squalor?

[Thon]

noticed this lowering my pop growth, is this is caused by lack of public health in cities?

[hoom]

Dunno, but I got plague in the city with the most squallor
& it spread

[Tamur]

Yes, this is due to lack of public facilities like Sewer, Aqueducts, Roman Baths, and the like. Any building that says it will help with public health will help avoid squalor. Your governor can also get virtues and vices that affect the city's squalor rating.

Still not 100% clear how to combat it VERY effectively, because putting in all the buildings only cuts it down a certain amount.

[Servius]

sort of a catch 22 in that you can't get access to the buildings that help reduce squallor without population growth

[Kraellin]

guys,

you need to read the notes on the buildings and listen to the advisor. there is one note from the advisor, in particular, that talks about reducing or preventing squalor... and i aint gonna tell ya what it is ;)

K.

[Praylak]

guys,

you need to read the notes on the buildings and listen to the advisor. there is one note from the advisor, in particular, that talks about reducing or preventing squalor... and i aint gonna tell ya what it is ;)

K.

Well she has a nice voice, but she gets irritating after a while.

...Alright, I guess I'll turn her back on...

[Red Harvest]

On expert it is a bit of a race to suppress population growth. If you keep taxes low, the population grows too fast and you end up with squalor. If you can keep taxes maxed, then the population growth is manageable and the province is happy and has low squalor. I'm having troubles keeping good govs that will keep "lawr" and order up to snuff (if I hear miss talking head say "lawr" one more time I'm gonna barf.) There aren't enough buildings to keep stuff like that in check. As a result I've found that it is best to exterminate the population when I take over (for hostile cultures.)

[andrewt]

It's quite weird that higher population is a drawback in this game. From what I see, there's really no point to it other than growing your cities. Once you get to build the last upgrade, it's actually better to reduce your population as much as possible. Of course, I haven't reached it yet so I'm not sure how high the squalor levels are when you reach that point.

I built Temples of Ceres to grow as fast as possible from 2,000 to 6,000. I'm probably going to have to tear them down once I reach huge city.

[Del Arroyo]

Realistically and historically, it always was pretty tough to integrate hostile culture under your rule, especially with the infrastructure of the Roman Era. Realistically and historically, it was always pretty tough to keep your own people under wraps, for that matter. Computer games have always been very weak on these factors, but it sounds like RTW is stepping them up.

But as far as foreign cultures, if there aren't too many of them and they're in an undeveloped area, it might sometimes be better to kill them or move them and settle with your own people. A la American Indians.

DA

P.S.: For a game with very strong balances against growth and prosperity, try the original Civilization board game. Great empires can fall and the little guy can make a comeback-- unlike in any of the Sid Meier's Civ creations.

[King Azzole]

Why would a high population be a detriment? It gives you a huge warrior base to train troops from without effecting taxes too bad, not to mention the extra tax income...

[andrewt]

I'm not sure how much population affects taxes but your happiness factor takes a nosedive. By the time you get a large city and be on your way towards huge city, you'll need very large garrison sizes just to barely keep it at 100%.

As for training troops, by the time you get a good enough population, training troops every year still nets you additional population.

Also, all my governors are getting way too many inefficient taxmen vices so the percentage of taxes as part of my income is much less.

[Del Arroyo]

Look at Los Angeles, guys. Huge? Yes. Squalor? Yes. Corruption? Yes.

[Servius]

yeah, at least in my game there are WAY too few governors. I've disabled the need for governors in order to micromanage, but it's still next to impossible to have enough.

Population is good because it is required to access the higher tech levels and thus the better troops. It's bad because it can get out of control and lead to enormous amounts of Squalor, which kills morale. Thankfully it also kills population growth, but it costs a lot in garrison upkeep.

It just seesm like a balance screwup. If your population is so high that it can generate 10+ Squalor, you should have access to the next tech level to build more saniation facilities, or there just need to be more of those, or they need to be more powerful.

As an alternative, there could be a "Nero" option where you can burn parts of your own cities down to tidy up some of the barrios.

[andrewt]

I live in Los Angeles county, near the city.

Squalor? Yes. Pollution? "Cough, cough.". Corruption? Yes. Traffic? Way too much. Peasants close to revolting because of that? No.

In all seriousness, once you get between large city and huge city, population becomes a big problem. I'm worried what will happen to cities like Patavium who are nearing 24,000 but are still growing at around 2-3%.

[Thoros of Myr]

In my short Julii campaign that I just finished Patavium was a nightmare, I was losing money out the wazoo from being unable to tax them much. I had every kind of temple, health, and an arena, built units every year just about, had the best family member I could bring there, still horrible squalor and a nice -4000 income. The population was suring like mad too, at one point something like 7.5% growth.

I also put a spy in there for the heck of it, didnt seem to do anything.

[Del Arroyo]

Peasants not close to revolting??!

One would think that an incredibly violent gang culture and near-yearly riots would be enough.

But anyway, LA is obviously a bit off-topic for this forum.

DA

[andrewt]

My squalor penalty is 75% in Patavium, though.

[Red Harvest]

I think what I'm going to try is start letting high squalor cities go rebel. Then capture and enslave. That should give them a positive income and low squalor for many decades.

[The_Emperor]

I think what I'm going to try is start letting high squalor cities go rebel. Then capture and enslave. That should give them a positive income and low squalor for many decades.

Yeah and if what I hear is true the Senate may demand you recapture the breakaway cities and offer a cash reward...