Advice need - 15 questions

[TheLastDays]

The above post explains most of your questions very well, just a few clarifications:

Town income:
The numbers you see displayed under the town model on the strategy map relly are misleading, because not only is income of bigger towns naturally higher but military upkeep is scaled to city size.
That means a huge city will pay for a significantly larger amount of your forces and this is measured into the stratmap numbers you see.

A very much simplified example:
Town A has size 10 and income 1000, since it has only size 10, it pays 50 for your regular troop upkeep
Your largest town, town B, has size 1000 and income 10000, nut since it is your biggest town, it pays for the majority of your forces, so let's say it pays 9.500 per turn
1000-50=950
10000-9.500=500
Stratmap Numbers: Town A: 950, Town B: 500
So sometimes in this engine it looks like a bigger town even has less income than a small town but in fact that's not the case

Battle Difficulty:
Unfortunately auto-resolve is governed by campaign difficulty not battle difficulty and therefore is rarely a good solution when playing on VH

[Jurand]

Thanks a lot for this info, athanaric and TheLastDays - it helps

I might have been not clear enough, so just some more words:

Cities’ income: I knew that the number under the town model on the strategy map misleading and I didn’t mean it. I meant the numbers you can see in the city scroll – trade, taxes, mining. If you look at them the income of a big city is still very small compared to the income of a small town.
What I am relly interested in is: what is (if any) the link between
• population and farming income
• population and tax income
• population and trade
or cities have defined numbers for above and you can increase it only through buildings?

Some outstanding questions – maybe somebody other will know:
1.2 Cavalry charge: How quickly does the “charge bonus” dissipate - 5 seconds? Ergo: when should I order a unit to withdraw after the charge? Or maybe I can see some graphical effects?
2.2 Friendly fire: so you never put slingers behind a line of infantry? You put them in front?
4.1 Hiding in the woods: Assume that my units hide in a wood and I want them to go through the woods to encircle the AI troops. Will the AI spot this move instantly, or only from a close distance? Does it differ for cavalry and infantry?
6.1. Government bonuses: Where can I read what are the benefits of different govt buildings? In this thread somebody presented SPQR/Seboz/Makedon – where can I find this data?
6.2. Where can I read about relationships: loyalty <> public order <> happiness?

[vollorix]

Government bonuses, as all other buildings features, can be found in EDB ( export_describe_buildings.text ).

[Taedius]

1.2: The number I've seen is 5-10 seconds, to ensure that every horse has stopped charging.
2.2: Yes, slingers should not have friendly units in front of them when shooting.
4.1: Only units that are sitting still are hiding. Once they move, they're spotted. If you can get them behind hills, it's a different story (at least enemies behind hills tend to be invisible to me), but that's not an option on most maps. Too few hills around.

Edit: For more info the cavalry charge, and the use of cavalry in general, see Ibrahims excellent guide:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...-using-cavalry..

[TheLastDays]

Thanks a lot for this info, athanaric and TheLastDays - it helps

I might have been not clear enough, so just some more words:

Cities’ income: I knew that the number under the town model on the strategy map misleading and I didn’t mean it. I meant the numbers you can see in the city scroll – trade, taxes, mining. If you look at them the income of a big city is still very small compared to the income of a small town.
What I am relly interested in is: what is (if any) the link between
• population and farming income
• population and tax income
• population and trade
or cities have defined numbers for above and you can increase it only through buildings?

Some outstanding questions – maybe somebody other will know:
1.2 Cavalry charge: How quickly does the “charge bonus” dissipate - 5 seconds? Ergo: when should I order a unit to withdraw after the charge? Or maybe I can see some graphical effects?
2.2 Friendly fire: so you never put slingers behind a line of infantry? You put them in front?
4.1 Hiding in the woods: Assume that my units hide in a wood and I want them to go through the woods to encircle the AI troops. Will the AI spot this move instantly, or only from a close distance? Does it differ for cavalry and infantry?
6.1. Government bonuses: Where can I read what are the benefits of different govt buildings? In this thread somebody presented SPQR/Seboz/Makedon – where can I find this data?
6.2. Where can I read about relationships: loyalty <> public order <> happiness?

1.2 Yes, it's 5-10 seconds and you can see it in the tooltip that you get by hovering your cursor over the unit, while they charge it says "Charging"
2.2 yes, put them in the front, "Fire at will" off when you move them back to safety... then you can move them out later again to flank and shoot the opponent's units in the back
4.1 already answered ;)
6.2. Public order is the overall attribute that describes how "orderly" your towns are. If it's too low you'll have a revolt on your hands.
Public Order consists of a number of different factors: Happiness, Law, Repression (garrisoned forces) all add to Public Order while Unrest, Squalor, Culture Penalty reduce Public Order
So... you could have a town that's very unhappy by whatever reason but it could still be "orderly" because you maxed out a lot of "Law"-Buldings or your governor has a bunch of law-increasing traits/ancillaries...

The effect of the whole maths is, that some Public Order buildings only work in certain situations...
For example public health reduces squalor... so if you have a big town that has a massive amount of squalor this will decrease public order. Bulding sewers will then raise public health, reducing squalor and thus raising public order.
In a town that has no squalor (too small, a lot of public health stuff alredy built and recently upgraded governors building), building the same sewers won't have an effect on public order.
An ancillary that reduces unrest will only help in a town where unrest is the problem, not in an overcrowded one, where squalor is likely the problem.
Happiness always works, as it just raises public order ;)

Now I'm not sure what you mean by loyalty. The stat system of generals in the RTW engine doesn't have it but it has traits for loyal and disloyal characters that will, for example, raise or lower their cost to being bribed

[Ludens]

Loyalty is mentioned as a building-effect of certain temples, but it doesn't seem to do anything.

[Rahl]

For example public health reduces squalor... so if you have a big town that has a massive amount of squalor this will decrease public order. Bulding sewers will then raise public health, reducing squalor and thus raising public order.

Health does not reduce the squalor level, it will stay the same. What it does is giving +0.5% population growth and 5% public order. That means on the long run public health does not help raising public order, because for every point in population growth, you will get one squalor level that reduces public order. Though on the short term it will help the public order and since the 3rd level gives law a bonus and health reduces the chances of plague it's never bad to build some aquaeducts and baths.

[vollorix]

It´s just my observation, and i haven´t undertaken long time studies, actually, but the loyality feature seems to affect two things:
1. Your "disloyal" generals tend to become "treacherous" quite fast; if such a general is in a town with some kind of loyality building ( temples, mostly ) this will slow down this effect
2. Sons coming of age tend to be rather loyal in their primary characteristics, and i think the adopted generals do, too.

[Ludens]

It´s just my observation, and i haven´t undertaken long time studies, actually, but the loyality feature seems to affect two things:
1. Your "disloyal" generals tend to become "treacherous" quite fast; if such a general is in a town with some kind of loyality building ( temples, mostly ) this will slow down this effect
2. Sons coming of age tend to be rather loyal in their primary characteristics, and i think the adopted generals do, too.

Interesting, I didn't know that. It's probably not the result of the loyalty-bonus, though. The triggers that modify character traits respond to the buildings themselves, not their effects. The team must have added a loyalty-boosting trigger for these temples.

[vollorix]

Well, in vanilla, Eb or any other mod, if my memory serves me right, children coming of age in settlements with even the slightest sign of corrupion ( insuffitient law ) tend to become flexible, financially irregular etc. This is not absolute, of course, but i always try to let them come of age somewhere in the core provinces. Also ( the turn before the birth ):
- retraining/training of units often causes superstitious trait
- if a temple is beeing built in the settlement, the young man will almost for sure become some religious trait ( reverent, devot )
- buildng an academy lead oft to atheistic traits ( especially if the temple in the town doesn´t match the town size )
- when enough public health buildings are present, particullary sewers and public baths ( depending on the town size, again ), a young men tends to be rather charismatic
etc. etc.
These aren´t the only factors, but if they do not contradict with EB random character creation, they seem to affect the youth coming of age.
Btw: i seem to have figured out what causes the "wellcoming to the foreigners" trait! I hate it, actually, a lot, and the reason is quite simple: building auxilla barracks ( especially if the factional barracks are underdeveloped ), leads to this nasty freakin´trait :(
All my Baktrian FM became that one, after a couple of turns they spent in the towns conquered from Seleucids ( since you can use their "eastern greek" buildings, except the factional barracks, and they love to build them up to the highest level, i used to keep them ). Those who stayed in towns where i´ve destroyed the auxilla buildings right after conquest ( eastern culture = useless for Baktrians ), all became "distrusts outsiders" trait. That is why all my client rulers, if i bother to recruite one, wellcome foreigners most of the time!

[TheLastDays]

Health does not reduce the squalor level, it will stay the same. What it does is giving +0.5% population growth and 5% public order. That means on the long run public health does not help raising public order, because for every point in population growth, you will get one squalor level that reduces public order. Though on the short term it will help the public order and since the 3rd level gives law a bonus and health reduces the chances of plague it's never bad to build some aquaeducts and baths.

Yeah the big problem is the increase in pop growth. That's why public health is a very short term solution, I should have probably pointed that out... The problem is that in the short term it may raise public order but +0.5% pop growth will translate into more and more citizens, even more when the town is already huge, and that'll just increase squalor later on by even more, so I try to avoid the public health buildings... the problem with that is plagues... although sometimes a plague will actually help keeping pop levels down ;)