RTW - Game Changes Obsoleting Guide Advice

[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.