RTW - Game Changes Obsoleting Guide Advice

[RLucid]

Somewhere like Segestica, you won't get a chance to build temple of ceres, sewers or any such, for ages unless you do the farm upgrades because it's base fertility is so poor. It is a struggle to get it to 3% growth rate on a small starting population, with shrine of ceres alone (farming boost retainers prob are one possibility). You could get insta growth by having a governor there and in few other towns, when you go capture & enslave somewhere large like Carthage, but that pop boost is likely to be spread around as it's needed elsewhere.

There's loads of place relatively underpopulated, and not that fertile, which really can use the upgrades.

[Praetor Rick]

Somewhere like Segestica, you won't get a chance to build temple of ceres, sewers or any such, for ages unless you do the farm upgrades because it's base fertility is so poor. It is a struggle to get it to 3% growth rate on a small starting population, with shrine of ceres alone (farming boost retainers prob are one possibility). You could get insta growth by having a governor there and in few other towns, when you go capture & enslave somewhere large like Carthage, but that pop boost is likely to be spread around as it's needed elsewhere.

There's loads of place relatively underpopulated, and not that fertile, which really can use the upgrades.

True. I don't like farms, but it's quite rare that I will leave farms completely unbuilt - unless the settlement is Patavium or Carthage or something, I'll usually do at least a Land Clearance.

The thing is, a small settlement is still helpful - it generates income, albeit not all that much. It's easy to keep control even with a very small garrison. It draws enemy attacks and stalls their invasions for a turn or two, letting you muster a defensive force to drive them away.

A large settlement, on the other hand, can be an active detriment. You can often have to spend 2000 denarii per turn in garrison costs if you use peasants or town watch. Even at that, you're still not getting the full 80% garrison bonus. If things go as badly as they sometimes do, the large settlement may have a distance-to-capital penalty larger than its garrison bonus, and that's ugly. This is especially bad if the settlement has a base unrest level, or an un-fixable culture penalty from a tier 5 government building, walls, or roads. Even with up to date temples and government buildings, you may need to run games, races, or in extreme cases both, just to maintain public order, and that's more expense. In theory, it's good for recruiting advanced units, but a city like Patavium or Carthage can easily grow so fast you can't actually build much in the way of military infrastructure. In general, it's a huge pain in the neck, until the AI decides to besiege it, infiltrate a spy, or do something else to cause more unrest, and suddenly it rebels and you have an enemy city in your heartland.

In other words, as long as you have some cities that grow well, a few cities that don't grow much doesn't hurt you appreciably, even in very hard difficulty campaigns. By contrast, no matter how many cities you have with population growth under control, a city that grows so fast you can't hold it is always bad. *THAT* is the key reason why I don't like farms. That said, you have made a good case for selective farm building. The problem is, when talking rule-of-thumb style, "never build farms" is better advice than "always build farms" for most factions, and specifically for all three Roman factions, which are the only ones you can by default play without having won at least one campaign and gained (one hopes) your own understanding of population growth and why farms should be built selectively.

The best advice is to learn to understand population growth so you can judge for yourself. The problem is, if you're reading guides and looking for advice on whether something is worth building or not, you probably lack that understanding, and without that understanding, you are very likely to build more farms than you need, often enough farms to be an active detriment.

[Quirinus]

Somewhere like Segestica, you won't get a chance to build temple of ceres, sewers or any such, for ages unless you do the farm upgrades because it's base fertility is so poor. It is a struggle to get it to 3% growth rate on a small starting population, with shrine of ceres alone (farming boost retainers prob are one possibility). You could get insta growth by having a governor there and in few other towns, when you go capture & enslave somewhere large like Carthage, but that pop boost is likely to be spread around as it's needed elsewhere.

There's loads of place relatively underpopulated, and not that fertile, which really can use the upgrades.

True.... I do build one or two levels of farms in low-growth places, especially as Julii in the barbarian lands. But I never do that for Ariminium or Arretium or Massilia, if you get what I mean.

I don't understand why ppl are so focussed on "trouble" cities later in the game, at a point where their waves of expansion, must mean they're not dependant on these key cities.

Surely you can afford to write some places off to the rebel faction if necessary?

Yes..... though for role-play reasons I'd rather not have to exterminate a core city every ten years. It might be more financially viable, but it doesn't sit well with me. That's all.

You said above that "The point of avoiding farms is not 'just' to prevent mass runaway squalor later in the game--" If you're not worried about squalor, why are you not building farms? But for squalor, the size of your city after it passes 24,000 is irrelevant. It's squalor that impacts your public order.

I don't doubt that you can probably manage some cities into a no growth or slow growth pace. But there are trade-offs in doing that too. But again, why would you do that if you're not worried about squalor?

I think perhaps you are missing my point here.... I meant that runaway squalor is indeed a problem. But I don't do that just to reduce the net population growth once a city reaches 24000-- if Antioch still has 3% growth past 24000, it's going to go into the same kind of runaway squalor problem as if it had 6%, only slower. But if Antioch has 0% growth by the time it reaches 24000, you wouldn't need to worry about runaway squalor problems, and it remains a steady cash cow.

Wait, am I making sense?

I don't build farms simply to avoid the 'bad farmer' trait. I'm simply saying that if your faction member has the bad farmer trait, or worse, it will cut into your profits. You can often avoid that by building farms at the earliest opportunity. I can't speak to whether or not it's possible to get bad farmer traits when there are no farms available for construction in your governor's city. That may be. The game is quirky at times, and that may indeed be one of the quirks.

Wait.... if I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that 'Bad Farmer' traits are less likely to occur once you've built a farm? AFAIK you are only immune from it in the duration you're building a farm. Meaning, if you're building land clearance, you will be immune from getting 'Poor Farmer' for three turns. After which the 'Bad Farmer' traits have the same possibility of occuring as before you began building the farm.

I can say, I speak from experience, AKA, that I have literally starved the faction I was playing of income because, though I had markets aplenty and ports, I was avoiding farms superstitiously because I thought it would give me out-of-control squalor issues. And my income shortage was not because I had over-recruited soldiers. I am very aware of the trade income sources & benefits - from trader/markets/ports/etc., not to mention those temple series that support trade profits like Milqart, Mercury, etc. If you doubt my point, try monitoring the income/trade screen of some of your key cities and see what they are making in terms of farm profits. Or check your faction's financial summary screen for turn by turn income totals. I think you'll be surprised. It has simply been my perception that many RTW players underestimate the income contribution of farms.

I'm not doubting that farming does contribute a lot to a faction's profits, but do farming upgrades add so much to that total? IMO the extra few hundred every turn is not worth the management headaches late-game.

I was avoiding farms superstitiously because I thought it would give me out-of-control squalor issues.

Did you encounter runaway squalor later on?


I'm not saying that farm upgrades are bad per se, but as I said, there are just better, more non-permanent ways of getting population growth.

[RLucid]

But I never do that for Ariminium or Arretium or Massilia, if you get what I mean.

Yes..... though for role-play reasons I'd rather not have to exterminate a core city every ten years. It might be more financially viable, but it doesn't sit well with me. That's all.

I want to tech those up fast, and as they're very loyal (or going to convert to Roman culture and Massilia may become Capitol to aid Corduba's pacification), I'm surprised increasing the tax rates & plenty of cultural development, to turn them into cash cows later on does not suffice for Julii to keep order..

On role-play, I would consider that your larger cities are natural breeding grounds for rich, powerful "upstarts" who your faction leaders need to keep in line, when they make a bid for power, having mislead your dear people with their filthy lies, sophistry and Greek rhetoric. Making an example for all to learn from is in order, to deter future disloyalty!

Wait.... if I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that 'Bad Farmer' traits are less likely to occur once you've built a farm? AFAIK you are only immune from it in the duration you're building a farm.

No! The "Poor Farmer" trait is possible, every turn your governer does not build a possible farm upgrade. If they are built, there's a 1 shot chance of getting "Good Farmer", and then until you develop new gov. buildings making new higher tech farms available, you are safe from "Poor Farmer".

This means early in game, your governors can avoid "Poor Farmer" and then acquire it later on when you want to slow population growth, in a large town by not building productive farms and setting high taxes (using their retainer boosted influence scores to suppress rebellion).

Early in game, you actually badly want the pop. growth, particularly as Julii, to keep in touch with Brutii in time for civil war, who the senate ordered into Greece. So you have rebellion problems & senate popularity is dipping. That's civil war time, conquer Italy and heartlands of rival factions. Then mop up, to reach the target province numbers. Losing far flung towns to rebellion is not serious when it does not scupper your chances of fulfilling victory conditions. If you just don't have the ability to give up a place but emotionally hang onto them, your strategy is badly distorted. Your income can be restored by conquering (perhaps sacking somewhere else).

If rich populous areas were undesirable in the long term, then all the faction guides, would be telling you to sack & burn Greece, and then get out of there before it becomes impossibly difficult to govern. Actually they all stress, the desirability of capturing a piece of rich, populous lands.

Whilst as Julii you should snatch Carthage under noses of Scipii, most settlements are small and need economic development (which is dependent on pop growth). In those places it is sub-optimal to over worry about theoretical long term (hundreds of years later) run-away pop. explosions , as it won't happen until long after the Greek & N. African fertile centres have gone exponential. Hopefully you have a wave of conquest going collecting 50 provinces, to check the problem! They can become useful economically, once they're developed as a block, and the coastal provinces are large enough for ports.

Actually this stuff is really a problem of the Civilisation style Strategy game. It is really stooopid that technologically advanced imperialists, can't implant colony "Latifundias" into population poor fertile areas, as in reality those spaces, are exactly the places that would attract entrepenuers so long as they have some port access.

There have been games with better growth models, a successful province with growing economy tended to attract new population, somewhere poor & starving would become stable through exporting ppl to better locations, or lose population the Malthusian way; especially if a rebellion occurred.

The cause of Punic wars was due to need of Romans to have grain producing areas in Sicily. Riots & disorder were actually caused when the populations rant short of food "Bread & Circuses" is the expression.

So whilst there's a happiness bonus for pop. growth, those who refuse to feed their populations are the ones who should suffer revolts, when food imports fail for some reason eg) foreign war, trade blockade etc


Glad this discussion has got into this, as the guides are generally over-simplistic, many made unqualified statements which give a beginning player a false impression (as Guyus said).

[Quirinus]

No! The "Poor Farmer" trait is possible, every turn your governer does not build a possible farm upgrade. If they are built, there's a 1 shot chance of getting "Good Farmer", and then until you develop new gov. buildings making new higher tech farms available, you are safe from "Poor Farmer".

This means early in game, your governors can avoid "Poor Farmer" and then acquire it later on when you want to slow population growth, in a large town by not building productive farms and setting high taxes (using their retainer boosted influence scores to suppress rebellion).

Well..... that's something. The 'Poor Farmer' trait is pretty annoying, but I never thought it was so easy to prevent.....

Early in game, you actually badly want the pop. growth, particularly as Julii, to keep in touch with Brutii in time for civil war, who the senate ordered into Greece. So you have rebellion problems & senate popularity is dipping. That's civil war time, conquer Italy and heartlands of rival factions. Then mop up, to reach the target province numbers.

I dunno, I still think an argument can be made for having an easier time in the late mid-game if you keep population pressure under check. For example, Patavium could be churning out unit after fighting unit instead of constantly being sidetracked into increasing its garrison (and relieving population pressure).

If rich populous areas were undesirable in the long term, then all the faction guides, would be telling you to sack & burn Greece, and then get out of there before it becomes impossibly difficult to govern. Actually they all stress, the desirability of capturing a piece of rich, populous lands.

I think that's because, while the cities of Greece are very rich, they are so due to the extensive trade network, not because of the farming. I'm pretty sure none of the cities of Greece have more than 3% base pop. growth. And, while sacking cities might be profitable in the short term, not adopting a loot-and-move-on strategy turns them into cash cows much faster than if you had.

Whilst as Julii you should snatch Carthage under noses of Scipii, most settlements are small and need economic development (which is dependent on pop growth). In those places it is sub-optimal to over worry about theoretical long term (hundreds of years later) run-away pop. explosions , as it won't happen until long after the Greek & N. African fertile centres have gone exponential. Hopefully you have a wave of conquest going collecting 50 provinces, to check the problem! They can become useful economically, once they're developed as a block, and the coastal provinces are large enough for ports.

That's one way to play the Julii.... but I've found that building farms and sewers in the barbarian lands will turn them into a profitable hinterland fairly soon (say, within twenty years?). Of course, as a flip side, that means that, maybe fifty to eighty years into the game, even Romanised Gaul will start to face squalor problems. As the Julii, I tend not to aim for Punic Africa unless the Senate orders me there. Not because Punic Africa is unprofitable (because it is), but just because I'd prefer a more epic civil war when it breaks out. The way I used to play as the Julii, the civil war was mainly in Italy, Sicily, and maybe a little of Greece, making it almost a sideshow to, say, fighting the Egyptians. A little underwhelming, IMO.

Glad this discussion has got into this, as the guides are generally over-simplistic, many made unqualified statements which give a beginning player a false impression (as Guyus said).

True, I guess. But IMO while farms are not totally useless, there are simply better alternatives to building them more often than not. Balanced buildings just isn't a strong point in RTW-- some buildings/temples are clearly more advantageous than others, which limits strategic planning.

[RLucid]

I dunno, I still think an argument can be made for having an easier time in the late mid-game if you keep population pressure under check. For example, Patavium could be churning out unit after fighting unit instead of constantly being sidetracked into increasing its garrison (and relieving population pressure).

Multiple nearby small towns can produce peasants if you want Patavium to produce high level units. Normally I find, I don't need to produce units every turn, and act early to relieve population pressure by moving peasants from biggest towns to the small ones. I see getting Archers as significant to Julii, and then the Marian reforms, otherwise mercs can make up for army imbalances.

I think that's because, while the cities of Greece are very rich, they are so due to the extensive trade network, not because of the farming. I'm pretty sure none of the cities of Greece have more than 3% base pop. growth.

They're much faster growers than the barbarian lands, I'm pretty sure Athens is an example of high growth rate. You are not in danger of getting left behind tech-wise, if you hold this area and enslave, rather than exterminate.

That's one way to play the Julii.... but I've found that building farms and sewers in the barbarian lands will turn them into a profitable hinterland fairly soon (say, within twenty years?). Of course, as a flip side, that means that, maybe fifty to eighty years into the game, even Romanised Gaul will start to face squalor problems.

All settlement areas are "profitable" if you take them as a block, because your commitments (rebel suppression + border force) increase less, than the force needed to fight an ongoing war. Most barbarians, allow some peace, so long as you don't immediately get in the way of their objectives.

As the Julii, I tend not to aim for Punic Africa unless the Senate orders me there. Not because Punic Africa is unprofitable (because it is), but just because I'd prefer a more epic civil war when it breaks out. The way I used to play as the Julii, the civil war was mainly in Italy, Sicily, and maybe a little of Greece, making it almost a sideshow to, say, fighting the Egyptians. A little underwhelming, IMO.

So you're handicapping yourself to make the game more challenging. Optimum strategy for less experienced players, or those who want to finish game faster (as it gets boring when you have 20+ more settlements than any opposition) is to capture Carthage, and become a stronger Roman faction, rather than the backward "runt".

True, I guess. But IMO while farms are not totally useless, there are simply better alternatives to building them more often than not. Balanced buildings just isn't a strong point in RTW-- some buildings/temples are clearly more advantageous than others, which limits strategic planning.

This is exactly what Guyus and I complain about in this thread. No balance to that statment, no explanation of factors or trade-offs. Just a repetition of a point, without regard to the settlement conditions and lead to myths & game hoodoo. The points made about timing of development, and the short/medium term losses are disregarded; you've made it clear later that you're interested in deliberately spinning out the game, not everyone has that stamina.

This habit of over-simplification of farm upgrade issue, slants the guides and gives newcomers the impression that Guyus already mentioned. Someone who plays Prologue to conclusion sees the issues involved and benefit of stabilising the population, and methods of doing that, and need to plan ahead pop growth. The game, gives temporary relief of rebellion troubles in order to encourage/reward attaintment of victory conditions ie. winning civil war, and the game design is Rome TW, not Ancient Total War, so they must have tweaked things to maintain challenges throughout the long game in attempt to keep it exciting.

Some places need farm upgrades, and in others you should be wary of going beyond basic land clearance. The argument seems to be going round in circles now despite our discussion in more depth than previously seen, which is rather disappointing. I guess it's just easier slagging farm upgrades, than it is to produce a list of generally recommended settlement farm-tech levels, which permit settlement management.

As historically unrest & rebellions occur due to hunger, not plenty, I find this one of the more brain-damaged badly thought out features of the strategy game.

[Quirinus]

So you're handicapping yourself to make the game more challenging. Optimum strategy for less experienced players, or those who want to finish game faster (as it gets boring when you have 20+ more settlements than any opposition) is to capture Carthage, and become a stronger Roman faction, rather than the backward "runt".

Well, in that vein.... the optimum strategy for the Julii would be if they also take Sparta, and preferably Appollonia and/or Thermon in addition to Carthage. Then the civil war would be limited to Italy. An argument can be made for taking and defending these settlements in the early-game against non-Romans is easier than doing so against post-Marian Romans later on.

This is exactly what Guyus and I complain about in this thread. No balance to that statment, no explanation of factors or trade-offs. Just a repetition of a point, without regard to the settlement conditions and lead to myths & game hoodoo. The points made about timing of development, and the short/medium term losses are disregarded.

Repetition of a point takes two, RLucid.

Case for some buildings just being better than others: trade temples versus markets (the former -the first two tiers- provides the same trade bonus as a market, takes the same three turns to build, but also have a 10% happiness bonus that markets don't), or academies versus execution squares (both provide a similar law bonus, but academies gives more retinues). There are many other examples like this in the building roster-- some buildings are just better.

I'm not saying that it's a good thing, but if you want to discuss optimum performance, it's true. There's something to be said about looking for deep strategy where there is none.

Someone who plays Prologue to conclusion sees the issues involved and benefit of stabilising the population, and methods of doing that, and need to plan ahead pop growth.

I've not seen vastly greater additional revenue in naturally fertile provinces from farm upgrades, so as far as I can see, they're more useful in the moderately fertile regions, which can become large strong cities with sufficient growth.

Which was what I was driving at, innit? (Unless I'm misinterpreting you completely)

Some places need farm upgrades, and in others you should be wary of going beyond basic land clearance. The argument seems to be going round in circles now despite our discussion in more depth than previously seen, which is rather disappointing. I guess it's just easier slagging farm upgrades, than it is to produce a list of generally recommended settlement farm-tech levels, which permit settlement management.

Now you're attacking the person. While some places do need farms, such as the aforementioned barbarian lands, most places don't, which is the basis of my argument: that farms, in general are counter-productive. I was replying to Guyus' statement that farms are always good and that we should build farms everywhere.

I understand your point about Antioch. But I'm not sure I completely agree. Regardless of whether Antioch has a 0%, 3% or 6% growth rate after reaching 24,000 population, you're going to develop a squalor problem. You can't really stop a squalor problem from occuring. To me that's the strawman I was trying to 'knockdown' behind this whole issue. You can't really stop squalor. Even in a city like Antioch where I'm recruiting pikemen like mad, I'm still not going to completely neutralize city growth. And the continued growth eventually causes squalor. But, at the same time, squalor alone will not be what drives your city into rebellion if rebellion does happen.

As I understand it, if your population growth is at 0%, your squalor remains constant. And as Omanes and yourself noted, squalor is only one factor contributing to low public order. But runaway squalor is a problem because, as its name implies, it can get out of control.

Here's my RTW sacreligious thought: I don't worry about squalor. And the main reason? You can't fix the problem.

I agree completely. So what I'm advocating here is simply to pre-empt the problem, as far as that's possible. In my opinion, that makes the mid- to late-game more fun because I don't have to struggle with my own cities and rebels in addition to fighting the Egyptians or the Brutii or whoever I happen to be bordering.

The problem that is trying to be avoided is run-away population growth, where your means to counteract squalor, unrest and reduce population, become insufficient, leading to need to lower taxes (and increase undesirable growth or risk rebellion).

The basic problem is, that 1% of 12,000 is 120; which happens to be the large unit size for peasants, so recruiting alone cannot suppress growth in large towns with significant growth rates.

Exactly so. Even if a city of 24000 has only a modest 0.5% growth (the lowest growth above 0%), that means an extra 120 people a turn, which in effect means that, to use this method to keep the squalor down, you need to keep building peasants (assuming you're Roman) every single turn.

The problem with lowering taxes is that it's a short-term solution, as lower taxes also mean a growth bonus. Games and races as the Romans help a lot, though, I suppose.

The tiny barbarian towns, suffer increased squalor as they approach the 2,000 mark, and new public buildings are needed. It is documented somewhere in the game, manual or in Victoria, that upgrading government offices reduces squalor.

I've noticed it too! A 50% squalor was cut down to 15% after building an Imperial Palace. That was probably an extreme example (it was super-growth Patavium), but still.

If you stabilise a city at 0% growth, it looses the happiness bonus due to pop growth, and now remains roughly the same size.

The public order bonus from that, IMO, is negligible-- 10-15%?

Patavium showing +5069 on map, normal tax rate, Imperial palace. (no games)
a) Farms - 1762 - excellent harvest - crop rotation
b) Trade - 2228 - Curia, Dockyard, highways
c) Admin - 847 - have a posted governor
d) Taxes - 1308
e) squalor 100%
f) population 36,248 @ .5% growth rate

Arretium showing +4208 on map, normal tax rate, Imperial palace (monthly games)
a) Farms - 1056 - avg harvest - crop rotation
b) Trade - 2721 - forum, Dockyard, highways
c) Admin - 675 - have a posted governor
d) Taxes - 1300
e) squalor 95%
f) pop. 35,317 @ .5% growth rate

Byzantium- farm profits 1277 - crop rotation - poor harvest
Samarobriva - farm profits 768 - land clearance - avg harvest
Condate Redondum - farm profits 703 land clearance - poor harvest
Trier - farm profs 768 communal farming - avg
Mogontiacum - farms profs 768 crop rotation - avg
Juvavum - farm profs 576 communal farming - avg
Thermon - farms profs 1003 communal farming - poor

IMO the data is incomplete. What is the size of Samarobriva, Trier, Condate Redonum, Mogontiacum and Iuvavum? They are barbarian towns, are they not? Might it be that the fact that they are poor is because they are smaller than Thermon, Arretium, etc.?

Also, I think three of the settlements in this set is instructive:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Samarobriva - farm profits 768 - land clearance - avg harvest
Trier - farm profs 768 communal farming - avg
Mogontiacum - farms profs 768 crop rotation - avg

They all have average harvests, and they all have exactly the same farming income, the only variable being the farm level.


Patavium had a high base farming rate to begin with, and there was an excellent harvest while the others have average or poor harvests, so I think you'll agree with me that it's not an objective representation of the value of farm upgrades.

I would like to direct your attention to Arretium and Thermon. Thermon, on poor harvest, and a level two (?) farm, has about the same farming income as Arretium with an average harvest, and a level three (?) farm. While I'll concede that Thermon probably has a slightly higher base farming rate to begin with, the comparison is still pretty glaring.

As I previously pointed out, I'm not questioning that farming pays. It definitely does. Where I disagree with you is whether farm upgrades contribute significantly to income.

[RLucid]

Now you're attacking the person. While some places do need farms, such as the aforementioned barbarian lands, most places don't, which is the basis of my argument: that farms, in general are counter-productive. I was replying to Guyus' statement that farms are always good and that we should build farms everywhere.

I did not attack the person at all, it is wrong of you to suggest that, and your quote certainly does not support that view. You are mistaken.

What I did do was point out that folk were generalising, so thank you for finally qualifying your statement and use the "in general".

Your point, on the drawbacks of farm upgrades, has been acknowledged and understood; it has been made in many places. I have not up to now seen a more in-depth discussion, considering development factors, nor the specifics of when they're likely to be beneficial/harmful.

The point about buildings not being "equal" limiting strategy is irrelevant and erroneous, if they all were "equal", it would not matter what you build and there'd be no strategy at all, one decision would be as good as another. You need differences, for there to be meaningful decisions, and that means investigating the circumstances, which make an option beneficial. Most comments have wanted to see something as bad or good in general terms, and avoid explaining applicability as it's more time consuming to express detail.

The fact is, that farm upgrades are more useful in some places than others, and also better early in the game, to aid development. It is my view, that an optimal strategy involves sacrifices, either short term ones in return for long term gains, or long term outcome for some settlement, in return for more rapid expansion and an increase of edge over other factions.

It is wrong to ignore that element of strategy, and simply evaluation of options in terms of the long term outcome for a settlement, rather than what is best for future of the whole faction.


Where I do agree in particular with your last post is that the income increase of a farm upgrade, is less important to me, than the population growth benefit, and more ppl do increase other tax revenues (income & trade). A large part of my reason, to develop farming in an area, is to allow other enhancements. The more advanced ones, are built by me, to overcome undesirable pop. stagnation, in cities which are not prone to run-a-way.

[Guyus Germanicus]

True.... I do build one or two levels of farms in low-growth places, especially as Julii in the barbarian lands. But I never do that for Ariminium or Arretium or Massilia, if you get what I mean.

Yes..... though for role-play reasons I'd rather not have to exterminate a core city every ten years. It might be more financially viable, but it doesn't sit well with me. That's all.

I think perhaps you are missing my point here.... I meant that runaway squalor is indeed a problem. But I don't do that just to reduce the net population growth once a city reaches 24000-- if Antioch still has 3% growth past 24000, it's going to go into the same kind of runaway squalor problem as if it had 6%, only slower. But if Antioch has 0% growth by the time it reaches 24000, you wouldn't need to worry about runaway squalor problems, and it remains a steady cash cow.

Wait, am I making sense?

Wait.... if I'm understanding you correctly, are you saying that 'Bad Farmer' traits are less likely to occur once you've built a farm? AFAIK you are only immune from it in the duration you're building a farm. Meaning, if you're building land clearance, you will be immune from getting 'Poor Farmer' for three turns. After which the 'Bad Farmer' traits have the same possibility of occuring as before you began building the farm.

I'm not doubting that farming does contribute a lot to a faction's profits, but do farming upgrades add so much to that total? IMO the extra few hundred every turn is not worth the management headaches late-game.

Did you encounter runaway squalor later on?

I'm not saying that farm upgrades are bad per se, but as I said, there are just better, more non-permanent ways of getting population growth.

Sorry, I was away from the Guild for a couple days, so I just read your response to me, Quirinius. You asked several questions. I threw your entire response in quotes above to provide context for my remarks.

I can't give you a percentage or an amount for how much building farms actually contributes to profits. Wish I could. Perhaps I should study this more exactly. But, I'll just say that I used to do what you're describing in your first paragraph. I would build land clearance and communal farming for the key cities of my faction and pretty much stop at that. If I took the Julii, that usually means Ariminum and Arretium, maybe Mediolanum and Pavia (modern spelling). It's true that most of these cities will grow without goosing them with farm construction. The big three Egyptian cities are notorious for fast growth even without any farms.

I concede there are some important reasons for putting off farm building. Usually, for me, they have to do with improving the military schedule of recruitable units in a city. Crop rotation takes four turns. The larger farm options take even longer. If you're priority is to get that Army barracks built (for Triarii), or improve some other military necessity, or maybe you need the next level temple, taking turns out to build farms can be counterproductive.

I understand your point about Antioch. But I'm not sure I completely agree. Regardless of whether Antioch has a 0%, 3% or 6% growth rate after reaching 24,000 population, you're going to develop a squalor problem. You can't really stop a squalor problem from occuring. To me that's the strawman I was trying to 'knockdown' behind this whole issue. You can't really stop squalor. Even in a city like Antioch where I'm recruiting pikemen like mad, I'm still not going to completely neutralize city growth. And the continued growth eventually causes squalor. But, at the same time, squalor alone will not be what drives your city into rebellion if rebellion does happen.

If you've ever looked closely at some of your tiny Dacian or German cities whose growth has languised under 2,000 population for years of games turns, they still develop squalor problems. They won't be as big as large city squalor, but they'll still contribute to public disorder requiring additional garrison troops, or whatever.

Here's my RTW sacreligious thought: I don't worry about squalor. And the main reason? You can't fix the problem. Do some of my larger city garrisons fill up with peasants? Yes. Not completely. But I may have 4-6 peasant units plus some 'real' soldiers and a governor garrisoned to keep public disorder in check in my big cities.

Public disorder isn't an all or nothing issue and only caused by squalor. Usually there are contributing factors that coupled with squalor send your city to the disorderly edge. Distance from your capital is a huge contributor. Poor choice of temples, cultural conflict, trying to manage a huge city without a good governor. All these added to squalor are usually what cause the headache, not squalor alone.

I simply accept that later in the game my larger cities are going to have a large contigent of 'peasant police.' When your city's growth rate slows, you actually lose a contribution to good public order. High growth in a city contributes to a city's happiness. It will also bring on squalor sooner, if you're not recruiting troops heavily from that city. But the issue is not as black and white as it appears. And it's relative to the city. In fact, I would guess that even building the largest farm options will not necessarily make your squalor problem worse than what you usually experience in any given city - for reasons that are relative to the city. That probably will sound counterintuitive to some Guild members. But I believe it's true, though I haven't tested it to every extreme. I'm open to rebuttals on that if anyone has one.

Alexandria and Memphis are probably the two fastest growing cities in the game. Alexandria has been for me, when I take it with Carthage, the Greeks, or the Scipii, one of those rare close to unmanageable cities. Once I literally filled every available garrison space with peasants except for the governor. The only thing that kept it from going over the edge was moving my capital from Messana to Sparta. It was squalor PLUS distance from capital that was causing the problem.

I'll concede, having a lot of large cities with large garrisons of peasants, with the tax rates set at normal or low, looks ugly. But it works. [Keep in mind, too, that three units of peasants @ a carrying cost of 100 denarii per turn is still less than one Praetorian cohort @ 320 denarii.] I know many guild veterans have practised the rebellion-exterminate techinque to subdue squalor ridden cities suffering from bigtime public disorder. I can honestly say, I've never practised that as a game habit. I know the technique works. And I've read the testimonies from some serious RTW players I respect in the Guild. And I'm sure they could beat me in game play any day of the week. But I don't exteminate my own cities as a method of city management.

The worst city management problems I've experienced in RTW have always come from huge cities sitting on the outer edges of my faction's territory.

Sometimes squalor fixes itself. My city will develop a plague and thousands of my citizens will die, reducing my public order problem by default.

I used to worry that squalor was going to drive my cities to rebellion. But rebellion doesn't really happen that often. If you keep your admin buildings and temples current, build the city plumbing/water works when needed, keep the city well-garrisoned and provide a resonably good governor, you shouldn't see rebellions often. In my case, I don't see them much at all.

If the city I'm trying to conquer is too far from my capital to ever be managed reasonably, I simply don't go after it. Some players may find that an unacceptable constraint on their gameplay. But let me just pose the question: do you really thing the Julii or Carthage could occupy & manage the city of Seleucus without public order problems given the limitations of where your faction's capital can be reasonably located?

So, you ask, do I encounter 'runaway' squalor later on?

I encounter squalor. Lots of it. My cities' growth slows to nothing sometimes. I recruit lots of peasants to keep my garrison percentage as high as workable. I build every public works, temple, admin bldging requisite to the cause. I seldom see rebellions. I'm seldom broke. And I can recruit the best units in my faction. I guess my perception of farms and squalor are different than they used to be. Squalor is annoying, but I don't try to 'fix' it.

I build farms mainly to contribute to my income. Sorry this was so long winded. Best wishes, Guyus

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I can't give you a percentage or an amount for how much building farms actually contributes to profits. Wish I could.

Perhaps I should study this more exactly. But, I'll just say that I used to do what you're describing in your first paragraph. I would build land clearance and communal farming for the key cities of my faction and pretty much stop at that. If I took the Julii, that usually means Ariminum and Arretium, maybe Mediolanum and Pavia (modern spelling). It's true that most of these cities will grow without goosing them with farm construction. The big three Egyptian cities are notorious for fast growth even without any farms.

This factor is proportional to the farming base rate - the higher the rate, the larger the profit. Also, as you've said, squalor is going to end up being at its worst in these settlements, making the most profitable locations for them the places where for happiness's sake construction of them should be avoided.

I concede there are some important reasons for putting off farm building. Usually, for me, they have to do with improving the military schedule of recruitable units in a city. Crop rotation takes four turns. The larger farm options take even longer. If you're priority is to get that Army barracks built (for Triarii), or improve some other military necessity, or maybe you need the next level temple, taking turns out to build farms can be counterproductive.

That's pretty much true for any building - essentially the player has to prioritise constructions for anything. I prefer to do it on economic, military and happiness benefits as described in the settlement details scroll.

Public disorder isn't an all or nothing issue and only caused by squalor. Usually there are contributing factors that coupled with squalor send your city to the disorderly edge. Distance from your capital is a huge contributor. Poor choice of temples, cultural conflict, trying to manage a huge city without a good governor. All these added to squalor are usually what cause the headache, not squalor alone.

That was essentially what I was trying to state earlier, although really only mentioning distance to capital penalty considering that it, along with squalor, is the other big scourge of R:TW empire building. Squalor alone is a small/possibly insignificant annoyance and can easily be counteracted through happiness buildings - coupled with other factors it's an unstoppable force.

I simply accept that later in the game my larger cities are going to have a large contigent of 'peasant police.' When your city's growth rate slows, you actually lose a contribution to good public order. High growth in a city contributes to a city's happiness. It will also bring on squalor sooner, if you're not recruiting troops heavily from that city.

A tactic I frequently use with oversized cities is mass training of peasants and then sending them off into suicide battles or out into pirate infested waters.

Another option though is population distribution. To assist smaller cities in gaining a one off boost to the next level, I occasionally disband these peasants in my own territories (disbanded units add to the nearest town's population).

But the issue is not as black and white as it appears. And it's relative to the city. In fact, I would guess that even building the largest farm options will not necessarily make your squalor problem worse than what you usually experience in any given city - for reasons that are relative to the city. That probably will sound counterintuitive to some Guild members. But I believe it's true, though I haven't tested it to every extreme. I'm open to rebuttals on that if anyone has one.

Sorry, but I have to disagree there.

From my perspective, every city level can support a certain level of population without/a low level of squalor. The further it grows beyond that level, then the more squalor will increase. This continues until squalor gets to a stage where it begins to counteract growth bonuses. This can often result in a decrease or conclusion of growth in the population.

This, without player intervention, enters a vicious circle - the populace drops in number, so squalor goes away. With less squalor the populace increases again, resulting in a drop in the number of settlement inhabitants, resulting in squalor levels dropping e.c.t.

With a higher level of growth bonuses, through building constructions such as farms, the populace is able to grow larger. This results in a higher levels of squalor appearing before it can then counteract itself.

Do bear in mind that squalor, like distance to capital penalty, caps at 80% and cannot go any higher than that figure.

[RLucid]

Regardless of whether Antioch has a 0%, 3% or 6% growth rate after reaching 24,000 population, you're going to develop a squalor problem. You can't really stop a squalor problem from occuring. To me that's the strawman I was trying to 'knockdown' behind this whole issue. You can't really stop squalor
....
If you've ever looked closely at some of your tiny Dacian or German cities whose growth has languised under 2,000 population for years of games turns, they still develop squalor problems. They won't be as big as large city squalor, but they'll still contribute to public disorder requiring additional garrison troops, or whatever.

If you stabilise a city at 0% growth, it looses the happiness bonus due to pop growth, and now remains roughly the same size. The squalor, does not I think increase in this situation, the city conditions stay the same, unless you build some upgrade or alter tax policy.

The tiny barbarian towns, suffer increased squalor as they approach the 2,000 mark, and new public buildings are needed. It is documented somewhere in the game, manual or in Victoria, that upgrading government offices reduces squalor.

The problem that is trying to be avoided is run-away population growth, where your means to counteract squalor, unrest and reduce population, become insufficient, leading to need to lower taxes (and increase undesirable growth or risk rebellion).

The basic problem is, that 1% of 12,000 is 120; which happens to be the large unit size for peasants, so recruiting alone cannot suppress growth in large towns with significant growth rates.

Those focussed on later on in game, building their empire more slowly, have to avoid early population growth, or important chunks of their empire will become very difficult to manage, reducing their finances & combat effectiveness later on. Those aggressively expansionist, probably want strong early game pop. growth to tech up, and then are willing to rely on capturing new territories, and reconquering rebellious cities later on.

The basic land clearance, seems to add about 70dn per turn, and gives a pop growth bonus, similar to trader or market upgrades. Sometimes it's a little higher. I've not seen vastly greater additional revenue in naturally fertile provinces from farm upgrades, so as far as I can see, they're more useful in the moderately fertile regions, which can become large strong cities with sufficient growth. The small slow growers, I try to get past 2,000 for port enhancementss etc, but not worry after that, as they have enough development to be worthwhile, but will never become a key city.

[Guyus Germanicus]

I have to laugh . . . our conversation on this thread has probably ceased to be interesting to anyone not participating in it.

Let me approach my point (build farms for profit) from a slightly different direction. Most of us, if after our army takes a city like Narbo, will not hesitate to build mines at our first opportunity. First level mines yield +200 denarii per turn for the entire game. They never vary. If you build the second level mines, you add another +150 denarii per turn to the city's profitability. I believe even your most basic farm upgrade yields more money than a mine.

I just finished a game with the Julii. I hold 55 regions. Here's a snap picture of the economic state of some of my cities on the last turn:

Patavium showing +5069 on map, normal tax rate, Imperial palace. (no games)
a) Farms - 1762 - excellent harvest - crop rotation
b) Trade - 2228 - Curia, Dockyard, highways
c) Admin - 847 - have a posted governor
d) Taxes - 1308
e) squalor 100%
f) population 36,248 @ .5% growth rate

Arretium showing +4208 on map, normal tax rate, Imperial palace (monthly games)
a) Farms - 1056 - avg harvest - crop rotation
b) Trade - 2721 - forum, Dockyard, highways
c) Admin - 675 - have a posted governor
d) Taxes - 1300
e) squalor 95%
f) pop. 35,317 @ .5% growth rate

Byzantium- farm profits 1277 - crop rotation - poor harvest
Samarobriva - farm profits 768 - land clearance - avg harvest
Condate Redondum - farm profits 703 land clearance - poor harvest
Trier - farm profs 768 communal farming - avg
Mogontiacum - farms profs 768 crop rotation - avg
Juvavum - farm profs 576 communal farming - avg
Thermon - farms profs 1003 communal farming - poor

Final account screen of Julii credits:

Farm profits 50,000 denarii
Mine profits 7,373 "
Trade profits 71,689 "
Taxes 70,142 "

Just for grins, I went back to an old unfinished Seleucid game to look at Alexandria. I had just captured Alexandria a couple turns previous to this point. It was yielding 1,382 denarii profits from farming on Land Clearance(!). It was an average harvest. Keep in mind, the Seleucids have the Hanging Gardens wonder which increase farm profits.

Farms pay, guys. That it doesn't pay is what I think is the misperception from the early game guides. And you'll notice from my small selection of cities - there is a wide disparity in farm profits given the same levels of development with same or different levels of seasonal performance.

My conclusion is that it would be difficult to come to hard and fast rules about how farms perform in any given city without knowing the program code of the game. Some areas are more fertile than others, certainly. So the 70 denarii avg figure offered above for land clearance is probably not fair.

Second level mines yield 350 denarii per turn forever. In my examples above all my second level farms are yielding nearly twice than that.

And here's another small can of worms I'll open - I think building highways pays too in both trade profits and military movement speed between cities - (especially if you are the Juli with your Pentagram cities of Segesta, Mediolanum, Patavium, Arretium and Ariminium.)

It's all about perception, this issue. If building farms makes you uncomfortable about squalor and public order, we tend not to build them. But the consequences to your pocket book are real.

I love this game.

[RLucid]

A basic upgrade increases farm profits by a fairly small amount in my experience. However the population grows to, which also increases taxes (& probably trade). Your 0.5% growth rate in Patavium, matches what I've seen, it stabilises without revolution for Julii.

But these large town issues, may be more of a problem for barbarian factions, which have fewer "civilisation" options to reduce unrest.

Loss of revenue due to a rebellion, appears less important to me, when you have a very large number of provinces, so struggle to understand why so many guide posters have been so single minded to avoid it.