Something they could add.

[cupoftea]

This would fit in all total wars though, but if you've captured a town, and you select the option to exterminate or loot the population, I think there should be a risk of getting some of your soldiers killed during the process. I can imagine that the citizens will resist, and might possibly kill some of your soldiers. I think this was the case though how it happened during these times. It would make it more interesting imo.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

True, but wouldn't it also make it somewhat more complicating? Cos you'd have to create a system that could calculate how many soldiers you would lose, depending (I guess) on the number of population, what their sentiments were like regarding your takeover (cos some cities would have welcomed invaders) and a variety of other factors. But it definitely would be an interesting addition

[eXistenZ]

It wouldn't be bad, but there are more important things if they want to make a Rome 2

[Rainbow Dash]

Yeah, I thought it was pretty weird when my unit of 6 Bedouin Archers took over Sidon, which had over 12000 people in it, and then proceeded to massacre over 9000 of those people.

[Chris Death]

But wouldn't then there be aswell a chance of loosing men even when choosingthe option: occupy settlement?Same settlement - same population - same conquerorSo generally you would want to loose soldiers during the process of taking over atown.Well - that could be an option but i think it wouldn't make much of a difference since aftercapturing an enemy town you would try to retrain your men after the battle and those beinglost by taking the town or taking control of order would get retrained during the same step.~S~ CD

[naphack]

another interesting thougt:
okay, you are a poor farmer living just outside a small city... the city gets crushed by invaders and all peeps get massacred! Hell, the invaders even come to your farm, massacre your sons and pillage everything, they can get!
okay and now they wanna recruit you to fill up their losses during the invasion and hey, of course, you are gonna fight for them invaders and fight with passion in a group of chosen axemen, you just got recruited into! Hell, yes, there was 1 survivor and the rest got killed, so you are together with 80 other fellow citizens/farmers which didn't get killed during the massacre and hell, yes, your morale is still at the best, you charge with enthusiasm into the lines of the foes of the murders of your family and yes, you are even willing to sacrifice for them![/irony]
hope, you got the point, it's just stupid, gow you can attack a city with a bunch of infantry, autoresolve, exterminate the citizens and just fill up your army with these citizens which prolly even rebel against you!
Just make it more important to make the people happy(but also make it easier to keep the morale up in regions which originally belong to you unless you really do something wrong...
I'd like to have a "fanatism" or "loyality" factor partially independant from happiness which just shows, how well the people are supporting you(yes, you can be really upset with your bad situation and still sympathize with your government) and that factor will have a huge impact on the morale of trained troops(freshly conquered regions will have a negative factor in here, even more if you exterminate the population there, which will makes troops, trained from there shrink even outside battles(rebellion, desertation etc) and also lead to massive disobediance in battle and may even make them turn against you when fighting against their former faction!

I just dislike the fact, you conquer some lands, kill or enslave every1 there and like half a year later, they have already forgotten about it...