Read this if you're having problems with squlaor

[Dorkus]

btw, 60% governor is only reasonable if you actually put some attention into developing gov characteristics/retinue. It's completely unreasonable if you just have your governors running around randomly.

[andrewt]

For me, temples are the cheapest way so they are my first priority. Arenas give a small bonus only and you have to spend 400/turn for around 20% and another 400 for another 10%.

I use the market line to both increase my trade income and help grow my cities to 24,000 so I build the Curia eventually since it adds another 10% to public order. It's pricey but I saved more than 10,000 denarii in my Parthian campaign having a 20% discount on construction governor running around queueing buildings in bunch of cities close together. I stopped bothering when I got too much money.

[Dorkus]

For me, temples are the cheapest way so they are my first priority. Arenas give a small bonus only and you have to spend 400/turn for around 20% and another 400 for another 10%.

I use the market line to both increase my trade income and help grow my cities to 24,000 so I build the Curia eventually since it adds another 10% to public order. It's pricey but I saved more than 10,000 denarii in my Parthian campaign having a 20% discount on construction governor running around queueing buildings in bunch of cities close together. I stopped bothering when I got too much money.

agree with this. But i'm assuming that this city is going to revolt in the next couple rounds, and we're trying to get the biggest boost in the shortest amount of time. by the time you get a lot of huge cities, in my exp, money isn't much of an issue. Temples are the best long term solution (at least if it's not a public health temple), but each level gets you only 5-10% order (except the last). First level of arena can get you max 35% as a stop gap.

I suppose garrison should be ranked more highly if that's my criterion. I rank it low because you often want to send out your conquering army to conquer more (at least I do), and it's usually rather time consuming/inconvenient to send an entire army over to fix an order problem. A lot easier to send one top notch governor.

[The_Emperor]

The best advice I have heard so far is not to build farms. If you follow this rule then you will find that when your city gets massive population growth will slow and drop out, also markets unlike farms can be demolished to help slow your growth if things go badly.

Sure the people may be unhappy at this negative growth, but I say crank out those peasants... or just make more conquest armies

[Quietus]

The inherited squalor is the problem for me. You conquer a huge population and enslave. There's really nothing you can do about that since the population was built-in without the infrastructure, and squalor is imminent (unless you kill off the citizens - which I never do).

The other cities are actually manageable in terms of squalor. I've had so many provinces that riot because the Capital is so far away, not to mention culture penalty. But if you add the built-in squalor of a new conquest to culture penalty and riots, you get instant revolts like my last post.

I'll try out those Law Temples and see if they are better than the Bacchus. I've heard good stuff about them from other poster too Another problem is that governors are scarce too.

[Meneldil]

Huh, you seem not to understand that squalor doesn't make the game harder, but only more annoying.

In mid-late game with hard settings, when your empire gets big, revolts are just plain silly. This is not a difficulty problem but rather a balancing problem. I don't think the fact that you have to let a 20 stacks army in each city as a garnison -though you've exterminated almost everyone in the city- is balanced (and it's probably not really accurate as well).
I would gladly play against a smarter AI than having to deal with such a crappy squalor issue

Btw, not everyone is a 1337 roxxor vet player, who knows that health buildings are not an effective way to fight squalor (Isn't that crappy ?!?).
Whatever you can say about silly noobs that don't know how to play (that's more or less what you said), I think this is a serious issue, that needs some fix in a patch (my other main issue with the game being the diplomacy kinda screwed up IMHO). People might play to have fun (well, that's what I do at least), and not to learn the game engine as quickly as possible.

[Dorkus]

a 20 stack garrison is pointless in an exterminated city. you get an 80% max garrison bonus. Did you ever try removing some troops? it will have no effect on order. This is what i'm talking about. People complain that the game is impossible, and they don't even think about what they're doing. i fault ca for this partially, since they should explain, for example, that the garrison bonus is in fact capped, and that adding mroe and more troops will not solve your problem. But only partially; every game leaves some things for the palyer to figure out on his own.

If you want an exact figure, multiply your troops % of pop by 12, and you'll get your approximate garrison bonus at normal unit size. At large unit size, multiply by 8.

And of course it's a difficulty issue. If you need to leave some troops behind to maintain order, then that means fewer troops to attack.

A game engine that is too easy is not fun. Maybe they should grant 40% order to all cities at lower difficulties. They certainly should not reduce squalor penaltiies at all levels.

Huh, you seem not to understand that squalor doesn't make the game harder, but only more annoying.

In mid-late game with hard settings, when your empire gets big, revolts are just plain silly. This is not a difficulty problem but rather a balancing problem. I don't think the fact that you have to let a 20 stacks army in each city as a garnison -though you've exterminated almost everyone in the city- is balanced (and it's probably not really accurate as well).
I would gladly play against a smarter AI than having to deal with such a crappy squalor issue

Btw, not everyone is a 1337 roxxor vet player, who knows that health buildings are not an effective way to fight squalor (Isn't that crappy ?!?).
Whatever you can say about silly noobs that don't know how to play (that's more or less what you said), I think this is a serious issue, that needs some fix in a patch (my other main issue with the game being the diplomacy kinda screwed up IMHO). People might play to have fun (well, that's what I do at least), and not to learn the game engine as quickly as possible.

[Dorkus]

fair enough, but inherited huge cities should not, imo, be easy to maintain. They should be constantly on the edge of revolt (look at Baghdad today).

The inherited squalor is the problem for me. You conquer a huge population and enslave. There's really nothing you can do about that since the population was built-in without the infrastructure, and squalor is imminent (unless you kill off the citizens - which I never do).

The other cities are actually manageable in terms of squalor. I've had so many provinces that riot because the Capital is so far away, not to mention culture penalty. But if you add the built-in squalor of a new conquest to culture penalty and riots, you get instant revolts like my last post.

I'll try out those Law Temples and see if they are better than the Bacchus. I've heard good stuff about them from other poster too Another problem is that governors are scarce too.