View Full Version : Population Control & City Ecomonic's
Just curious how other people are managing their cities.
I'm just expanding my colonies in the middle east and things are getting worse and worse in this respect. None of my middle eastern cities are bringing in any revenue, most are running at a deficit of at least -1000.
Whats worse as the populations grow the peasants get completely uncontrollable even with all the happy buildings, low tax and daily games they are still revolting.
Last turn three cities rose in gladatorial revolt, two in the middle east and one in Turkey and at least three more look dodgy in Greece. They have essentially drained an 80,000+ treasury so I now have no money to buy anything.
I tried making peasant units and getting them slaughtered but that takes too long, they breed faster than I can kill them. So, what else can I do apart from let them have the city, then retake it and kill every man woman and child in retribution. EVen that doesn't work very well as they always seem to hire a bunch of Spartacus look alikes that trash my poor city guard units.
I've already lost thousands of troops trying to take these cities back and its getting embarrassing.
Just curious how other people are managing their cities.
I'm just expanding my colonies in the middle east and things are getting worse and worse in this respect. None of my middle eastern cities are bringing in any revenue, most are running at a deficit of at least -1000.
Whats worse as the populations grow the peasants get completely uncontrollable even with all the happy buildings, low tax and daily games they are still revolting.
Last turn three cities rose in gladatorial revolt, two in the middle east and one in Turkey and at least three more look dodgy in Greece. They have essentially drained an 80,000+ treasury so I now have no money to buy anything.
I tried making peasant units and getting them slaughtered but that takes too long, they breed faster than I can kill them. So, what else can I do apart from let them have the city, then retake it and kill every man woman and child in retribution. EVen that doesn't work very well as they always seem to hire a bunch of Spartacus look alikes that trash my poor city guard units.
I've already lost thousands of troops trying to take these cities back and its getting embarrassing.
I don't build farms at all unless they are needed to get population growth off the 0 mark. I haven't checked to see if you can demolish captured city farms, but if this is an option it is worth trying. Basically if you build all the farm types your growth will kill you, even in cities close to home.. and for those outlying districts that are a very long distance from the capital, you get what you are describing.
Another way of managing this (I'm repeating someone else's thoughts here now) is to keep a standing army in the region, and when they revolt you retake the city with your standing army and exterminate. The idea here is that you don't really care if they revolt, the population in that city goes really low after the extermination, and the exterminate always gets you lots of dinari. So its money making and blood-letting combined (along with extra experience for putting down the revolt). I had the same issues you did with the first couple of tries at a campaign..
I've learned a few invariants...
o don't overbuild farms (or build at all if necessary)
o use temples that give you law in your outlying districts (to reduce corruption).
o build health buildings early (to prevent plague).
o Try to get your pop. growth to 0% right around the 24-25K mark in population.. then you get the top governor's building and no (or low) issues with squalor and happiness.
Hope this helps..
I haven't checked to see if you can demolish captured city farms, but if this is an option it is worth trying.
Unfortunately, no. Once farms are on the ground, they're there for good.
Thanks Duck,
o don't overbuild farms (or build at all if necessary)
I'm guilty of this as I wanted to maximise revenue and farms bring in more income.
o use temples that give you law in your outlying districts (to reduce corruption).
I've been building mostly Temples of Juno. Do temples to foriegn religions still work after you capture a city?
Demolishing them certainly has a negative effect.
o build health buildings early (to prevent plague).
I must admit I have found the plaque to be a useful ally in my current campaign. I've actually been considering spreading it around just to cull the larger cities.
o Try to get your pop. growth to 0% right around the 24-25K mark in
Easier said than done, I suspect.
Looks like I'm trapped in the cycle of engineered rebellions and viscious state retribution then. I'd better set up my extermination armies and start killing civilians.
Still not sure what the point is in having a city that is producing a -3228 income. If it weren't for the Senate I'd just let the rebels have it.
Jeanne d'arc
10-21-2004, 11:47
Is landclearance a bad thing to do??
Other factions' temples, etc, do work for you in terms of the bonuses they give; however, foreign buildings present in your city give culture penalties and culture penalties work against public order and will increase the chances of rebellion.
In the short term it's best to keep them, at least until you can be sure destroying them won't put you into a revolt situation.
In the long term it's best to demolish the other factions' buildings that you can't tech up on and then start building your faction's own temples and public order buildings. Unfortunately palaces can't be destroyed and you should aim to build the next level of these as quickly as possible, thereby replacing their palace with your faction's verison. As you can see, this is one of the downsides of exterminating the population, as it means the next palace level is often unattainable due to the huge population decrease.
Hope this helps.
Kekkonen
10-21-2004, 11:54
Would it be realistic to let the player set a limit to city population? I don't know if the ancients did this, but at least they didn't go for any of this modern "plebes are free to live where they want and choose their own profession" crap.
Other factions' temples, etc, do work for you in terms of the bonuses they give; however, foreign buildings present in your city give culture penalties and culture penalties work against public order and will increase the chances of rebellion.
Is that true?
I must admit I had not made that connection and if its true its probably making my situation worse as I have tended to keep most of the existing buildings intact after I take a city. Even the temples if they are fully developed.
I mean an Eygptian Exectuion Square still seems to provide a public order bonus, and Egyptian Barracks produce Legionary Cohorts so I figured why destroy them.
Sounds like that was a mistake.
BTW: I bought the Prima Strategy guide in the hope of finding out all this stuff. But it was a TotalWaste ~;) of money
Would it be realistic to let the player set a limit to city population? I don't know if the ancients did this, but at least they didn't go for any of this modern "plebes are free to live where they want and choose their own profession" crap.
I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand I feel I am indulging in gamesmanship by deliberately inciting revolts in my own cities in order to have an excuse to cull the populations.
But at the same time I can't beleive a conquering power like Rome would allow the civil population to indulge in greater and greater unrest without doing something.
I was sort of hoping that investing heavily in Spies and Assassins might help to root out and eliminate the trouble makers but I have been unable to detect any difference.
I am also uncertain what impact the percentage of slaves has on civil unrest. I have noticed for instance that most of my rebellions are Gladatorial which means they are damned difficult to quell. But I'm not sure if that is a consquence of my policy of enslaving captured populations or merely a coincidence.
Logic would suggest that the more people you enslave the more cultural/ethnic friction one creates in the receiving cities, which could explain why some of my home cities are sufferring as well as my foriegn ones.
I'm really dissapointed that there is no explanation of all this, especially after shelling out £12 for the strategy guide.
Bob the Insane
10-21-2004, 14:04
All foreign buildings?!?!?!? Not just the temples!?!?
opps!!!
:help:
All foreign buildings?!?!?!? Not just the temples!?!?
Yes.
Jeanne d'arc
10-21-2004, 14:11
Other factions' temples, etc, do work for you in terms of the bonuses they give; however, foreign buildings present in your city give culture penalties and culture penalties work against public order and will increase the chances of rebellion.
In the short term it's best to keep them, at least until you can be sure destroying them won't put you into a revolt situation.
In the long term it's best to demolish the other factions' buildings that you can't tech up on and then start building your faction's own temples and public order buildings. Unfortunately palaces can't be destroyed and you should aim to build the next level of these as quickly as possible, thereby replacing their palace with your faction's verison. As you can see, this is one of the downsides of exterminating the population, as it means the next palace level is often unattainable due to the huge population decrease.
Hope this helps.
Why is that, they are exterminated, there shouldend be culture penalties when they are exterminated.
If you dont have a public order problem, then you dont need to demolish buildings. Once I captured the pyramids I didnt have any culture penalties in any Egg city so no need for civic refurbishment them, though I did replace their temples with better Roman ones.
Some temples are worth keeping if they provide a unique bonus (such as +3 missile bonus) and you can maintain order in the city.
The_Emperor
10-21-2004, 14:15
Anyone else think that the Execution Square should reduce the population growth? After all people are being killed you know. :hanged: (where's the Guillotine Emoticon gone?)
You can do some testing yourself by looking at the 'ying and yang' culture penalty symbols on the settlement scroll. Destroying the happiness buildings of foreign cultures, e.g. temples, that your culture can't upgrade definitely helps lower the culture penalty value in subsequent turns.
Bear in mind, however, that whilst helping to remove the culture penalty, destroying these foreign happiness buildings will also drop public order as you'll also lose their own inherent happiness and law benefits. That is, until you build your own faction's equivalent.
I think the palace is also important here, although i'm not sure on the other buildings. Jerome stated that the penalty is based on the proportion of foreign buildings compared to your own culture's buildings (to a maximum of 50%). I think that building to the next tech level is also another way of removing another culture's building, hence the only way to get rid of temples is by destroying them and restarting.
J
Why is that, they are exterminated, there shouldend be culture penalties when they are exterminated.
Thats a good point.
Presumably, if you put the entire population to the sword or shipped them home as cheap labour then any population growth ought to be pro-Roman e.g sons of your Roman Soldiers and Roman Colonists.
If anything the resentment ought to affect the cities that the slaves went to.
The_Emperor
10-21-2004, 14:44
Extermination eliminates 80% of the Populace, so there will always be survivors.
Also at the very least your pro-Roman citizens wouldn't take kindly to living in a City that is very non-Roman in its architecture and Cultural buildings.
Bob the Insane
10-21-2004, 14:54
Extermination eliminates 80% of the Populace, so there will always be survivors.
Add to the fact that the growing population will be decendents of those survivors and if you don't replace the buildings they are hardly growing up in a Rome style world...
Even though I was unaware of this I perfer it this way, it seems cool...
Hmm! I'm not convinced that this building thing actually works.
I've just been doing some testing and the results aren't very re-assuring.
Thessalonica for example: Culture Penalty 40%
It had an Odeon and an Agora in it plus a Councillor Chamber. I destroyed the Odeon and the Agora but it made absolutely no difference to the culture penalty which was still 40% at the end of the next turn.
So, is all this 40% attributable to the Councillor Chamber. If so I had no reason to destroy the Odeon or the Agora and the Councillor Chamber can't be destroyed so I'm stuck with the penalty.
On the other hand take:
Sidon: Culture Penalty 10%
Only 10% even though it still has its Secret Police HQ, Awesome Temple of Set and the Eygptian Army Barracks, Catapult Range, Elite Cavalry Stables and Armourer.
Ok! I destroyed all of these buildings anyway. Nothing changed I still have a 10% culture penalty even though all the buildings are now Roman except the City Walls which it won't let me destroy.
So! Where is the link between buildings and cultural penalty?
I don't see it.
+++++
Ok! I have now gone systematically round all of my remaining Egyptian cities destroying every Egyptian building I can. It has not made a single % difference to any of their cultural penalties indeed some cities seem to have 10% penalties despite having nearly all Egyptian buildings whilst others have 30% or 40% with hardly any.
The only things I could not destroy were Council Chambers and City Walls, so it looks to me as though the entire cultural penalty must be linked to one or other of these and the other buildings have no effect.
MonkeyMan
10-21-2004, 15:08
Something i missed. If you have a circus and an arena/colosseum in a city you can set the games option to daily/monthly/yearly games and races rather than the default option that is one or the other depending on what you build first. Maybe its just me who missed that though. :dizzy2:
Also moving your capital to pretty much the dead center of your empire helps a lot with overall happyness.
Add to the fact that the growing population will be decendents of those survivors and if you don't replace the buildings they are hardly growing up in a Rome style world...
Even though I was unaware of this I perfer it this way, it seems cool...
Yes! but my soldiers are under strict instructions only to spare the most attractive females so any rebirth of the population will be sired by Romans not members of the Popular Peoples Front of Judea.
Extermination eliminates 80% of the Populace
75 %
I've just been doing some testing and the results aren't very re-assuring.
Thessalonica for example: Culture Penalty 40%
It had an Odeon and an Agora in it plus a Councillor Chamber. I destroyed the Odeon and the Agora but it made absolutely no difference to the culture penalty which was still 40% at the end of the next turn.
The culture penalty is, more or less, half the ratio of native building over total building.
So, if there is only native buildings, there is a 50 % culture penalty. And if there is only half of the buildings that are native, there is a 25 % culture penalty.
The governor's house seems to hold a much bigger proportion of this penalty, though. Perhaps it counts as more than one building for the culture penalty, or perhaps that half the culture penalty is from the governor's house, and half is from the rest.
Don't really know.
But roughly, with this exception, the rule of thumb seems to work.
Bob the Insane
10-21-2004, 15:34
Ok! I have now gone systematically round all of my remaining Egyptian cities destroying every Egyptian building I can. It has not made a single % difference to any of their cultural penalties indeed some cities seem to have 10% penalties despite having nearly all Egyptian buildings whilst others have 30% or 40% with hardly any.
The only things I could not destroy were Council Chambers and City Walls, so it looks to me as though the entire cultural penalty must be linked to one or other of these and the other buildings have no effect.
Perhaps there are further factors involved.... Time perhaps, maybe once you build up a culture penalty it will only disappear over time once you remove the offending buildings??
DIdz,
Hmm strange. I know that it doesn't have an immediate effect and that you have to wait at least 1 turn or more to see the culture penalty come down. Replacing the temple in my game lowered the culture penalty... it didn't happen immediately, but it did lower.
I always keep taxes on very high to slow down population growth.
Be careful with the farms and public health buildings, as those also add population growth and you don't want a huge unhappy town with lots of squalour.
Tearing down old buildings and replacing them with your own seems to be a good way to reduce the culture penalty. (I don't know if just tearing down does anything).
If you are building temples that boost population growth, once your cities get big, remove them, and build ones that boost law instead if you can.
Garrison bonuses are maxed out at 80%, but a huge city will be hard to get to this number.
Putting a high influence general in a town is a good way to pacify it ~:)
This link (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38089&highlight=culture+penalty) may help. It has a response from JeromeGrasdyke from CA on the very subject of buildings and culture penalties. It helped me understand the concept a little better.
*Ringo*
Bob the Insane
10-21-2004, 15:59
Thanks for that *Ringo*...
Hi folks,
Just an observation about economics,
If you have a city and its showing on the campaign map -1000 dinari, this dose not mean its running at a loss, and in all probability it is actually contributing to your over all wealth.You will need to go in to the city scroll to see how much it is contirbuting to your armed forces.
simplified Example, I have a city it showing -1000 dinari , I look at the scroll and see its paying 3000 dinari towards my armed forces.If I was to destroy this city I would be down 2000 dianri per year.
Large cities tend to be the ones that show the bigest loss on the campaign map, as upkeep on your armed forces is allocated by city size.If you have a small village with A large garriosn, half of that garriosn is probably being paid for by the larger cities in your empire.
I think it would make it more clear if they removed the armed forces cost from the "how much the city is making display on the campaing map" and just left it as a lump some on the faction financial scroll.
This link (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38089&highlight=culture+penalty) may help. It has a response from JeromeGrasdyke from CA on the very subject of buildings and culture penalties. It helped me understand the concept a little better.
*Ringo*
Hmm! read that, but if anything it just muddies the waters.
What he seems to be saying is some buildings affect culture more than others but doesn't say which.
And that other factors affect culture anyway but doesn't say what.
And that nothing happens at once anyway so there on way of telling if what your doing makes any difference.
I think we definately need a decent strategy guide with some solid information.
Example,
Maximum Cultural Penality = 50% = Half Greek Buildings 25% + Half Brutii Buildings 25%
So playing as the Julii the cultural penalty for this city would be 25% (As Brutii are Roman also) +an undisclosed amount for who ever built the last Governors building. This would be reduced as the Greek building were replaced.
I hope that helps but i'm not too good at explaining things i'm affraid. In my twisted mind it seemed to make perfect sense! :dizzy2:
*Ringo*
RedKnight
10-21-2004, 18:13
Didz - do you own the pyramids? they nullify any Egyptian culture penalty.
Thanks Duck,
o don't overbuild farms (or build at all if necessary)
I'm guilty of this as I wanted to maximise revenue and farms bring in more income.
o use temples that give you law in your outlying districts (to reduce corruption).
I've been building mostly Temples of Juno. Do temples to foriegn religions still work after you capture a city?
Demolishing them certainly has a negative effect.
o build health buildings early (to prevent plague).
I must admit I have found the plaque to be a useful ally in my current campaign. I've actually been considering spreading it around just to cull the larger cities.
o Try to get your pop. growth to 0% right around the 24-25K mark in
Easier said than done, I suspect.
Looks like I'm trapped in the cycle of engineered rebellions and viscious state retribution then. I'd better set up my extermination armies and start killing civilians.
Still not sure what the point is in having a city that is producing a -3228 income. If it weren't for the Senate I'd just let the rebels have it.
First, you're welcome!
Second, don't worry so much about the negative production value, your total expense load is distributed unevenly over all your cities based on popvalue... just worry that you are getting more money than you are spending.. if you want to know the production breakdowns, go to the city details page.
As to foreign temples, yes you get the benefit.. but you can't upgrade them. And normally in outlying districts you won't cap a city that has a law based temple, which will really cause your econ loss due to corruption to skyrocket. And once that city grows, you will definitely need an upgraded temple.. and you can only upgrade your own temples.
When I first take a city I immediately blow away the temple and build my own. I upgrade it to max level before doing anything else. Normally after that its:
roads
public health
market oriented
docks oriented (i.e., health and trade).
To manage happiness in the first few turns after taking over a city, I use my army (or its follow on reinforcement stack) as a garrison until happiness has stabilized. Lately I've taken to pre-building stacks of town watch to use as a 'quick garrison' so that my army can keep moving. That works except when you have an extreme happiness problem. In that case you will probably want any beneficial affects of your general in that city until things calm down (assuming he has a reasonable influence score.. the little green wreaths that appear near the top of his detail descriptoin window).
Hope this helps.. and thanks for the info on demolishing farms.. I tried it last night myself and found out ya can't :(. Normally now the only place I want to demo farms is in captured cities.. I just don't build many myself.
Yes! but my soldiers are under strict instructions only to spare the most attractive females so any rebirth of the population will be sired by Romans not members of the Popular Peoples Front of Judea.
LOL!
I hope that helps but i'm not too good at explaining things i'm affraid. In my twisted mind it seemed to make perfect sense! :dizzy2:
*Ringo*
It would make perfect sense if thats what was happening in the game but as far as I can see it isn't.
As I have already highlighted with my examples of Thessalonica which had a culture penalty of 40% arising from three buildings Odeon, Agora and Councillor Chamber, which did not change at all after the destruction of two out of the three.
And Sidon with a culture penalty of 10% despite having six buildings Secret Police HQ, Awesome Temple of Set and the Eygptian Army Barracks, Catapult Range, Elite Cavalry Stables and Armourer. Which once again never changed a jot even after all of them had been demolished.
So! Where is the link between buildings and cultural penalty?
Basically, as far as I can see the culture penalty has no relationship at all to the number of buildings in the city and destroying them makes no difference.
If we look at Sidon in more detail, it has the following buildings:
Imperial Palace (Roman)
City Walls (Egyptian)
Army Barracks (Egyptian)
Port (Roman)
Curia (Roman)
Highways (Roman)
Awesome Temple of Set (Egyptian)
Armourer (Egyptian)
Elite Cavalry Stables (Egyptian)
Catapult Range (Egyptian)
Latifundia (Roman)
City Plumbing (Roman)
Coliseum (Roman)
Lundus Magna (Roman)
That's 8 Roman Buildings and 6 Egyptian, which based on the formula you explain means that it ought to have a culture penalty of 21.4%.
But its actually 10%, which means that only 2.8 of the Egyptian buildings are actually counting towards a culture penalty. The question is which are they?
Then compare this with Thessalonica
Councillors Chambers (Greek)
City Walls (Greek)
Army Barracks (Greek)
Highways (Roman)
Crop Rotation (Greek)
Dockyard (Roman)
Catapult Range (Roman)
Armourer (Roman)
Mine (Roman)
Public Baths (Roman)
Scriptorium (Roman)
Awesome Temple of Juno (Roman)
Arena (Roman)
Trader (Roman)
4 Greek Buildings 10 Roman = 14% Culture penalty?
No the culture penalty in Thessalonica is 35%.
The only way this makes sense is if not all buildings count, or some buildings count more than others.
Which begs the question where is this figure coming from then?
As I have already highlighted with my examples of Thessalonica which had a culture penalty of 40% arising from three buildings Odeon, Agora and Councillor Chamber, which did not change at all after the destruction of two out of the three.
And Sidon with a culture penalty of 10% despite having six buildings Secret Police HQ, Awesome Temple of Set and the Eygptian Army Barracks, Catapult Range, Elite Cavalry Stables and Armourer. Which once again never changed a jot even after all of them had been demolished.
Yes, but have you built some of your own faction buildings in place ?
Because if there is only three buildings of the native faction, and you destroy two, the one left still represent 100 % of all the buildings.
I can assure with a 95 % certaintity that replacing all the native buildings by yours make culture penalty disappears.
But then, I don't really know if it's because there is new, own-faction buildings, or if it's because there is no more any native faction buildings...
Which Middle Eastern cities do you have? If you have the eastern Mediterranean cities and Salamis, they shouldn't be in the negatives at all. Just build ports. Even with tons of unit upkeep and corruption, you should be making a ton on trade.
I put my capital in Antioch in my Parthian game and it is making over 7000 a turn. So is Jerusalem.
Which begs the question where is this figure coming from then?
I have to agree actually Didz, after looking into this more closely there does seem to be more to this subject that meets the eye (or forum even). This thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38524) approaches the same subject, with perhaps the same misinformation, but i do find the figures in RedKnight's post quite interesting. Could it be possible that the cultural penalty is divided between the original buildings when invaded? It seems in RedKnight's case a town invaded had only a governor's building, which resulted in 50% cultural penalty. However, the population was sufficient to upgrade immediately, once complete the cultural penalty was reduce to 0%!! ~:eek: It would also be useful to try and find a definitive list of which building were included in the calculation.
*Ringo*
I have to agree actually Didz, after looking into this more closely there does seem to be more to this subject that meets the eye (or forum even). This thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=38524) approaches the same subject, with perhaps the same misinformation, but i do find the figures in RedKnight's post quite interesting. Could it be possible that the cultural penalty is divided between the original buildings when invaded? It seems in RedKnight's case a town invaded had only a governor's building, which resulted in 50% cultural penalty. However, the population was sufficient to upgrade immediately, once complete the cultural penalty was reduce to 0%!! ~:eek: It would also be useful to try and find a definitive list of which building were included in the calculation.
*Ringo*
Good, you see my point and I agree that there must be more to this than a simple building count.
I accept your suggestion that replacing every foreign building eliminates the culture penalty. That certainly seems to be true in every situation where I have succeeded in doing it. But, I'm not convinced that all the foreign buildings count equally towards the total, or even at all.
To my mind this is the sort of thing that ought to have been explained in the strategy guide rather than regurgitating 111 pages of unit and building stats which actually contain less information than is available from the unit details in the game itself.
I think the Prima RTW guide has got to be the worst strategy guide I have ever purchased 187 pages, 111 of which are dumbed down extracts from the game stat screens, a map which is so poorly printed and small as to be totally useless and 45 pages of supposed strategy advice which could easily be gleaned from the in game manual.
Totalwaste of £12, so don't buy it if you haven't already.
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