A Possible Solution to Farming and Squalor

After downloading EB and seeing all the government buildings that can cut population growth couldn't you create buildings that cut population growth. I love Eb but one of my main peeves is how I'm forced to not build farms or pay with squalor/population problems. If you built a set of 5-6 buildings that cut population by .5%,1%,1.5%,2%... but are only buildable by the largest city size. This would allow you to build farms and not have the city grow like Barry Bonds head or have to exterminate the city repeatedly. Just an Idea that crossed my mind so I haven't thought of any problems with it but maybe it can help fix one problem. Peace Ez

I think one of the main issues is that a city can only have a (non-zero) minimum of a .5% increase per turn which translates to a 2% increase per year (actually more because it is cumulative) which means the population doubles after 35 years no matter what you do.

There is at least one building that decreases population growth, I'm pretty sure it's called a Colonia, but that's only a -0.5% decrease.

They have colonies taht do a -0.5. I wouldn't mind seeing the Concessios AKA Land Grants make people move out of the cities as their description suggest (reduce overcrowded cities).

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

They have colonies taht do a -0.5. I wouldn't mind seeing the Concessios AKA Land Grants make people move out of the cities as their description suggest (reduce overcrowded cities).

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Land Grants are meerly you giving permission to nobles to use that land for farming aren't they?

It might have been the Greek one but I the thing I read said something along the lines of 'to settle empty land and reduce the overcrowded city population.'

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Originally Posted by Eaglefirst

After downloading EB and seeing all the government buildings that can cut population growth couldn't you create buildings that cut population growth. I love Eb but one of my main peeves is how I'm forced to not build farms or pay with squalor/population problems. If you built a set of 5-6 buildings that cut population by .5%,1%,1.5%,2%... but are only buildable by the largest city size. This would allow you to build farms and not have the city grow like Barry Bonds head or have to exterminate the city repeatedly. Just an Idea that crossed my mind so I haven't thought of any problems with it but maybe it can help fix one problem. Peace Ez

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Could you please explain a little more your problem?

I have build some farms and have conquered cities with them and I really don't see a big issue with the population...that is after .81...with .80 it was quite harder to control population.

Higher Population = Higher Squalor.

Because population growth if compounded 4 times a year, the growth is kinda insane if you build up farming to a decent degree. Since squalor increases with population and there are only a limitted number of anti-squalor buildings, cities that get to about 24K+ start having problems...

Eventually the squalor neutralizes the growth, and even makes a negative growth penalty. I've never had a problem, so long as I keep a talanted governor around with a militia and plenty of mood-boosting buildings, and in worst case scenarios, keep the taxes down in the biggest towns.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Higher Population = Higher Squalor.

Because population growth if compounded 4 times a year, the growth is kinda insane if you build up farming to a decent degree. Since squalor increases with population and there are only a limitted number of anti-squalor buildings, cities that get to about 24K+ start having problems...

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umm I guess my question wasn't very clear. I do know about squalor, population bonuses, etc...I meant that I have not experienced a problem with it....As long as you don't build farms before the mood controlling, squalor reducing buildings. Pretty much I do what Danest does. Anyway, if population growth is giving you so much trouble why are you building farms?

Population growth has been an annoying thorn in my side since vanilla.

One note on 'land grants' and 'villas'. The land grant is kind of vaige, but the villas represent large industrial farms. In these big farms, all the small farmers have their land taken and they are forced to relocate (often to the city, causing squallor). The villas are probably then worked on by slaves and something similar to surfs.

Yeah the squalor thing is actually quite accurate, at least with the Roman faction. The switch from an agrarian to urban/idle society was a huge problem in the cities. Just take it as roleplaying. Again, at least for Rome.

How big was Alesia, anyway? Do we know for sure? Do we know if they had squalor problems like a large greek/roman city might? Would it eventually have gotten as nasty on its own, as any Roman city in real life, if it had been left alone and not conquered?

It's worth pointing out that negative growth bonuses only cancel out positive ones, they can actually create negative growth.

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Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX

It's worth pointing out that negative growth bonuses only cancel out positive ones, they can actually create negative growth.

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Sorry, did you mean to say "can" or "can't"?

I don't think there is a fundamental problem here - it is just a question of getting the right balance.

Settlements don't grow without limit. Squalor rises until an equilibrium is reached. It is up to the player to provide enough happiness infrastructure to prevent revolts. But I do agree that they grow too fast (due to 4 turn per year compounding).

We need small settlements to grow, otherwise the AI will reduce the entire map to 400 person villages.

So what is needed are increasingly negative population bonuses associated with a building complex you cannot avoid upgrading.

It would be a good thing if growth tended to drop to zero whenever you built the next level of governor's residence (starting from the 6000 level). You would then have to make a deliberate decision to build more population-boosting structures to get it moving again.

The AI never runs out of money (thanks to scripting), so it would always be able to build the next level of farms etc to get growth moving again.

Does anyone know if you can put negative population on governor's residence buildings?

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Originally Posted by Juvenal

Does anyone know if you can put negative population on governor's residence buildings?

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That seems a bit to much.

Another way to increase public order that hasn't been mentioned is the use of ancilliaries. I routinely shuffle them around to have the most effective governors inside the most disorderly settlements, and to get the best of them I usually build at least one akedemia and its upgrades per 5-8 provinces.