Population Loyalty

[feelotraveller]

I've recently started playing RTW. I've been trying to keep my population loyalty at 100%+ but I'm starting to wonder if this is ideal as I've been copping some nasty traits (e.g. Bad Taxman). Can I safely run my cities with less than 100% loyalty?

Love to hear what the experienced players think, and the pros and cons if it's not a cut and dried issue.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Can I safely run my cities with less than 100% loyalty?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is...well...longer

The loyalty issue is closely tied to city growth and squalor. The biggest ingredient for all three is achieving ZPG, or Zero Population Growth. You may have trouble with loyalty long before you want a city to stop growing, it's true. Those cases usually involve a hefty distance-to-capital penalty or culture penalty, or both. In that case, you need to have a governor with high influence....doesn't matter (most of the time) what other traits he might have, good or bad. It's influence that has the greatest effect on loyalty.

For ways to get to ZPG, take a look at the "Really Need Help in this Game" topic. There are some in-depth discussions on how to do it, along with some screenies demonstrating the results. There is also an excellent discussion in the Ludus Magna concerning the effects of garrison on population loyalty. I highly recommend you read it.

Bear in mind that several cities have a built-in unrest number that is hard-coded for any faction other than the original owner. Jerusalem, Tarsus, and Patavium all have a 30% unrest built-in. A bit more detail on your game might lend itself to more suggestions. Screenies would be a bonus, but not necessary.

[feelotraveller]

The short answer is yes. The long answer is...well...longer

Many thanks. I was trying to keep loyalty at about 100-120% ala STW or MTW. Wish 100% loyalty meant, well, 100% loyalty, sigh.

I was playing an easy/easy game as my first imperial campaign but it was just letting me get away with absolute stupidity (guess that's why they call it easy!). Work intruded for a while but I'm about to start a normal/normal Julii game 1.5 with bugfixer implemented. I'll get back to you on the ZPG stuff, I'm not convinced (yet, anyways) that that is ideal. Cheers.

[Guyus Germanicus]

Many thanks. I was trying to keep loyalty at about 100-120% ala STW or MTW. Wish 100% loyalty meant, well, 100% loyalty, sigh.

I was playing an easy/easy game as my first imperial campaign but it was just letting me get away with absolute stupidity (guess that's why they call it easy!). Work intruded for a while but I'm about to start a normal/normal Julii game 1.5 with bugfixer implemented. I'll get back to you on the ZPG stuff, I'm not convinced (yet, anyways) that that is ideal. Cheers.

Nothing wrong with playing easy/easy. I usually play normal/normal myself. :)

I try to keep public order above 100%, myself, but there are lots of mitigating factors in managing your cities. One is - distance from capital. Another is squalor as our illustrious colleague reluctantsamurai shared. When those two dynamics work on your governor's administration, he doesn't have much in the way of alternatives but to lower the tax rate to keep the citizens happy. There comes a point in the city's growth when you simply can't add enough soldiers to the garrison to keep the 'public order due to garrison' running at its maximum of 80%. I've done some experimenting too and discovered that the cost of keeping a large garrison of peasants in your big city in an attempt to keep your tax rate higher is more costly than keeping a bear minimum of a garrison at the lowest tax rate. Peasants, I've found, are the best unit for garrisoning your cities. They're cheap to recruit and nearly the cheapest unit to maintain. But a garrison of 15 Roman peasant units is still going to run you 1500 denarii in carrying costs per turn; while the difference between a low tax rate and a normal tax rate may only be a few hundred denarii. So if I disbanded 8 peasant units lightening my carrying costs by 800 denarii per turn and lowered my tax rate to low, losing maybe 300-400 denarii with the lower rate, I could still end up with a net gain in my bottomline. There are trade offs, and you have to decide if its better to try to squeeze out a slightly higher tax rate with a large peasant garrison, or just blow it off and run the city with a tiny peasant garrison and just keep the tax rate low.

Managing cities far from your capital are the greatest challenge in this department. When playing the Julii, Cordoba is a pain. I can keep the city from rioting, but my governor is likely to develop bad traits as a taxman. This, alas, is unavoidable.

You do what you can - Build a public order friendly temple series. Build an arena or circus so you can schedule games or races and then crank up the frequency of races. Take one of your better administrators among your faction members and post him in the troublesome city. The trouble with games and races is cost. Each time you crank up the frequency of your entertainment, it costs you 400 denarii. Again, trade offs - sometimes its less expensive to lower your tax rate a notch and keep the frequency of games the same. The only time I crank up the frequency of games or races is when my city's public order is getting out of control and I need to quell the spirits of the mob with entertainment. It's more true to life than we'd like to admit, eh? ;) Public health buildings are a good source of public order support too. But they also make the city growth faster too which increases squalor a bit. As Master Samurai pointed out - its then that you want to find that point of zero poopulation (pun?) growth for your city. Every city will eventually reach an equilibrium point where squalor cancels out the combined growth benefit of farms, health buildings, temple series, and trade buildings. Once it does, squalor stops increasing, and public disorder issues from squalor stop increasing. Bingo! Homeostasis!

Culture conflict is another bugaboo in public order. In conquered cities you can reduce the culture conflict by replacing the foreign buildings with your own. Of course, you get a big boost in resolving the culture conflict once you build a new admin building (governor's mansion, proconsul's palace, etc) replacing the old admin bldg from the previous faction. That often means as much as 25% improvement in your public order. The rest of the culture conflict will disappear once you get rid of all but one or two of the older culture's buildings in your settlement. By that time, however, a new bugaboo will likely surface, called squalor. :)

Then there are the temple trade offs (heeheehee). Let's say you're playing the Brutii and you've captured Sparta. Do you knock down the Greek temple of Nike and forego gaining the experience chevrons for the units you recruit there in order to build your own temple and get the maximum public order benefit? You get the picture, I'm sure. I like keeping some foreign temples around for awhile to get their benefits. If later they become a pain and I can compensate for the loss of their benefit in some other way, then I knock them down and build my own.

As our friend RS said, the long answer is . . . longer. And I could go on, but this shoould do you for now. And Welcome Aboard!!

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'll get back to you on the ZPG stuff, I'm not convinced (yet, anyways) that that is ideal.

You will change your tune after you've played enough....trust me on that one

Seriously, take a look at the screenies for the Carthage campaign I posted in the above mentioned thread. My active fronts are in far away Italy and Greece when compared to Iberia, which was conquered some time before. I had no need for any of those cites, so ZPG was definitely in order. Look at Scallabis. 80% loyalty was all I could manage there with my capital still in Carthage......but it's enough because the population isn't growing anymore.

Certainly when you are trying to get to higher levels of development for cities, ZPG is definitely not a welcome thing. In fact, some cities need all the farms, growth temples, and governors with growth traits and/or ancillaries that you can get. Sparta or Rhodes are prime examples, though there are others. Sparta seems to 'hit the wall' at around 22.5k or so. You can certainly pump in 1.5k worth of peasants and disband them, but upon reaching 24k you will immediately suffer a huge negative growth rate and invite the spectre of plague...and then you gotta start all over again, not to mention all the expense and hassle.

Making a big deal out of ZPG will eventually come into play when you reach 24k and build the top level of governing building. Now what? Futher growth brings no further benefits, but quite the opposite....squalor, unrest, etc. So get the population to stop growing and you stop your unrest troubles. It's a much easier solution than regularly moving your garrison out, besieging it when it rebels, and then exterminating the population upon recapture. I would highly recommend you don't do this for a Roman city, where that faction is still in the game unless you feel you can win a battle against elite Urban Cohorts and a whole host of others.

After you get the hang of inducing ZPG, you'll see it's the easier, and more profitable way to go ;-)

[Guyus Germanicus]

You will change your tune after you've played enough....trust me on that one


Certainly when you are trying to get to higher levels of development for cities, ZPG is definitely not a welcome thing. In fact, some cities need all the farms, growth temples, and governors with growth traits and/or ancillaries that you can get. Sparta or Rhodes are prime examples, though there are others. Sparta seems to 'hit the wall' at around 22.5k or so. You can certainly pump in 1.5k worth of peasants and disband them, but upon reaching 24k you will immediately suffer a huge negative growth rate and invite the spectre of plague...and then you gotta start all over again, not to mention all the expense and hassle.

Capua is an annnoying slow grower when you play the Scipii, and the Skippys only have two cities capable of instigating the Marius event - Capua and Messana. So you need to goose their growth any way you can. With Messina (Messana) it's difficult because you're recruiting a lot from that city if you choose to build a temple of Vulcan series there. Capua starts hitting its wall @ 17,000 to 20,000, sometimes even earlier. Having a helpful governor is key. You can help things out by not recruiting much from the city and building the public health buildings like sewers and public baths. I found another thing that helped me - Carthaginian temples of Tanit. I kept the temple of Tanit at Thapsus and made a habit of sending some of my more promising faction members there to governor the city for several turns until they acquired the traits of grower and farmer. Once they acquire those traits you can send them back to govern your more slow growing cities. Two key advantages accrue to your doing this - they help cities with their farm output profitability and growth ANNND . .. when you station them in other cities where your priority is to concentrate on the construction of military buildings, you can skip the usual 'interval' need to build farms, to avoid giving them a bad farming trait because they already have a good farm trait. They become immune to the bad trait. So bottomline is - don't be too quick to tear down foreign temples that promote farm production.

R-Samurai makes an important point about the 'let the city rebel - retake it- then exterminate the population' technique that some players use to deal with their large cities that are becoming public order pains in the arse. When you let a city rebel, there is no telling what the AI will do in terms of the kind of rebel garrison it bequeaths to the city. I've seen stacks of anywhere from 8 to 12 to 15 units of rebels in these cities. And they're not always weak units. sometimes they'll be peasants with gold swords and shields, somtimes militia hoplites, sometimes primo galdiators with the best armor. If you've ever noticed - there's a difference between Roman peasants and barbarian peasant units. the barbarian peasants are significantly better soldiers. Give them improved armor, and they're a real pain to deal with. So this technique is a less than perfect solution.

[Sabazios]

Easiest way to let Capua reach 24k population is when you besiege an enemy city, move all your governors out of your cities except the city you want to grow. Now capture the besieged settlement and enslave that populaton. The slaves will be divided among all your governed settlements. But since you moved out your FM's from all cities except in this case Capua, Capua will get an immense population boost. Simply move your FM's back in the other cities and you are done.

[ReluctantSamurai]

That's a method I don't ever use because I never enslave. If I need time to convert a new conquest, I usually just exterminate.

It is, however, a very viable way to get population into a 'slow grower'. I wonder, though, if importing slaves has the same effect as moving peasants in and disbanding them? Most of the time, you get a huge negative growth factor and increase squalor to the point of risking plague. You have to have a base growth factor like farms and such to stay away from negative growth.

[Guyus Germanicus]

I tend to do what R-Samurai does. I have used the enslavement option. It works well for me in some contexts. But that kind of growth comes in fits and starts depending on your conquests, and its spread around to many cities, not necessarily the ones you want. It's a temporary measure. The steady growth pattern from your buildings and farms keeps the growth consistent. Of course, I'm not beneath the peasant transfer & disband technique. But that can also be expensive if money is tight. I have occasionally done that, however, when playing the Seleucids and the Greeks. Recruiting heavily from Antioch slows its growth way down. So grabbing a few peasants from Damascus, Tarsus or Sidon helps prevent that natural growth lag from recruitment. I do the same with Sparta when playing the Greeks. Sparta can be stubborn in the growth department as someone has already mentioned. And you want to get them over the 12k threshold so you can build the army barracks that will yield Spartan hoplites. Recruiting peasants from Corinth works nicely since I don't need Corinth for military development. Athens, however, I want to grow (usually) because I develop it for economic pruposes. Stealing peasants from them to release at Sparta is counter-productive to my goals. With Sparta, too, you're torn about building choices. I need soldiers with the extras like experience chevrons. If I concentrate on farms and health buildings, my military buildings get delayed and I don't get the advanced troops with the chevrons. So . . . I steal peasants from Corinth. :)

I tend to use exterminate more often on captured settlements. As R-S mentioned above, it buys me time for development and gives me a quick jolt of cash for the treasury.

[Sabazios]

That's a method I don't ever use because I never enslave. If I need time to convert a new conquest, I usually just exterminate.

It is, however, a very viable way to get population into a 'slow grower'. I wonder, though, if importing slaves has the same effect as moving peasants in and disbanding them? Most of the time, you get a huge negative growth factor and increase squalor to the point of risking plague. You have to have a base growth factor like farms and such to stay away from negative growth.

Yes, enslaving sometimes gives negative poulation growth. But in the case of reaching 24k its much faster and cheaper than moving peasants. For example in the case of Capua (which tends to be my main training city playing as the Scipii) growth will stall around 20.000, then it will take 40 units of peasants for next tier! I generally use enslaving for reaching Marian reforms or as population boosts for cities which need thousands of extra inhabitants for the next builiding tier and no (usefull) building are left to be built. For smaller settlements (reaching 2000) I often move peasants around.

Sometimes enslaving will even get your FM a nice anciliary to, like civilized slave or something.

About the negative population growth because of squalor, well when my city reached 24k, I dont mind a negative population growth as it makes keeping order easier. This also gets me back on the first post: I usually try to keep public order at 85%. When i really need money, 75% or even 70% will do for some turns. ;)

[MajorFreak]

silly people. just let the city revolt and have a handy army standing around whistling dixie, then slay them all using exterminate. maybe do that a couple times in a row. lol. no more loyalty problem if you have 1000 people in a imperial city. lolz [/sadistic twit]

[ReluctantSamurai]

silly people. just let the city revolt and have a handy army standing around whistling dixie, then slay them all using exterminate.

That hurts your treasury in the long run. More people=more taxes, so killing them to reduce unrest and squalor reduces income. I used to keep an army expressly dedicated to going from one city to the next doing just that. (Of course it didn't take long to acquire the "Butcher" trait ) I hate the whole siege mentality of RTW anyways, so that's when I began looking for another solution. Better to achieve ZPG wherever possible so extermination becomes totally unnecessary.

Also, if you are considering a Roman city, and the original Roman faction is still alive, you will more than likely be facing all sorts of nasty things like Praetorian and/or Urban cohorts with a bunch of exp chevrons and advanced weapon and armor upgrades. I lost an elite army and my best 10-star general to this once. Never let it happen again, after that....

[MajorFreak]

yup...doing pretty good with the whole ZPG thing this time around. Makes late game play alot less boring and formulaic...although i do purposely have a city set up for rioting just for carnifex and the whole fun "Sparticus!" feeling.

[ReluctantSamurai]

just for carnifex and the whole fun "Sparticus!" feeling.