problem with Egyptian Huge Cities

[mambaman]

its 140 BC and i'm doing well as Carthage; i have trounced the Scipii and taken all of Africa proper from the Numidians

for the last 30 years, however, i have found myself in endless wars with the Egyptians...i took Thebes, Memphis and Alexandria relatively quickly-the only problem is even after i exterminate them the population grows so quickly that it quickly becomes rebellious even when i put my best family members in as Governers and Garrison up to the max

I thoughht at 1st it was a mistake and that i had failed to exterminate the population but the same thing has now happened with Thebes...twice!!

Has anyone else encountered this problem and if so any suggestions?

[Somebody Else]

Move your capital closer. That ought to help.

[Ziu]

Move your capital closer. That ought to help.

Thats a good idea.
Also make sure you replace as many egyptian structures as possible with new buildings.

[Lord Hammerschmidt]

Also, try to avoid governors with farming traits, as those don't help to slow population growth. If you've got the money, you can always recruit a bunch of peasants, and then throw them away against an enemy force.

As for actually dealing with the revolts, the above suggested ideas are good. It is especially important to replace foreign temples, unless they are at the largest size and have nice bonuses you want to keep.

[Epistolary Richard]

If you've got the money, you can always recruit a bunch of peasants, and then throw them away against an enemy force.

Or if you're of a less Stalinist nature you can just move them to a city that needs the population boost.

[The_Emperor]

I can explain this...

Carthage, Syracuse, Memphis and Alexandria all have the Grain Trade resource.
Given your playing as Carthage, I can bet you own all of these and have an excess of Grain exports in the population growth tabs from all of these cities.

My solution is a drastic one... Level all buildings that have a positive population growth. Fertility/Health Temples, & Health Buildings, should be the first to go.

Should you have too much grain floating around still, level the Traders in the cities, this will have a negative effect on your income but it will remove the natural pop growth from traders and help to reduce the grain resources getting imported.

Also make sure you have a full garisson of peasants with High Taxes (high taxes slows growth and peasants have more men per unit for larger garisson bonuses, so if you can keep a lid on disorder you should be ok) and no governor (or at least one with a poor farmer vice).

[Old Celt]

It is cheating to let the city revolt and retake it. I think it would be fair enough to give you next to nothing for loot and some kind of painfully negative trait for it, and giving the city to another faction so it can revolt is just a variation of the cheat. I've played the game through several campaigns and never had an Egyptian city revolt. It's challenging to manage the city to avoid revolt, but why does the answer to that challenge have to be: Cheat your way out?

[Oaty]

You know those pyramids actually work unlike some of the other wonders. If you own Memphis there will be no culture penalty.

When I first discovered I thought I ws on to something, after exterminating 2 Egyptian cities I notice there was no culture penalty then I noticed the pyrimads were causing this.

[The Storyteller]

Why is letting the city revolt and then retaking it cheating? It still means you need to keep a decent army in the vicinity when you want to retake the city, which costs money and time and takes manpower away from your front lines.

[Fridge]

Its not cheating - its an exploit, in that, in a sense, you're doing something counter-intuitive and possibly against 'the spirit' of the game (historically, I doubt that periodically abandoning the city, letting it revolt and then killing 90% of the population was ever a long term solution to unrest!).

However, since the game is bugged - the grain import/export bug causes those Egyptian cities to grow far, far too fast, and far faster than the rest of the city management engine is designed to cope with, I think you're entitled to masssacre a couple of cities with a clear conscience.

In fact, since its your game and you can play it however the fuck you want, I'd say you were entitled to do anything you want with a clear conscience. You cheat.

[Old Celt]

Yes of course you can play as you like. I'd never argue that you could not. Exploit = nice word for cheating. The reason it is, umm, exploitative, is that you are allowed to sack the city as if you were an invading power, murder thousands of your own citizens, and suffer absolutely no penalty for doing so. Mass murder of your own people should at least give you a popularity penalty with the people, I should think.

This is definitely outside the "spirit of the game", and really just something the devs forgot to seal off. Hey, if you feel you need to cheat to win, that's your perogative. IMHO, it's just like cheating at solitaire.