Question when taking new city....

[Jones76]

Is it better to destroy existing barracks and start new, or can you keep existing and recruit troops from it?

Also, I normally also destroy exist temples and build new ones of my culture, is that a good idea?

Thanks

[QuintusSertorius]

I always destroy barracks and start afresh. Populate with mercenaries as garrison while the conquering army retires to a fort once it's pacified.

Then I just build over "foreign" buildings as I go. That said I also start with type IV and every 30 years move up one (as far as I can go, that is).

[Ludens]

The only building you need to tear down is the enemy government, and to make things easy this is already 99% damaged when you take over the city. You don't need to destroy anything else. Buildings from a different culture (not faction) may contribute to the culture penalty, but the penalty mostly comes from the governor's residence, which cannot be destroyed. Also, if you can use a newly conquered MIC (barracks), it is generally from a faction with the same culture, so will not increase the culture penalty (the exception being the factional MICs of the Makedones and the Baktrians).

I generally prefer upgrading foreign temples to my culture to destroying them. I role-play it as if my priest are taking over the foreign cult.

By the way, you shouldn't recruit troops from a province until you've installed a full government.

[Papal_Knight]

ditch all the enemy military stuff, except their armorer, which you can use to upgrade any armor-less mercs you hire nearby. food for thought.

[spartan117]

Let me get this right.... Although enemy factions worship other gods I did not know they contributed to the culture penalty within the settlement. I am relatively new to playing the Rome total war game.

Is there a way to lower the culture penalty? (destroying the factions temples, etc..)

[QuintusSertorius]

The biggest culture penalty comes from the governor's residence, which you can't usually replace until the settlement gets bigger (since it can't be destroyed).

Otherwise you could destroy all their temples and such, but it's rarely worth the trouble caused by losing all the happiness and law bonuses they give. Better to simply build over them over time.

[ThePianist]

Most of the cultural penalty comes from the palace building. And some comes from the temple building. Therefore when you conquer a new city, building population-increasing buildings so that you can upgrade the palace, once you do that most of the cultural penalties are gone. If you capture a fully-upgraded city, then the cultural penalty will always be there since you can't replace the palace.