RTW: Fastest Path to "Huge" Cities?

**Marius Maxentius** · 10-06-2004, 16:22

Now, while setting the AI spending slider all the way to the right and changing my Goverened cities to "growth" build mode works reasonably well, I'm sure there's got to be a faster way of getting my city population up.

I've heard of training peasant armies in other towns, sending them to the town I want increased, and discharging them there. It works with moderate success, but it lowers the population of my other towns where I will need to train my armies from.

Anyone have any useful tips for me?

**foop** · 10-06-2004, 16:41

Of course, if money's no object then all the improvements that boost population are a must - but I guess you're already doing that. Low taxes, farms and sanitation all work well together. If money is short, then things get more tricky. A lot of high-trade cash cow cities can go a long way towards supporting the growth of you capital and couple of other home cities.

If your city has a governor, a good way to enhance city growth is to embark on a campaign of vigorous conquest. Make sure you enslave the population of every city you come across, and you'll boost the population in governed cities. Of course, the problem is that this hurts the growth of these conquered cities later on - but maybe you don't care about the barbarians.

**Marius Maxentius** · 10-06-2004, 21:39

Enslavement, huh? Sounds good. Thankyou for the tip.

**Doug-Thompson** · 10-06-2004, 22:16

The slaves only go to cities that have governors in them.

**bmolsson** · 10-07-2004, 05:18

Just be careful for slave riots... Read about it in the IGN article.... ;)

**Ptah** · 10-07-2004, 07:00

I don't think a fast growth is a path you want to take. I've been experimenting in a lot of ways to stop squalor, and it seems that a city will remain tame when is developed over a certain time.

People often become too hasty in trying to make a newly conquered city a worthwhile addition. But it seems that making too much use of "low taxes", and concentrating too much on tech developments biased(such as military/econmoy bdgs) only seems to inflate the problem.

Never, ever use low taxes. Even if it means a revolt. Cultural differences and Squalor dies out slowly. Also, your buildings need time to build. But the population growth rate is much faster than that when "low taxes" is used. It simply makes the problem worse, since the population rate is rising fast, but none of your key buildings are up yet, and squalor level keeps piling up as the population grows.

The distance to capital factor can't be solved, but the cultural differences can be managed a bit - destroy the religious buildings in the city and set up shrines/temples of your own. Also, destroy other institutional buildings which differs a lot from your own, such as circuses or arenas, if for example a Carthagian army captures a Roman city.

Replacing religious buildings of your own immediately lowers cultural difference about 5~10%. Destroying institutional buildings makes citizen tempers hard to manage in the short term, but in the long run, its much better.

In the end, the most ideal conditions of city growth is when you've built all the buildings needed to be built, and waiting for the population to increase to the next level.

**The Hun** · 10-07-2004, 17:17

Originally Posted by foop

but maybe you don't care about the barbarians.

I AM a barbarian, it will give my people great pleasure to have nice clean Roman slaves to abuse

Do these slaves go to cities automatically or do you need to do something?

**Raizen** · 10-07-2004, 18:19

They go there automatically, it's split between the governed cities. I just had the thought, maybe on the turn before you take a settlement, you can take the governor out of the cities that you don't want population added to, and then use enslave after the battle, and then put the governors back in. Maybe that's a common strategy and I'm just slow ;) , but it sounds like it'll work.

As for loyalty over 100%, I try to keep it at ~125%, just because loyalty seems to decay somewhat as time goes on. It gives me a bit of a buffer zone.

@Mariux Maxentius: It's a good idea to spread your troop building around a bit, and not just focus on the capital. Since you have Sicily, that's a great place to build up troops. Two cities can focus on them, along with Capua, and then the other can build a navy. I used to play it your way (granted I've only used Brutii so far), but my troops get built in Tartenum and Croton, my two Italian cities, as well as Salona, and I build ships in Greece (Athens). I can get a good, balanced army in about 7 turns. Once you grow you can do this in two areas, and then you'll be very powerful.

**Marius Maxentius** · 10-08-2004, 16:09

I'll eventually expand to build more troops in other areas but, as I've seen, it's a good strategy to have a powerful navy early in the game and to keep a hold of ultimate naval supremacy for as long as you can. Once I have about 4 or 5 full-stack navies, I'll move on to troop production.

Carthage and that other town to the south of it are both building my armies right now, and I'm turning out full stacks in 5 turns (mercenaries take up about 25-40% of my military force). I am sticking to cavalry-based armies in my southern Campaign due to the vast ammount of real estate I need to cover. By the time I'm done with the south, I'll sweep East through egypt (cav at the south-western borders) and link up with my Infantry-based armies from the north. I will attack from the sea at several locations, pushing all resistance farther Eastward until Egypt is crushed. From there, it's only a matter of moving north and slowly curving Westward towards Germany & France. By that time, the civil war in Rome should have started, and I'll have a massive fortress (Capua) to fight from.