RTW - Game Changes Obsoleting Guide Advice

[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
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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.