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Does squalor have an different impact on your cities, depending on difficulty settings? For example, on medium a 30,000 city might have 105% squalor, but on hard it might have 130% squalor, and even higher on very hard. (The figures are purely fictional)
Short answer is no, difficulty doesn't affect squalor.
There's lots of extra info on how squalor is currently implemented in this thread.
Indeed, squalor is influenced by population size and Government building level only.
I've recorded squalor levels covering more than a dozen towns with differing population sizes from 1465 to 15926 and Government building levels from Governor's Villa to Pro-Consul's Palace from my own VH/VH game with the Julii. All data points match the table which therother has kindly provided at Medium campaign map difficulty in the thread he's given above.
Thanks, guys.
On an additional note, is it worth it to construct the health buildings, i.e sewers, baths? They give an order bonus, but also contribute to growth rate, which can end up making squalor an even worse problem than without any health buildings at all.
If you are playing a long campaign, it is likely that you will want to have not too large a population for your biggest cities. While having a larger population does give more tax income, the increase in tax income after a population of >35,000 is minimal and even for the 7905 - 35000 bracket, the increase in tax income may not justify the need/cost of a bigger garrison to maintain public order.
Therefore it is reasonable to maintain a population of about 24,000 (just enough to get the highest governance buildings). A population of 24,000 means 80% squalor and -8% growth. With this in mind, your decision whether or not to build a health building should be partially based on achieving an 8% growth to counter the -8% from squalor and to maintain a balance of 0% growth so that population remains fairly static at 24,000.
This in turn depends very much on the base growth (base farming level) of each region.
Cities like Mediolanium/Tylis/Sinope/Thessalonica/Sardis/Halicarnasus/Memphis have a base growth of 5.0 and therefore need another 3.0% to achieve 8.0%.
IMHO, having the following will make up the other 3.0% nicely:
Low Tax to maintain better public order +30% (0.5% growth)
L1, L2 or L3 Trader (for more trade income) (0.5% growth)
L1 Farm (for more farming income) (0.5% growth)
L4 Health building (Aqueduct) for better public order +15% (1.5% growth)
In the case of cities like Carthage/Patavium, these have a base growth of 7.0 and therefore you may need to settle for a slightly higher figure, say perhaps 8.5% growth with:
Low Tax to maintain better public order +30% (0.5% growth)
L1, L2 or L3 Trader (for more trade income) (0.5% growth)
L1 Farm (for more farming income) (0.5% growth)
If you again build all health buildings here, growth will increase to 10.0% and squalor will balance up growth only at a population of 30,000. The basic increase in squalor will be exactly countered by the additional health bonus to public order but maintaining an effective garrison at a higher population will be that much tougher and the added wealth from taxes by having this larger population may not compensate garrison costs.
You could raise taxes to Very High to curb growth but sometimes it is not possible to do this while still maintaining a public order above riot level.
In short, IMHO, regions with very high base growth may not need health buildings but for most other regions, having health buildings should help get that desired 8% growth to counter squalor.
in my opinion, every roman citizen has a right to access a public bath, fresh water supply and a sewer system!
i don't want my inhabitants to turn into dirty barbarians!
The issue is kind of a moot point for barbarian cultures that may have no more than access to a simple sewer...
Btw, they should make some incentive for building farmland. As it stands, farmland is now a big no-no except in poor growth regions, because the increased income is meager compared to income from trade, and it boosts growth without any positive effects, as compared to health buildings. Perhaps farms should provide a happiness bonus in addition to the growth boost, as that would make sense. People are generally happier with a food surplus
I suppose they could tweak the farming income a little so that progressive farming upgrades give successively more. Currently each upgrade gives exactly the same amount but the cost to make higher upgrades increases and so does the time to build them, which makes it not economically favorable to get them if there are better choices.
I agree that the increased growth and squalor problem from farm upgrades is also an important factor which deters players from getting them. That happiness boost you suggested sounds good. I can't really see how such a change could be exploited and it would balance up the squalor problem just like the health buildings.
I think Red Harvest mentioned something about being able to upgrade to the next town level only after if you had gotten all available farming upgrades, as a house rule. Perhaps a tad extreme IMHO, but I like the idea of having adequate agriculture and food for a town before it can expand. I might stagger it a little and say no town level upgrade till you had gotten the farming upgrade the level before. Until CA decides to tweak anything, I suppose the best we can do for now is to apply a few house rules on stuff that we think logical.
They could even make income from farming dependant on population size. After all, more hands make light work, especially in the Great Latifunda and Great Estate farming upgrades where (slave) labour was extensively used. This would also give an incentive to grow a city and put up with increased squalor. As it stands right now, unless you're specifically aiming for big cities there is no reward for having a city above 24,000 pop.