Do you pillage cottages?

[volfan37132]

I was wondering if other players pillage Town / Village / Hamlet / Cottages in
enemy territory. I'm not talking about military resources this is specificly
TVHC.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I use spies sometimes to heavily damage a tech savvy, cottage heavy, bureaucracy running capital whose civ is far away or too large to merit an all out war with.

If I'm running a specialist heavy economy and plan on domination or conquest and am warring, I'll pillage much of the TVHC in enemy territory and leave a couple of the all mature crazy-cottage cities. Hatty had a city with 16 towns in one of my games in recent past. I definitely kept all those.

 

[Lord N.]

Depends.
If my goal is to capture some cities, I'll leave all the infrastructure around them intact, except maybe strategic resources. In the rest of the enemy's territory I'll pillage and burn everything in my path.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No.

Against the AI, I plan on taking the cities.

Against a human, maybe super early when choking. Otherwise, trying to pillage anything but the most perimeter tiles is asking to get flattened.

Either way, pillaging land slows down your target more than you, but also slows you down. If you're not locked in a 1v1 (or at least a functional version of that), pillaging is usually poor call outside of important strategic resources.

 

[Scoottr]

I do when I have foot units and mounted units in the same stack. The mounted units have a left over movement point when moving with foot units, I figure I might as well use this and grab some cash along the way.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Rarely. Maybe if I'm despewrate for cash, am already overextended with cities, and I'm just going to wipe Sitting Bull off of the map rather than leave him as a broken civ and have the captured cities complain about wanting to rejoin him.

Another scenario is when I'm playing as Shaka. Impis make great pillagers, and they can pay for upgrading themselves as garrisons. If my friend invites me to join a war, and I wouldn't be on the front lines, I might send impiis rather than say I can't afford it.

 

[Agent327]

When not being able to capture a city, I may pillage - but only above Cottage level, in case I'll be back.

 

[Comyn]

If I don't think I will capture the city, then yes.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I usually pillage but rarely touch cottages; let them grow back for my return. The handsome amount of coin obtained can pay for army maintenance and research for several turns. And, while I wouldn't tell my troops this, the pillagers are expendable!

 

[EquinoxOmega]

I only pillage if I intend to replace it by farms anyway. If I want to keep it, I'll never pillage!

 

[Airefuego]

In an industrial age war where the end is in sight, pillaging mature towns down to dust can yield a large chunk of gold and they can then be replaced quickly with farms+workshops to get to your goal faster. Especially if you are running war civics (police state, nationhood, caste system) rather than peaceful cottage civics (US, free speech, emancipation etc)

Obviously if you are in an earlier stage of the game and you are grabbing land for the long term your decision will probably be different.

 

[Conqistador]

No. I play with "No City Razing" on, so I have to keep the cities. There are rare exceptions where I will pillage before Sid's Sushi, but never after.

 

[Camikaze]

I pillage if, firstly, I have time to stop and do so, and secondly, if they are on tiles where I would rather build something else, or on tiles that will become part of another civilization's territory due to cultural pressures.

 

[Earthling]

No.

Against the AI, I plan on taking the cities.

Against a human, maybe super early when choking. Otherwise, trying to pillage anything but the most perimeter tiles is asking to get flattened.

Either way, pillaging land slows down your target more than you, but also slows you down. If you're not locked in a 1v1 (or at least a functional version of that), pillaging is usually poor call outside of important strategic resources.

That's all QFT. 100%

I voted other because pillaging is very situational, but basically it boils down to this:
-In strategic (1v1 as TMIT said or against humans) situations cottages aren't the most important target. I'd rather go for food/production after resources.
-Most of my battles against the AI I don't have time at all for pillaging. When the AI builds units at half cost and no matter how much you pillage is almost to the next tech upgrade, you don't waste time - go straight for the kill, or give up - a long drawn out war with one opponent will leave you way behind.

Only time I pillage heavily is on very early game, axe rush situations and my economy is tanked. I see this more in scenario/mod play though like FFH2; not so much in the regular game.

 

[mariogreymist]

Why would I pillage Towns and Villages whose only crime is to not yet have been liberated into my kingdom?

 

[Jerrymander]

Why would I pillage Towns and Villages whose only crime is to not yet have been liberated into my kingdom?

It would be moot if you were going to raze the city.

Also, how does bumped 8 month old topic

 

[Airefuego]

Why would I pillage Towns and Villages whose only crime is to not yet have been liberated into my kingdom?

I like the way you think

But often the AI builds them in the wrong place - such as blocking a necessary irrigation chain.

And in the late game all I care about is hammers, and that town is often taking up space where I want a watermill or a workshop!

Finally - the money from pillaging is a nice bonus.

I look at it this way. I am doing the AI a FAVOUR by correcting its errors in tile use . I extract my fee by pillaging its towns into the ground. And then I punish it by taking the land too.

 

[mariogreymist]

Sure, pillaging a town which is in the way of necessary irrigation makes sense. It's funny: late in the game, I tend to focus on more than . While a kingdom needs both, it's not too hard to get a production city up and running fast after capture. Commerce cities are rarer and should be protected, imo. Sure, you often need to rebuild some infrastructure in them, but that's simpler (particularly if you run US) than growing new cottages and more productive in the long term than converting cottages into farms and workshops.

 

[mariogreymist]

Also, how does bumped 8 month old topic

One begins by thinking: "I don't like to pillage cottages as much as some seem to. I find this topic interesting. I wonder if there's a topic on CivForums...?" paired with a working knowledge of the search feature.

 

[Iranon]

If I can't take cities in the forseeable future, I might wage war just for pillaging and worker stealing. I might also have different plans for the city especially if I have access to Representation. In both cases, pillaging is a fair option.