Town Management: middle to late game

[dalredane]

Any secret or tips towards town management?

I found when i had about 15 or so towns....i had about 300,000 denari.

Now that I have about 25 towns....at least 10 of them are losing an average of -1500 per round. I now have about 10,000 denari in the bank.

I do everything possible to keep the people happy. I focus on money-making or trade enhancing buildings, and buy every building that keeps the city clean etc...

I also have at least 10 town guard units in each town with a governor who has at least 4 or 5 management scrolls. I also have an academy in each of the towns so the advisors to the governor are a little better.

Still, the people get pissed even with the taxes on lowest. And my population decreases.

ANy ideas on how to get more cash at this part of the game?? The only tip I have found from people is to keep conquering new areas....which I do....but it only helps marginally.

If it try to raise taxes...the city immediately goes into revolt. I don't have any unneccesary buildings (military) in towns unless it is on a key border area.

Is this just built into this part of the game or am i missing something.

[m4rt14n]

make peasants to guard ur inner cities, just as romans did historically. Exterminate often, and get the high pop cities plagued. I know its completely illogical, but plague is ur friend with 30-40 k pop cities. If they burdening u y pay for them rite? Until they get to figure out how to manage high pop cities I found this very helpful

[dalredane]

One thing I have found recently is that if I put in on Automanage taxes only (so those dumb governors don't go building stupid things) then I seem to accumulate more money and have less riots than when I managed everything with the same governors in place.

I am not accumulating money like in the late beginning game or early middle game, but I am not going broke like before either.

[Silver Rusher]

Wait, have you ever looked at the settlement details scroll? It shows all the values which affect growth, income and loyalty. The button for it is in the bottom left hand corner of the construction panel.

[Owen]

I think it most likely that you have too many troops or navies in the field and/or far too many garrison units. For the former, keep an eye on the army maintenance cost in the financial tab under the faction summary scroll (click on your faction icon at the bottom right). For the latter, remember that the maximum happiness increase from your garrison is 80%. Hover your mouse over the "garrison" input to happiness on the settlement details scroll. Once that reaches 80%, stop building troops.

[econ21]

I agree, 10 town guard in each town sounds too much - see whether taking them out of the town affects its loyalty; if it does not, disband them.

I have not had a problem with money/loyalty. I squeeze almost every city with very high taxes, so maybe that keeps the population under control. I enslave captured towns, keeping their population under control (I am afraid Carthage is exterminated). With larger towns, I find temples/arenas etc and influential governors are ultimately better for population control than garrisons.

[Owen]

make peasants to guard ur inner cities, just as romans did historically. Exterminate often, and get the high pop cities plagued. I know its completely illogical, but plague is ur friend with 30-40 k pop cities. If they burdening u y pay for them rite? Until they get to figure out how to manage high pop cities I found this very helpful

That depends. Peasants are the best garrison, being the cheapest. However, the biggest problem for captured high population cities is that the happiness penalties for squalor, for distance from capital, for unrest from having been just captured and for culture combine immediately when you capture the settlement, and the previous owner probably only had to deal with the squalor penalty.

Reducing the population by exterminating or enslaving reduces the squalor penalty and increases the effect of your new garrison. However, the biggest impact on the culture penalty is the culture of the governor building in the city and the ability to build a new governor building is dependent on population is dependent on population. If the population of your target city is close to the level where it can be upgraded, then it is often worth the planning required to bring a garrison army of sufficient size to pacify the city for a few turns on low taxation after occupying rather than enslaving or exterminating. Once you have upgraded the governor's building and a few other buildings, the culture penalty will be removed and the city will be in excellent shape to add both income and recruitment to your empire.

Some other helpful pointers:

Unless you're really desperate for cash, enslaving is preferable to exterminating so that you can improve your other cities. Remember that enslavement can help remove the culture penalty elsewhere as you grow the population of your other cities to a level that gives a new governor's building.

If you have governors in any of your cities that you don't want to grow any more, remember to temporarily move them out when you enslave another province.

Oh, and if you have cities of 40k, then you have built too many farms and too many health improvements (sewers etc.).

[Owen]

I agree, 10 town guard in each town sounds too much - see whether taking them out of the town affects its loyalty; if it does not, disband them.

I have not had a problem with money/loyalty. I squeeze almost every city with very high taxes, so maybe that keeps the population under control. I enslave captured towns, keeping their population under control (I am afraid Carthage is exterminated). With larger towns, I find temples/arenas etc and influential governors are ultimately better for population control than garrisons.

Sorry, that's wrong.

The maximum happiness contribution from a garrison is 80%, and while in huge cities it can be difficult to get quite that far, 50% is easily achievable.

The maximum contribution to happiness from a temple is 50%, from a Pantheon, which is very expensive and time-consuming to build, and can only be built in a huge city anyway.

Arenas etc. give 5% happiness boost, and while daily games can really boost happiness, do you really want to pay for them? It's significantly cheaper to lower taxes, if you can, rather than increase the frequency of the games or races.

Ignoring the minor and random affect of traits on happiness, the maximum contribution of a governor on happiness is 50%, and that when your governor speaks the words of the gods (i.e. 10 influence). Generally speaking you want these people off fighting battles or managing your high-income, very-high tax cities in the centre of your empire, not managing some oversized heap at the far end of your empire full of filthy foreigners that you have to run on low tax to prevent it revolting.

Of course, if you can show that daily games are cheaper than the upkeep cost of a few units of peasants, then I'll take it all back.

[Fridge]

As someone said earlier, beware the public health buildings! They may give you a temporary boost to happiness, but they increase pop growth as well, which is a VERY BAD THING later in the game.

Personally, I only ever build the first land improvement (unless I really really need to get population quickly, or the city is sat in the middle of a desert), and try and avoid any public health buildings.

There are many threads dealing with population control in exhaustive (some, not me, would say anal ;) ) detail elsewhere on this site, might be worth checking them out.

[Maltz]

Tax income is not linearly proportional to population sizes. The more people you have in a given settlement, the less tax you can collect "per person".

If you expand fast, then simply extermination everything will guarnatee you with a full bank account. Otherwise, you probably want to thin down your army upkeep cost. If you look at your financial summary and find your army upkeep cost > tax + trade income, then you will simply having too much army. You really don't need a lot of army for expansion. About per 10 settlement, you can afford 1 good army, or 2 mediocre.

To reduce city population & garrison requirement there are 2 ways:

(1) Exterminate it. Destroy all military buildings, remove your garrison and let it go rebel (with peasants only). Then recapture the city and exterminate everything. The faster yet evil way is simply "give it" to any other faction, preferrably your enemy, then reclaim(attack) it with your original garrison. There is no garrison in there yet, so you can occupy it straight away. Extermination follows.

(2) Plague them. Steep population reduction for ~6 turns, not bad. 255 BC there is a plague in Macadon. Although it recovers after 3-4 years by itself, you can preserve the bacteria by training a fleet from the plague city, and sail this plagued ship around the world. Then you only need to put any garrison in and out the ship to spread the love.

[Quillan]

At the very beginning of a turn, before you do anything else, click on your faction icon in the lower right hand corner of the control panel, and then open the "Financial" tab on the scroll that pops up. Take a look at where you are financially before you do anything else this turn. The left column will list all your projected income, from farming/taxes/trade/diplomacy and any others, while the right column will list all your projected expenditures for wages/army upkeep/diplomacy as well as recruitment/construction (which you should not have spent any on yet this turn). If the expenditure column is higher than the income column, you're losing money, and you have to see why. The odds are it's your army upkeep, in which case you need to reduce the size of the military.

As mentioned, peasants are the most efficient garrison troop, because they give the most numbers for the cheapest maintenance cost. They can't fight for crap, so don't use them in cities where the garrison has to fight, but you can switch over to peasants in all your rear line cities. Don't have any more garrison than you need, or you're wasting money. You may also have too many troops in the field, so look at that and see if you can do without some of them.

I had similar problems in my early campaigns. I had 5 full 20-unit field armies, and I just wasn't earning enough money to pay that much upkeep. With later campaigns, I learned to keep an eye on those numbers and adjust. Sometimes I get caught without enough troops to deal with a situation that just popped up, but I don't run myself broke through having too many anymore.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I feel sorry for you people. I'm a millionaire (5million denarii!!), so i don't have to worry about my money.

[TF923]

You guys are all missing something very important. While 80% from a garrison is *possible*, it's extremely expensive. Look at the cost of paying 20 peasants every turn: 2000 dinarii per turn just to keep order?! No way I would pay that. I will sooner put a city on "Daily Games and Races" than to pay 2000D every turn for a full peasant garrison. That's nuts.

A full peasant garrison is the LAST RESORT for a city, and should only be considered a *temporary* measure while you build the Coliseum and Hippodrome.

The answer to this guy's question is this: Look at how much you pay your garrison every turn, then compare that to how much monthly/daily games & races cost.

Now you see why your empire is broke.

[sapi]

You guys are all missing something very important. While 80% from a garrison is *possible*, it's extremely expensive. Look at the cost of paying 20 peasants every turn: 2000 dinarii per turn just to keep order?! No way I would pay that. I will sooner put a city on "Daily Games and Races" than to pay 2000D every turn for a full peasant garrison. That's nuts.

A full peasant garrison is the LAST RESORT for a city, and should only be considered a *temporary* measure while you build the Coliseum and Hippodrome.

The answer to this guy's question is this: Look at how much you pay your garrison every turn, then compare that to how much monthly/daily games & races cost.

Now you see why your empire is broke.

LOL, i never thought to look at that....my 70% loyalty carthage with full mercs should get a lot better (and cheaper) now ;)

[Owen]

You guys are all missing something very important. While 80% from a garrison is *possible*, it's extremely expensive. Look at the cost of paying 20 peasants every turn: 2000 dinarii per turn just to keep order?! No way I would pay that. I will sooner put a city on "Daily Games and Races" than to pay 2000D every turn for a full peasant garrison. That's nuts.

A full peasant garrison is the LAST RESORT for a city, and should only be considered a *temporary* measure while you build the Coliseum and Hippodrome.

The answer to this guy's question is this: Look at how much you pay your garrison every turn, then compare that to how much monthly/daily games & races cost.

Now you see why your empire is broke.

Now that's a good point, I should have looked at the maths. Then again, half my empire needs 80% garrison, even at low taxation. Time to start using peasants for population transport so I can remove those culture penalties and reduce my garrisons, I think.

[Owen]

I feel sorry for you people. I'm a millionaire (5million denarii!!), so i don't have to worry about my money.

Maybe, but I bet you have a lot of wildly extravagant governors, and I bet you could have won the game decades ago.