Holy crap, Squalor

[Thrudvang]

What to do? THIS IS CRAZY BEANS.

[lars573]

Put the government upgrade in the build que a head of the barracks academy and archery range. That will cut squalor down by 30 to 50%. In fact scrape the military buildings and the academy and build the public baths instead. Trust me the population in those nile provinces grows like mad, if you don't do what I've outlined you might end up with a plague out break in all three at the same time. So speaks the voice of experience.

[Indylavi]

Yeah, population growth usually means Squalor. Egypt is very stubborn in that respect both as playing the Egyptians and as Rome trying to conquer them. I had revolts every turn until I built government buildings and morale buildings first. It seems natural to want to build military first but trust me. If anybody invades they won't get far until they calm the population

[sapi]

ALWAYS upgrade to the next government building asap, or the population will grow out of control - sometimes it does that anyway!

[csebal]

...
It seems natural to want to build military first but trust me.
...

Ehh, for me, the problem is exactly the opposite. I'm an economy maniac, meaning that money generating, educational, or morale boosting building are always first on my list.

This in turn has the odd effect of me relying mainly on captured cities for recruiting units ;) Belive it or not, my provinces in italy were only able to produce hastati even in late-mid game :)

[Indylavi]

Hehe, yeah I'm more of a warmonger you could say. I usually go for the all or nothing style of play. Of course that resulted in many revolts and my faction falling from within, so I’ve turned to a middle ground. Build just enough to keep them happy and then blitz your weaker enemy

[Doug-Thompson]

I'm trying an experiment now, but don't know if it will work. I'm building peasant units in towns with squalor. I then put them on ships and send the units to border regions and disband them. The population of the recieving town goes up by 120 (large peasant unit size) each time I do this.

I'm also going to raise taxes very high but throw daily or monthly games too, hoping the high taxes put a chill on population growth.

I have no idea if this will work. Let me repeat that. This may well be a lousy idea. I hope somebody who's tried it already will respond.

[Ranges]

YOu might want to remember to destroy any farmland in the area.. *evil grin* every farm level is 1% population growth per turn.. Staggering, really...

[Thrudvang]

Hmm, your tips helped. Thanks.

I figured the governer's buildings was just a mark point for bigger upgrades and didnt really know about Squalor until my big cities were suddenly all pissed off (and now I always have city info on).

[Soulflame]

YOu might want to remember to destroy any farmland in the area.. *evil grin* every farm level is 1% population growth per turn.. Staggering, really...

Not sure but I think you can't destroy farm upgrades

[lars573]

You can't destroy farms, roads, walls, or government buildings. Trust me I've tried when I've sacked cities. Farms are really a double edged sword. On the one hand just like in MTW they provide a tax income. On the other it can lead to very rapid population growth in a city which can lead to public health problems. Just the RTW ballance act I guess.

[Morindin]

Another problem is your governer sucks.

Having high influence AND management reduce unhappiness of lots of things to a great extent.

My capital in my current [Julii] game has about 20,000 people in it and I have ONE garrison of town watch to keep the peace. My governer has 12 bars of influence and a few in management.

On the other hand, I have a city in Britania that has 600 people and requires 12 town watch to keep the peace. :)

[chemchok]

I'm also going to raise taxes very high but throw daily or monthly games too, hoping the high taxes put a chill on population growth.

I have no idea if this will work. Let me repeat that. This may well be a lousy idea. I hope somebody who's tried it already will respond.

I tried it, in my view it's one of the key strategies to keeping squalor in check. Try to use monthly games and races instead of daily to keep costs down; you only need a happiness rating greater than 70-75% to keep cities from revolting anyway. Build all of the entertainment enhancements you can and stay away from farm upgrades and public health buildings (as long as you don't mind a plague or two, of course ). Oh, and another tip is to keep a spy in your city, they should lower the unrest factor a bit.

[Morindin]

Have a look at my post + screenshots in the Colosseum thread "Population, Growth, Your thoughts?"

I think influence is a large factor to deal with squalor.

[chemchok]

Influence is really helpful, it's just one of those things you can't count on. There's only a limited amount of generals, they have varying degrees of influence, and you don't even know what vices they might pick up (or virtues, since a lot of the city management virtues lead to pop/squalor bonuses).

But yeah, if you're in a pinch send a high influence governor somewhere. The only way I managed to keep Byzantium under control was by sending Cnaesus the Mad there, who had somehow managed to get five different senate offices even though he was a raving loon...

[csebal]

Influence is really helpful, it's just one of those things you can't count on. There's only a limited amount of generals, they have varying degrees of influence, and you don't even know what vices they might pick up (or virtues, since a lot of the city management virtues lead to pop/squalor bonuses).

But yeah, if you're in a pinch send a high influence governor somewhere. The only way I managed to keep Byzantium under control was by sending Cnaesus the Mad there, who had somehow managed to get five different senate offices even though he was a raving loon...

I do not like to rely on governors, as their effect is instantaneous, unlike the effect of wonders.

See a 10 influence governor can surely reduce unrest by 50% (5% for each level of influence), but once it dies or moves away, the 50% is gone... instantanously...

so if you rely on them, you may have some peaceful years, but after that, you'll get a revolt you have no chance to handle. I would rather let my cities slip into small unrest, in a controlled manner, so that i have an army nearby to take it back in case they revolt.

unrest and / or recapturing revolting cities has the nice effect of decreasing population... Thats my 2 cents.

Would governors work more smoothly, they would really be useful.. like say: for every turn the governor spends in a city, he can utilize one more influence, so a governor with 10 would start out with 0% effect in the turn when he enters, it would then increase by 5% every turn until it reaches the governor's maximum (50%). Leving cities on the other hand could have the opposite effect of that previously gained 50% slowly reducing to 0, by 5% each turn... that way you would get time to react to governor death and you would even be able to take him out for 1-2 turns to deal with a rebel army without losing all his influence on that city.

Ouch... there is no edit feature, and i do not have the time to review my post. As im not a native english speaker, please forgive me, if you find any grammar / typographic mistakes (which i'm sure there are plenty of).

[panchoamd]

I have a city in Britania that has 600 people and requires 12 town watch to keep the peace. :)

I think what your problem is the distance from capital and you no have good
governor in the town.
Or is recently conquered, o has a different religion, or all of this.

[Noong]

I just don't understand it.
I build huge sewers, magnificent baths, and complex aquaducts.... and people are still crapping in the streets. I can understand the barbarians doing this but not the sophisticated Romans.