Squalor makes RTW challenging.

[zentuit]

I don't enjoy enjoy building my empire nearly as much, because it invariably collapses upon itself unless I get to sacking my neighbors. I can't expand on my own terms, I have to constantly advance or my cities decay and my economy collapses. Hopefully this is just me being a noob.

Congrats DisruptorX, you are successfully recreating the Rise (and eventual Fall) of the Roman Empire.

(There should have been a smiley there DisruptorX. I respect that opinions differ. I want to see how it plays out over many campaigns. To see how it, as I believe it supposed to, curb the player's end game dominance. )

[TinCow]

I have been having the same problems. A plague in my two main troop production cities really added to the hurt for a while as well. While I'm still meaking steady headway against the Gauls and don't expect much trouble when I eventually push into the Germans, I am very concerned about my ultimate confrontation with the other Roman factions. I'm still pre-Marian and have a long way to go before I get there, but I'm already nervously eyeing Scipii armies marching through my territory. Considering how tenuous a grip I have on my economy (I always have enough for my immediate needs, but I have never had a reserve), I think I may crash and burn when the Civil War begins.

[lars573]

In game the marian reforms happen when you build a certain combo of buildings. Not sure what this combo is but it's around the pro-consol/imperial pallace level. As for my experience with squalor if you don't build the public health buildings (which reduce squalor) or the government upgrades when they come. Then squalor gets to be a big problem. Also the best way to negate the cultural penalty is to put the population to the sword when you take the settlment. Harsh and brutal yes but effective, sure it gives the family member responsible traits like un controlable rage and so on and gives them nick names like the wrathful and the merciless. But it gets rid of the culture problem because the other culture is gone and the people that grow up in their place are of your culture and thus loyal to you.

[Praylak]

I think its great. It really forces you to plan ahead, and allows for some real strategy since your given many options on how to deal with city growth. My first "practice" campaign was truly the path to a broken empire ready to fall apart at the seams. Mass revolts, plague, and uprisings were a daily thing. Now that I understand things, it's just all gravy. This current campaign is much better.

You really must control city growth. Growing all your cities as fast as you can build the associated structures is a doomed event. People might not like high taxes, so what. It's a fine tool to control things. Build up the garrison or happy buildings to counter it. If it sparks a rebel force, kill it. Buildings damaged by a revolt can be repaired. At all costs you have to control growth.

Extermination, occupy, and enslave are all about city population control. Building farm upgrades in a city like Pavatium is just crazy. Large population centers are going to have squalor problems even after you've built all you can to deal with it. This is the negative of large cities. What you can do is increase the things that make citizens happy to counter. Usually, after you built all the happy buildings you can, the only thing left is to expand the garrison, and use a high influence governer.

[andrewt]

Watch out for provinces with high basic farm growth. Don't build farms there as I discovered you can't destroy them. It's going to take longer to upgrade to huge city, but you'll have less of a headache once you get there.

[DisruptorX]

Congrats DisruptorX, you are successfully recreating the Rise (and eventual Fall) of the Roman Empire.

(There should have been a smiley there DisruptorX. I respect that opinions differ. I want to see how it plays out over many campaigns. To see how it, as I believe it supposed to, curb the player's end game dominance. )

I should have been more specific. I play defensively, with a relatively small power base. I expand in short bursts and then consolidate my power. My conquests are very slow, the only time I ever strike fast and hard is for an early game pre-emptive strike on a foe I know will be a problem later. At least that's what I did in MTW, This new system really hurts my style, because it forces me to be much, much more offensive than I normally am. Its worse with the romans, though, who actually start off with an army they can't suuport.

I don't like micromanaging globe spanning empires, because they collapse. (I once made the mistake of going for total dominance with Egypt. I ended up with all of europe save russia but no one to trade with and a 300 million dollar debt) I would have preferred if your central cities were less affected, like corruption in civ. That said, I'm sure there are ways to minimize problems that I am as of yet unaware of.

I'm not saying the new system is worse (unlike the combat, which actually IS worse). It's just very different from the way I played Medieval. I am unused to constant, unending warfare.