Sack vs. Raze? Definitions and benefits/disadvantages

[MythTrip]

My impressions are as follows. Please clear up any confusion!!

SACK: You get slaves and cash, but all buildings remain intact; thus if there is a nice level 4 mine in region, you easily convert it to your own.
RAZE: All buildings demolished, you have to start from zero.

QUESTIONS:
1. When sacking, or even occupying, will you ever just get handed a building, no conversion? I never noticed this, I think you have to convert all of em.
2. Not sure about public order penalties for sack vs raze. I do know that occupy is a one turn -20 public order penalty for the province.

[Salty Nobody]

1: It depends on the building and your culture. For most cultures mines for example are usually good to go, no conversion needed. Sometimes military buildings will automatically convert. A lot depends on the culture of who you are taking cities from as well. Barbarian cultures tend to have a lot of shared buildings, for example.

Usually you have to convert buildings yourself. Some max level buildings are better left as is, as they give different/better bonuses than your own buildings that you might want to keep. If you convert it you lose it. In rare cases you might also capture faction unique buildings with highly valuable faction wide bonuses. You absolutely do not want to convert or demolish those.

2: If you sack or raze you get an additional public order penalty that stacks with the normal occupation public order penalty. If left alone this can lead to back to back rebellions in very short order when further combined with the provincial instability penalty that takes awhile to go away.

[Kiwi]

1. When you sack or occupy a settlement/city you get all buildings which where there before you attacked them. For example when you play Macedon and occupy a settlement of Pergamon or Athen or a other Hellenic faction you don't have to convert the buildings most of the time, but here are also exceptions like Egypt/baktria or the selucid which have faction specific buildings. Sometimes the AI doesn't convert all buildings of new captured settlements, so there can be different buildings from different cultures in them when occupying.
So long story short if they are a different culture you have likely to convert or destroy the buildings.

2. Sack and raze have much higher public order penalties and you also get diplomatic penalties as well with these factions.

[MythTrip]

Thank guys!! But everyone, there are tool tips clearly explaining sack and raze but they are on the victory options panel - that is, after you win, there are buttons for occupy, sack, and raze, mouse over each for a clear tooltip explanation.

[Messsucher]

After the beginning I tend to raze if there is even little bit of doubt someone can capture the city from me because I can't or don't want to hold the borders safe. Razing give good money to invest on cities secure inside my empire. Also when razing I can build the city fresh for my needs, which are usually very different than what comp has built because I optimize buildings.

[Salty Nobody]

Originally posted by Messsucher:

After the beginning I tend to raze if there is even little bit of doubt someone can capture the city from me because I can't or don't want to hold the borders safe. Razing give good money to invest on cities secure inside my empire. Also when razing I can build the city fresh for my needs, which are usually very different than what comp has built because I optimize buildings.

Be careful where you do that, I captured the AI built Monument of Leonidas in my latest campaign and the +2 recruitment slots faction wide suddenly made it a place that needed safe borders. Selling all the buildings you don't want gives good money too and you can keep the ones you do want.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Originally posted by Messsucher:

After the beginning I tend to raze if there is even little bit of doubt someone can capture the city from me because I can't or don't want to hold the borders safe. Razing give good money to invest on cities secure inside my empire. Also when razing I can build the city fresh for my needs, which are usually very different than what comp has built because I optimize buildings.

Be careful where you do that, I captured the AI built Monument of Leonidas in my latest campaign and the +2 recruitment slots faction wide suddenly made it a place that needed safe borders.

Yeah, of course. I check very carefully province bonuses.

[Salty Nobody]

I just did some quick in game research. In vanilla at least razing only gives 1000 funds. Selling even one building usually gives significantly more than that. If that is the case Razing = bad and should only be done if you expect the enemy to take the settlement back before your next turn.

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

Be careful where you do that, I captured the AI built Monument of Leonidas in my latest campaign and the +2 recruitment slots faction wide suddenly made it a place that needed safe borders.

Yeah, of course. I check very carefully province bonuses.

It doesn't show the benefits from the Monument of Leonidas in the province bonuses. I have to mouse over the building itself to see it. The only way to know a building is there afik is to have an agent who can damage buildings take a look at the enemy city. Which is actually super useful now that I think about it, I'm going to use this constantly from now on.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2361727828

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2361728362

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

I just did some quick in game research. In vanilla at least razing only gives 1000 funds. Selling even one building usually gives significantly more than that. If that is the case Razing = bad and should only be done if you expect the enemy to take the settlement back before your next turn.

Originally posted by Messsucher:

Yeah, of course. I check very carefully province bonuses.

It doesn't show the benefits from the Monument of Leonidas in the province bonuses. I have to mouse over the building itself to see it. The only way to know a building is there afik is to have an agent who can damage buildings take a look at the enemy city. Which is actually super useful now that I think about it, I'm going to use this constantly from now on.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2361727828

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2361728362

Really? 1000 is nothing. I got like 5000 from settlement, and it was good business to ruin them cities, basically securing the wealth, since then it was all the same what sort of "I take - you take" trade you did with computer. The lands were buffer lands. Think I am confused was it razed or sacked since I can assure you it was profitable.

Is that Monument of Leonidas similar to some Dam in Middle East was? It could not be destroyed. I suppose you can destroy the monument then. But yeah, thanks, have to check those things out more carefully.

[Salty Nobody]

The monument is Sparta's tier 5 special building that they happened to build in Pella this game. I can destroy it if I wanted to or if I had razed the city.

I think some factions get a boost to razing, and there might be character skills that boost it further, but most factions only get 1000 from it.

[Messsucher]

Originally posted by The Fifth Archon:

The monument is Sparta's tier 5 special building that they happened to build in Pella this game. I can destroy it if I wanted to or if I had razed the city.

I think some factions get a boost to razing, and there might be character skills that boost it further, but most factions only get 1000 from it.

It must be that I sacked then, and maybe had a faction which get bonuses to that. Anyway, if you sack or raze or sell buildings you get to make that fresh optimized city to the location and situation and you don't have to spend tons of money converting tier 3+ buildings. It is like moving factories behind Ural mountains, where they were safe, productive, and out of reach of the enemy.

Edit: It can be that I sacked first, then leveled them. Since this I did too because winning conditions demanded to do it.

[Jimmy Rustler]

Sacking a developed town and then demolishing it's buildings when occupied can fund an entire campaign. Razing should be used more like scorched earth policy, if you plan on not holding the area and simply want to deny the enemy stable eco and quickly move your army on to more tempting lands.

[Red Bat]

I think in all the time I've spent playing this game I've only selected raze once. It's more useful to burn everything to the ground in Attila and Warhammer 2. In this game it feels kind of pointless.