Under what circumstances do you exterminate the populace?

[RootsKW]

I pretty much always just occupy, unless I'm really in need of money I will sack.

[Ichon]

The further from the empire's center or less likely you will be able to hold a region it makes more sense to sack. Also taking a 50,000 population city and holding it with a small army becomes much easier if you exterminate and take the population down under 25,000. If you have an empire spread across several regions and keept your capitol at the center of trade your far off regions will never be that profitable due to corruption anyway so sacking also makes more sense, if it is a castle then it depends on if you need to retain high level troop buildings at that area. By a late point in a campaign you are probably close to 30 regions or more and don't need to worry about using every city efficiently anymore either.

I find myself sacking more often with certain factions as well simply due to economics. Especially early in the game when cities are not that developed anyway losing a few tiers of a building in exchange for money right at that moment can be worthwhile or a faction like Cumans or Hungary... many interior cities without good trade anyway... better to concentrate on public order buildings and tax highly while focusing conquest towards richer regions and shifting the capitol there.

[Goofy]

I occupy castles and sack cities if they're of another religion - otherwise I occupy them both.

[Concrete]

I find myself occupying close regions that I desire the population to grow as fast as possible in.
Sack if I need money.
Exterminate to build dread, just destroying or when it is impossible to leave a garrison there.

[Kawee]

I sack when I plan to sell the settlement off to someone. Sack, destroy the buildings, then sell the settlement. I did this when I captured Vilnius as Sicily. Just for the fun of it, I sold it to France for 15k gold.

[Gogolometro]

If you go in egipt in huge cities is recommended to exterminate the infidels.

[JorisofHolland]

I only sack when I capture huge cities and I'm in need of money. I don't exterminate at all (anymore)

[Kawee]

I only sack when I capture huge cities and I'm in need of money. I don't exterminate at all (anymore)

You're missing out on the fun then

[Mega Tortas de Bodemloze]

When far away from home and or when I just want to devastate the land...

[Gogolometro]

Simple ideea, I always occupied any castle or provinces, not because I am pious and belive in the respect of prisoniers, but are to big advantages in having problems with unrest and lose some garison troop. Oneof them is chilvary, the secret weapon of making money fast, big cities and respect from everybody. Became automatic always occupy, have lot of people in taxation, harvest best money. Great we can say. Sadly are some times when the rule cant be apply. Imagine I send 3 french generals to win a crusade in Cairo. I won, and because at this time I dont gift it to papacy or Jerusalim I decided to make a french protectorate in Egypt. So Damietta, Alexandria and Cairo look like a good money cow. Sadly from experience I know, even with lot of priests missionary in the area, even with most chilvarious generals, spyes, low taxes,never we got 20-30% control. Always the control fail, the unrest make ppl to rebel and all became a waste and start again the siege. So I tried to think more technical. Lets exterminate them, but is bad, we kill the tax payers. Nope, they never will pay tax and a city with 20000 ppl never will accept french garison. So kill them all. The good thing in this, I build 1 very, very, very dread general. Full skulls in his dread scale. This mean all run like mad when he appear.
Second, a exterminate city have a big rate of population boom after, 6-7%. With a good chilvarious general things became better. After 50 turns the Cairo became big, adding 4000 florins per turn. In 1300 was upgraded to metropolis, all things there are very french and religion is 100% catholic. So, even we love to occupy, sometime we must exterminate. Less in Lituania, but more in lower Egypt and Constatinopole.

[Ichon]

Yeah I agree there... or try taking and holding London with Moors in the 1400s- works much easier with exterminating. Also around the time you get 10-12 regions and a strong empire there starts to be too many generals to manage for chivalry reasons and some new generals start with 2 dread so making at least 1 into an exterminator is not bad. The reputation system is easy to recover points from by releasing prisoners etc and if you are sacking many cities you will also be getting chance to release many prisoners.

Much more fun game when inquisitors have some meaning and you can behave like some historical conquerors which very few always only occupied and were nice. Personally I only manage directly the first 10 cities I gain, after that it is AI control until I ready to move capitol then I build up some new cities around the new capitol but that is usually near the end of a campaign anyway. If always worrying about Chivalry etc you miss some of the fun parts of the game, assassins, exterminating, a dread general, being unreliable and having the neighboring factions behaving very opportunistically.

[Concrete]

Simple ideea, I always occupied any castle or provinces, not because I am pious...

Because pious people are always kind and never cruel...

[Massive_attack]

When i come upon this moral question, i usually end up asking myself a series of questions designed to identify whether to exterminate or not:

First, is the settlement a castle ?
If no, then continue, if yes, occupy or sack depending on treasury

Second, how many people are inside the settlement ?
If greater than 10,000 persons, extermination can be considered to reduce potential squalor

Third, Am i using a general, and if so, how much chivalry does he have ? (captains are exempt from this, if a captain takes the settlement, extermination is a far more viable option)
If lower than 3 points, or is dread, consider extermination

Finally, How far is the settlement from home ?
If far, extermination then deconstruction of all major settlement buildings is reccomended if the above criteria are met.


I usually dont exterminate, as the only settlements where id benefit from it are reachable only by crusade, and thus are usually taken by pious chivalric generals who would gain nothing by extermination as i use these high chiv-generals for settlement growth initiatives.

[JorisofHolland]

Nope. I'm missing out the worthless settlements

[Heathen Hammer]

When I'm backstabbed or my prisoners get executed. Serves as a good punishment for a faction that stands in my way.

[Landtuber]

I never sack/exterminate a Large city, my campaigns are always preceeded by huge armies of priests/imam's to convert the heathens/non-believers. As long as you take care of religion beforehand, its safe to just occupy.

If its a Huge one I exterminate/sack more often due to it already being over the pop cap for the largest walls so the population is irrelvant except for taxation purposes. Also I love dread generals.... Mmmm...

[Ichon]

That reminds me for defensive campaigns which I've only done a few of or migrations, exterminating then razing all the buildings for cash before abandoning to rebels or another faction is very useful. Even during a normal campaign if I am playing Poland for instance and Novgorod or Hungary acts up... I usually don't want their lands but a punishment army going and wiping out a couple of their best cities really slows them down quite a few turns and makes far less nuisance.

[Kawee]

Although most of the time "gameplay" reasons dictate what I do, sometimes it's just fun to exterminate. Playing as England, I've exterminated the whole of Ireland (three settlements.) Gameplay reasons there is none because Ireland is catholic, and close to home. It can bring in pretty decent money. But you know what, I really enjoyed doing what I did.

[Gnostiko]

In addition to the reasons people have listed above, I put a fictional spin on things: I'll exterminate a castle/city if the army attempting to take it had to endure horrific losses in battle, if the settlement rebels and I have to re-take it, or the army is led by a bloodthirsty/deranged general.