Money 'Issues' Leading to Corruption and other Negative Traits

[MajorFreak]

it's now 100BC in this game i'm playing that, for the first time, i know alot more about ancillaries and traits than i did before (thanks to you guys)

What's changed from my last post?
1) Byzantium has this sweet Pantheon of Ares giving +4 morale...I've pretty much made it my sole production facility, albeit on a small scale now that i have about a dozen stacks of modern infantry plus 4 small cavalry stacks (oh, and one stack of high experience pre-marius troops) and 1 stack of elite infantry. That soaks up most of my revenue so i get about 10-20k per turn surplus (that's with yearly games/races)

2) I have 4 mars production facilities, albeit without the coliseum building (i found i truly didn't need/want the lions/gladiators there specifically) just the plain arena. Since i had larissa as the artemis temple (and capital) i had thermon, thessa, corinth and athens routing troops there...absolutely amazing when you need to generate those comfy revenue sinks quickly.

3) I didn't need a temple of governing to get carnifex/magistrate so i actually got rid of any temple at bylazora...plus have a drop in revenue every once in a while helps. =) ...A general at a rowdy city is great with Physician, Herald, Orator, Satirist, Carnifex, Praetorian Guardsman, Librarian, and Elder Senator

4) speedy generals switched out the armourer for a herbalist, (Priestess of Juno, Physician, Herbalist, Chirugeon, Quartermaster, Geographer, Drillmaster, Intrepid Explorer) now that i got a temple of bendhis up north...and oh my gawd i'm using them as shuttle service for non-speedy units back and forth - really helpful for getting peasants out to frontier zones for garrison duty and depleted units back to the Ares temple for healing (keeping those stacks draining revenue)

5) there's something else about money problems: just keep sending a general into allied territory and eventually you'll get a "financial investigation" mission from the senate which will gank huge sums from money...haha one time i had a -200k deficit and loved every minute of it. lol

6) The biggest issue is preventing boredom - with almost 40 males in the family tree it's hard not to rampage with my infantry stacks. It helps that the teenagers are going for hale and hearty, plus the speedy generals who have hale and hearty are zipping around with courier duty and rebel smacking...My only shortage in ancillaries are 'soothsayers' which is keeping me occupied at the end of each turn having useless generals run away from a single rebel stack up north.

I just don't see myself getting overwhelmed with all the micromanagement now that i am no longer trying to get ancillaries by shoving them into the capital and hoping for the best...it just seems to kinda flow. The trait hunting is confined to just one city; the spies get generated from sparta and leapfrog north and end up in Tylis (which seems to generate courtesans and dancers 24/7); my speedy generals can courier, rebel smack, and act as attack generals all in one; My diplomats keep me supplied with recruits so no sweat about losing my ancillaries...i think the ironic thing about all this is i started the game wanting to make the perfect administrators - and i only have three or four, simply because i generate too much income to warrant focusing on cash cows. (a perfect administrator would be Physician, Treasurer, Elder Senator, Librarian, Oracle, Priest of Mercury, Scribe, and Freeman Clerk)


I think the main reason i try to have all my cities at Very High tax bracket is that it's the ability to lower the taxes without worrying about it, when you need that extra temporary safety valve for revenue. (which is why i avoid farms whenever possible...kinda hard to maintain yearly games/races, low garrison numbers, and an imperial city with <15k people all in one)
*shrug* I dunno...I just found that cities with large farms invariably got stuck in a situation where i was forced to use max garrison numbers and STILL need monthly games - and forced into low tax rates unless i had a perfect administer (and had to worry about keeping him incorruptible) - That and having populations balloon out of control faster than i could generate revenue sinks like army stacks.

mmmm...yah. there's something else too: It's not the cities revenue that is important as much as family number pop cap increase...I'm finding the rumor is correct on this forum about ~2 males per province gained is the max pop hardcoded. That's where my mindset is this game: hardly any academies and hardly any farms. hardest thing is resisting the temptation to BUILD EVERYTHING! just wanna click on it...just wanna click on it

[ReluctantSamurai]

yet, i found it impossible to maintain a balanced budget that way and soon enough i had corrupt and adulterous generals creating havoc in my settlements.

That's the part I quit tearing my beard out over...I just max out farms to get to the highest population possible (except for the grain bonus areas like Carthage, Memphis, etc.) and get as many cities to ZPG as possible. Cities at ZPG don't need governors. I don't even care about corruption (and sometimes corruption runs in the black!) and all that...I get decent to very good family members, regardless. Mid to late game, I look for family members with high influence to control problem cities. These are usually field veterans who have rarely seen the inside of a city. At 50 yrs. I start looking for a city that needs their influence and hand over field ancillaries and such to an up-and-comer.

nice...but how? i can't stand the interface issues when arranging troops on the battlefield in shoggie 1...and the graphics tend to glitch alot. someone found a work around?

What sort of glitches? I run WinXP and the only problem I have is that I need to Alt-Tab to exit the game. Other than that it runs smoothly. And of course the graphics are dated compared to later TW games, but I care far less for graphics than I do game-play, and an intelligent AI that can hand you your head if you get careless.

[MajorFreak]

ah, you probably don't have a nVidia graphics card then.

but...uhm...i'm a bit confused. "ZPG" = zero population growth? what's that got to do with money issues, etc? What's ZPG got to do with "don't need governors"? ohhhhhh...your whole schtick is keep young generals outta cities period, without bothering with the whole balanced budget thingy. I suppose, but why not just let the AI control the cities then?

[ReluctantSamurai]

ah, you probably don't have a nVidia graphics card then.

Correct. I have an ATI card so I guess I can't offer any solutions......

ZPG (or Zero Population Growth) eliminates one of the biggest mid-to-late game headaches...that of unrest and rebellion. If a city's population is no longer growing, then squalor, and hence unrest, come to a complete halt at that city. If it can be done without the use of a governor, so much the better...you won't be subjected to some of the nastier traits a governor can accumulate, at least when they are youngsters.

I tried letting the AI manage cities....didn't like it. I want certain buildings at a certain time...whether barracks or law & order. Can't trust the AI to recognize what's needed. And the AI never managed to get a city to ZPG in all the games I tried using it. So....I micro-manage that aspect until the majority of my cities are at that state. Browse through a few of my screenies...you'll see what I mean. The treasury for my last Brutii campaign was in excess of 4 million denarii. I posted snapshots of many of my family members to show I had far more good to excellent (IMO) members than trashed ones.

[MajorFreak]

hrmph. all i know is that some cities are still prone to unrest and rebellion with ZPG simply because of far flung empires...i swear it's the farm level that shifts it over the edge...although i'm not too sure about that: would a foreign imperial HQ produce enough unrest to outweigh max farming influence on population? remember, high population tends to make garrison size a problem once you run out of slots to add more troops. Besides, isn't squalor going to be a problem if you're alot past the 24k mark?

[ReluctantSamurai]

all i know is that some cities are still prone to unrest and rebellion with ZPG simply because of far flung empires

Distance to capital does affect unrest but if a city is at ZPG with at least 80% loyalty, it will not rebel. Some cities have a hard-coded unrest % built in...like Jerusalem (30%), Patavium (30%), and several others which I can't recall off the top of my head. There are, of course, enemy spies to deal with as these can lower loyalty. You'll notice in this screenie that the "good citizens' of Scallabis aren't exactly crazy about Carthaginian rule. However, that city has been mine for a good number of years and because of ZPG, I've never had a rebellion there:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...g?t=1293806196

i swear it's the farm level that shifts it over the edge

Farms, per se, do not directly affect unrest. They contribute to a higher growth rate, of course, which raises squalor, which contributes to unrest, but if you can ZPG the city none of that matters.

isn't squalor going to be a problem if you're alot past the 24k mark?

If you have the desired ZPG, population size doesn't matter. You've essentially frozen squalor and unrest. I've had cities over 30k that were ZPG with no rebellion in the making. Here's a screenie from a Carthaginian campaign:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/a...jpg?1293806277

I will dig up the city info for Carthage if you'd like, but given the date, and Carthage being one of those grain-bonus areas, that the population of my capital (Carthage) is well above 24k. Thanx to ZPG I have no worries about rebellion.

would a foreign imperial HQ produce enough unrest to outweigh max farming influence on population?

When you capture a foreign city, it's best to convert as many buildings to your culture as quickly as possible to reduce the culture penalty which can be sizable in many cases. If the temple is nothing that's very useful, that's always a good place to start. Tear it down and replace it with something of your own. If you capture a town soon enough, several upgrades of the governors building will help a lot. The further from your capital, the more important law & order buildings become.

[MajorFreak]

yes..."desired ZPG" is one thing...not knowing if you'll have 75%+ happiness once it reaches the actual ZPG is another. Now my question is: have you figured out which building types affect loyalty the most, or is it the level of such a building that gives it so much culture penalty?