Killing the family

[Franconicus]

You can eliminate a faction by killing all the Royal Family, right? Has anybody ever tried to use this as the basic plan t fight a faction, just going for the noblemen?

[edyzmedieval]

Not really....

Playing with Julii, 204 BC, the Greeks are reduced to one minor city near the Seleucids. They have many family members so hard to destroy. Anyways, I killed in 2 battles 4 royal family members. 2 Kings and 2 generals.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I did it once, but then it wasn't deliberate. It was my first complete Imperial campaign, as the Brutii, and I had just started civil war with the other romans. I immediately prepared an expedition towards Campania but I had a weak army and awaited reinforcements while camping in the hills between Campania and Apulia for a turn or two. A first Scipii army attacked, and I got 4 or 5 of their family members in that battle. A hard fought battle, which was eventually won by me. Then I proceeded to Campania and put the city under siege. Inside it, there was a fairly large army and back then I was quite bad at city assaults so I tried to starve them rather than assault. Then I see two 1-unit armies with Scipii family members outside the city, but I do not attack because that would lift the siege. I keep standing there for a few turns, and then suddenly the Scipii bring most of their troops on Sicily to lift the siege. With them, they have 5-6 family members. In total, there are the family members inside the city, then the 2 one-unit armies with family members, and finally this new one with 5-6 members. There is a battle, but luckily enough the Scipii reinforcements arrive late. I win, and when I go back to the campaign map, all of Sicily as well as Carthage, Thapsus, the Capua I'm still besieging, and some more settlements in north africa are all rebels (the gladiatorial uprising)! Was a quite interesting experience, but I've never had it happen after that. But after seeing it, I tried to use the tactic against others in other campaigns, but failed every time. Usually the last family member of an enemy faction isn't killed until I conquer their last city...

[amazon77]

I also did it in my Pontic camp, killing all the Macedonian members in battle. They had Cyrine (that part in africa exactly under Sparta) and it went rebel. Also done it to Seleucids, but i was also besieging a city of them that needed just a turn to fall and when last member died, the besieged city got a new rebel army and it's "turns to surrender" began again

[Franconicus]

So it seems to work but nobody every did a consequent 'headhunting' strategy?

[IliaDN]

Tried it in MTW.

[Franconicus]

Tried it in MTW.

And what?

[CMcMahon]

I've taken out Dacia, Scythia and Thrace before by doing this.

In the case of Dacia, they only had two cities left; the one closest to me held their faction leader, who I decided to attack with a much larger army. When Dacia took its turn, the faction heir attacked me from the side, putting both Dacian family members into battle. I promptly beat the pants off them, and found that - although I had killed every soldier in the town, the town was now filled with rebel soldiers, so I had to attack again.

For Scythia, I killed off two family members that attacked my northernmost town at the time, and I sent an army off to their closest city. I intercepted a Scythian army, and promptly attacked it, and killed their general. Sadly for them, their general was the faction leader, and this caused all five or six of their towns to go rebel.

And for Thrace, I had all three of their cities under siege simultaneously, and each one had a family member in it, so that doesn't really count.

[magnum]

If you include the use of assassins I have done this once. It was a campaign where I wanted to see how effective assassins were (v1.1) so I making assassins every turn, training them up, and then sending them out to eliminate factions solely through assassinations. It was very effective, but with the constant training of new assassins for the corps, mixed with tracking down foreign family members, through in the fact that when an AI faction has only the faction leader and heir left alive you must kill them both in the same turn or the AI simply MOTH's a new heir, and it became very tedious. Never done it again since then.

[IliaDN]

And what?

Succeed in case with migthy Spain

[Armoryk]

Aha! That's what happened to the Spanish! I was preparing to besiege Numantia (Numatrix?) and I got attacked by a stack headed by the faction heir and reinforced by the faction leader. When I was done with the battle both were dead and most of the army was destroyed. The last three territories went Rebel, and I got the "faction destroyed" message, even though they had garrisons in each of the cities. I thought that's what had happened, but this confirms it.

I had been purposefully bribing their family members and assassinating the ones that wouldn't take bribes, but I didn't realize it would lead to this.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Heheh, i've only ever done this once, by accident. I was a bit of a newb to RTW, and was playing as the Brutii, as i had given up on my Julii campaign. Anyways, my adventures in Greece had been a complete failure, so i decided to take the lands that the Scipii were failing to take. Africa!! Unfortunately for me, the Scipii already had the best lands of Carthage and that silly little city below it, so i had to settle for dirt poor Numidian lands. Just to impress the senate and make myself feel all high and mighty, i decided to finish off the Carthaginians, who were lurking in Corduba. I lost the battle and half my army, even though i was just a few meters from the Plaza, but got held back by the crowds of Iberian Cannon-fodder. But, i did win sort of, because i killed the entire Carthaginian Royal Family, which was good, and made Carthage the first and last faction i unlocked. About a week after, i got the 'all-fractions unlocker' and have had fun ever since!