Am I a bad person?

[Apgad]

As Kart-Hadast, I'd just finished conquering Gaul, and was setting about organising my people to make them profitable and happy, in that order. Most settlements were pretty stable, with moderate-sized garrisons to help enforce the happiness, and growing steadily. 1 had a little plague (possible due to some war and famine going around), but this didn't bother me too much.

Then Cenabum started revolting. Happiness dropped from 80% to 45% within a turn, so I sent some more levy spearmen over to bump up the garrison. This didn't do the trick, and pretty soon I had a full garrison, the best governor I had available, and happiness still around 50%. What to do?

Since I couldn't increase the garrison any further, I decided that the quickest solution would be to reduce my population. So I sent a spy from the settlement with plague and "shared the pestilence".

This worked a treat, and soon my population was dropping 6% per turn, and happiness was up to 90%. I had time to build more "happiness" buildings before the plague burnt itself out, and Cenabum has been profitable and happy ever since. The tactic worked so well that I've since used it twice more, always on Gauls.

Now, you could argue that I'm a bad ruler, needlessly sacrificing the lives of my people for the sake of profit and stability. Purposely spreading plague couldn't be a good thing to do, could it?

But I choose to look at it like this: If the settlement in question revolted entirely, I would have been forced to re-take it, resulting in the senseless slaughter of innocent revoltees. The population would have been exterminated (again), so even more people would have died. Seen in that light, letting loose a tiny little bit of plague was a much more humane thing to do, right?

There's nothing like a little war, famine, pestilence (and what was that other one?) to make those people left remember just how good they have it...

[Hooahguy]

well, revoltees are never inncocent, IMO. so killing them is no problem for me. and spreading plauge isnt too bad for me either, unless the settlement in question has a valuable governor in it, which in case ill withdraw the garrison, let it revolt, then take it again, but use the auo_win cheat if the resulting army is gold-chevroned.

so your answer is: no

[Boyar Son]

they are traitors and deserve nothing less.

[LordofUmbar]

Keep your people safe. If that means killing off the enemy with plauge, then so be it. You could even spread the rumor that their death was the will of the Gods.

[Moosemanmoo]

No you are a wise ruler who does what must be done for the greater good

But if you were playing romani I'd call you a damned evil tyrant descended from hades itself



For playing a "real" faction, have a balloon, though I'm only qualified for green

[konny]

You may be had a foreign spy in that town and therefore the unrest. Your spy might to have solved the problem by kicking the enemy spy out and so unrest went down again.

[Apgad]

Yeah, my spy solved the problem with a big bootful of plague! Take that, nasty riot-inciting Gallic spy.

I did think about withdrawing my FM first, but in the end decided that I'd rather have a strong governor who's plague-resistant (or at least washes his hands before eating, and avoids other plague-ridden people). If he died, it was the will of the gods, but since he lived the people respect him all the more!

[Vasiliyi]

your not a bad person, trust me.. I use this tactic all the time when I get a plauge, I personally am a hardcore roman (please don't shun me for it) and I hate smelly barbarians (once again a steriotype) so if I get a plauge, its defiantly gonna spread all over gaul, sure its a killer on the economy, but aleast there is order for another 20 years of the game. So who ever said romans are evil tyrants if they do it, they are right. I am an eveil tyrant... No question, I love slaughtering those barbarians, iberains, carthagians, anal loving greeks, you name it. If it don't got an spqr stamp on it, I love to kill it. (Sorry for the rant)

[Pharnakes]

Can I play an mp match with you some time?

I think there should be a rule from now on, that anyone who insults a faction must accpet any challange by another to an mp match.

Could be interesting.


Damn Romans.

[Apgad]

Now now, he's not insulting a faction.

He's insulting every faction! Oh, except maybe Pahlava, Saba, Sauromatae... but that's about it. I don't know why people think Rome should rule the world - what have they ever done for us?

[Visitor13]

they are traitors and deserve nothing less.

Exactly. Being slaughtered by your soldiers when they're exterminating the settlement is a merciful death compared to the plague, and I see no reason for mercy here.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I used this a bit in vanilla, especially in the bigger cities, because the vanilla game was often a bit buggy about larger settlements - there wasn't enough happiness even if you built every single building available. In EB you can usually avoid this, and especially later on you can make sure to always use high-influence generals. In my previous campaigns I've been doing like that always: keep the noob-generals at the front fighting battles until they get more influence, and a backup stack of influence generals who occupy the settlements. As soon as enough happiness buildings have been constructed, the high influence generals can move one step further towards the front, releasing some of those closest to the front to occupy new settlements etc etc, so I've never really needed to resort to spreading plague in EB. However, I engage in very heavy birth control measures by always having highest possible tax rate and almost never building any farms or health buildings except for settlements which have more than enough happiness so that a population increase won't create great unhappiness.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Can I play an mp match with you some time?

I think there should be a rule from now on, that anyone who insults a faction must accpet any challange by another to an mp match.

Could be interesting.


Damn Romans.

I agree - damn Sabeans!
(hopefully one of the easiest factions to beat in an mp battle)

[Pharnakes]

Now now, he's not insulting a faction.

He's insulting every faction! Oh, except maybe Pahlava, Saba, Sauromatae... but that's about it. I don't know why people think Rome should rule the world - what have they ever done for us?

Well, in that case, he has to play rome, whilst everyone else shots at him with their favourite faction....

I agree - damn Sabeans!
(hopefully one of the easiest factions to beat in an mp battle):~)

Given as how easern conquerer seems to have vannished, I will defend the honour of the Sab'yn wal Jau!!

[J.Alco]

No, you're not a bad person for doing that. In fact, it was a pretty smart and, albeit callous, effective and 'humane' strategy.

You're not a bad person. Now HORSES, they're bad persons.

[tapanojum]

Personally I would of sat down and had a nice friendly talk with the population..but hey..small pox blankets work too!

[marodeur]

I have always missed an option to reduce the population of cities you already own. Of course, this would not be very kind - but (chistmas coming closer) this would not be something entirely new: Herodes certainly tried to reduce population growth too with his first-born order... .

No, I don't think you are a bad ruler. I think you are only taking your responsibility to keep the bags of quart hadast filled. If it calms your conscience (I also had to look this word up) think of your greedy merchants forcing you or your beloved wives and hetairois demanding new jewlery - it was not your decision after all...

[Moosemanmoo]

[QUOTE=King Vasiliyi]I personally am a hardcore roman (please don't shun me for it)quote]


Too late


[QUOTE=Anal loving GreeksQUOTE]


now now, I'm sure the romans had their fair share of bum fun too

[Vasiliyi]

First off I would like to say that I do play as other factions, in fact I love playing as the arveni and kicking the buckets out of rome. I also love makedonia and its elite phalanx... Lets see I love the sweboz and how tough it is to play. But my favorite faction happens to be rome. So I hate to start argueing which faction is better, because the eb team did a wonderful job on all of them (even the unfinished ones)

So I apologize if I insulted anyone on this forum. And I would love to play mp sometime but the computer I play eb oin doesn't have internet for the moment.. But I will gladly take the challange, although I admit it will be my first time playing on mp, so I'm guessing it wil be tough, because AI is a piece of cake for me.

[Moosemanmoo]

lol, there's no real arguments in the EB forum, we're all just a bit silly

[Apgad]

Anyway, they're not really people. They're economic units of production.

[Boyar Son]

Damn Romans.

i accept ur challange meek hellen

Exactly. Being slaughtered by your soldiers when they're exterminating the settlement is a merciful death compared to the plague, and I see no reason for mercy here.

of course.

[Magister Militum Titus Pullo]

There is no such thing as a bad ruler in this game. Seriously, you can't be blamed if your subjects are too stupid to appreciate your rule. Personally, I would have an army camped outside the city, just in case they revolted, and if that happens, I would just massacre the little ingrates after storming the city.