Raze tactic

[rogergargantua]

Hey all,

I've been playing with the faction Kingdom of Syrakuse for a while now. I'm in a huge fight with Carthage. I was planning to attack some of their biggest cities at north Africa, exterminate all people and destroy all of the buildings. Then move on with my full army and leave the city to rot (eventually it will rebel or get back in the hands of Carthage). Moving from one city to another....like a grasshopper, I completely raze it and move on.

I have never performed this sorta tactic. I was wondering if anyone did and if it was succesfull? My goal is to cripple the economy of Carthage so they have to rebuild everything and stop attacking me for a while.

(yes, I wanna teach em a painful lesson )

- GARGANTUA

[Ketchup]

Yep I've done this before. I did it once as the Romans. The germans wouldn't stop attacking me but I didn;t want to expand into their poor, riot-prone territory. So I took all but the northern-most settlement, burning every building as I went. Then I retreated and let them all revolt. I didn't hear from them for a good 50 years or so as they struggled to recapture and rebuild their cities.

[rory o'kane]

I do that when i want to take out whichever faction has become the superpower in the east - i raid Antioch, Damascus, Jerusalem etc, and then get out, usually by boat - exterminate, demolish, set taxes to max (so i get the most money out of them before they rebel) and flee. then i hit 'End Turn'.

[frankus]

I also did it once as the romans. I was losing a war against the germanics and the gaul. destroyed just 2 or 3 city's but you realleay notice the diffenrence

[rory o'kane]

it's a perfectly valid tactic. raiding coastlines usually works - if you wreck the enemy's coastal cities, you can take out a huge chunk of their income in a very short time.

[cnaeus]

i once did a raid similar to this. i was syracusa and took sicilia. i then assembled 3 armies of mostly infantry and onagers, i then placed them in boats. one near rome, one near the city above rome at the same side of italy, and one near the city below rome. next turn i got to shore took the cities directly(with onagers you know) burnd them to the ground and left again. my fleets then sailed arount italy and performed the same action on that side. 40 years later when i felt i needed to include italy into my empire, i found italy rebeled completely with the exception of their southern most city. so i would say that the strategy you are intending to use is very effective at the least.

cnaeus,

[stanley86]

I did something simillar. It was in my short Greek campaign (I posted some screens in "Post empires" thread). I captured Cyrene (didn't enslave or relocate population, just occupy the city) and it was under my control for many years. In the meantime Seleucids conquered Egypt and Libya and they decided to take Cyrene from me. They sent 2 full stacks and took me by surprise. I only had time to retreat on Crete with 5 units of Cyrenian hoplites and I left the city unguarded. I was hoping that the Seleucids would only occupy the cty, but they 'relocated' population. I had to avenge the people of Cyrene. I took those Cyrenian hoplites, recruited about 10 -12 units of Cretan hoplites and some onagers and put them all on boats. It was my private vendetta. I raised to the ground Plynus, Alexandria, Antioch, Tarsus, Tyre, Sidon and Jerusalem. That way I forced (unintentionally) the Seleucids to sign a ceasefire (yes, THEY asked me for it ). So, yeah, it was a succesfull tactic.
P.S. I really don't like to lose my cities

[rory o'kane]

I HATE losing my cities. I try to ensure it doesn't happen, though.

[cnaeus]

i most of the time keep the cities after all because, why abandon a city when you can also hold itthats allot less fancy strategicaly but it saves allot of work

cnaeus,

[rogergargantua]

Mmm....thanks for all the replies! It confirms that this tactic will work.
At moment I decided to keep the cities of Carthage. They have good position and bring in a lot of money.

Greece is really agressive and is truly pwning Macedonia. They expand very fast up north. I'm thinking of doing the "raze tactic" at them so Macedonia can recover.

[rory o'kane]

sometimes abandoning the city is your only choice, if it's in a strategically untenable position: for example, say you've got all of gaul, and you raid across the Rhine into Germania Magna, and take one of the cities adjoining your territory - that you could hold onto, because you can get reinforcements there very quickly and easily without any real hassle. however, lets say you've conquered greece and rhodes, and you raid Antioch - that's a bit tougher to hold, especially if the seleukids have lots of armies there - you'd probably be better off ransacking the place then legging it!

[rory o'kane]

If Greece is expanding north into Macedonia, then their southernmost regions ought to be relatively lightly guarded - these are also rather lucrative provinces, so it might be worth going for the jugular here and attacking Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Corinth, and any other cities on the Pelopennese.

[Dekker]

Don't know if any of you have played some of the RTR mods like Metro-Naval Mod and the like, but in those some cities have restrictions on their ability to build walls so the AI ends up (inadvertantly) doing the same thing to you: the Illyrians always nip across the Adriatic and sack the lightly defeded Italian cities. It's kinda cool.

Since I don't carry much siege equipment in my RS armies (don't like the constraints on movement) I can't really hit and run within one turn in RS - I still raze on occasion but it's alot riskier when the AI has a turn of 0-turn recruitment to put together a response.

[Legionem Insanis]

Since I don't carry much siege equipment in my RS armies (don't like the constraints on movement) I can't really hit and run within one turn in RS - I still raze on occasion but it's alot riskier when the AI has a turn of 0-turn recruitment to put together a response.

Even with siege equipment or spies to open doors I've found if I penetrate too deep into enemy territory with a army, next turn or so it ends up surrounded by a couple or more full or almost full stacks.

That said, razing enemy lands does seem to help a lot.

[Hunterbear]

In my current Carthage campaign I'm as far east as Egypt but the Seleucids (?) are giving me hell. So I massed a full stack army and swung it around the Seleucid stacks crossing the vast desert and hit every town on my way to ancient Babylon.

All the cities were poorly garrisoned (on account of them sending a dozen or so stacks to Egypt to fight me in the delta), even their capitol, so it wasn't hard to capture a city every turn. I then burned and destroyed every building and enslaved the populous so they would have to rebuild from scratch at the lowest levels and have a shortage of people. Cut their income and reduced their ability to resupply their frontline armies with new stacks. Now, some of the pressure is off me since I invaded the Turkish peninsula. They had to divert several stacks from the south to go north to fight my invading armies and fleet.

I sacked Babylon and left it in ruins, but it took about 4 turn before they reclaimed it again. So yes, sacking is a great tactical ploy.

I was going to add, keep Carthage, its a rich port city and good foothold in North Africa for you to use but you mentioned you did. Don't forget to sack the treasury...mo' money, mo' money, lol.

[mastershake16]

Is there a way to raze when you want to leave them? I conquered a few Gaul cities and theyre over running my legions, so I abandoned everything... Is there a way I can burn every damn building down?

[Herr Lindstrom]

by right clicking on a building and then pressing the Demolish button if it's highlighted (does not work for farms or Provincial houses)

btw.. wth does relocate the populace mean exactly? Relocate them to the execution square or back to the faction you conqured the city from?

[stanley86]

btw.. wth does relocate the populace mean exactly? Relocate them to the execution square or back to the faction you conqured the city from?

I believe that in vanilla RTW, there was a button called "Exterminate population", in RS it is called "Relocate", so you can feel better when clicking on it.
- "Hey, I didn't slaughter them, just relocated them elsewhere"
- "Yeah, into Hades"

[Biggreenfellow]

btw.. wth does relocate the populace mean exactly? Relocate them to the execution square or back to the faction you conqured the city from?

Not sure what it means in the age the game is playing, but I do know that in ancient Mesopotamia, relocating was a very popular way of dealing with conquered cities; they'd move the indigenous people out and moved them to other parts of the empire/kingdom/whatever and moved their own people in. That way, the natives couldn't revolt, because they couldn't form a large enough group, not to mention the fact they were far away from their original homes.

One famous example is the "Babylonian captivity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity

[mastershake16]

hehehe.... I want to exterminate every damn gaul,greek, and macedonian