RTW: Fastest Path to "Huge" Cities?

[Marius Maxentius]

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

[Doug-Thompson]

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

[bmolsson]

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

[Ptah]

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.

[Raizen]

I think fast growth can be beneficial in the early game, but later on it's better to take your time. If you've got enough of a jump on your rivals, you should be able to keep a step or two ahead of the pack, and the advantage will really show when you can march on Rome with leigonary and urban cohorts.

[Marius Maxentius]

I'm playing Scipii and this "fast growth" method is only being employed in the capital city of Capua. My strategy differs from that of most other gamers, and here's why:

My capital city will be the nerve centre for operations abroad (hence the need to build it quickly). Once things are established, 90% of my troops will be built in Capua. The other cities (with the exceptions of the three Sicillian [sp?] towns and Carthage, which are currently building a strong navy & siege equipment) will be put to use as small-population revenue sources. The Italian boot is basically in the centre of the entire map and allows that strategy.

People will argue against these techniques, but I have less uprisings and revolts this way.

Oh yeah, and I reached a pop' of 24k in Capua by 245BC. It's my understanding that going any higher is a waste of my time... any dissenting opinions on that?

[Doug-Thompson]

Never, ever use low taxes. ... 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.

I'm coming around to the same way of thinking.

City management is totally different than in Medieval: Total War. There you wanted lower taxes for a while to build up great loyalty.

Frankly, loyalty of greater than 100 percent in R:TW appears to be something of a waste.

I haven't had many storms or disasters or other afflictions from the gods, which effect loyalty. I'm well into the game and haven't had a revolt yet.

It may all fly apart when the civil war begins. We'll see.