Occupy / Sack / Exterminate a settlement.

[maestro]

Hi guys. I can't find anything in the manual about this. When you take a settlement, you get three choices as to what to do with it.

1) Occupy settlement. This way you get no extra money but you have a large population to grow your city with. What are the bonuses or penalties associated with this

2) Sack Settlement. This way you get tonnes of money and kill a percentage of the populous so there's a quick pay-off and only a slight slow-down in growth. What are the bonuses or penalties associated with this

3) Exterminate populous. This way you get a bit of money and kill everyone. You get some money, but not anywhere near as much as sacking and you have to grow the town from scratch. What are the bonuses or penalties associated with this

it seems to me that you'd always want to sack a settlement cause the population hit isn't that bad and you get loads of cash. there has to be a balance somewhere but i don't know what it is

Can anyone help? Pointing to the right page on the manual will do But I can't find it anywhere!

[Monarch]

Sacking also destroys some buildings,

Early game I occupy, cities are smaller and need all the population they can get. Then I exterminate.

[Jambo]

Are you sure about that Monarch? I've looked at the buildings a settlement had before I sacked, then I sacked and they were exactly the same...

[maestro]

Does anyone know if there is anything on this in the manual or do CA assume we'll just guess!?

[Quillan]

That seems to be a conglomeration of the rules from RTW with the Barbarian Invasion horde mechanic thrown in. In RTW, occupying the city got you about 1 gold for every 100 population. The population was left intact, which could cause public order penalties if the population was high (there's no penalty for different culture in M2TW, is there?). Exterminating killed off 3/4 the population, but got you 10 times as much gold: 1 gold for every 10 population. In M2TW, it'll lower your relations with the faction that owned the settlement before you took it, and with the Papal States if the previous owner was Catholic. Sacking was possible to hordes in BI. In BI, sacking a city killed off about 80-90% of the population, brought in a little more money than extermiting, and had a chance (not automatic, just a random chance) of damaging buildings in the city. I don't know how closely that's followed in M2.

[Prodigal]

The 3 options really have a pretty easy application when you consider the results you'll get.

Occupy settlement. As mentioned previously good in the early stages of the game, you simply move in retain the current population & don't damage any buildings. This is really applicable to cities that you take where your faction & the "populace" are compatible, for example a catholic faction taking a muslim city would not be compatible so to avoid unrest you would need a large garrison, & it would take longer to convert the city itself.

Sack Settlement. You need cash, sack the settlement, you get alot of money but do not drastically decrease the populace so it will recover faster. The building damage may or may not be a concern dependent once again on the peoples that you are taking over, obviously a city with the wrong religion will require you to knock down their places of worship & build your own anyway but you have no guarntee that the sacking will damage those or other buildings. In a small city the population loss maybe sufficient for you to quickly convert & gain control over the populace, in a larger city it may not be sufficient for you to comfortably convert everyone, before the unrest gets unreasonable. This option is also very useful if you're not looking to consolidate but just raid or put an enemy on the back foot, you make a mint of money & lose them the cities wealth for a while.

Exterminate populous. You move into a hugh city of an opposite religion, or a city revolts due to unrest, move in & kill 'em all. You'll get less money for doing this but you'll make extra cash knocking down the religious buildings which you may want to get rid of anyway, & in the case of unrest, well you just killed everyone so that & squalor should be radically decreased.

[46852]

City conquering styles also affect your commanding general's traits: occupying is a chivalrious act, sacking is considered neutral and exterminating makes your general more feared.

In game terms, you get chivalry/dread points sometimes if you choose occupation/extermination.

[Freedom Onanist]

Exterminating is useful where you take over a city/castle that isn't aligned with your religion.

[Fridgebadger]

I think we're all pretty confident about when we should use each option, but I'm still not sure about the actual sacking mechanics.

For example, how random is the building damage? Does it always cost you more to repair the damage than you get from sacking? And if not, what's the downside? Does it give you unrest over a long period?

I'm sure I've sacked cities and got little, if any building damage, while raking in the cash and leaving the population largely untouched. It just seems a really attractive option - so I'm thinking there must be a catch.

[KARTLOS]

basically you do wantto sackk enearlly every time. the cost to repay the damaged building is more than outwieghed by the loot

[Bob the Insane]

In BI when you sacked a settlement you did not keep it but instead it became Rebel, is that still the case?

[econ21]

No you keep sacked settlements.

[Oshidashi]

I think we're all pretty confident about when we should use each option, but I'm still not sure about the actual sacking mechanics.

For example, how random is the building damage? Does it always cost you more to repair the damage than you get from sacking? And if not, what's the downside? Does it give you unrest over a long period?

I'm sure I've sacked cities and got little, if any building damage, while raking in the cash and leaving the population largely untouched. It just seems a really attractive option - so I'm thinking there must be a catch.

I've sacked the rebel cities of Bruge, Antwerp and Cheverou something (city in Wales). These cities had no buildings, except for the regular wall. So in this way you get the bonus without damaging any buildings.

[Amon_Zeth]

Does sacking reduce unrest?

[Sardo]

Funny thing though, when my crusaders took Jerusalem and exterminated the place, the port at least was destroyed (and I know for a fact that there was one, because I had blockaded it before the city fell). I don't know about any other buildings that may have been there, as I didn't check, but at any rate I haven't really noticed any building damage when sacking towns - though I may not have paid much attention to it.

[maestro]

I'm finding it very difficult to come up with a reason not to sack a settlement in almost all circumstances

Yes, at the very beginning of the game with a very small settlement then occupy for growth, and I guess when taking over a very large city the other side of the map then exterminate for unrest.

Otherwise - sack the lot of them!

[Khisanth Magus]

I've sacked all the settlements that I've conquered, and there has never been damage to any buildings other than the walls and any other buildings I accidently hit with my catapults/cannons when laying siege.

[malkuth]

Yup I sack too, its the best option.

A fun thing to do though is, I was at war with danes I did not want Farnkfurt but attacked anyway. I sacked them, then sold all the buildings. I made over 30K just doing this. Then I abandoned it.

The only thing I did wrong was destroy the church, which was really bad for papal relations, I went down to one cross from 5. So next time I won't touch the church.

[USMCNJ]

has any one else noticed this?
After taking a city and i hover over the sack option it tells me that i will make about 10K from it, but in reality i only make about 3K. Is this a bug or a feature?

[andrewt]

Isn't sacking better than exterminating under all circumstances right now? Sacking seems to kill enough people to bring any city under control. You don't need to exterminate if that is the case.

I still like holding on to certain towns if I can occupy them safely. Trade income seems more related to population in M:TW2. I have my capital Venice bringing in over 6k per turn and have a few cities like Vienna over 4k (maybe 5k for Vienna), some over 5k as well.

[Lochar]

Has anyone really paid attention to the city b4 sacking?

Like Sardo posted, maybe the buildings just disappear and dont show up in a damaged state?

I really wish their was a Sack City and move on feature tho. I captured a Muslim town sacked it and destroyed all the buildings, then moved my army out, had to wait a few turns b4 it actually became Rebel but at the time I was crusading and it ending before got there so figured I was at war with Egypt , may as well earn some coin as its going to be a long haul back.

[Nestor]

What percentage of the population do you kill when sacking a settlement? People say here that it's not like the 80-90% of BI, but does anyone have a number?

I always occupy now, I'm thinking that the income in the next turns would be more than the loot from sacking but I really don't have any hard evidence to support this. I think this was the case in previous TW games. Anybody that knows?

[Grimmy]

I've been playing M/M level English short campaigns while awaiting the patch.

The only thing I can recall as a specific relation to sacking vs occupying is York.

When I sack York I get one city upgrade to build. When I occupy I upgrade the city and there's another upgrade available immediatly after.

I never looked at the numbers but the above has been consistant enough that I always occupy York and the other UK towns/forts now because having them up to speed and producing asap radically affects how I can conduct operations accross the channel.

[Lord Condormanius]

Does anyone know if there is anything on this in the manual or do CA assume we'll just guess!?

The strategy guide says this:

...you can choose to Occupy the Settlement, leaving the buildings and populace intact. You can Sack the city, generating a large amount of gold, but destroying infrastructure. Or you can exterminate the populace, instilling order through fear. Exterminating also generates a lot of money, and it raises the Dread of your General.

[IrishArmenian]

Occupy: Population strong, a lot of unrest though
Sack: Population decreases about 1/5 or so, get a lot of money
Exterminate: 3/4 of Population are put to sword, get about 1/4 of the Florins one would gain if sacking.

[PaulTa]

I don't know if this is consistent or not, but "damaging infastructure" sounds like you're taking out buildings that give you law bonuses like governors palace. If this is the case, then the downside to sacking a big city is that you'll take out most of the buildings that were allowing you to keep the population in control, while only killing a small amount of the population (more likely to revolt).

[Darius]

Really the only time I'll occupy is if they're of a similar religion/ethnicity. If not I'll simply sack it. However if the city is simply gigantic and filled with pissed off people that think I'm heathen scum I'll kill their first born, their second born, them, their significant other, and their neighbors just for fun.

However if the general I'm using has a developing chivalry rating, I'll occupy if I think I can handle it over time, just to get him the bonus, or if he's developing a dread rating, I'll exterminate if I think I can handle the drastic decrease in manpower quickly enough.

Tbh I sometimes save, exterminate, then reload and just sack it, simply because I like the sound of the screams of the fools who dared to defy my will.

[Lord Condormanius]

Actually I have found on several occasions that after sacking the city, there is damage to some of the buildings that has to be repaired. Ihaven't noticed if this is always the case or what, if anything, gets completely destroyed.

[Andres]

I found out exterminating the population of a catholic settlement damages your standing with the Pope. Apparently he doesn't like it when catholics get exterminated, not even rebels.

[Daveybaby]

I found out exterminating the population of a catholic settlement damages your standing with the Pope. Apparently he doesn't like it when catholics get exterminated, not even rebels.

Sacking a catholic settlement also damages your relations with the pope, though not quite as much as extermination.