Occupy, enslave or exterminate?

[Kraxis]

Basically I always enslave. It brings lots of trademoney, it increases my cities and it brings that 0.5% growth in the traded cities and it loweres the angry population quite a bit. Not even a 425 population village will be spared my enslavement, for while it won't give me much population to the main cities it still adds that half percentage to the cities within range.
If I'm really pressed for money I put them to the sword, but only if the city is large enough to give a suitable bonus. I hardly ever occupy.

[The Stranger]

i always occupy in some rare cases i enslave. but i almost never exterminate (only if the city has no respect for THE EMPEROR

[dismal]

I still exterminate quite a lot. Almost always when I take a highly developed city. The benefits are:

- A nice shot of Cash
- The ability to de-garrison quickly (and take more cities)
- The ability re-culture the city before the squalor kicks in

I will occupy when:

- it's a small or slow growth city (barbarian, rebel, or early game usually)
- the city is near a threshhold where a new palace becomes available
- if it's my culture, I'll be more likely to occupy

A good rule of thumb is I'll exterminate when there's a big cash payout to doing it, and occupy when there isn't. If there's a big payout, it generally will means the city grew fast, therefore has a high growth rate, therefore will grow back fast.

I don't enslave because I generally don't want a lot of new population in my governed cities.

The general idea is to keep my armies out in the field attacking while having enough people in the cities to keep the building queues full. Your military is a sinkhole for your money. The biggest economic mistake you can make is having unproductive military units loitering about.

[Craterus]

I'm having a bit of trouble as Scythia (economically), should I exterminate a lot from now on? I'm about to lose a city to Parthia as well so that's going to cut my income even more :(

[Marcus Maxentius]

Yeah, occupy if same culture or if it's already small. I don't try to enslave too many cities at once if they're going to all go to the same few governed cities in order to control overpopulation. I just alternate with exterminate. Some times I need the initial infusion of income over the long term benifits of higher population.

Basic rule of thumb is don't do anything that will deplete the population below roughly 2000 people.

[HarunTaiwan]

Exterminate. Pop grows back so fast anyways.

[screwtype]

Basic rule of thumb is don't do anything that will deplete the population below roughly 2000 people.

I'd agree with that. You can't build anything useful in a city with pop below 2000 and it takes ages to get it back up again once it slips below that mark.

[screwtype]

I'm having a bit of trouble as Scythia (economically), should I exterminate a lot from now on? I'm about to lose a city to Parthia as well so that's going to cut my income even more :(

I was hard up for cash in my last campaign as Thrace so I exterminated everything for the fast bucks. I think I destroyed my own potential tax base by doing that. 3000 denarii seems like a lot when the coffers are empty but it's gone in a turn or two. And then by exterminating, it takes ages to rebuild the pop again.

[PseRamesses]

I occupy rebels and towns with the same culture as myself.
I enslave all of a different culture than myself.
I only exterminate as a revenge or if I want to give the town away to an ally.

[Quietus]

I occupy everything within a reasonable distance (regardless of culture). I enslave when the city is too far away from the capital.