Occupy, enslave or expel

[Joekai]

Hi there, I was wondering what you guys do with your newly conquered provinces. When do you occupy, when do you enslave and when do you expel?

As a new EB player I just do it the same way I do in vanilla RTW, most of the time (95%) I occupy a province. Sometimes I enslave (just random) and when I really need a population boost I'll expel. For instance, in Pella and Demetrias I have been training units since day 1. So the population there is rather low compared to other provinces. I think Pella has 7k and the year is 245BC so you can see the problem there... thats when I use expel

But I dont know the consequences in EB on the long term, mabey I should enslave more provinces or mabey expel more.. what do you guys think and do?

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

I do the same as you, occupy most of the time. I expel only when I need to send population from a big city to several small towns. Occupying towns allows you to upgrade the governor's palace to one from your own faction when the town expands in size, and this happens earlier if you don't deplete the population.

The only time I enslave is for roleplaying reasons, e.g. the capital city of a faction I've been fighting for decades and my faction leader really hates them. I do this to Carthage when I play Rome, obviously.

Otherwise, with large cities of a foreign culture, I'm happy to build a Type IV government, recruit a general as governor, and let them be my allies. Through the Foreign barracks, I get their unit types which I can't recruit normally.

[Bcman]

Lets say your Ptolemy If you take Antioch you should occupy because you will get more money later on. If it is some Crapy village in the desert then just expel. The region is most likely not very useful and can help your large citys fill the huge recruitment void.

[Cyclops]

I generally expel to beef up my capital for RP reasons. EG at the moment I'm playing a RP-heavy Sweboz campaign where the FL is uniting tribal elites by re-settling them in the homeland province, and he recruits from that MIC only (as well as mercs). I have RP'd Sparta in this way too, rationalising the expelled people as neo-helots.

If you capture a huge city miles from your capital it can be a sensible management move to expel, which lowers the garrison requirments so you can keep rolling or just plain manage the place. In desperate straits you might even enslave, eg if you beseiging army was severely depleted in the assault but you definitely need to kleep the place for strategic reasons. I think enslaving uses the vanilla pillage effect so lotsa buildings will be damaged or destryed, maybe negating the "calming" effect of savage population reduction.

I don't think there's a savage effect on reputation that slaughtering innoicents has in MW2, there's just the odd restless sleeper among my generals so its a pretty feasible method. It works best when you take a big civilised city with few usuable AOR troops as a barbarian, that way you get the manpower back home.

[Ryze]

In my Romani campaign, I have an entirely different and intentionally sub-optimal approach: I enslave every conquered province.

Why? Because then I can't just recruit countless legions from border regions, slowing somewhat the giant Roman steamroller. Also, there's the fact that I need to rebuild those provinces to their former glory, simulating the added burden newly conquered regions are to the state. Ultimately, the low population means low taxes, slowing the steamroller even more (though still not enough).

With the money from the sacks I develop only the core regions: the Italian peninsula and Sicily.


It's funny, but I still need to test it in a VH/N campaign (as opposed to the current N/N).

[Petite Wolf]

Huh. That seems like an interesting concept, Ryze, and one I'll probably give a go.

[Ryze]

Nice. Let me know if you like it then, after your campaign...

[Petite Wolf]

One problem I thought of... what of FM traits? I remember back in vanilla FMs would get bad traits and eventually go insane if they Exterminated too many cities - I used to make some go insane and go out of my way to use them because I loved the speeches the insane FMs used. Has that changed in EB or will the same thing happen?

[Ryze]

One problem I thought of... what of FM traits? I remember back in vanilla FMs would get bad traits and eventually go insane if they Exterminated too many cities - I used to make some go insane and go out of my way to use them because I loved the speeches the insane FMs used. Has that changed in EB or will the same thing happen?

Good point. That's something which I never even considered...

I checked my still-alive "exterminator" generals and this is what I found:
- 2 allied generals, exterminated 4 cities between them, none has the "restless sleeper" trait;
- 2 family members, exterminated 3 cities between them, one has the trait;
- In EB, the trait gives -1 Management and -1 hit points.

So, all in all, I think the damage of such bloodthirsty conduct to generals is pretty negligible.


Are there more negative traits from exterminating that I should avoid?

[seleucid empire]

One problem I thought of... what of FM traits? I remember back in vanilla FMs would get bad traits and eventually go insane if they Exterminated too many cities - I used to make some go insane and go out of my way to use them because I loved the speeches the insane FMs used. Has that changed in EB or will the same thing happen?

Really? They give funny prebattle speeches? Wow i have never noticed that

[Petite Wolf]

Really? They give funny prebattle speeches? Wow i have never noticed that

Yup! The Romans did, at least. I'm not sure about other factions. They were quite amusing.

But yeah, generally I choose an option based on the settlement happiness. If they're in the green, I occupy. If they're yellow, blue or red I contemplate another option. Generally the higher the population the more likely to be unhappy with you, I've found. And of course if their culture is completely different from yours.

RPing is also fun. Choosing an option based on what you think your general would do and such.

[seleucid empire]

Yup! The Romans did, at least. I'm not sure about other factions. They were quite amusing.

But yeah, generally I choose an option based on the settlement happiness. If they're in the green, I occupy. If they're yellow, blue or red I contemplate another option. Generally the higher the population the more likely to be unhappy with you, I've found. And of course if their culture is completely different from yours.

RPing is also fun. Choosing an option based on what you think your general would do and such.

I choose based on a number of factors. First, if I need some cash then I enslave. If the city has above 6 000 I will always enslave. If I want to blitz I enslave so my general doesn't have to stay in the town. So it depends really

[Petite Wolf]

It has probably been changed in EB so that they need to be very, very bloodthirsty to begin going insane. Or it's just luck. Sadly I don't remember specific traits because it was a LONG time ago that I did it. I'd just say be careful, as after a while it could begin impacting your generals if you don't watch out.

[The_Judge]

Since I had some very bad experiences with occupying in RTRPE, I always choose the option to expell or to exterminate the populace. It cleans the towns from lots of political opposition and it gives you a high tax and development penalty. It's like an offtrade: less riots and rebellions, but very little tax income and a very slow development of your towns and army during years and years.
I've also noticed when I don't have the option to expell of to exterminate the populace, the town in question WILL rebel within a few turns.

[Samariten]

I enslave alot if i fight "barbarian" factions but otherwhise i occupy.

[snarst]

I mostly ex-spell or Occupy depending on the settlements happiness when I take it over. I enslave if there is no general or for RP purposes. I have a general (in his mid 60's so he wont last much longer) who received "hobbled" and "Hates Barbarians" (because they gave him hobbled) in one battle and I had him enslave any barbarian town that was red or blue when he entered. As a result be got the "Butcher" trait so I had him enslave more settlements, resulting in him getting the improved version of that trait in which he treated massacre as an art form. He now retires to one of the towns in Spain, the last one he took, which he didn't enslave.

I will ex-spell/enslave a bit more frequently for large cities, I have my potential Marius who just needs 3 more stars (as he has -1) and consul trait to reform the military, in Greece and its all large/minor cities with small garrisons so I'm having him disperse so the populace doesn't slow him down before leaving some mercenaries behind and moving on to the next city. If some city is rather defiant I just might enslave it, maybe I'll enslave the capitol just because of how important it is.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

In most cases I prefer to have a high population with taxes set on Low to control unrest, than to have a low population with taxes set on Very High.

If unrest becomes a problem, I reduce town population by recruiting large, cheap units like light spearmen or skirmishers to help maintain order.

Only in the worst cases of unrest, where a city actually rebels against me, do I enslave.

[Grimmy]

I tend to scroll to the side after taking a new city/village to see what color the happiness is at with my army sitting in it.

If it's red, I'll exterminate or force relocate. They don't like me so I don't feel any reason to be nice. If it's green, I'll just occupy.

[Petite Wolf]

I generally do the same Grimmy. I try to keep all my settlements in the green, so if I take one and they're red or blue, I'll enslave or depopulate/expel/whatever it is. Usually enslave, as it helps grow the population of other settlements I already have. Well, I think the second option is enslave... but yeah, generally the second option. There are of course times when I don't do that. If a particular faction has betrayed me or offended me in some other way enough for me to say "Right, that's it. I'm messing you up" I'll probably go and depopulate every settlement I capture, just to teach their leaders a lesson.

[Nad]

I rarely use the "expel" option (which is the enslave option from vanilla). My view is that if the settlement is small enough or close enough to my capital / culture that public order won't be an issue, I may as well occupy. And if public order is an issue, then you may as well enslave (third option, exterminate from vanilla) to get rid of the maximum number of people and get some cash in return . I'd rather have the cash than people being relocated to my other nearby cities, potentially causing public order issues there.