Yes, you receive weapons booty after fighting a battle, even distant ones at other cities. In distant battles, you receive the weapons even if you do not conquer the target city.

Here is a tip you may not have noticed: trade stations for cities that buy weapons may also receive weapons booty after a battle. So you can take advantage of this by increasing the level of export of weapons in this trade stations just prior to the battle concluding. Then watch what happens when the battle is over. I've used this to completely fill trade stations with weapons.

Thanks for the reply. Is there a guide where I can the mechanics of this looting system? I can't seem to find it anywhere. It seems a pretty weird mechanic to be have my warehouses be stuffed to the brim with 100+ weapons.

Is there any way to get a different type of loot? Like in Zeus/Poseidon, where you can "raid" for resources.

Does the "Attack category" have anything to do with it? Like, if you select Military, you'll get weapons as loot, if you select "food supply" you'll get a food type, etc.?

[This message has been edited by UrsanTemplar (edited 01-10-2022 @ 03:23 PM).]

I do not know of a guide or even a formula that lets you predict how many weapons you will receive after fighting a battle. I do know from anecdotal evidence that the amount received is proportional based on the size of the enemy army (this is also true for distant battles based on the number of shield icons the target city shows on the empire map).

I do not know a way to "raid" for specific types of goods in Emperor (other than weapons, of course), like you can in playing Zeus/Poseidon. I seem to remember trying to use the "attack category" for this purpose, but it never worked. I didn't test it extensively.

[This message has been edited by Gweilo (edited 01-11-2022 @ 12:39 PM).]

Do you know what "attack category" does exactly? That's another topic I can't seem to find a guide, or explanation on.

Thank you!

Well, here is what the game manual states for "attack category". It implies you may receive specific booty based on the attack category you select, but I never had a lot of success with this. Maybe I just didn't test it enough. Regardless, if your goal is to conquer the city you should always pick "military" as the attack category, because you cannot conquer the city until their military is beaten.

Step #5 – Select Attack Category. Although you never have direct control of your
troops when attacking another city, you can give them a principal objective by assigning
an attack category. Click on the category descriptor to change it. The categories include
the enemy’s military buildings, infrastructure, industry, housing, food supply, rampage
and random. The rampage category gives your force the license to attack everything in
the enemy city. But you may want to cripple a specific part of his city (such as food
supply). The plunder your troops return with will usually reflect the attack category you
assign them.

[This message has been edited by Gweilo (edited 01-11-2022 @ 03:19 PM).]

An interesting data point: I was playing around in the Song-Jin campaign, and decided to try invading a city with "Industrial".

The city happened to produce Silk, so I set the tribute to Silk. When I conquered the city, my trade and warehouses filled with Silk.

I'm wondering if Silk is under "industrial", that + choosing silk led me to loot Silk? This was interesting though it's the first time I got something else from Silk. I'll have to play around with it and create a new thread once I have more data.

That is interesting. To extrapolate more on your example, most cities usually have more than one commodity for export. So it would seem random which one of their export commodity you receive as loot when using the "Industrial" attack category, unless the game's battle loot formula also takes into account the tribute type you had requested (which could narrow it to a specific commodity). Maybe you could test it again and select some other commodity for tribute type, to see what loot you get.

One other thing to test: what happens in your example if your attack on the city does not conquer it? A failed attack would be more like a "raid" in Zeus/Posiedon, and it would be interesting to know if the loot you received was still silk, and how much of it did you get?

[This message has been edited by Gweilo (edited 01-13-2022 @ 07:05 AM).]

Unfortunately I didn't save the game, but I plan on doing a more controlled experiment to test various parameters (troop level, attack category, tribute type, tribute severity) and I'll create a new thread once I do so. I didn't want to do it with this city since my warehouses are spread apart and so many different types, so hard to keep track of what was looted and what was just my natural production.

[This message has been edited by UrsanTemplar (edited 01-13-2022 @ 05:07 PM).]