How much human suffering have you caused over the course of your Total War career?

[Shoebopp]

And by human suffering I don't just mean enemies killed in the field of battle. Your own men sent into the meat grinder also count. Let's not forget about every time you sacked or enslaved a settlement. Or intentionally spread the plague across over-populated regions. Then there is cultural genocide from destroying important heritage buildings and forcibly converting a populace to your culture, whether as the ruler of a settlement or as a foreign assassin. Did I mention raiding?

All in all, across hundreds if not thousands of campaigns, each representing an alternate universe, how much human suffering have you caused?

[MithridateX]

Performing risky maneuvers that resulted in the degeneration of the army elite. Damn shame to see beautifully cladded troops in the gutter, a result of carelessness.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Probably in EB alone let's say that a million dead.

[Septentrionalis]

We have made monsters of ourselves. On a more serious note, I always have roleplayed in a way that I never intentionally sacrifice any troops to get short-term tactical advantage in a battle. I believe that in a real-life situation that would not work in the long term.

[Turkafinwë]

I have become death, destroyer of worlds. Tyrranny, corruption and various crimes against humanity are done with not a blinking of my eyes. Subject are but ants in servitude to my mighty designs. I am a God and my will be done!

In short: too much human suffering that we really don't want to envisen it.

[Shoebopp]

UPDATE: deleting a save file is now considered the equivalent of triggering the Big Crunch in that universe. To those that have cleaned up their save folder by deleting old campaigns: the blood of quintillions is on your hands

[Satapatiš]

Not that much. Aside of having to perform multiple repeated depopulations in regions where the populace was asking for it. Like Cisalpine Italian provinces (rebelling and murdering their client ruler twice).

My ruling families are nothing less than benevolent bringers of civilization, prosperity and wanton taxation. Pretty cool guys, by the standards of the era the mod is recreating.

Also, memo to all the Spartan rabble rousers in Lakedaimon - three rebellions is a bit much. It really doesn't matter how badass you hoplite people think you are. No one is immune to lithoboloi.

[Marvzilla]

Not that much. Aside of having to perform multiple repeated depopulations in regions where the populace was asking for it. Like Cisalpine Italian provinces (rebelling and murdering their client ruler twice).

My ruling families are nothing less than benevolent bringers of civilization, prosperity and wanton taxation. Pretty cool guys, by the standards of the era the mod is recreating.

Also, memo to all the Spartan rabble rousers in Lakedaimon - three rebellions is a bit much. It really doesn't matter how badass you hoplite people think you are. No one is immune to lithoboloi.

On that note, what actually happens if you reduce a towns/regions population to 0 ? I guess nothing but would be cool if all culture would suffer under it.

[blackbirdgriffin]

I consider myself as a liberator, I simply want to motivate the greeks to abandon the propaganda of Alexander the Destroyer and safely escort them back to greece. One can always finds new manners of motivating such a decision.
There are no victims here only voluntaries.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

You can only go as low as 400. Really. I know this because I was a in hotly contested dispute with Skodra against the Epeirotes, who enslaved the populace when they conquered it from the Eleutheroi. I again sacked the settlement, but the population would drop only as far as 400.

[Draken2007]

NOT ENOUGH!

[Satapatiš]

Bringing a town or a city down to 400 still is handy, though. They won't rebel for a long time after that. I was managing the human resources this way in Cisalpine and Sparta, then the cities were given overblown garrisons because they served as staging grounds for armies shipped from elsewhere. By the time I could rebuild them and start using those settlements for anything more the local barbarian population was much more cooperative.

[Marvzilla]

I think I reached 400 too, quite often actually. Cue the Assurbanipal or whatever Assyrian ruler it was greentext.

[Roma_Victrix]

I occupy settlements about as many times as I sack them and only rarely enslave/exterminate, usually only after a settlement riots and rebels, needing public order restoration anyway. As for deaths in battles, I've played many campaigns, so it's hard to say. Maybe above a million? More? It's impossible to keep track unless you're the most OCD person in the world keeping tabs on this. If you keep a precise record of the death count, then there's almost certainly something wrong with you.