Squalor

[therother]

By 1%, do you mean 1% population growth bonus or 1% public order.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you referring to this, "1% squalor increase equates to 300 extra men." By that I mean that you will get another squalor icon, which represents 5%, every 1500 men. But I'm about to expand on that massively, as it seems to be much more complex than that, so watch this space.

Edit: Sorry, I have just got what you meant. I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I just missed what you were saying. I mean 1% public order.

From my observations, squalor goes up faster the lower your base government building is. I'm not sure whether it's because later buildings have a fixed reduction in squalor or increases the population required to add another point of squalor. I'm currently leaning towards the latter.

As am I.

[Inuyasha12]

NOTE: If you want to get architect vice take your general and build several watchtowers and/or forts. He will earn it in no time. I found this out while building watchtowers along my border with one general.

[Red Harvest]

Doesn't "architect" and such come from the academy? I'm not really sure what the building does...I assumed it gave me some nice ancillaries. Some of my really high management, high influence, high star types seem to have no squalor, despite decent populations.

I've wondered if squalor builds on itself? Seem like you should be rewarded for doing early public water works, roads, walls, and city govt upgrades. On the otherhand, if you did them late it should be slow to fall. Squalor begets squalor.

[therother]

Doesn't "architect" and such come from the academy? I'm not really sure what the building does...I assumed it gave me some nice ancillaries. Some of my really high management, high influence, high star types seem to have no squalor, despite decent populations.

AFAICT, academies and beyond make it more likely for ancillaries to show up. They are a requirement for some. But the "trigger" for the architect, according to the export_descr_ancillaries.txt file in home/data is:

Trigger trigger_architect
    WhenToTest GovernorBuildingCompleted
    Condition SettlementBuildingExists >= proconsuls_palace
          and IsGeneral

    AcquireAncillary architect chance  5

So, if I'm parsing this properly, there is a 5 per cent chance of getting an architect in a settlement that has just build a Pro-Consol's Palace or greater.

If you want to find the ancillaries that do need the various Academies, open up the file above and search for the "academy", "scriptorium", and "ludus_magnus".

I've wondered if squalor builds on itself? Seem like you should be rewarded for doing early public water works, roads, walls, and city govt upgrades. On the otherhand, if you did them late it should be slow to fall. Squalor begets squalor.

You would think so, but I'm beginning to think not. There seems to be set populations at which squalor will increase. More about this in a bit!

[therother]

Right, these are the population levels for various levels of squalor with the Governor's Villa:

Sq%: Public order penalty from squalor. To get the growth penalty, divide by ten.
Pop: the population of the settlement.
Diff: population difference between this squalor level and the last. Iterations are usually 5%, with one exception.
Men/PO%: the number of men it takes to raise the Public Order (PO) penalty due to squalor by 1 per cent.

Sq% 	Pop	Diff	Men/PO%  Comment
5	1500		
10	3000	1500	300	'Normal' population levels
15	4250	1250	250		|
20	5000	750	150		|
25	5750	750	150		V
30	6500	750	150	Should be upgrading now!
35	7250	750	150
40	8000	750	150
45	8750	750	150	Given to here for 'free'
50	9350	600	120	Non-linearity sets in, but only mildly
55	9500	150	30	Here we go, you're really paying now!
60	9700	200	40
65	10050	350	70
70	10250	200	40
75	10400	150	30
80	10750	350	70
85	10900	150	30
90	11100	200	40
95	11450	350	70
100	11750	300	60
105	11800	50	10
110	12150	350	70
115	N/a			Oddly, this doesn't exist.
120	12500	350	35
125	12850	350	70	Growth penalty decouples from order.[*]
130	13200	350	70
135	13250	50	10
...

On so on. I don't think it's particularly worthwhile to go on, you get the idea.

[*] The growth penalty, until this point is a tenth of the public order squalor penalty %, i.e. if squalor takes 2% off your growth rate, it takes 20% of your settlement's loyalty. 125% off loyalty is the hard limit. I put the city up to 50,000 men, and it was still 125%.

[Aelwyn]

I thought that creating buildings that improve public health would decrease the squalor level, but that doesn't seem to help for me. I upgrade the government building right when I get a chance, and the water supply buildings as soon as I can. But it still seems like squalor is always a problem no matter what.

I don't like it. Why don't people just get up and clean something. That would help I think.

[RedKnight]

Very cool, therother. I'll take a harder look sometime when it's not late Friday night and I've been sharing some beers - virtually. One thing perhaps pounded into the ground but which I don't remember seeing is that, AFAIK, when you make a water building, it doesn't show up as affecting the bottom/negative side of the Details, just the positive/top side. Which is to say it only counters squalor, it doesn't directly affect it.

Pray tell - what does 'therother' mean? Sounds like a couple of words jammed together - or is it a British term? Er sorry - I meant a Brittania term.

[therother]

One thing perhaps pounded into the ground but which I don't remember seeing is that, AFAIK, when you make a water building, it doesn't show up as affecting the bottom/negative side of the Details, just the positive/top side. Which is to say it only counters squalor, it doesn't directly affect it.

Indeed. I think, personally, it would make more sense if it did actually directly affect squalor. But it doesn't, or at least I haven't been able to discern any noticeable effect, and I've been looking pretty hard!

I suppose it makes no difference in the end, as the effect of squalor does not seem to be compounded - it increases in predetermined steps based on population and Government building - so it matters little to the squalor level when you build the government buildings: it will drop back to the level, appropriate for your current population, it would have been had you build the new Government building as soon as you could. However, as the table above shows, you start to pay an extra penalty, both in growth rate and public order, for such slovenly practices, and it gets pretty steep.

Pray tell - what does 'therother' mean? Sounds like a couple of words jammed together - or is it a British term? Er sorry - I meant a Brittania term.

It's just an old nickname, and given the relative paucity of nicknames I had as a kid, I didn't have much of a choice when I was deciding on usernames 10+ years ago. So it has kinda stuck with me, especially online.

BTW, it's pronounced "The Rother", not "The R Other" as some seem to think!

[therother]

Right, these are the population levels for various levels of squalor with the Governor's Governor’s Palace:

Headings are the same as before:

Sq% 	Pop	Diff	Men/PO%  Comment
5	1500			
10	3000	1500	300	
15	4500	1500	300	
20	6000	1500	300	Normal Pop Levels
25	7500	1500	300		|
30	9000	1500	300		|
35	10500	1500	300		v
40	12000	1500	300	Can upgrade to Pro-Consul's
45	12750	750	150	
50	13500	750	150	
55	14250	750	150	
60	15000	750	150	
65	15750	750	150	
70	16500	750	150	
75	17250	750	150	
80	18000	750	150	
85	18350	350	70	
90	18700	350	70	
95	18750	50	10	
100	19050	300	60	
105	19400	350	70	
110	19500	100	20	
115	19750	250	50	
120	20100	350	70	
125	20250	150	30	Again, the growth penalty decouples.
130	20450	200	40	
...