ERE population control

Can't find the thread about ERE now, but I remeber someone saying they avoided markets to keep the pop. down.

I've started the ERE & am just about to get hit by Sam's Goths & Huns, lots of them all heading for Rome. Basically I don't stand a chance, I've got one decent army to field & most of them are under strength with no weap bonuses etc.

Now the reasons for this pitiful showing on my part & fairly evident with hindsight, I didn't invest in troops as I spent all my cash (a) trying to boost my economy, (b) wasting vast amounts of wonga on city upgrades to avoid revolts.

So has anyone any idea's about how I can avoid the pop problem, other than exterminating the cities populations after a revolt? While making ALOT of cash?

Ports to max upgrade, trader, then road upgrades to highway?

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Originally Posted by Prodigal

Now the reasons for this pitiful showing on my part & fairly evident with hindsight, I didn't invest in troops as I spent all my cash (a) trying to boost my economy, (b) wasting vast amounts of wonga on city upgrades to avoid revolts.

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I would build the markets. Keep the economy humming, and use the money to keep at least 2-3 of your cities pumping out high quality troops.

You should be able to control your cities at high pop levels if you have no culture or religious penalties.

So long as you keep a nice beefy stack of your best units, along with a good deal of Eastern Archers astride the bridge that leads into the province of Thracia you should be able to hold back the tide of any hordes that are foolish enough to attempt a crossing. Be sure to hire a few of the horse archers in the area as well as they can come in handy.

Make sure to form a nice semi circle a decent distance from the bridge rather than making a huge clump around the very end of the bridge. The steppe hordes are VERY fond of their missile weapons, ESPECIALLY their horsearchers, but the Vandals and Goths BOTH have some long ranged archers that you want to stay well away from so that you can keep your casualty rate at an acceptable level. Seeing as the majority of any cavalry they bring will be able to ford, you'll want to make sure your semi-circle also faces a good deal of the water surrounding the bridge itself. Set your legions to defensive mode and fire at will and keep gaps to an absolute minimum. Place your Eastern Archers on the flanks so that they can fire on any who attempt to ford the river or cross the bridge but far enough away so that any archers on the opposite banks are unable to fire upon them. Keep your general right behind your legions and a unit of the heaviest available cavalry on each flank. Once they start contacting your legionary line you should see that the sheer amount of missile fire going around will even make some enemy units route before they make it to your side, but the majority will continue charging. Should they last long enough to start pushing, wrap your semi-circle around them so that they are surrounded, and charge your cavalry in around from the flanks into their rear.

The only time I have found it worth straying from that tactic is when facing the huns, you dont have to stay so far away as they lack any long range foot archers and so you are able to actually position both you lines closer and tighter and your archers close enough to rake the enemy horsearchers with missile fire without fear of return fire. In fact you'll even see a great deal of the enemy will lay dead before they reach the water, and many more will be drifting downstream before the fighting even begins.

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Originally Posted by Prodigal

So has anyone any idea's about how I can avoid the pop problem, other than exterminating the cities populations after a revolt? While making ALOT of cash?

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*First, on your northern front you only have two bridges to protect and you can actualy do it with 6 inf, 4 arch and 2 cav. Counting Dalmatia/ Illyria (WRE) you have two more to guard. On your second front in the east you have 3 crossings plus the ones in Arabia (2 I think).
*Secondly, there´s no way to keep up with population growth. Either let them rebel and retake it and massacre the inhabitants. This will generate a huge amount of cash, ex. Alexandria 40k just 10 years into the game. I´ve modded my game and cut all base farm levels in half to get a better game, works great, and no more uncontrollable growth rates.
*Thirdly, don´t let your good economy fool you. With ERE you can actually build yourself into debt. Focus on your fronts. This means basically 2-3 cities on each front that will supply the main bulk of your armies. I choose Thess/ Const and Anti/ Sidon/ Jerus (also supported Libyan front). In the end you´ll need some 8-10 stacks to defend and continue offensive campaigns. In the rest of the settlements just build the rest of the non-military buildings.

Do you play offense or defence?
1. Defence. Easy = guard bridges and strike out where the enemy is weak or you´re ready.
2. Offence. Usually I guard my northern front since there are no provinces there worth taking and focus on removing sassanids from the game. This puts your new border at the Caucasus maountain range in the north west with just 3 crossings to defend and in the Libyan/ Tripolitanian straits.
When you´ve troops to spare move on WRE at Salona and Lepcis Magna thus confronting them with a pincer manouvre and two fronts.

The power of peasants:
How unrealistic it might seem, but at a 14d. upkeep cost for a 120-unit, use them as garrison troops. I constantly build enough to keep my taxes at maximum and when your city dips below 95% with 19 garrioned peasants it´s time to pull them out and do some ethnic cleansing - just auto-calc. When you retakethe city disband all that´s left to keep tax at max. Good luck!

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Originally Posted by PseRamesses

*Secondly, there´s no way to keep up with population growth. Either let them rebel and retake it and massacre the inhabitants. This will generate a huge amount of cash, ex. Alexandria 40k just 10 years into the game. I´ve modded my game and cut all base farm levels in half to get a better game, works great, and no more uncontrollable growth rates.

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Just finished an ERE campaign, NEVER had a problem with big pops. Don't know why people keep obsessing over them...the 40k pop in alexandria is really no problem with a good governor(the one starting there), and a full garrison...

Thanks to all for the pointers, I've been considering the bridge scenario, but figured the tight formation at the bridgehead casualties was a decent pay off for keeping their attack numbers limited; while being able to attack them as the emerge from the water before they can form up. I'll try the semi circle strat. later :)

I'm playing the red Romans, but I think some of the comments relate to the purples, who I think are the WRE aren't they? Anyway the thing is, I wanted to try & avoid the rebel, exterminate scenario, as I'm trying to stick to some ironman rules. But it gets to the point where I've 2-3 cities expanding in one year, & this can use up to 2-3 years worth of cash...

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Just finished an ERE campaign, NEVER had a problem with big pops. Don't know why people keep obsessing over them...the 40k pop in alexandria is really no problem with a good governor(the one starting there), and a full garrison...

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Hmm... I can see I was not very clear on this point. What I meant was that the amount of buildings you can build on each level, 2k 6k etc, can´t all be built before the settlement grows into the next level. This is what I mean with outgrowing. I agree that you, in most cases, can manage with good govenors and some decent garrisoning. I rather have a 40k pop howering on 95% loyalty at max tax with 19 peasants garrisoning it than pull them out and let it rebel. It makes a ton of cash - especially Alex, amongst others.

All of theese problems; build times, training times, costs, upkeeps, growth etc would be more manageble if you could have everything instantly buildable,
then the size of your treasury would be the only and real limit.
Anyway this is the main reason why I edited the base farm levels and cut them in half for all settlements.

Another note on growth. Hang in there and eventually the city will reach its maximum level and will not grow anymore. Also, by increasing taxes and thus decreasing loyalty, still with the gov and garrison inside, you can cause slight unrest which easily can cut down your pop with some 2-4k people for a big city. Varning! Your gov might actually get killed in the process though it has never happened to me yet.

@HoreTore,
Love your nick!

IMO, markets are a TERRIBLE idea. At least if your goal is "game success" rather than "game experience." They add trivial amounts to trade income. Check the settlement details screen to see for yourself.

At higher levels, it literally takes dozens of rounds just to earn back the expense on the building. At lower levels, it takes 10-15, even in high trade provinces. Moreover, the pop bonus the trade buildings give only hurts your order/squalor, and reduces the effectiveness of a garrison.

Build ports for income, and that's it. (perhaps with the exception of provinces with two mines, then build a first level mine too) The best way to make money in this game is to pillage, and if you're spending money on markets, public health builings, etc you won't have money to train troops and build blacksmiths, temples with exp bonuses, unit buildings, and of course the units themselves.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

IMO, markets are a TERRIBLE idea. At least if your goal is "game success" rather than "game experience." They add trivial amounts to trade income. Check the settlement details screen to see for yourself.

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I build markets religiously, and always win on VH, so they can't be that bad.

The more income you get from your provinces, the bigger the army you can support.

A ten turn payback on an investment is actually quite good. Certainly better than leaving the money lying around or building junk troops. Once I have my provinces upgraded enough, I can support a constant production of high quality troops and constant loading of my building queues. Eventually, I always hit a point where my economy is no longer an issue. I can buy whatever I want. I probably can also make high quality troops in 5 or 6 cities. At that point, you go win the game.

Overpopulation simply is not that big a problem for me except in a few cities since v1.2. Moreover, in most cities for most of the game, population growth is a good thing. If you are dealing with persistent population problems throughout your empire, I think the answer is probably focusing on converting your economic muscle to military advantage (aka winning the game) faster.

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

IMO, markets are a TERRIBLE idea. At least if your goal is "game success" rather than "game experience." They add trivial amounts to trade income. Check the settlement details screen to see for yourself.

At higher levels, it literally takes dozens of rounds just to earn back the expense on the building. At lower levels, it takes 10-15, even in high trade provinces. Moreover, the pop bonus the trade buildings give only hurts your order/squalor, and reduces the effectiveness of a garrison.

Build ports for income, and that's it. (perhaps with the exception of provinces with two mines, then build a first level mine too) The best way to make money in this game is to pillage, and if you're spending money on markets, public health builings, etc you won't have money to train troops and build blacksmiths, temples with exp bonuses, unit buildings, and of course the units themselves.

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Well, markets are useful in settlements that already have good naval trade. Then combined with ports/docks they can add a lot of income.

On the other hand, in inland cities where trade is poor I usually build just trader and sometimes a market, since anything else will give trivial income. Inland cities earn more money by building some farm upgrade then markets.

Almost all of the income results from ports. Check the settlement details screen before and after adding a market. Even in the absolute best trade provinces, the amounts being added are trivial (and usually do not justify even the lowest level market building -- the trader)

10% per annum return is decent in real life; in a game world, where financial demands are, ahem, a BIT more stringent and urgent, it is simply unacceptable. (especially when the alternatives -- e.g. spending money on troops for conquest -- are so much better)

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

10% per annum return is decent in real life; in a game world, where financial demands are, ahem, a BIT more stringent and urgent, it is simply unacceptable. (especially when the alternatives -- e.g. spending money on troops for conquest -- are so much better)

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10 turn payout = 20% per annum. In perpetuity.

But I agree it irrelevant. The question is "is it the best use of your money?

I think it's a better use than ordering a low quality unit, which will drain your treasury (and on VH) not be good for much.

Going back to the original topic, if you build your economic base and focus on building high quality units. eventually you become an unstoppable juggernaut. In my experience, this happens well before almost all cities have major squalor problems.

You may be more of a blitzer than I am, and I don't doubt that can work fine too.

But if you are a blitzer, then you certainly shouldn't have a problem with squalor either.

Markets are only really good for training spies and assassins, right?

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

Almost all of the income results from ports. Check the settlement details screen before and after adding a market. Even in the absolute best trade provinces, the amounts being added are trivial (and usually do not justify even the lowest level market building -- the trader)

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Not in my oppinion. Good trade provinces with naval trade get decent boost with these buildings.

And trader itself is good everywere since early 0.5growth bonus for cheap price is not bad thing (you can always destory it if you are one of thsoe that can't stand squalor anyway).

P.S.
And 10% payoff is not bad if invested in appropriate time.
For example, if you are in situation that your income is starting to get stagnant due to high unit upkeep, but while still havibng good cash reserve, some of those 2nd hand investments can get handy.

P.P.S.
Of course inland provinces are just "criminal". You get more boost with farm upgrades (80 gold), then with market buildings.

Well, if you want foundries, academies, etc, the trade line is a requirement for these buildings.

If you want to blitz the map, and make it a game of counqering settlements instead of fighting challenging battles, then the income is probably not worth it.

However, as the saying goes, "many small rivers make one big too".

Prodigal the WRE are the Red Romans, their capital being Rome. The Purple Romans are the ERE, their capital being Constantinople.

As for defense for the WRE, the best bet is to quickly eliminate the Alemanni so as to keep the pressure down in that area a bit. After that you should try and block off any choke points around the Alps and the river near it, making it nearly impossible for anyone to travel through the Alps or skirt along the northern edge of it. After that you ought to place what you can along any bridges, or if you feel daring maybe in ambush position along what you think may be their intended invasion route. Be sure to keep a steady stream of troops going to each of these regions to ensure that any losses can be quickly replaced both in battle and afterwards.

If necessary you could try negotiating peace with the Celts and moving some or even the majority of your forces down from there to reinforce your armies even further. So long as you can manage to deal with the religious and civil strife that seems to run rampant throughout Spain you should be able to send a good deal of forces up from there once things have cooled down, along with a very nice general from there.

Most of the Hordes you'll most likely face seem to typically migrate from the east and either try and attack Ravenna or just wander northward and go through the Germanic lands for a bit.

So long as you keep a steady force in that mountainpass they'll either change direction or be forced to fight you on your terms. Simply try to ensure you ALWAYS hold the high ground, block any possible invasion routes, and do whatever is necessary to ensure the other hordes think twice after seeing the mass graves left behind of those foolish enough to have invaded before. Provided you put up enough of a fight, anything that does manage to make it through should be in for a hell of a fight against even a moderate garrison in a nearby settlement.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Well, if you want foundries, academies, etc, the trade line is a requirement for these buildings.

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I don't think so. RTW does not tend to have multiple pre-requisites.

I think the level of the governor's building is the only pre-requisite to building the same level of whatever other building.

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Originally Posted by dismal

I don't think so. RTW does not tend to have multiple pre-requisites.

I think the level of the governor's building is the only pre-requisite to building the same level of whatever other building.

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Nope trader, et al, is also a prerequisiste for many buildings, you can check this with the building browser.

rtw vanilla required each trader level building for the armor line. bi requires only the trader -- for good reason, since the other markets are not cost justified.

I really don't feel like doing the analysis over again, but I did one for rtw that, imo, applies just as much to bi. The upshot was that you'd be better off doing nothing with the money than building the market line, in virutally ALL provinces.

10%, remember, is only for the best trade provinces. And 10% means that for 10 turns you are loaning the game money. Moreover, with "inflation" that 10% is probably a real 5% (there is no "monetary" inflation in the game, but there is inflation in the sense that your income/expenses rise, so a given level of money generation is not worth nearly as much tomorrow as it is today)

Whilst it is often true that for many provinces a market wont break even for a decade or two it does provide other benefits, such as population growth which for low growth provinces can be useful.

Upgrades also have benefits in that assassins produced in cities with better trade buildings are on average higher skilled than those produced in cities with out trade upgrades.

As someone whose playing style is of a builder rather than blitzer I find markets etc useful though usually only for coastal cities.

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Originally Posted by Sleepy

Nope trader, et al, is also a prerequisiste for many buildings, you can check this with the building browser.

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Yep, you're right. It's a pre-req for the blacksmith line at least.

I guess I never noticed since I always build "trader" fast. It has a very short payback time.

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Originally Posted by dorkus

10%, remember, is only for the best trade provinces. And 10% means that for 10 turns you are loaning the game money. Moreover, with "inflation" that 10% is probably a real 5% (there is no "monetary" inflation in the game, but there is inflation in the sense that your income/expenses rise, so a given level of money generation is not worth nearly as much tomorrow as it is today)

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It's got to be better to make 10% than make 0% doing nothing with your money.

It may be that in some provinces you pay more in garrison cost or lowered tax rate because of the extra pop growth. You probably shouldn't build markets in those provinces because the return may be negative. If you wanted to really get technical on the math, you'd have to factor in a periodic abandon/exterminate event. I have the feeling the cash you raise in one of these actually pays for a lot of the cost of pop growth.

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Originally Posted by Prodigal

I'm playing the red Romans, but I think some of the comments relate to the purples, who I think are the WRE aren't they?

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Dumb, dumb, dumb...West's left right :stupido:

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Originally Posted by dismal

It's got to be better to make 10% than make 0% doing nothing with your money.

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You're doing "nothing" in the short run. The point is you save it for the expensive upgrades (town hall levels, unit buildings) that you otherwise would need to wait to build.

Multiply expected delay (if you ahd built all those markets) by the expected cost of that delay (in conquest/pillaging/defense value), and you ahve an estimate of the opportunity cost of building markets.

I made some conserative assumptions about these costs and reached the conclusion that nothing > markets.

I also took it for granted that everyone builds higher level troop buildings. (which I think is a fair assumption -- who fights with peasants? or thinks it's optimal to fight with them?)

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Originally Posted by Dorkus

I also took it for granted that everyone builds higher level troop buildings. (which I think is a fair assumption -- who fights with peasants? or thinks it's optimal to fight with them?)

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Most people concentrated on one of two major troop-producing cities in a region (as in, a large region like "Anatolia" or "Balkans") while the rest are just breadbaskets and taxpayers.

Nonetheless, your assumption relies on a "busy time" situation, which, of course, sparing money for markets won't justify. On the other hand, in "peace time" situations, those money will sit there doing nothing but corrupt the governers.

In the end, though, your assertions that market is not "as valuable as" other contructions in "game success" goals rather than "game experience" goals is fundamentally correct. Though I am an empire-builder and not in the least a warrior, so I'd probably always go for the latter.

Is there any way to know in advance what you income you will gain from markets, ports and land upgrades? Or is it just try it and see?

Dorkus and Player1, how did you get the information that you base your assessments of the profitability (or otherwise) of markets from?

Settlement details screen will have "ghost" trade icons that reflect expected future income from building. Choose to build, then check details. There will be a new trade icon, and when you mouse over it, the game will show you the new trade income from the market.

Actual trade income will vary a bit (e.g. blockades, sieges, pop growth, etc), but the details screen will give you a reasonable estimate of the value of the market for the next 20 or so rounds, assuming no drastic changes (e.g. if enemy takes over next door province, obviously dramatic change in income).

You will see that adding trade buildings adds tiny %s to trade income. Typically return on investment will not occur in 20-30 rounds. (And this is not taking into account the rather steep inflation in the game; "real" returns are thus sharply lower) The very best trade provinces (e.g. carthage, rome) will sometimes give 10% (10 turn) returns on the FIRST level building. At higher levels it might take 50-100 turns to earn back the cost of the building in lower trade provinces.

Ports in contrast usually pay their own way within a few turns. The best provinces wil earn 1k+ from a single route, meaning the port will pay for itself in < 1 turn!

Yup, they are not much use, besides being required for sanitation. Silly requirement, but it is true. But I also like the +10% happiness for the top level. Helps out my massive ERE cities.

Azi

just build mad public order buildings, and set the tax rate as high as you can. On those big cities, most of the time with high tax, you don't even get growth at all. I never had problem just by doing that.

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Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

Is there any way to know in advance what you income you will gain from markets, ports and land upgrades? Or is it just try it and see?

Dorkus and Player1, how did you get the information that you base your assessments of the profitability (or otherwise) of markets from?

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Open detailed city info scroll (or however it is called).
Do you see the transparent icons?
What happens when you add one building in the queue?
What happens when you add some other building in the queue?

Transparen icons should you future city stats after the building gets built. By moving mouse from tranparend to non-transparent icons you can see exact difference between current and future bonus.


On the other hand, blinking icons show loss in future turns. Could be good for unrest or corruption.