Kingdom Management M2TW
Managing Unrest and The Economy
Occupy, sack or exterminate?
Sacking cities provides a good cash injection. Also, by reducing population, it reduces squalor and unrest, as in RTW. Extermination has a smaller cash benefit and a larger effect on population. Sacking large cities is extremely lucrative and if done regularly arguably becomes akin to playing the game on an "easier" setting. Extermination may be more appropriate when population control is an urgent need.
The costs of sacking and extermination are longer term. You are killing future taxpayers. And you are delaying your settlement reaching the threshhold levels of population required for higher tech buildings. There may also be damage or destruction to some buildings (I need more info on that).
In RTW, there was an argument for not exterminating small settlements as they grow very slowly, whereas extermination could be very helpful in dealing with a huge city which already met the size requirements to build everything. A similar argument probably applies to M2TW.
Note that your choices will affect your general's dread/chivalry, so you may want to roleplay it - there are bonuses to being chivalrous or dreadful, but not to being "balanced". There are also likely to be diplomatic repercussions to your choices - your reputation with all factions will fall if you exterminate. The Pope does not like you sacking Catholic settlements; still less exterminating them.
Attributes to General
- Occupying gives you a 100% chance of StrategyChivalry - Sacking gives you a 20% chance of Despoiler - Exterminate gives you a 100% chance of StrategyDread and Genocide and a 10% chance of Bloodthirsty. Note that the first level of the Genocide trait is at treshold 3, you'll have to exterminate 3 cities with the same guy to get it. It also gives you a 50% chance of DiscontentGeneral if you exterminate with more than 4 chivalry on your general. - Your leader is not affected traitwise by what his generals do to cities. So you don't screw up your noble leader if you exterminate to train a fearsome general.
Reputation: - Occupy increases it - Sacking decreases it slighty, even against rebels - Extermination decreases it a lot, even against rebels - in addition, your pope rating will decrease if you sack or exterminate a catholic city
Building damage: - No damage from occupy - Sacking has a random chance of damaging, but not destroying, buildings - Exterminating has a random chance of destroying buildings
Sacking gives you the most money, but when deciding what to do, you'll have to consider all of the points above to decide what to do. It might not be the best thing all of the time.
Distance From Capital
After a hundred years or so of conquering you may notice that your having trouble with rebellions on the edge of your empire. Well distance to capital can greatly affect public order. So after you've done some conquering don't forget to move and centralize your capital (it costs nothing, doesn't even take any time) and enjoy the benefits.
