Oh dear squalor...

I've had Rome: Total War for well over a year now and still I have never played with a faction fully and past probably 220 B.C. Because for some strange reason, I called the event during around 220 B.C. mass "we don't like you!”


Around the time the majority of my most developed city’s happiness would slowly starting dropping steadily. Every turn it would get more and more extreme until my tax rate had to be low. Once it was at low and still public order would drop below 80%, my cities would start rebelling. I never figured out what the reason was until recently.

Squalor.

I never knew about the "settlement details" button that can show you the many details of the settlement including the things which negatively affect public order. I just played with Carthage until my capital rebelled due to extreme squalor. I believe I had about 20 of the "mini-icons" of squalor in the settlement details which were all at 100%. Logically I thought "Oh so this was the problem! I'll just put more emphasis on sewers and public baths and it shall all go away!” Yet, squalor dropped very little. I also had the most recent "political building" such as Royal Palace or Councilor’s Chambers, yet it did little.

The R: TW veterans in the GameSpy lobby say it is most likely due to a constant and rapid population growth in a short amount of time which is causing the extreme squalor. I read Frogbeast's R: TW guide on the game and read the entire squalor section, although it didn't help much. All it mainly said was to build sanitary-positive buildings such as baths and sewers to combat squalor, and when squalor gets way too out of hand I could try moving my entire army out of the city causing instant rioting and revolt in which I could then fight the city and cut the population down enough to "calm down" squalor. I could also try deliberately infecting the city with the plague by a spy which could be a "calmer" way to combat squalor, although I hope I this isn't the only way to deal with my squalor problem.


So with that said, what can I do? I had the best sanitation building for Carthage at that time which was public baths, and it only reduces squalor by a small amount. I also had the top political building. If indeed my squalor problem is resulting in a steady fast population growth in a small amount of time which I think it is, is there any way to "exterminate" the population, or basically just, what can I do? Remember I also had very high tax rate in the city which resulted in the lowest possible population growth rate.

I really want to start a new campaign with Greece now or possibly even Julii, but what’s the point if I'm going to have the faction-wide mass squalor problem around the same time when my faction begins to develop itself. Therefore, I turn to the R: TW community for help.



P.S - On a completely different subject, when can you declare war on the other two Roman factions and the Senate when you're a Roman faction?

P.S 2 - This forum has the worst "in-between posts" time limit I've seen ever in my life of any other forum. 600 seconds is way too extreme.

Hi MrBosnia,
Unfortunately, your only resort against squalor, once you have it, is building heath buildings, as you have said. I do believe, however, that they do not actually resolve squalor and instead simply counter-act and, over time phase their good out by piling huge amounts of population upon your settlement creating a worse squalor issue. You could also upgrade the Governor's palace, yet that can make things worse in the long run too.

The best thing I find if the problem is too out of hand is abandoning the settlement and then returning to exterminate the populace. I am afraid to say that I don't think that there are any cheats to resolve this and the only way of solving it is to avoid population growth in the first place. This can be done by not upgrading farms, avoiding health buildings and temples which promote growth. Sadly this places you at a disadvantage, it will take longer to gain better military units and trade networks, so in a few provinces you could allow fast growth to gain a stronger empire.

May I also suggest that you try rebalancing the population. Simply train many units of peasants in your largest cities and disband them in your smaller ones. This migration moves men from the large city, that could do with less people in the populace, to a smaller one that requires the population to expand.

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Originally Posted by MrBosnia

P.S - On a completely different subject, when can you declare war on the other two Roman factions and the Senate when you're a Roman faction?

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Simply when your almighty popular standing gets above eight shields. However, beware, the other Roman factions can declare civil war when they get eight popularity with the people shields too. Also bear in mind that the civil war can start earlier when you do not have eight shields with the people. If you have two or less with the senate then they are quite likely to demand your faction leader's suicide - in that case, should you refuse, then the great war begins!

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Originally Posted by MrBosnia

P.S 2 - This forum has the worst "in-between posts" time limit I've seen ever in my life of any other forum. 600 seconds is way too extreme.

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Don't worry! It won't last for too much longer. You are currently a Junior Member which means you don't get the same privileges as full Members/Senior Members at this time. However, once you do become a full member, through good and sensible contributions, you can have a wonderful fifteen second flood control. If you desire more information then feel free to read the FAQ in the Entrance Hall.

Hope this helps you, cheers!

those health building only counter act those percentage to occur plague that cause by squalor:yes:

The thing with squalor is that is it the only thing that stops population growth. It is a necessary evil. The more squalor, the slower growth becomes, which although also causes unhappiness, does mean you don't have populations reaching insane levels. Things like sewers offset a portion of squalor, so growth may continue to increase. They reportedly help combat the plague too.

You're not really fighting against squalor as such - but population growth itself. You have to try and slow growth in settlements so you reach higher levels of population at a rate you can combat the side effects. So instead of building every farm and population growth boosting building, look at your settlement details scroll and see what the base rate of growth is (include also grain imports). If the base level and any grain imports gives you over 6% growth before other buildings, then adding more farms etc will cause your settlements to grow incredibly fast. The Egyptian cities of Thebes, Alexandria and Memphis are incredibly hard to maintain order in because the growth rate and grain imports are insane. You'll need full garrisons, arenas, massive temples etc just to keep public order around the 75% mark (the magic number that means you don't have riots until it falls below it). You may need to reduce tax rate too, but that makes growth increase further. It's a hard task, and yes, occasionally you feel the need to resort to allowing the city rebel then exterminate the populous.

Squalor may seem like an incredible annoyance but it is necessary, and it adds some challenge to the game. At least the Romans have the best facilities to deal with it. It's the poor barbarians that have no hope!

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Originally Posted by Omanes Alexandrapolites the Idiot

Hi MrBosnia,
Unfortunately, your only resort against squalor, once you have it, is building heath buildings, as you have said. I do believe, however, that they do not actually resolve squalor and instead simply counter-act and, over time phase their good out by piling huge amounts of population upon your settlement creating a worse squalor issue. You could also upgrade the Governor's palace, yet that can make things worse in the long run too.

The best thing I find if the problem is too out of hand is abandoning the settlement and then returning to exterminate the populace. I am afraid to say that I don't think that there are any cheats to resolve this and the only way of solving it is to avoid population growth in the first place. This can be done by not upgrading farms, avoiding health buildings and temples which promote growth. Sadly this places you at a disadvantage, it will take longer to gain better military units and trade networks, so in a few provinces you could allow fast growth to gain a stronger empire.

May I also suggest that you try rebalancing the population. Simply train many units of peasants in your largest cities and disband them in your smaller ones. This migration moves men from the large city, that could do with less people in the populace, to a smaller one that requires the population to expand.Simply when your almighty popular standing gets above eight shields. However, beware, the other Roman factions can declare civil war when they get eight popularity with the people shields too. Also bear in mind that the civil war can start earlier when you do not have eight shields with the people. If you have two or less with the senate then they are quite likely to demand your faction leader's suicide - in that case, should you refuse, then the great war begins!Don't worry! It won't last for too much longer. You are currently a Junior Member which means you don't get the same privileges as full Members/Senior Members at this time. However, once you do become a full member, through good and sensible contributions, you can have a wonderful fifteen second flood control. If you desire more information then feel free to read the FAQ in the Entrance Hall.

Hope this helps you, cheers!

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Thanks for the enlightening response. I like your migration tactic though, it could possibly help on a smaller scale. I guess letting your city revolt and quickly taking it back isn't that bad, though it will slash a bit of my popularity with the people though.

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Originally Posted by MrBosnia

...though it will slash a bit of my popularity with the people though.

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I'm not too sure, yet I don't believe that the popularity with the people is cut through the loss - it actually may cause it to increase when you recapture the rebellious home of the scoundrels - the fickle plebeians of Roma seem to love a winner!

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Originally Posted by MrBosnia

Thanks for the enlightening response.

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Your more than welcome!

I was jsut thinking, as a way to reduce squalor, once a city has rebelled, and been massacred, and there is say 5000 (in a roman city) left in population, could you take a huge number of these out as peasents, stick them in weak navies and send them to enemy infested waters?
Surely this would be easier than moving population around to another settlement, as viola, the men are gone!?

Does this work?

I have the same challenge, playing the Scippii H/H the town of Messina very quickly went from a positive money maker and troop center to a city full of very unhappy people. Natrally I attempted to to compensate by bringing in a good governor and building health buildings and lowering taxes. I finally gave up when the tax base went to -2147 golds and the people were on the edge of revolting. I was very pissed and pulled out all of my troops and let the city devour itself. Unfortunately it took 3 turns before it finally rebelled which equated to -6441 golds less. I took great pleasure in decapitating their army man for man - once I was done with their pitiful army I massacred 7000+ poeple in the city. Now 3 turns later they are making troops again and making money to the tune of 2657 golds per turn. The moral of this story - know when to hold them - know when to put them to the sword. My guess is that I will have to do this yet again before final victory is achieved. When will the "people" ever learn that the real power is a soldier who obeys every command you give them and follows it unquestioningly!!!!

Great idea Fate! I never thought of that, ah well, I am stupid afterall!

Hi Plebian#10,
It may seem good a settlement being in positives after extermination, yet it is not especially brilliant at all. Surprisingly, if a settlement is in minus figures then it is not actually losing you money at all - instead it is preventing other cities from taking the strain of your empire's expense problems! Unfortunately, in R:TW the income of each individual city is almost irrelevant as it does not represent the income that it the settlement is actually providing - this is because the income that the game calculates includes military expenditure which increases the larger the population become. Instead, I have found that the financial scroll is a much more accurate depiction of what is going on within one's empire. Should anybody desire to work out a more reliable income of a settlement then it often is best to just add up the positive side of the complex settlement details scroll and then subtract the negatives from the end result excluding military upkeep costs. Good luck with understanding this complex post which even I cannot understand, hope this helps you, good luck, cheers!

Plebian: You don't understand city income do you. Or perhaps you don't use the settlement details scroll. Because if you did, you wouldn't think slaughtering people made cities more profitable.

A highly populated city with an income of -4000 or whatever doesn't mean that settlement is losing money, and a low populated settlement with +1000 income also doesn't mean it's making more money. It's all very well explained really, but still apparently confuses everyone. Your faction's troop upkeep and family members' wages are divided up per settlement, with larger populated settlements paying proportionately more of the costs. Therefore it is very common for a 20,000+ populated settlement to have a negative income once it pays for the empire's upkeep, but it is still bringing in substantially more in taxes and so forth than some tiny populated town/city which only has to pay a tiny amount towards your army's upkeep.

The main reason to exterminate your own population is just so you don't have to worry about it for another 10 or 20 years and constantly juggle with tax rate/race/games settings. Exterminating your own people means the settlement will bring is far less per turn in taxes, plus all the other settlements need to pay more towards the upkeep of your armies, so all you've done is lost out really and spread the wage costs elsewhere.




..... I see Omanes has basically replied with the same info before I finished this message, but you can seemingly never say the same things about tax income enough it seems so I'll post it anyway.

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Originally Posted by professorspatula

Smart words about money

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Seriously? Dang, I've been wigging out over that for no reason, then.

*apologizes to people for exterminating them*:stwshame:

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Originally Posted by Omanes Alexandrapolites the Idiot

I'm not too sure, yet I don't believe that the popularity with the people is cut through the loss - it actually may cause it to increase when you recapture the rebellious home of the scoundrels - the fickle plebeians of Roma seem to love a winner!Your more than welcome!

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Which brings me to my next question:



How can you increase the popularity of your people? Is the main way by battle victories?

If one of your bigger cities shows 'negative' revenue, just open the city details and hover your mouse on the row of white 'insignia' on the bottom, and you will see there are MANY insignias depicted, and, very probably, you will realise that your supposed 'money loser' is actually paying each turn like 2000-3000 denarii for upkeep of part of your (hopefully huge) army, plus some for the wages of your family members. The bigger the city, the bigger is their 'chunk' of needed support to your marauding armies.
There is NO such thing as negative revenue from a city.
Every and ALL cities ae making positive revenues, no matter how big/small they are. The bigger they are, the bigger is their obbligation to support your army expenditures. Maybe Mediolanium is a huge city, and as such HAS TO support many, many cohorts, but, alas, it sucks at trading (no port) and, poor Mediolanium, cannot fulfill fully their duty. So what, some other city will fill the gap, one which makes so much trade revenue, to make more money per turn than it needs for THEIR chunk of support to your armies....
More people=more tax=more money. Sometimes it can be profitable to jack up the taxes (more money, less growth) and switch your arenas from yearly games to monthly games.Ideally, you will have a 24.000+ city with balanced (zero%) growth. Or bring in a better Governor, with, say some -3 to squallor and +6 to law bonus hehe..rare, but possible...with a bit of Governor DNA-engineering :)

Y.

The whole 'negative revenue' issue can be explained simply as this:

The Procurator pays a visit to your big city, Mediolanium that counts just a little above 23.000 inhabitants.

Procurator: Ave, Governor! Congratulations on your prospering city!
Governor: Ave, honorable Procurator, thank you!
Procurator: The Caesar decreeted that your big city has to contribute to the yearly expenses of our big glorius and victorius legions all around Mare Nostrum, dependant on the number of citizen you have in your city!
Governor: Me, and my city will be honored to fulfill that noble duty toward our glorius victorious legions! And what will be our yearly contribute, honorable Procurator?
Procurator: considering the size of your city, Mediolanium will have to pay 3.400 denarii per year.
Governor: Honorable Procurator, Mediolanium can generate a yearly revenue of 2.800 denarii only, from Trade, Mining, Taxes and from Agriculture. Thus, we will not be able to fully fulfill our yearly obbligation!
Procurator: Ah, how embarrassing. What you have there? A large, populous city with a revenue that doesn't reflect fully it spelndor eh?
Governor: yes, sir, we are not in position to generate as much denarii per year as we would like to, because we do not have a port.
Procurator: very well, all i can do, is to make some other city, with better yearly revenue, to pay the amount you are not able to pay. So, you pay your 2.800 denarii, and Massilia will have to pay the 600 denarii you cannot pay, plus their own yearly contribute to our glorius armies. Understand?
Governor: Yes, honorable Procurator! Thank you! Ave!
Procurator: On my way to Massilia now, ave!

Something like that hehe.
Fantasy is a wicked tool :)

Y.

Hi,

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Originally Posted by MrBosnia

How can you increase the popularity of your people? Is the main way by battle victories?

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Yep, it most certainly is! The people love anybody who can win plenty of battles. It also can help having governors with several good "popularity boosting traits" such as "Popular Hero" which are generally gained from winning epic and heroic battles! Hope this helps you, cheers!

Squalor....I often find my self wishing for a 'Set fire to City' button.

Maybe in a future expansion:hippie:

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Originally Posted by Critical Bill

Squalor....I often find my self wishing for a 'Set fire to City' button.

Maybe in a future expansion:hippie:

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Hehe, yea. Or, how about:

Insert coin and select:
1)Enslave population
2)Exterminate population
3)Raze & exterminate city

:smash:


Y.

Professorpatula and Omanes Alex are correct that massacreing a population center is not a wise thing however the question I should have asked is how do you keep a large city happy? This may not be the right place to post this question now....
As I stated, health building and temples were built which increased my population growth, financial buildings were built which increased growth a little, I lowered my taxes to keep the people in the "blue" and that increased my cities growth, I brought in my best governor, which did not increase the cities growth, and I garrisoned it with 3 town watch and 5 peasants which helped for several turns but I watched this city every turn as the city gravitated towards unhappyness due partially to squalor and higher than normal farming yields.
I understand that a negative balance in a particular city is not endemic to that city but to the empire as a whole but when all efforts are put forward to keep the people happy and they just can't stay happy it makes me angry therefore the unhappy people will suffer my wrath. I find this game to be very unpredicatable and entertaining, especially on H/H, (countless hours wasted/spent) which I love. I have nothing but positive things to say about this game - challenging - thought provoking - etc. This is just one of the things I have yet to find an acceptable solution to. Is there a possible link to a thread that may educate me on this particular subject.
BTW thanks for your inputs Professorpatula and Omanes Alex and others.

Look on your settlement details scroll and make sure when your settlement is at large level, that the garrison is giving at least 20% public order bonus. Once the pop reaches many thousands, that's the maximum bonus you can get. Keep training garrison troops so the 20% level is maintained. Also juggle with races/games setting and taxes. Sometimes it's worth increasing the frequency you hold events instead of lowering taxes because lowering taxes increases pop growth further.

If the settlement has a massive level of base growth rate and you've built lots of population growth bonus buildings and farms, it can be an incredible task trying to keep order. Some settlements are also harder to control by default, so if they are growing out of control I doubt very much you'll be able to maintain order there without some seriously decent governorship. The best governors are those with high influence and have lots of law/happiness/unrest reducing traits. Management only helps boost income (the admin part of the income info). If you have large temples that are giving growth rates, you might consider knocking them down, and replacing it with a temple that has greater happiness/law bonuses. You run the risk of a revolt in the meantime, but at least the population won't increase as fast in the future.

Also you can help your cause a little by capturing the Zeus wonder in Greece. That's a permanent +10% public order bonus.

I shall try what you suggest - thank the gods for game saves. I have won on H/H for both the Jullii and the Brutti and had similar challenges, it just seems to me that the scippi are a bit more difficult to control. I have met with some success by shifting my population from over populated cities to smaller towns thru the use of raising peasants and transfering but it takes a level of micro-management that is difficult to maintain on a regular basis. Multiple distraction factors on the home front - kids - wife equals 1 or 2 turns before my attention is required elsewhere - know what i mean? I find very easy to lose track of where I am in the game and what my intent was......Thanks for you imput Professorspatula......

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however the question I should have asked is how do you keep a large city happy

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I may have missed the bit I'm about to point out, but if not it maybe an obvious but helpful hint.

On the Settlement scroll that so usefully shows earnings and losses, health and happiness etc, it has great pics to help, the black & white face meaning you have too many buildings of a different culture - these can be fixed by upgrading anything that isn't 'Roman' for example ( or destroying what isn't needed )
Note : beware when destroying a cultural temple that you have the ability to control the population whilst you build your own temple the drop in happiness can be massive.

the cartwheel is distance to capital, and moving your capital has no big negatives, but moving it to the correct place can have huge benefits
http://bbb.unknownnet.com/rtw/bestcap.htm
is fantastic for calculating the best place

the rat / poo thing is obviously squalor

Positive one is the Golden Bell when you capture a Wonder... gives benefits relating to its relevance.

If i've forgotton to add others, please add to the list, but the point is each of these needs to be kept in check, and then your people whilst being stroppy, continuously unhappy, greedy, unforgiving populace, may , just may stop their revolt for a few more turns.

hope this helps :dizzy2:

Hi Plebian#10,
Another way of keeping a settlement satisfied is through the use of a good governor. A 5% bonus is provided per influence point, however you also have to bear in mind other factors such as Unrest and Squalor in your choice too. The best way to calculate if a governor is going to benefit the settlement's happiness then simply look at his traits and ancillaries. Then get a sheet of paper and record his statistics. For each positive point, for example +1 to law or -1 to unrest, it is best to ignore influence at this point, add 5% onto the total. For each negative point, for example +1 to unrest or +1 to squalor, then subtract 5% from the running total. Then add on straight happiness bonuses, such as +15% happiness, to the running total, followed by doing the reverse by subtracting straight happiness penalties, for example -20% to happiness. After that add on the influence which is +5% per point. If the general does, however, have ten influence add-on only 45% as that seems to be the, unfortunate, limit of which it is allowed to max up to. After that you can work out the equation to find out how good your general really is in combating unhappiness - a general in minus figures will make any situation much worse, while one in positive figures will improve it. You can then compare the results with those of other members of your family and designate them where you see fit. Hope this helps you pick the ideal governors, good luck, cheers!

Thanks Omanes Alex, apparently if I want my settlements to do what I want I have to do more home work on maintaining and running them. I know it's a cop out but damn - it just seems easier to let them revolt, massacre and rinse and repeat as necessary - LOL - but that is not a nice way to rule your population - now is it.......Thnaks agian for your tips......

Bedlam - I will check on the things you are pointing out this evening to see if this will help me manage a large city - thanks for the suggestions...

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Originally Posted by MrBosnia

Which brings me to my next question:



How can you increase the popularity of your people? Is the main way by battle victories?

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I think taking Wonders helps too, but am not sure.

Yes, I believe capturing a wonder immediately gives you the vanquisher trait (or promotes it by one). Same happens on the last battle with a faction to destroy it. i.e. Take that last settlement.

Hi again Pleblian#10,
If you require any more detailed advise on the running of your economy then this very useful guide could help you out immensely. For the guide on how to keep your population happy, and keep your funds up high, then section five may interest you. Hope it helps, cheers!

BTW, your welcome to all advise.

OK - I had to go back 10 years to try some of the ideas given to me. I captured the Zeus wonder which helped and built a law temple in Messina. I also conscripted peasants and sent them to areas that needed population and also killed a few groups of them off. I inserted the best "managing" governor in my clan and added a few more garrison troops than I had previously and I have to admit it has improved the overall happiness situation - it was touch and go for a couple of turns when the "blue" face appeared due to a spy that managed to get inside Messina, and it still is a little dicey but I think Messina will make it without a revolt. Now, however, I
have two more cities (Athens and Larissa) that are in the same situation but not nearly as bad. The control of your populations happiness could be the inverse of the level of micro management you are willing to put into the cities you control. Thanks for all of your tips and coments - it has "upped" my play level a bit.....

In addition to all that has been stated above, academies also help to contribute better management skills and positive traits for the governors that reside in those cities that have them.

I build these and upgrade them as soon as practical whenever I play a Roman faction.

:idea2: If one of you already said this i apologise as I skimread most of the thread, anyway...

What works for me is to type: ~add_population city -amount

Its a cheat (I know, I'm pathetic) but It's much more convenient than slaughtering your own city every 15 years (unless your'e into that stuff).

Note: Just like slaughtering your city, it means that the city pays less army upkeep but means other cities will pay more.

Hope this helped :2thumbsup:

Hi Moosemanmoo,
Sorry to argue your point, yet, wont that make it worse?

What most people don't seem to see: Your main trouble is your city size. How do you solve it? Fewer people.
The easiest way to do this is: no squalor-removing builings. Without them, your city doesn't grow so big. That means: Fewer units give more garrison-bonus.
You only need 24.000 people ONE time. Build the biggest governor-building and than destroy squalor-buildings. (Use good generals for this time until pop is down).

Of course, this has positive and negative (bit lower taxes) effects, but in some cities it means either rebels or only near-rebelling. :juggle2:

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Originally Posted by Omanes Alexandrapolites the Idiot

Hi Moosemanmoo,
Sorry to argue your point, yet, wont that make it worse?

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No because you can use negative amounts too.