Quote Originally Posted by sapi
A nasty trick is to give the city as a gift to someone who CAN'T make it in that turn, then re-capture the city and slaughter the inhabitents...it gets you top quality city with little unrest. I haven't used it much myself though
This is a continuation of the MTW strategy of using a province or two to help train armies up to higher levels of experience. I used it in MTW and I use it now. Its fun!

And how dare they wish to get out from under the 'fill in your favorite faction' boot? Revolt? Not for long!

Those were harsh times for sure.. the mercenary revolt during the 2nd Punic war saw 1000s of mercenaries crucified by the Carthaginians for having the temerity to lay siege to Carthage when the Carthaginian council refused to pay them. And the mercenaries were in the right!