Distance-To-Capital

I play a lot slower than most around here, and so I'm just getting to the point where my Brutii empire has made contact with the Egyptians after taking Tarsus (to the east), and I've just made contact with the Spanish after taking Lugdunum and Narbo Martius (west).

Since my capital is Tarentum, I'm getting a whopping distance-to-capital negative on the fringes now. The Scipii have taken over what used to be Carthage, so I can't expand south. I've got the Brits, the Germans and the Dacians in a nice solid alliance with Military Access to the north.

The Senate have named Spain as the ones-who-will-be-privileged by a three-way alliance (Julii, Scipii, Senate). I'm currently neutral to them, with trade rights.

I could attempt to expand east against Egypt, but the culture and distance to capital penalties out there will be tremendous, or west and get on the Senate's black-list.

Suggestions? Is the late mid-game just a matter of charging headlong on conquests and hoping to gain popularity cum populo?

For some people its squalor, for me, it's distance to Capital.

My Capital is in Northern Italy, my Empire spreads to Byzantium, Spain, Ireland, and Moscow, and its going to have to keep spreading.

Tara or whatever in Ireland has about 2000 people and 10 units of Militia as its garrison. :)

Capture and keep the Grand Pyramid wonders in Egypt. They increase province loyalty, by about 40 percent if I remember correctly. They're in Middle Eqypt, just south of the Nile Delta. You can capture the Alexandria lighthouse wonder on the way. I don't remember what that one does.

Whole lot easier said than done.

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Originally Posted by Doug-Thompson

Capture and keep the Grand Pyramid wonders in Egypt. They increase province loyalty, by about 40 percent if I remember correctly. They're in Middle Eqypt, just south of the Nile Delta. You can capture the Alexandria lighthouse wonder on the way. I don't remember what that one does.

Whole lot easier said than done.

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Well then my pyramids were broken, because I got NO EFFECT of them whatsoever. In fact the Egyptian cities I held (finished the Scipii campaign tonight) were the most rebellious of all, even after extermination.
I heard form another thread that the effect of the Pyramids is only temporary. Well, that could explain why it didn't have effect on my Egyptian cities.

As for the distance to capital: it has a lot of effect, Carthage and Thapsus were both having effects even though my capital was Capua. So pretty early I shifted it to Lilabeaum. And it stayed my capital until the end. I tried to expand evenly around my capital (never went to Russia, nor England). So it was okay. Only the Egyptians were problematic. (Which is I think why they made the pyramids to give a bonus to their loyalty, only it doesn't work long enough).

pyramids work for me. check the settlement details; i bet there's no culture penalty.

Temple of zeus, on the other hand, is completely broken.

To the OP: move your capital. I moved my capital to syracuse to ensure carthage (my top city) stays in order.

AFAIK, moving it only affects distance penalties. Nothing else. Since normally you're original capital provinces are both well-developed and firmly in your control (no culture penalties), shouldn't be too much of a problem to move.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

pyramids work for me. check the settlement details; i bet there's no culture penalty.

Temple of zeus, on the other hand, is completely broken.

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Neither are broken. They just are temporary.

Both adds 20 % to the loyalty of the relevant population (Greeks for Zeus, Egyptians for Pyramids). But this effect (that you can check in the settlement sheet where you can see, in the happiness line, a "wonder" effect), are only temporary.

I don't know for Zeus, as I've never got it when not being Greek myself (and as such, there was no culture penalty with Greeks to start with), but at least the Pyramids have the additionnal effect to remove the culture penalty from egyptian cities as well, yes.
I'm not sure if this particular effect is temporary or permanent.

It just seems to me they SHOULD give their 20% bonus indefinately. That's why I said they are broken. In the description, there isn't any line that says these bonusses are teporary either.

I mean, if you exterminate a city, it looses a good deal of its culture penalty anyway. The real problem comes when they AND have high squalor AND are lightyears away from your capital. I have a nice picture (which I don't have a host for), which shows the whole Nile Delta revolting (while all other cities are just fine).
Compared to the Colossus of Rhode (which gives you A LOT money), the Pyramids just seem pathetic. I mean, the Pyramids and Olympus just don't do anything after turn 4, and they don't do anything that a bit of wait and garisson couldn't do in that time as well.

Email it to me and Ill host it on the company webserver :).

That goes for anyone else too.

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Originally Posted by Akka

Neither are broken. They just are temporary.

Both adds 20 % to the loyalty of the relevant population (Greeks for Zeus, Egyptians for Pyramids). But this effect (that you can check in the settlement sheet where you can see, in the happiness line, a "wonder" effect), are only temporary.

I don't know for Zeus, as I've never got it when not being Greek myself (and as such, there was no culture penalty with Greeks to start with), but at least the Pyramids have the additionnal effect to remove the culture penalty from egyptian cities as well, yes.
I'm not sure if this particular effect is temporary or permanent.

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all wonders add 20% loyalty temporarily to ALL provinces. Zeus does nothing more. it's bugged. it's supposed to maintain the boost but it fades just like the others.

pyramids get rid of the culture penalty. theyr'e fine.

(edited to remove minor flaming)

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Originally Posted by Soulflame

It just seems to me they SHOULD give their 20% bonus indefinately. That's why I said they are broken. In the description, there isn't any line that says these bonusses are teporary either.

I mean, if you exterminate a city, it looses a good deal of its culture penalty anyway. The real problem comes when they AND have high squalor AND are lightyears away from your capital. I have a nice picture (which I don't have a host for), which shows the whole Nile Delta revolting (while all other cities are just fine).
Compared to the Colossus of Rhode (which gives you A LOT money), the Pyramids just seem pathetic. I mean, the Pyramids and Olympus just don't do anything after turn 4, and they don't do anything that a bit of wait and garisson couldn't do in that time as well.

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i don't agree with this. Culture penalty makes holding egypt virtually impossible. That's unfortuante, because egypt/alexandria usually are extremely high tech provinces.

I'd trade 20% trade income for a pre-concul level city or two any day.

PS Zeus IS broken. Pyramids are fine.

Well, this is interesting.

I'll have to look at the settlement detail sheet when I get home and check if there's still any "wonder effect" left for Zeus. Even if it's temporary, it's important for completing the conquest of Greece.

It's hard to tell what's broken and what's designed into this game.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

AFAIK, moving it only affects distance penalties. Nothing else. Since normally you're original capital provinces are both well-developed and firmly in your control (no culture penalties), shouldn't be too much of a problem to move.

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It also affects corruption, where new family members appear, and where the Senate reward units will appear.

IMO corruption is the most important of these effects. Simply put, your capital has no corruption, but corruption starts to increase as you move away from your capital. So if your original regions are your main money making regions, then moving your capital away from the general vicinity will increase your overall corruption, and potentially lose you a fair bit of money. Of course, if your richest provinces are far away from you capital, you will make money!

There doesn't seem to be any tangible penalty for moving your capital, even if you do so many times in the same turn. So you can experiment to discover which settlement is the best balance between unrest/corruption.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

...why do so many people post wrong information?...

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Because they aren't omniscient. Apparently there are quite a number around here who are...?

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Originally Posted by therother

There doesn't seem to be any tangible penalty for moving your capital, even if you do so many times in the same turn. So you can experiment to discover which settlement is the best balance between unrest/corruption.

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This is VERY nice to know. I haven't been brave enough to experiment!

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Originally Posted by Tamur

Because they aren't omniscient. Apparently there are quite a number around here who are...?

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There's a difference between posting your thoughts and opinions, that may or may not be true, and posting "information" purported to be "fact."

Too often you see people posting the former in the guise of the latter. That's just really bad form.

This board is better than most (twcenter and the ezboard are both terrible) because I think the community is a bit more mature, and because people seem to have a better empirical sense. But there's still way too much of it.

If you're going to state something factually, have the evidence to back it up.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

There's a difference between posting your thoughts and opinions, that may or may not be true, and posting "information" purported to be "fact."

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Agreed, good reminder there (for me at least! I tend to post with only circumstantial evidence).

I never had any trouble in Greece myself. Egypt is really tough. Basically, I expect it to revolt. I find to keep the population under control I have to either give them the plague by moving people from a province that has it to there or pull out and let them rebel. Take the city back and then exterminate the population. That usually works for me. It’s dirty but it works ~:) Also, it seems if you send a family member to the region it helps to cut down on corruption. At least in my experience so I'm not sure if it is a feature of the game. I wish there was an option to appoint a regional governor instead of just a city one.

I just noticed it too. I was looking for trends regarding corruption. Your capital seem to have a radius - the farther you go out the more you lose to corruption.

A better system would be to factor in the roads and port-size you have.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

all wonders add 20% loyalty temporarily to ALL provinces.

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No.
I'm totally positive about this, because just after taking the Pyramids, and seeing the +20 % to loyalty in my Egyptians cities, I noticed that this bonus was NOT happening in my non-Egyptians cities.
I've double-checked on my greeks cities, because I thought that they should have a "+20 % wonder" effect because of the Statue of Zeus, and there wasn't any (which made me consider that the boost was temporary).

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Originally Posted by Akka

No.
I'm totally positive about this, because just after taking the Pyramids, and seeing the +20 % to loyalty in my Egyptians cities, I noticed that this bonus was NOT happening in my non-Egyptians cities.
I've double-checked on my greeks cities, because I thought that they should have a "+20 % wonder" effect because of the Statue of Zeus, and there wasn't any (which made me consider that the boost was temporary).

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i have a save game with an army right outside of memphis. I load it up, take the city, and every one of my cities, from carthage to tarentum to sparta, receives a 20% "wonder" order bonus.

I have another save game with an army outside of the mausoleum. I load it up, take the city, and bam, another 20% wonder order bonus to ALL cities.

I believe, though I am not sure, that most wonder bonuses drop by 5% every round until they reach zero. At least this is usual pattern.

It's possible that the wonders have a different effect for different factions, I suppose. But I doubt it. You probably say the wonder bonus in Egypt at one point, then 4 rounds later, saw that it was not there on a non-egyptian city, and assumed (wrongly) that the non-egyptian city was not receiving the bonus.

i actually meant that it affects nothing else in the order calculation.

but i didn't know about the corruption difference. thanks for the heads up.

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Originally Posted by therother

It also affects corruption, where new family members appear, and where the Senate reward units will appear.

IMO corruption is the most important of these effects. Simply put, your capital has no corruption, but corruption starts to increase as you move away from your capital. So if your original regions are your main money making regions, then moving your capital away from the general vicinity will increase your overall corruption, and potentially lose you a fair bit of money. Of course, if your richest provinces are far away from you capital, you will make money!

There doesn't seem to be any tangible penalty for moving your capital, even if you do so many times in the same turn. So you can experiment to discover which settlement is the best balance between unrest/corruption.

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Mmh, that may be possible. I'll test it with the Artemis temple, and I'll try to see if I have some old save from before I got the Pyramids (but I doubt it, considering I nearly always save on the same two files).

I tend to make Byzantium or a Greek city capital as they lies equidistant to the only prosperous cities of the west Rome excepted, those of southern Italy/Magna Graecia and Cartage itself, as well as the cities of the Levant and Anatolia. Gaul seems to be peaceable but makes little money. Spain does makes money, but the former Carthaginian cities are rebellious. Rome as a capital means losing huge revenues from Levantine and other Eastern cities.