A few things I don.

[Excalibur Bane]

It's absolutely nuts. I had a population of around 36k, all of the facilities that could be built, and it was garrisoned with a full 19 units plus a governor. The squalor was measuring in at 122% of unhappiness.

The only way I managed to handle it, was to remove all my troops and governer, let them revolt, reoccupy it, then slaughter the inhabitants down to a manageable size.

Not only is this historically inaccurate, but it's also plain old stupid. Has anyone made a mod to decrease squalor yet?

[Excalibur Bane]

Damn it. Hit the Enter button before I was finished posting.

Anyway, distance to capital is a real bummer too. I had it generating 75% unhappiness in one of the territories near Spain roughly. What do you guys use as a standard garrison for non-front line cities? I use alot of town watch, but right now all of my cities are showing a negative income.

Senate doesn't much like me either. I screwed up one of their missions and a family member commited suicide. Heh. Nice touch on that one. :)

Anyway, thoughts?

[chemchok]

I've never come across a situation where I've had to let a city revolt to control it. When dealing with large cities far away from your capital you can always;

1. sink tons of money into daily races and games
2. have an effective governor
3. make sure you have a full garrison made up of peasants (larger unit size) and town militia
4. don't upgrade farms
5. don't build the better public health buildings
6. make sure you destroy foreign temples and replace them with your own faction's versions (staying away from any temples that give pop. bonuses)

The key is to reduce your population... destroy your public health buildings, then have daily races and games so you can set your tax rate high. This should give you a negative population growth. It'll be expensive in the short term, but if the pop drops quickly enough you can lower the games and races to monthly (which is only an 800 cost to income). Oh, and build as many units as possible from the city...

[chemchok]

Oh, and keep a spy in your settlement to lower unrest.