Capturing Cities

[Megas Methuselah]

Partly out of curiosity, and partly out of a very minor annoyance, what do you guys do to the population of a city once captured? I find that I almost always have to eradicate the population simply because the unrest would otherwise trigger a rebellion.

Does anyone here actually occupy their captured cities rather than enslaving or eradicating? If so, do those particular cities tend to be very unlawful and difficult to keep under your control, usually requiring a large garrison(and something of an expense as a result)?

Due to the high upkeep of units, I tend to only leave a garrison of 1 or 2 units of militia in my average city(4 units or a standing army on the borders). Any more than that I sometimes start losing money rather than gaining it. What about you guys?

[Horst Nordfink]

It depends on what culture they are most of the time. If they are the same culture as the faction I'm playing, I will just occupy the territory. If they're some stinking barbarians, chances are I will enslave the smelly oafs.

Although, if I'm feeling in a vindictive mood and I had to waste a lot of lives taking the city, I will annihilate the worthless peasants to make me feel better.

Either way, it doesn't require too much of a garrison if I have a general in the army.

[Sand]

Enslave them always is my motto. I try to move generals in and out of homeland cities so my troop builing centers get their population boosted up. The benefits from recruits, tax, trade and farm income, and growth rate are much better than a short term cash boost. I only very rarely occupy, usually only at the start of the game when Im confident I can handle the unrest and I dont want the city to lag behind growth wise [ Athens for example when playing as Maks]

The only time Ive seen the benefit of extermination was as WRE in vanilla Barbarian Invasion where quite simply some treacherous so and sos needed manners put on them quite sharpish.

Some cities are just very tough to hold after having taken them - especially the ones the AI has not developed. I try to blitz cities before they hit 24K so Ive got some light at the end of the tunnel, but on my Roman game I was able to hold Seleukia, which had hit 24K size too soon quite handily even with no governor because the AI had built a lot of happiness boosting buildings. Bostra or the Crimean greek cities on the other hand were an absolute nightmare.

[Zaknafien]

i generally occupy civilized cities when playing as the Romans. Barbarians, or paticularly irretractable enemies I enslave, and when punishing a faction or having to endure a full year plus siege I slaughter.

[dominique]

I try to occupy the city of my own culture. In the beggining of the game, if my mnai balance is positive and my home cities are still small I will enslave the populations from other cultures, if it's negative I will keep them intact (Tax payers are good! ).

I will exterminate only in late game if I need to blitz an area.

Otherwise, destroy their gov, destroy their temples and replace it by temples and gov of your own culture. Try also to choose the kind of gov and temple with the best happiness/law bonus/health bonus.

By example:
If I play the Arverni, I will occupy Mediolanum and Burdigala and enslave Massilia -unless I want some hoplites!- In the middle game, if Romans get Polybian armies and look threateningly at me I will send my biggest army down Italia and raze every city I can get a hand on. I... WILL... NOT... TRY... TO...OCCUPY... ITALIA (this is a mantra I had to repeat myself). Just raze and move on. The Mnai entry will give my faction a much needed boost in constructions.

If, and only if, the Romani seem fatally wounded, I will then move in with garrison units (the cheapest sons of a goat I can buy) in every city I can get. Trying to hold captured cities with frontline armies is not a good idea. Your good nice chevronned units and rare mercenaries will get attrition from riots far from your R&R cities.

You can win fights against roman legions with almost no loss (30-50 guys) and then lose 400 crack troops trying to keep Baghdadum er... I mean Roma free of riots - even if you had razed the city beforehand.

So to answer your question, there's no golden rule.

Be like the Romans. Be capricious. Enslave Taras, raze Carthage, occupy Capua then raze it if it revolt. Adapt your policies to your needs. You need hard cash, RAZE! You need conscripts, enslave. You need a good trading post, occupy.

BTW, If you play the romans, occupying a city like Syracuse is a go! The Mnai you'll get from trade and tax will pay in the long term.

A bitchy huge city who support a dozen unit and give trade to 6 of your other towns is far better than a quiet small city anytime.

Also, you can get some sucky traits if you raze too much.

[Megas Methuselah]

thx guys, that's great advice. My huge empire is mostly a cluster of "quiet small cities"... I'll try and change that, I think. I'll keep my eyes open for any happiness buildings that may be in cities I capture.

[Thaatu]

I almost never use enslavement, because it's more like the Assyrian mass-deportation than real enslavement. Extermination is more like enslavement, with some being killed and some bound for slavery. I don't know if any of the current factions used mass-deportation. That's why it's only two options for me.

[matte89]

Right now ive been playing the kolion hellenas faction alot, i like to enslave settlements not only to streanghten sparta,athens and rhodes but becuse you can have smaller garrison along whit good public order, the growth is very good after a city has been enslaved, like 2,5-3% growht whitout the farms and granery buildings, so they recover fast if you dont build units. It gives a small loot but it also gives me time to build all the nessisary buildings before the town screms for another gouverner palace and even a larger list of needed buildings.

My first play trough the hellenas campains it was kinda ebaressing that every spartan man able to bare arms was trained as milita or peltas... so that started my world enslavement and it turnd out pretty good.

Im glad its abit harder in the 1.0version, but i still counqer macedon in 5-10 years wile building structures in every settlement at the same time.

I dont like to go off-topic but i have few quik questions:

When/if the roman direct thier aggression towards greece? what period dose that normaly happen?

Wy is rhodes allways in dept no matter howe hard i try to make the city usefull? any hints/tactics to improve the city?

What is the best in your opinion? the spartan agoge system or hellenic collony system?

thanks in advance.

[Long lost Caesar]

if its a large city with a population over 5000, ill exterminate it. gets cash and keeps order. am i doing the right thing?

[Bootsiuv]

A bitchy huge city who support a dozen unit and give trade to 6 of your other towns is far better than a quiet small city anytime.

Apparently, a city can only trade with up to 3 other cities. A caveat of R:TW unknown to the developers until only recently.

Thus, the immensely expensive large port upgrade found in cities without a natural harbor is completely useless.

I assume the team will address this in a future patch.

That is, unless they found it to be untrue, which would be totally awesome.

But I dunno.

Bootsiuv