Do you practice Scorched Earth tactics?

[Shuazoid]

When i get a city in a hostile territory, I do it.

So far only once, when on a crusade, I got a muslim territory. The entire behooded family went after that city. I evacuated my prince and jacked up the taxes.

Then i destroyed every single piece of building i could in that town and went towards my Crusade objective.

It was cool, till 3 stacked armies killed my crusaders and England's Crown Prince along with it.

[painter]

I don't. I prefer world domination, so the penalty to me for destroying a city or castle is quite high as it will take forever to restore the settlement. But if you're role playing as a tyrannical ruler, that's fine.

[Snappers]

NO

[Silverheart]

I only do it if I am guaranteed to lose the settlement, and won´t be able to recapture it whitin any shorter time-period.

Otherwise, no.

[VIP]

Funny that you mentioned it. For my next campaign, I plan to turtle and ride opposition settlements by destroying everything, and then gifting the conquered territory to one of weak factions.

VIP

[shikaka]

Usually.

I enter crusades so that I don't have to pay upkeep for my troops.

If I happen to conquer something which I don't need: I sell every building and present the settlement to an ally or the pope. (if there is a muslim majority it will revolt in a few turns anyway)

[Bill Overbeck]

Not I! For I am one of those rare souls who tries to be a chivalrous ruler and keep his reputation intact

[Litoralis]

I've done it, or I'm actually currently doing this in a campaign as Sicily on SS 6.3. I'm only doing it out of desperation, though. It is the only way I know to fight off the Roman empire, as they are dominating me, and I am trying to build up a decent army to face them.

I've taken and exterminated the populace of Corinth, Athens, and Thessalonica (they were all lightly defended by 3 or 4 units). I originally tried to give them to HRE, but they didn't want them. So, I jacked up the tax rate and destroyed all the buildings. I can't hold on to them, because I only have a small army. Also, a fun fact, I killed a co-emperor then an emperor during this process. I'm hoping to draw away the garrison of Constantinople, then take it and quickly leave. I will probably exterminate the populace and see what happens. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm just trying to buy time.

Interestingly, the loyalty and chivalry of my general who is conducting all these raids has dropped pretty drastically. I think it is because I am exterminating the populace.

[tudor93]

Interestingly, the loyalty and chivalry of my general who is conducting all these raids has dropped pretty drastically. I think it is because I am exterminating the populace.

ohhh you really think so !?

[Litoralis]

ohhh you really think so !?

haha, well yeah on the Chivalry, but why does the loyalty drop? The sieges are generally pretty close and challenging, so I always have close victories, though, and never anything better.

Does exterminating the populace reduce loyalty of the general who does it along with reducing reputation, etc??

[Shasqua]

haha, well yeah on the Chivalry, but why does the loyalty drop? The sieges are generally pretty close and challenging, so I always have close victories, though, and never anything better.

Does exterminating the populace reduce loyalty of the general who does it along with reducing reputation, etc??

Not to my knowledge. Chivalrous generals, however, lose loyalty when their faction leader has high dread.

[PrestigeX]

I will Sack a city if it belongs to a faction with a different religion, otherwise I will occupy. I pretty much never exterminate the population because then i'll be required to rebuild much of it / allow the population to grow again. Even if the settlement can only recruit a lower tier of units than my better settlements can make, I still prefer being able to use what is readily available than having to march my swordsmith guild, tourney field, armor factor "Templar knights" halfway around the world.

If I find that a settlement may be troublesome in that it will revolt, I'll often turn it into a castle if it is of little economic or strategic value.... places like Arguin that are remote and not going to be important for recruiting anything.

[emanb56]

whenever im going to lose a settlement in enemy territory i destroy everything

[Leaf-Fan-Forever]

The Muslim cities are often too hard and annoying to hold, so I just destroy everything, pack up, and let it revolt

[Shasqua]

Generally, no. I find that conquered subjects are less productive when they're dead.

[Scipio Afracanis]

I don't exterminate anymore once I found out the world likes you less when you do that, I do sack and sell alot and either let the region rebel or give it to someone else.

[painter]

They also don't like it when you sack, but hate you less for it (-0.02 reputation for sacking vs -0.05 reputation for exterminating).

[Scipio Afracanis]

A little less hate, alot more sacking.

I only target the juicy cities or castles, 7 or more things built for the most part or I don't bother.

Slim pickings and I will take what I can get but I only field 1 or 2 armies at the most so I have to be selective.

[Czin]

I only ever use Scorched Earth tactics if I have large amounts of expendable territory. Even then, I prefer doing scorched earth raids on the enemy (dropping by their major production centers by boat, taking then pretty much trashing them) and I'd only do that if I knew I would have no chance of actually holding onto those cities when the A.I wheels around for a counter attack (and by then, my raiding stacks would have snuck away on the ships that brought them there.) This type of raid I learned about after reading the I am Skantarios AAR and it quickly proved to be a devastating asset against powerful enemies with a highly centralized economy, with England being hilariously vulnerable to it (everything of value on the british isles is one turn away from the nearest coast, so I can routinely get in and out scot free) So I guess it's kind of a reverse scorched earth type thing...

[Double A]

No.

That goes against the goal of my campaign, which is to conquer the world. Granted, I've never done more than a regular old Long Campaign outside of Rome, but that doesn't mean I won't eventually. Actually, I have also never lost a castle. I lost a city, once, but that was only because it was on an island and I had underestimated the SSAI's ability to launch naval invasions.