Settlement growth

[Agent Miles]

Wealth is based on settlement size, because buildings and guilds are set to certain population thresholds. For example, mines and trade buildings can’t even be constructed until a town reaches a certain population. So the fast track to wealth is growing your settlements. You can best do this with farms, low taxes and a governor with high chivalry and also churches, town halls and trade buildings in cities.

If a settlement is a conquest, then occupy the settlement as this can increase chivalry of the conquering General/Governor which will increase population growth by .5% per point of chivalry (and will kill the least number of citizens). Always start by setting taxes to low, as this also will increase chivalry of the governor over time and directly affects population growth as well. Then build a church/mosque, as this too can increase chivalry of the Governor through traits and also adds .5% to growth for each 5% of happiness that the building causes in cities. Now, build all farms to increase population (and income). Also, if your governor is in a settlement with improved farms (+3) then this can allow the Overseer ancillary for a further bonus to farming (and mining). Trade can also add .5% to growth in cities as does the health bonus from the town hall series of buildings.

You shouldn’t have to worry with a garrison too much since taxes are low and you have a chivalrous governor. However, I construct the first guard building and keep the garrison up to the number of free “police” units allowed. Cities grow faster than citadels, so I always switch them to cities for rapid growth and switch them back when they have crossed the 9k population threshold. Remember, I believe minor cities cannot be switched, so just don’t upgrade them when they hit 6k if you want them to become fortresses. Also, don’t build things that will be lost in the transformation. Some factions don’t get a lot from citadels, so keep that in mind, too.

Whenever your settlements are upgraded, always construct those structures that increase population growth first. That way you get access to the best economic buildings and military units in the shortest amount of time. Once you have a booming population, everything else can be done more easily. Here’s the run down:

At .5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 139 turns.
At 1% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 70 turns.
At 1.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 47 turns.
At 2% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 36 turns.
At 2.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 29 turns.
At 3% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 24 turns.
At 3.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 21 turns.
At 4% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 18 turns.
At 4.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 16 turns.
At 5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 15 turns.
At 5.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 15 turns.
At 6% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 12 turns.
At 6.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 11 turns.
At 7% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 11 turns.
At 7.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 10 turns.
At 8% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 9 turns.
At 8.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 9 turns.
(I extended the table to 8.5% growth rate)
So a settlement with a starting population of 500 if left to grow at .5% would hit 1000 in 139 turns. If tweaked to grow at 5%, it would reach 32,000 in only 90 turns. The advantages are obvious

[FactionHeir]

Certainly, but note that if you build your tavern line high, you'll get bad traits for your governor, who gives a higher boost than buildings do usually.

Personally, I'd build farm+2 and town hall + church type buildings and of course wharf+market for the purpose of growing settlements quickly without causing issues with governance. Tavern towns for spawning agents usually don't get a governor.

The other thing is that town growth isn't that useful, you really want castle growth and converting both takes long and is wasteful, so just build farms in your castles with a chiv governor but at the same time, don't get the highest farms without first getting some decent unit production up either.

[Agent Miles]

Well, I certainly didn’t recommend building any taverns, but thanks for pointing that out. Often I find myself with towns that have small populations and thus cannot construct anything, so I thought it might be useful to observe how to get them to a higher level as quickly as possible.

Also, knowing the doubling rate, you can calculate whether a citadel-to-city conversion will get you that citadel upgrade more rapidly growing as a city than otherwise. If you convert a small fort to a town, build a church and farms (which won’t be lost in conversion and you should have built anyway) and station a good governor there with low taxes, more often than not, you’re going to get that upgrade faster.

For example, a fort growing at 2% takes 36 turns to double in pop., but as a town with 2.5% (factoring in just the effect of low taxes), it will double every 27 turns. If you needed the population to double twice, then you have saved 18 turns minus the actual number of turns that it took to convert to a town and then back (and you can calculate if this is going to be to your advantage, but I’m guessing that it would be). The numbers don’t lie.

Of course, if you need the lowest level units from your little fort right now, then that is a different matter. You could choose to keep one small fort while you grew a second as a town and then switch. However, to get “decent units” you will need a decent population first and there is only one best way to accomplish that. Also, in my English campaign, I rapidly grew London and Edinburgh to 9k and converted them to citadels because I knew that I could grow even Inverness into an economically viable minor city quickly. This gave me a big technological lead in a very short time.

[Alp Arlsan]

An excellent observation Agent Miles. I myself have often found myself with low population towns contributing little to my empire but a weak point. This is especially useful in the kingdoms campaigns where every settlement needs to contribute as there are so few of them. Good work.

[Agent Miles]

Thanks! Over the weekend, I got Lisbon to grow at 7%.

[AchubaNanoiaBR]

Quick question:

If I have two cities with the exactly same stats (growth, trade, public order etc), same build order and same governor, BUT... the first one always set at Low Taxes, and the second one always set at Very High taxes, at which point would the Low Taxes one bring in the same money as the Very High taxes one?

I'd appreciate if someone could answer that. I agree that is great to have a town to grow quicker to get more buildings and/or convert to castles, but I think very high taxes make more sense in the long run.

[Agent Miles]

You have to remember, that these identical cities can’t construct ports and other high income trade buildings until they reach 2k in population and they won’t attract a Merchant’s Guild to further boost trade until they reach 6k, etc. The approximately 1.5% growth bonus that the low tax city gets will cause it to reach these thresholds faster. So the difference is not just raw tax income. The city that grows faster will become a trade hub more quickly (or an arsenal as a citadel). After a city maxes out its level, then you can have very high taxes for the rest of the game.
Of course, you can calculate the number of turns you save by looking at my first post. The growth difference between 7% and 8.5% only saves you a few turns, whereas the difference between 3% and 4.5% is considerable.

P.S. If you mean, would a large population on low taxes eventually pay more than a small population on very high, the answer is probably not for a while. CA/Sierra has tweaked the tax revenue mechanism so that a city of 24k does not gain ten times what a city with 2400 gains from tax income. Instead, thousands of extra citizens probably only pay a few dozen extra florins. A Huge City will earn much more for your empire because it gets access to lots of trade buildings and possibly a Master or HQ Merchant’s Guild, not because it has lots of taxpayers. Once your city is constructing Huge Stone Walls, the population has served its purpose. At this point, you can build all of the high end structures even if the population decreases. (I actually have this situation currently in Jerusalem.)

[AchubaNanoiaBR]

That pretty much answer my question, thanks a lot Agent! Though it still is hard to avoid the "money now, pay the bill later" and not set taxes to Very High...

[anweRU]

I always aim for population growth rather than current income in the TW titles. You might constrain yourself at the start, but mid-to-late game you'll be teched up and swimming in money.

[Agent Miles]

You're welcome, AchubaNanoiaBR. It is possible to mix the two, by setting your largest settlement to very high taxes until the other settlements 'catch up' in population. However, I checked two of my settlements in Egypt last night, one with just under 8k and another with over 24k more citizens. At the same tax level, the larger city made less than 400 florins more than the much smaller settlement from taxes. It adds up, but the main advantage of a Huge City is the trade.