel itself, or get crushed by a other faction. but then the "returning heir"- party will be their problem first turn. the chances to marry a daughter from a faction you *pet* is rare, ..but there, especially in terms of "peace-talks" and their denieal..disagreement.

i use the pet for army testing, general- first-battle +1 star factory, and artillery range. and when another big party shows up, i can leave (garrisons don`t) the conquered soil and leave a buffer (..concerning the main army is "where the pepper grows")

[Lacker]

I'm all about leaving them there. It's a simple risk assesment for me. I pin them down in some dinky province, assign some border guards around them and just let them rot until ALL of the other factions are pinned like that. Then I just roll over all of them at once to win.

This has helped me continually avoid the "The French Return!" (incidentally with 400 knights templar and 300 armoured pikes) and having to send troops back to reconqure territories. I like to think of it as colonization of other empires.

A

[Lonewarrior]

Conquer them one by one, leave none alive.

[Ironside]

Atually the comp has a principle of never ally themself with a faction that's in war with thier allies.

To put it simple, if you're at war with three factions with many allies, everyone will hate you, but if you kill them off, everyone will start ally you again (until someone daclares war on you, again. ).

Unless I can make them into a trapped trade partner, I kill them.

[CherryDanish]

Lifeless states can be useful. I like to keep "hangers on" alive for several reasons.
1) when they act as a buffer state against a strong rival. For instance, I had cornered England down to Mercia in one campaign with 2 full stacks of almos in scotland. England and Almos were allied and not only was England netting me a huge income in trade (we were at peace), but I was at war with the almos so with a small stabilising force I could net a profit and keep 2 factions alive to prevent re-emergence. The Almo royal family was not in scotland, but I figure I could wipe them off the rest of the map, ransom back the monarch to scotland and then turn them into a trade partner later on. Recently did the same thing with the eggys, keeping the faction weak, but alive in egypt so I can delay my conquest of the almos till after I deal with the GH.
2) taking the pope out of the game. you know if you kill the pope, he's coming back with LOTS of friends. I like to corner him in sicily, invade sicily and then retreat to make peace and thin his flock. then with a small pinning force I can keep a trade partner and keep the pope from being a threat.
3) end game trade. near the end of the game it can be hard to find someone who doesn't actively hate you, so turning a profit can be hard especially if you went ape buying mercs, building and going overkill on large armies. Sending an AI faction leader to an island and stranding him there can net you thousands which will buy lots of swords.

There are other less practical reasons, mostly I just like the challenge of cornering my enemies, making them neutral and neutered, but the practical strategic reasons are mostly covered above.

[ichi]

I leave any faction alive that is reduced to a single island.

When a faction is left with only one island, I pull my ships out of the region for a turn, the war ends and I reap huge trade benefits when I move my ships back in.

If the faction has a lot of troops on the island they are limited in their ability to do anything.

ichi

[DisruptorX]

If you leave them alive, when the time comes to invade, you will be facing 7 units of royal knights. This is not a good thing.

[MidnitePiper]

I like to leave them alive for a while just for that purpose. When I see a good collection of 'guard' units of a type I can't make, I send in the assassin teams and start wiping out (usually several) generations of monarchs; eventually I get to bribe a rebel leader to inherit a hundred or more top-quality units I could never make myself... fun just to have escorting my ruler around if nothing else (my last Sultan had a personal guard including a Varangian Guard unit, a Kataphract unit, and a couple Royal Guards units from Spain )