The RTW II Economy - Research, Tips and Strategies

[Bramborough]

About 150 turns into first Roman campaign. Re looting: I've mostly been occupying regions, but entering Libya, decided to sack a few settlements to see how it would work out. I didn't nuke out the specific numbers, but following is my general impression:

Pros:
- Substantial immediate boost to treasury. Self explanatory.
- Boosts slave population, increasing factionwide economy. One doesn't get the enslavement of captives option with straight occupation.

Cons:
- All buildings substantially damaged; repair costs amount to roughly 70-80% of the initial treasury income. This isn't necessarily a big concern, however, if one intends to wholesale replace existing buildings with own-faction structures, AND has sufficient treasury to do so immediately (so all those construction sites don't turn into slums).
- Doubles the provincial unrest penalty (and therefore doubles the number of turns required to eradicate it).
- Boosts slave population, increasing factionwide public order penalties. Not exactly "factionwide" perhaps, but slave pop in all your provinces will increase, although the closer provinces' will be higher. Looting Cyrene/Augila in Libya led to high slave pop order penalties (-10 or worse) in Phazania/Africa, and lower (say, -7 to -9) in home provinces Italia, Cisalpina, etc. This wasn't ALL just from those two cities, of course. I'd been enslaving defeated armies/fleets since beginning my North Africa campaign, but definitely noticed a big boost (or hit, however one wants to look at it) upon the looting of these 2 cities.

Overall, I'd say looting is not the way to go if one wants to permanently retain a province and incorporate as a usefully-functioning economic component of the empire. The headaches of trying to restore public order and tying up one's forces in military occupation just take too long. HOWEVER:

An idea which has occurred to me is using an undesired province (or even just a region or two outside one's own full provinces) as a "training ground" for generals. Go in, loot cities, don't garrison, let public order spiral out of control. Rebel army appears, and your army general now gets to put another whopping on them for more rank boost, with no diplomatic penalties. Rinse and repeat. This might be a good way to keep providing battles to rank up generals in between major campaigns. Just take care to do this to a landlocked settlement, as rebel port cities tend to get blockaded (but not attacked) by AI factions, and permanent stalemate ensues.