Quote Originally Posted by Quirinus
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