Migration - getting small towns to cities the easy way!

[Mikeus Caesar]

Browsing through old threads in the Forge (maybe General) i noticed a thread which mentioned 'migration', where you make lots of peasants in a heavily populated province, and take them to a province that you want to get to city status quickly, but is growing slowly, and then proceed to disband all the peasants. I used this technique in my new roman campaign, and within 15 years of conquering segesta, i had upgraded it to whatever comes after 'town' status. Quite handy really.

Some of you may already know this, but i'm just saying in case you don't.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I noticed this in my recent RTR Romans campaign when I wanted to make Rome and Capua Huge.

[Mikeus Caesar]

It's handy, isn't it?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Yes quite handy. Especially since Roma and Sparta hate getting huge...

[katank]

Enslaving, gift, and enslaving is far more efficient albeit that teleportation of population in kinda cheap.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Enslaving isn't that great. What happens if you haven't conquered any enemy towns for a while, and you can't conquer them because you're armies aren't powerful enough? Migration is the superior method. After all, you can either give the population a boost of 120 each turn, or you can make a peasant army and have a boost of a couple of thousand in one go.

[screwtype]

Enslavement also boosts the rate of population growth.

Migration works best when you are playing with the larger unit sizes. When you're playing with small or standard unit size, it's a pretty slow process. I do use migration now and then but I've found judicious use of enslavement to be easier and more effective.

[katank]

@ MC, you can gift cities to the enemy. This way, you can repeatedly enslave. It's so effective that it's a bit of an exploit. Make sure to move garrison out manually before gifting the city. This way, they travel less and you can thus do it more times per turn.

This is ideal for turning an unruly large city into a peaceful one and making backwaters bloom.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Maybe...Enslavement+Migration=Big instant cities=Big bucks!

[vastator]

I've modded my campaign so that you can recruit up to nine standard units in a single turn (as in SPQR). That means you can pack over 1,000 peasants off to the provinces in one go. Just as well when you consider the low population density in Germania - and the fact that the townsfolk of Patavium breed like rabbits! ~D

[Mikeus Caesar]

Can i just ask, but how do you mod it so that units recruit in one turn? I know how to do it for buildings, but how for units?

[vastator]

Can i just ask, but how do you mod it so that units recruit in one turn? I know how to do it for buildings, but how for units?
Go into the export_descr_unit file and, in the stat_cost line, change the first figure 1 to a 0. ~:cheers:

[Mikeus Caesar]

Thanks. I'll try it just now and see if it works and will report back results in a few minutes.

[katank]

@MC, what you say is quite true. Mass enslavement of a huge city does rake in huge amounts of dough on the side.

Repeatedly shifting large populations to and from cities not only have huge cities sprawling across your empire, but they also partially finance the cost of the higher level buildings.

[The Stranger]

pha, migration i do it all the time.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Vastator, i tried what you said with the peasants building time. It's incredibly handy! I made 4 armies of peasants, and sent them across the empire. Within about 7 turns, all of the piddly gallic towns i had captured with populations of about 1000 had gotten 2000+ populations, which allowed me to upgrade the barracks, build some decent troops and move my main armies deeper into Germany. After all, you need decent troops to defend towns when you've got angry germans everywhere, baying for your blood.

[The Stranger]

it is dangerous if you do it in rebellious cities. squallor goes up very fast. and the happines goes down.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Dangerous to do what? Put extra people in rebellious cities? Usually, a city is only rebellious about squalor if it is a large or huge city, and if it's at that level, it wouldn't need migration. Instead, i'd be taking people out of it and moving them to other parts of the world.

[vastator]

Mikeus - glad I could help. It's nice to be able to put something back in after all the time I've spent picking other folk's brains! ~D Ironically, I haven't had a chance to do it myself, as Disk 1 now has a crack in it and the game won't load! :furious3: