Parlay

[Waagenator]

Haven't played for a bit, but as far as i can tell it's totally not worth it to research parlay, get a mission (which may be a fetch quest across the continent), and miss out on combat experience to subjugate a minor faction. Unless you want to roleplay a pacifist perhaps.

The only benefit I can tell is you don't have to rebuild the village. Am I missing anything?

[Groo the one]

Quest rewards (apart from pacifying villages)? Beeing able to pacify 3 villages at once? In case given quest doesn't fit with my plans (for whatever reason) I still can decide to go the other way - by force.

[The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales]

Adding to what Groo already mentioned about quest rewards: Pacification quests can yield valuable resources you won't be able to gather yourself until much later in the game, or even some technologies that you can not research (e.g. Tier 3 of Titanium and Glassteel weapons or armor, which are incredibly strong in early to mid game.)

[Gilmoy]

I adopt the opposite POV. I think auto-killing minor villages is the least-optimal way to play. One good quest loot could be a free tech or 10-30 luxury or strategic resources, which is worth much more than the paltry XP from one small village combat. So I always plan to parley every village, in every game, with every faction I play. If I'm not Cultist (who starts with Language Square), then Language Square is always the 1st tech I research, even before Mill Foundry. Then by turn 4 or so, my lone hero can start parleying every village in sight.

Parleying is the most efficient way to pacify villages, since a lucky quest can give you 3 pacifications without even moving again. Pacify 8 is usually the only feasible way for a human player to outrace Endless AIs to the Era I legendary deed Visionary Leader, for +15% initiative (for all of your units, for the rest of the game). That deed is very useful from mid-game onward, and it's one of the deeds you cannot ever recapture later. The alternative method is Destroy 10 (armies), and you will never outrace a Serious or harder AI to that because you must rest to heal, while those AIs spam multiple combat groups and shrugs off any losses.

Finally, your main fighting armies will all eventually max out at L10 anyways. Just keep everybody alive, invade other AIs, and win every combat.

More pragmatically, after you research Language Square, you can cherry-pick which village quests to try. Always parley for a quest, and if you can't do it, promptly kill that village only. Then parley with the next village in the same region, etc. With Tempest, you can handle neutral Fomorian sea outposts in the same way.