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[HindSight2020]

I've got roads, highways, markets, ports, etcs. They are in all provinces (of course, the coastal ones have the ports). And my cities are garrisoned with high quality men, otherwise I wouldn't be able to re-conquer them after they revolted. No. Sometimes there is the dynamic of how far a city is from the capital -- which I think affects its effectiveness at an economic level. But I'm still learning the game. One thing I do is always let the game automatically choose the tax level. (Maybe that's a problem.) Then what I do is change the level the computer will use from "Balanced" to "Financial" or "Growth" in order to tinker with the amount of funds I receive and balance that with the approval rating. The approval rating goes down when it isn't set to "Growth", but the income on "Growth" is the lowest. I usually set it on "Balanced" and let the revolts come as the may. When I got to the point where it looked like I controlled half the map, it was too awkward to get into the nitty-gritty of going through each city every turn to make sure their tax level was correct. I find that part of the game boring. If I have to do too many administrative things in the game, it gets too annoying to play. If that's the only way to have a high level of income, then I'd rather play a game like Diablo II. I have too much administration at work to have to deal with it in a game. I have to let the computer be my administrative assistant to take some of the tedium off of my shoulders. If there's a better way then cycling through 40-50 provinces each turn in order to maintain things, let me know.

[Owen]

The ability of a garrison to increase happiness is directly proportional to the number of men in the garrison. Now, while I consider it a little silly, to say the least, that a peasant can keep control just as well as an Urban Cohort legionnary, or even a Town Watch man, that's the way the game mechanics work. Since unit upkeep becomes much more expensive as the units become better and unit sizes become smaller, you take a double hit from this effect. Hence, if you are using high quality troops to garrison any city that isn't vulnerable to be assaulted at any time, then you are losing money hand over fist. This fact is the source of many of your problems.

Then again, I have have heard that the AI autotax feature is very poor, so that is the other half of the problem.

[HindSight2020]

I'm not sure I follow what you are saying. You say it is "directly proportional." To me that means that the more troops there are, the happier the populace. Now if you mean that it is "inversely proportional" I have a hard time seeing the link. I don't have peasant soldiers, nor do I have Town Watch. I get the best troops I can and put them in each city. I guess that's a drain on my finances. I'm always willing to change tactics or strategy.

[Owen]

I'm not sure I follow what you are saying. You say it is "directly proportional." To me that means that the more troops there are, the happier the populace. Now if you mean that it is "inversely proportional" I have a hard time seeing the link. I don't have peasant soldiers, nor do I have Town Watch. I get the best troops I can and put them in each city. I guess that's a drain on my financially. I'm always willing to change tactics or strategy.

By "directly", I meant that is varies proportionally with troop numbers alone and there is no adjustment for how good the troop type might be at "policing". Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Using advanced legions as garrison is a huge financial drain, and will cause further problems in those cities that are big enough where the cap on the happiness effect of the garrison is the 20 unit maximum that can be held in the city, rather than the 80% in-built maximum.

I would disband a third of your troops, or half if necessary to get where you are well in profit, then gradually build up peasant garrisons and then take your remaining advanced troops and march on Rome. That should take you something like ten or so turns.