Can we put the enemy's cities on fire in Rome II?

**SinerAthin** · July 21, 2013, 12:04 PM

So, I was reading about the famous Siege of Carthage, and that the Romans; to make their march easier, actually put the whole city to the torch, burning both citizens and defenders alive to help pave their way.

This suddenly brought me back to a lot of the sieges I had in earlier titles, such as ME2:TW.

Imagine if you had the option to set the city on fire, using fire catapults & fire arrows.
The Pros of this would obviously be that the defenders may be forced to retreat from some of their positions so that they don't get burned alive, allowing you to progress through the city and force the defender back without risking casualties(unless you blindlessly walk straight into the fires of your own making, lol).
The Cons of setting the city you're invading on fire are also pretty pretty obvious, because it's undoubtedly going to suffer a large amount of damage in the process, reducing its population and economical value, and probably burning a lot of the treasures as well meaning you'll have less stuff to loot.

It could also probably be used by more ruthless defenders as well, such as putting the buildings around an invading foe on fire to repel them and give yourself more time to regroup.

Not to mention, an entire city on fire is just epic

**Captain W. Handberg** · July 21, 2013, 12:10 PM

Could be a thing for Agents.

**LordInvictus** · July 21, 2013, 01:13 PM

It could also be a semi-scorched earth policy for defenders. If there is no way you can win, just burn the city and let the AI rebuild everything with their money. Or vice versa if the AI is smart enough.

**Jester** · July 21, 2013, 01:21 PM

you forgot the con that the citizens would be more enraged after you ve conquered the city

**-Concrete-** · July 21, 2013, 01:28 PM

Originally Posted by Jester

you forgot the con that the citizens would be more enraged after you ve conquered the city

What Citizens

**Jester** · July 21, 2013, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by -Concrete-

What Citizens

oh, that s evil

**vietanh797** · July 21, 2013, 01:44 PM

you savage

**lilalex20** · July 21, 2013, 01:56 PM

Seeing an enemies city burn is oh so enjoyable. If its an age old enemy I don't even bother to capture the settlement, I just slaughter the defenders and let the place burn. If it is the last the city of an enemy even better

**Captain W. Handberg** · July 21, 2013, 02:00 PM

Originally Posted by lilalex20

Seeing an enemies city burn is oh so enjoyable. If its an age old enemy I don't even bother to capture the settlement, I just slaughter the defenders and let the place burn. If it is the last the city of an enemy even better

Ah, like the Roman - Carthage relation.

**lilalex20** · July 21, 2013, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by Captain W. Handberg

Ah, like the Roman - Carthage relation.

Or the bloody britons in Rome 1. They anihillated almost 4 of my northern legions with the bloody head hurlers and chariots. In the end they had one city left so the damnable senate decides to force me to ask them to become my client state. They had two major armies left and I ran out of generals to lead so I just sent a bunch of auxiliary with a few units of legionaries (I only had one northern settlement that could produce them) fought several costly victories only to realize they had a settlement near I think Sweden. I did get them to surrender though after I slaughtered their kings.

Ebercam or whatever it was called was burnt to the ground once I took it back though. No civilized nation gave me that big of a problem in terms of tactics and such.

**[N2]Kami** · July 21, 2013, 04:10 PM

Burn, baby burn.

**DogSoldierSPQR** · July 21, 2013, 07:34 PM

Originally Posted by SinerAthin

So, I was reading about the famous Siege of Carthage, and that the Romans; to make their march easier, actually put the whole city to the torch, burning both citizens and defenders alive to help pave their way.

This suddenly brought me back to a lot of the sieges I had in earlier titles, such as ME2:TW.

Imagine if you had the option to set the city on fire, using fire catapults & fire arrows.
The Pros of this would obviously be that the defenders may be forced to retreat from some of their positions so that they don't get burned alive, allowing you to progress through the city and force the defender back without risking casualties(unless you blindlessly walk straight into the fires of your own making, lol).
The Cons of setting the city you're invading on fire are also pretty pretty obvious, because it's undoubtedly going to suffer a large amount of damage in the process, reducing its population and economical value, and probably burning a lot of the treasures as well meaning you'll have less stuff to loot.

It could also probably be used by more ruthless defenders as well, such as putting the buildings around an invading foe on fire to repel them and give yourself more time to regroup.

Not to mention, an entire city on fire is just epic

Have a rep for your idea on using fire as a weapon

This would be great. Although, would AI have the brains to want to take the settlement intact?

I personally would love this feature. There are so many settlements I fight against which I have no desire to keep, so utilising fire as a weapon would be absolutely brilliant.

However, I do think for gameplay reasons that there should be safe-zones in a city in which defenders will not be effective by the fire so I don't just set the city of fire and easily win without losing a soldier

I like this idea very much!