Famine. Famine is everywhere.

[dabanhfreak]

Hello

I'm playing through the Romani campaign, thoroughly enjoying myself.

However, there's something that keeps bugging me. Every single province I have is affected by famine. In Rome it contributes -3% population growth. In some places I have to put low tax rates just so I can have 0.5% population growth.

Okay, so is this a bug, or a historically accurate famine? Or is it by design? What on earth is going on.

[Ibrahim]

Hello

I'm playing through the Romani campaign, thoroughly enjoying myself.

However, there's something that keeps bugging me. Every single province I have is affected by famine. In Rome it contributes -3% population growth. In some places I have to put low tax rates just so I can have 0.5% population growth.

Okay, so is this a bug, or a historically accurate famine? Or is it by design? What on earth is going on.

via Imgflip Meme Maker

[dabanhfreak]

:) :(

[bisthebis]

Famine is in fact squalor, so you just have to imrpove your walls or reduce population

[Harkon]

"Reduce population"... Build better farms OP, up until Praedis Magna they all come with +0.5% settlement growth rate per upgrade. I also recommend temples of Fertility in your central cities, they also give bonus settlement growth starting at the third level of upgrade. Good counters for the "Famine" malus and let you set taxes higher than Normal without 0 growth when combined.

[IrishHitman]

I noticed fairly early on that I had to prioritise food production and lower taxes were necessary for many many years to keep population growth up.

It's pretty much accurate to what it was like. Population growth in this period was not significant, infant mortality was massive, and life expectancy was at 40 tops. Rome had continual problems with supplying itself with grain as it expanded. Not sure how bad it is as Rome yet, as I'm starting my first Romani campagin today, but I certainly had problems with this as Makedonia. You have to manage the problem as a priority for construction, particularly in the early game.

Harkon's suggestion about temples of fertility is a good one as well, they can really give you a leg up on the opposition in terms of getting up your population to levels that you can get top tier government/recruitment at.

[dabanhfreak]

K, thanks for clearing that up. My assumption is that the 'Famine' label cannot be replaced since it it hardcoded.

I remember in EB1 you could build a sewerage infrastructure to combat this.

[V.T. Marvin]

Yep, but in EB2 we decided to rather make "food imports" buildings to take over the role of mitigating squalor (renamed famine) as an active policy on part of the government to ensure steady and reliabe supply of foodstuff for its population. That is also why these buildings have an upkeep (so it costs you some money) but in the long run it does pay off to buid and maintain them.

[Tuuvi]

I'm necroing this thread because I have a question.

Does the famine mechanic cause devastation? In my Taksashila campaign I had three provinces and I was losing almost 3000 mnai a turn to devastation. I moved my spy around and used toggle_fow and there were no armies on the devastated tiles or anywhere in my territory. Losing that much per turn and then having to pay the annual tribute is making it impossible to make money. Even after conquering all the Indian provinces I'm only making around 2,500 per turn and I don't know how I'm going to fend off the Mauryan invasion.

[Sylon]

Famine does not cause devastation, it is basically functionally equal to squalor, just renamed. The devastation is from hidden armies in your territory. Note, however, that even after defeating hostile armies, devestation takes some time to go away.