Citys Keep Burning?

[Hortensius]

hi,
I am playing Scipii and i am storming through North Africa, and all of a sudden i get Carthage, Syracuese (sicily) and cito revolting, i check everything and they have all public order buildings and happiness, i.e. sewers, baths temples etc. but they still keep revolting (what a stink) my governors have good management and influence and i have tax on low and arenas with DAILY games , what am i doing wrong, please help me before i fall on my sword !!!

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya sez... Maybe you have spyware among your citizenry? Look for enemy shinobis and stick their heads on a pike. And slaughter enemy diplomats and make soup of their heads. If enemy have cash, they can simply bribe your cities away from youz.

And when youz retake city... GAH! CUT HEADS OFF! GAH!

Problem solved!

GAH!

[Hortensius]

i have dips. and spies in all cities so no prob that way??

[drone]

Look in the "city details" screen for each city, there is a graph for Public Order. The top line contains the good, the bottom line contains the bad. You should get a tooltip if you move your mouse over the various icons in the graph. Squalor and culture penalty are the likely culprits here. Also, make sure you keep a garrison (lots of cheap troops), this can get you up to 80% order.

Squalor is caused by overcrowding, if you can upgrade to the next level government building. Culture penalty can be eliminated by replacing structures built by the enemy with your own culture's type. This can be done by upgrading the existing buildings or destroying them and building a new one. If you build a new government building on top of the other factions building, that removes 20% (I think) right there, then just upgrade the other building to the next level.

When you capture cities, sometimes it's best to exterminate the populace, this will remove the squalor for a while. This is especially true for a city like Carthage, with large growth rates.

[Sin Qua Non]

What are the populations for Syracuse and Carthage? Those 2 cities are famous for quick ad uncontrollable population growth. (well, almost uncontrollable.) Like Drone mentioned, squalor and culture penalties can be big ones. above 30,000 people, squalor can eclipse many of the cures. Above 35,000, you really need a good administrator in the city.

BTW Drone: Did you go to Fairfax county public schools? Just curious, because I went to Washington Irving and West Springfield.

[Proletariat]

BTW Drone: Did you go to Fairfax county public schools? Just curious, because I went to Washington Irving and West Springfield.

I know you didn't ask me, but I did. Fairfax High. You probably hammered our football team.

[KiOwA]

There might be a big order penalty due to unrest as well. Most times unrest is simply caused by enemy spies (good luck fishing 'em out), but sometimes the province is inherently rebellious.

[Hortensius]

Thanks for all your replies guys, but the only solution i could find was leaving the cities and then taking them again off rebel armies???? I had dips. and spies in there but it didnt seem to make any difference. As i said i had all the public order and squalor upgrades, but it just seems like a thing that happens when you get too large a pop. ?????

Cheers.

[R3dD0g]

Carthage is a special case. It is usually so large by the time Scipii gets there that it takes a mighty governor to pacify it. Be sure to destroy everything that you can't build. I'm playing Scipii now, and Carthage was one of my largest cities after I took it. I made it the capitol and recruited lots of TownWatch .

Cirta shouldn't really be a problem. It doesn't grow very fast and should be small by the time you take it. Again, destroy all culture specific buildings. Queuing up a ton of Town Watch can reduce the population enough for your own temples to get built and start reducing the culture penalty. It also helps with unrest.

Your next big problem will probably be Corduba, it's best to just exterminate in that city. In previous games I never could control it and finally just wiped 'em out.

[Sinner]

With Syracuse and Carthage it's very likely that they were already huge by the time you captured them, in which case you'll never get rid of the culture penalty due to the governor's building. For this reason, I'll take a huge city to finish off a faction, but then immediately abandon it after destroying all the buildings, letting it go rebel.

[dismal]

Most of the basic tools for controlling cities have been covered.

One that hasn't is moving your capital. Sometimes this can help a lot because your inital homelands are going to be more stable culturally.

My basic recipe for holding a big city with built in high unrest/growth is:

- Exterminate
- Destroy any building that adds to pop growth
- If a major culture shift is possible (that is, at some point I will be able to build a new governor's building), destroy everything (usually I except the public health buildings if I can't build them)
- Rebuild the city starting with order buidlings first

If necessary, I'll stage some of this over a couple turns as the change-over unrest settles.

I tend to err on the side of doing this quickly, because its better to do this while I still have a big army and a governor around. Failure to deal with the underlying problems (people, alien buildings, growth) decisively means the town will be a constant thorn in your side.

This method ought to buy many years of peace.

For longer term maintenance I tend to try to keep up with growth by using peasant garrisons and a spy. And for really valuable cities, a governor.

Even with all this, some cities have so much growth that are just going to revolt after a while. When I see this coming I tend to build a few military units in the city or nearby, pull out of the city and re-exterminate. The added bonus is you get some cash.

I think, an added bonus of having wiped out all of a city's military buildings is that the revolt is made up of weak troops.

[drone]

BTW Drone: Did you go to Fairfax county public schools? Just curious, because I went to Washington Irving and West Springfield.

Nope, I just live here now. I grew up in Atlanta, but I've pretty much been living here since I got out of college, except for 2 years I spent in the UK.

[Hortensius]

Thanks for all your replies guys, things seem to be moving a bit smoother after all your help,
Cheers