The cities that usually get the plague are the huge ones with fully-upgraded aqueducts, roads and trade buildings. I usually skip out on building army buildings, except in the huge cities that I plan to use to mass-produce good troops (such as Carthage). I find that if I just sit there and build up cities before moving on, I just spend a ton of years on that one city, with cash flowing in slowely, if at all. I only move my main army out of a city once it has a governor (if I have family members that aren't already doing something) and a garrison of about 4 units of auxilia (and some peasants too if the city needs a huge garrison to get to 80% garrison bonus). Also, what does fast expansion have to do with plagues? The only unit I move out of plagued cities (and keep him adjacent to it) is the governor if he hasn't caught the plague yet (I don't want to have disease family members). The major problem with my cities is squalor. It seems the more population I get, the more health buildings I build, the worse it gets. Also, other towns had problems with distance to capital (I kind of improved it by moving capital to Syracuse) and cultural difference (even after i made my own shrines). Is exterminate populace better in the long run than enslave populace? Also, some towns have "unrest", how do I fix it?