Occupying vs. sacking vs. exterminating in the SSHIP

[Alavaria]

@ z0quete, no need to create something that exists already in game somehow. Nothing prevents you to conquer a settlement, to sack it and to leave it, all in 1 turn.

Heh heh and then the AI gets some spawn of supermen soldiers.

[Lifthrasir]

Not all the time and even so, if you're on your way for a crusade/jihad, you don't really care, do you?

[Pyres Δt Varanasi]

I tend to agree with MWY on that point. From my opinion, the feature is fine in its current form.

If I had to change something, that would be the reputation system to base it more on the culture or religion of your faction. For instance, if you go for sacking or exterminating a Muslim settlement as a Catholic or Orthodox faction, then your reputation is getting worse among the Muslim factions but getting unchanged among the others.

To be honest this idea sounds fantastic!

[Jurand of Cracow]

I don't think theres a dominant strategy currently (besides exterminating as a lesser option, which is intended).

My standard action in TW games is sack or pillage senttlements, i always wanted the enemy to pay the costs of war, not myself. Nevertheles, in Shogun 2 the penatie we sofered in the Damyo Honor was a real pain in the ass, and kept me from sacking in a lot of Campaigns.

Ok, fair play, I got convinced, perhaps I haven't played enough to see this in the SSHIP.
(besides, if a settlement conquered is going to be yours then sacking makes actually yourself to pay those costs.

Realistically, you would need to base growth factor to slowly increase over time. When a settlement changes hands, this growth factor would be cut by a certain amount (depending on the chosen option) and slowly regrow. But this is not how it works in mtw2.

The high base growth of a well-developed settlement after losing population has always bothered me, to be frank. It's (among others) why I've asked about possibility of desctruction of the certain buildings in the first entry.

Also, in terms of historical accuracy it would be fitting (to further balance things) if your troops would get either a moral bonus by raiding or a moral malus/disband chance when you occupy a settlement. While the morale aspect might be possible in a way, the disband chance is not I think.

I think we already have the generals losing Dread skulls to show that morale malus.

It would be cool that while marching with your army on campaign to a far way location (e.g. on crusade) we could sack and loot a some juicy settlements in an opportunistic way, without having then own them (as they could be in disadvantageous places to controll and we would have to leave troops behind).

Additionally to what Lifth's already written (nothing prevents you from sacking such a settlement and leaving it behind while on a crusade) I'd fear that this would provide unnecessary advantage for the human player on the AI if this mechanism would be extendend.

[Nariac]

Playing SSHIP on very hard/very hard as France I've had to repeatedly exterminate the bigger cities in order to keep control - and this is with a general with a full stack of professional units taking it. The way it goes is I exterminate, then build gallows and just rush the city barracks to try to get as much law as possible. I'll be kicked out usually after each tier of barracks gets built, so I'll re-exterminate and resume where I left off. The breathing space is only due to the conquest/population boom public order buff, once that falls off I'm screwed.

I experienced this mainly as France taking Africa. Moorish capital was the main problem, Fez I think it's called? Probably because foreign capitals seem to have 30% unrest regardless. I was able to get control of the metropolis just to the south west, Marrakesh? without so much trouble. Amusingly in nearly every game I play the Moors lost it to rebels before I get there.

To a lesser extent I've had this issue as Byzantium as well. I rush Rum and kill them in 5 turns, again have to exterminate so I have time to get public order stable. Pushing into the Holy Land, again need to exterminate just to keep control.

I guess catholic factions vs catholic factions don't need to do this as much as I do which makes sense.

[Alavaria]

Besides religion, Dread generals, garrison, destroying negative law buildings (see the trade ports/markets), not destroying positive public order buildings (see: sacking and exterminating, even occupying...)

There's also the possibility of moving capital to decrease the issue. As you can imagine, if your empire is in a line, this tends to decrease order in your more developed settlements and increase it in freshly taken ones. Sadly, if you really need to resort to this, you can't really expand in multiple directions at once.

There's another option!
The buildings in cities that produce units can all be sabotaged. For castles, the actual castle cannot be sabotaged, but then again castles tend to be much easier to hold. So if you have to, take all the castles (hey they also make troops, handy eh) and send assassins to sabotage everything else until you can get there and hold it all.

This sort of cheap trick allows you to hamstring an AI as it will not be able to recruit anything except mercenaries. And allows you to take the cities one by one, thus potentially maximizing the number of Master level guilds you own as the AI can make a new one when you take the city holding the one it just built. Provided the AI hasn't blown all its cash on repairing barracks every single turn... but if it has no units and only cities then it will probably be doing ok on cash.

[Jurand of Cracow]

Playing SSHIP on very hard/very hard as France I've had to repeatedly exterminate the bigger cities in order to keep control - and this is with a general with a full stack of professional units taking it. The way it goes is I exterminate, then build gallows and just rush the city barracks to try to get as much law as possible. I'll be kicked out usually after each tier of barracks gets built, so I'll re-exterminate and resume where I left off. The breathing space is only due to the conquest/population boom public order buff, once that falls off I'm screwed.

I experienced this mainly as France taking Africa. Moorish capital was the main problem, Fez I think it's called? Probably because foreign capitals seem to have 30% unrest regardless. I was able to get control of the metropolis just to the south west, Marrakesh? without so much trouble. Amusingly in nearly every game I play the Moors lost it to rebels before I get there.

To a lesser extent I've had this issue as Byzantium as well. I rush Rum and kill them in 5 turns, again have to exterminate so I have time to get public order stable. Pushing into the Holy Land, again need to exterminate just to keep control.

I guess catholic factions vs catholic factions don't need to do this as much as I do which makes sense.

How much law and other unrest-reducing traits does your FL or a general provide? In my experience this is a crucial thing: you need to shepherd a good general (good character, education, win battles) and only then you can take foreign settlements. The lack of good generals, having a usurper or problems in family prevents a player from expanding. Generals are (or should be) important in the SSHIP not because of the role-playing, but because of the mechanics.
This is the way the SSHIP prevents players from rushing the map and producing uber-unrealistic developments (well, it still doesn't prevent from unrealistic empires, but apparently the players wouldn't be happy if the mechanics would prevent them from taking 30, 40, or more settlements). Byg in his BGR_IV and V has achieved this in a different way: through War Councellors, Professional Training Staff and centralization mechanism.

And if want to play Alavaria, then indeed: take as many other Master thieves / assassins guilds as possible and destroy unrest-provoking buildings (I don't do since it's agains my home rules: I find it ahistorical to destroy markets etc).

[Alavaria]

I'll point out you can get the equivalent of one if not two top level markets in every settlement by farming the Moors, who particularly like merchants guilds You may also pick up some stray master explorers guilds too.

Also, Market isn't the problem, it's only Fairground and above which have the negative law. In some cases you can deal with it just fine, and then you can take advantage of their population growth (another reason to destroy these in settlements giving you problems).

Basically if you're already at the point of exterminating then just pretend you destroyed the fairgrounds in one of the purges so you can purge less. It'll go down eventually...

How much law and other unrest-reducing traits does your FL or a general provide? In my experience this is a crucial thing: you need to shepherd a good general (good character, education, win battles) and only then you can take foreign settlements. The lack of good generals, having a usurper or problems in family prevents a player from expanding. Generals are (or should be) important in the SSHIP not because of the role-playing, but because of the mechanics.

Well currently anyway, a baseline of max dread (I think you need 7+ skulls) suffices for a decent +50% Public Order. Sadly, sometimes the generals will pick up things adding to unrest (penalty to public order) though in some cases, amusingly the unrest just hits the cap and so that's less of an issue Of course some of those traits also give +law which is great as it can also reduce corruption.

As far as good generals, agree there. With a general a turn potentially, there's really no reason to not have say 30 to 50 generals by turn 150 or so (even more as you can crank them out, I think it's 18 turns per general in a fortress/citadel). I really should've been less selective in picking generals, having an extra 20 generals being seasoned/cooked would be really handy...

[TWM2MP]

I have not played BC, but about SSHIP my commentaries are:

1. This does not pays off at all. Vice versa it takes much bigger expenses for maintaining public order in the saved settlement.
2. Good point. But as I remember not much chivalry you can gain from it, 1-2 points may be.
3. And how do I care about their hatred? Should I fear war declaration by bots or what? Not touching that you are always despisable for quick expansion anyway.
4. As if you have so many good order-keeping generals to risk sending them to the front line instead of using them to improve your several main cities, which are the core of your economy. Practically you only have a 0.5 your settlements amount generals in total, and even that thanks to man of hour and adoption events.
5. Well, in the multiplayer campaign you would, when you see that your strategy does not work against the better one of other players and you get easily rolled just because of it.
6. I do not know to argue. Nor that it is anything different from "It is simply my style.".

Here is an example of occupation, sack, extermination comparison from 1 of SSHIP hotseat campaigns.
This is expansion speed of 3 factions:


This is production of these 3 factions:


And these are budgets of 3 factions:

Jerusalem is on Crusade though.
Moors occupy / sack captured settlements (sacked Zaragoza, Barcelona and Leon), while Jerusalem and Byzantium only exterminate all they take.

As you see, extermination lets one continiously expand leaving 1 unit per garrison, while developing at full speed for money gained on extermination (almost equal to those from sack). And Moors have to spend big funds for maintaining public order in conquered settlements, even though they are partially islamic unlike those conquered by Byzantium and Jerusalem. With almost double expansion speed Byzantium has double production growth speed, and has enough gold to build constructions in all settlements and new troops for keeping swift expansion. Moors have enough money for buildings and producing some new troops as well, but that is only because all their settlements are managed very accurate, as the most of their settlements have blue indicator of public order, and Moors still lost Zaragoza to rebellion, + they are neccessitated to spend a lot of gold not to lose Leon next. The difference of total income between sacking and exterminating Leon's population was about 300 florins. Since funded-by-extermination aka burn-it-all strategy allows to unstoppably roll the map with little effort, expansion rate is only limited by armies' movement points per turn (That is why Jerusalem gets the extreme amount of money with sped up expansion thanks to Crusaders movement besides free upkeep of 1 army.). And there are not "long term gains" like not getting troubles to maintain public order after restorement of the population number, because the entire map is conquered far before "long term" begins, not taking in attention that they can be easily re-conquered and re-exterminated. To conclude THIS IS ALL BECAUSE 3000 MEN PAY TAXES JUST A FEW FLORINS LESS THAN 150000 and large loot when exterminating.


SOLUTION:
To fix taxation system, so that it REALLY depends on population number, which we discussed earlier, then exterminated and even sacked settlements would not bring as much gold as the occupied. + it may be useful to somehow decrease population growth in exterminated settlements they not to become rich fast again. The latter is not neccesary, but this would additionally spoil extermination intentions. Decrease of loot quantity on extermination can help too, but do not look at it as a simple solution, it is also a wrong solution, because it can be easily canceled by the better skill of player, while normal taxation system cannot.


P. S. I am not sure about all buildings, but guild establishments get often destroyed in result of sack / extermination.

[officialdeo]

Here's a cheesy tip:

Conquer a settlement and choose to occupy, but do not place your army inside the settlement. Instead, take it out and park it just to the next tile so that hostile factions will not steal it. Put the tax rate on very high, destroy any building that directly grants population growth boon (not public health though), and build a public gallow. Wait for 2-4 turns, preferably 2 to be on the safe side if the settlement has high unrest. Watch riots set off and population drops. Enter the settlement again and you should have an easy time controlling it, especially if you bring along half a dozen priests or so. If public order is still low, let the settlement rebel and conquer it again; rinse and repeat.

There, you get the best of both worlds. Not convinced? Try it yourself.

This is why I proposed an alternative model to pacify a settlement rather than the status quo of garrisoning a massive stack.

[Jurand of Cracow]

To conclude THIS IS ALL BECAUSE 3000 MEN PAY TAXES JUST A FEW FLORINS LESS THAN 150000 and large loot when exterminating.


SOLUTION:
To fix taxation system, so that it REALLY depends on population number, which we discussed earlier, then exterminated and even sacked settlements would not bring as much gold as the occupied. + it may be useful to somehow decrease population growth in exterminated settlements they not to become rich fast again. The latter is not neccesary, but this would additionally spoil extermination intentions. Decrease of loot quantity on extermination can help too, but do not look at it as a simple solution, it is also a wrong solution, because it can be easily canceled by the better skill of player, while normal taxation system cannot.

This is a better solution IMO.
The settlments should be tall financially. This is one of the side-effects of my modding of the traits but maybe it's not enough. However, the pic shown by sillygoy shows Zaragoza making much more money, so maybe it works.

[officialdeo]

This is a better solution IMO.
The settlments should be tall financially. This is one of the side-effects of my modding of the traits but maybe it's not enough. However, the pic shown by sillygoy shows Zaragoza making much more money, so maybe it works.

I am not sure if you can code the AI to play tall while maintaining half a stack or more for garrisoning to keep public order in a settlement, though. Making income much more affected by the size of the population is logical indeed.

[Elendil 03]

Money is excessive in most SSHIP campaigns (or is it ust my style of playing?). In most cases, you don't need the money from sacking. So yes, the negative impact the decrease in population size has on the income generated by a settlement should be increased, but not too much, as the benefits are not that great, either (basically just the possibility to march your army along instead of stationing it until unrest has dropped).

[Jurand of Cracow]

Money is excessive in most SSHIP campaigns (or is it ust my style of playing?). In most cases, you don't need the money from sacking. So yes, the negative impact the decrease in population size has on the income generated by a settlement should be increased, but not too much, as the benefits are not that great, either (basically just the possibility to march your army along instead of stationing it until unrest has dropped).

Yeah, money can be excessive with a larger faction. In 097 there're a few ways that constrain the money for larger factions.

{INFO_ADDITIONAL_COSTS_VERYHARD_BODY}\n In the SSHIP most of the expenses foreseen for the next financial period (turn) are shown in the financial panel. With the income from different sources, they provide information on the expected treasury in the future. However, there are a few exceptial cases when the money will just disappear from your coffers without being listed in that panel. As a result, your expected treasury will be different from the actual one. These expenses are as follows:\n\n (1) [ONLY at Very Hard difficulty - see the details in the trait infos] Costs of procuring SUPPLIES for the armies away from homeland: on campaign, sailing accross the seas, and during siege (per army: land 250/500/1000 fl., sea 500/1000 fl., siege 1500/2000 fl.)\n\n (2) Costs of a NEW GENERAL who just came of age, was adopted, married or recruited - reflect the need to grant him a fief or similar assets (1000 fl., but additional 2000 fl. if he married a princess)\n\n (3) Costs of the NEW FACTION LEADER ascending to the throne after death of the previous one - reflect costs of the royal funeral, new offices in the court granted, initial donations to the allies and bribes to the foes, and obviously to the clergy (applied only if the faction has 5 or more settlements; 300/500/1000 fl.: the factions with great ceremonies’s traditions pay the higher numbers, while the steppe ones or those from far North Europe - the lower).\n\n (4) Costs of a NEW FACTION HEIR getting his position - reflect costs of the special entouragement of the heir and payments to his political friends (100/200/300 florins)\n\n (5) Costs of JOINING CRUSADE or jihad - preparations, equipment, donations for the church to pray for him (3000 fl. per general joining).\n\n (6) Costs of the UPKEEP OF THE CROWN: wages of assorted specialists and the splendid court servants, other expenses on ceremonies, and also of the management his empire: communication, people checking loyalty of the governors, people checking loyalty of the people checking loyalty of the governors etc. (5000 florins a turn - only after the Faction Leader gained that crown, obviously).\n