Question on Squalor

[Ed TW]

I can't for the life of me maintain the hygiene of my cities.
I seem to build everything that a city needs for this, I build aqueducts and plumbing , take out the garrisons as not to over populate the towns and cities. Then I usually have to put them back in because the pop gets unruly Then I'm back to square one.
Sometimes when I think I have it under control something else seems to tip the scale like distance to capitol or culture penalty. I have allot of blue faces. This seems like such a pain in the @$$ when all's I want to do is beat everyone into submission and advance.
Also that distance to capitol thing makes the population miserable.
When I try to move the capitol to a more central location the original surrounding towns and cities to the former capitol goes red.
-Would appreciate anyones guidance on this-
I long for the days that you only had to leave one or two peasant garrisons
to keep it under control.

[Kaldhore]

Ok - Squalor
This rises as your population level rises. So there are a few things you need to do.
SLOW the population rise:- Only build farms when you really need to. Build the public health buildings before the farms. If your population level is getting out of hand before you can build the next upgrade - then start pumping out peasants and raise the tax level. Also some temples add to population growth - destroy it and build a different temple. Some Vices, virtues and guys in your retinue will also add to population growth - so keep and eye on them too. If you find the population a particular problem - look at your strategy - do you need to start exterminating towns rather than enslaving as this too adds to population levels across your empire with family members as city leaders.
2 More final but drastic solutions to over population - reduce your garrison or raise taxes to make the loyalty go to about 50% then let them riot for a few turns - this kills off some population, but will in turn reduce squalor for a while. Or find a place that has the plague - perhaps keep a plagues character in a fort till you need him - then head them off to the overpopulated city and let him infect them - this will drastically reduce the population - evil but a leader needs to be cruel to be kind.

Culture - Destroy building in your towns that were built by the previous owners, OR rebuild over them with the next upgrade. Which one you do depends on the severity of the circumstances. After you do this you will see culture penalties drop over time.

Distance from capital. Im not sure if this is true - but it seems when I build/improve roads and ports the distance penalty is reduced. But obviously youve tried the main way of moving your capital - always try to keep it in a empire centred place. Distance is a tough one with a huge empire so if you fix the other 2 then this one can be helped more with Law&Order/happiness/health/Garrison and the *infulence* of a present family member.

If one particular place is giving you grief than get a *clean* family member and xfer lots of inflence retinues on to him and throw him in there.

A final word on *unrest* - after you take over a town it will normally always have unrest. This should die down over time - but certain towns have permanent unrest and therefore will need *special* attention (i.e. lower tax/influential family member/ bigger garrison.)

Hope that helps.

[therother]

For more detailed information, have a look in the Ludus Magna: there are a number of topics on public order issues there:

Squalor – The population size for each level of squalor. Also covers garrison effects.
Distance to Capital PO penalties - how this public order penalty varies with distance from the capital.
Unrest Public Order Penalties – research on unrest.
Culture Public Order Penalties – factors which count towards the culture public order penalty.

[GABS]

I hardly ever have problems with dirt/squalor. except when playing egyptians. Normally I never build farms or healthcare buildings until everything else (including academies etc) is built. This has the main advantage that your pop rise stays at a nice leve.. and if I additionally build peasants as garrison, it's quite easy to control squalor.

[The_Emperor]

I would argue that you shouldn't build public health buildings to reduce squalor.

Next time you build one take a look at the settlement details screen and you will see that big red heart sitting on your positive Population growth section.

Squalor is caused by people and more people only makes it worse if you cannot upgrade your city any further, so Public Health Buildings are bad for managing Squalor.

Should you have too many people in your city, the best way is to force a negative population growth by destroying all the Population and Health buildings and raising taxes along with a full garisson...

Should this fail move on to destroying the markets and trader buildings. Your income WILL take a dive, but population growth caused by the traders will take a hit.

if you have tried all of the above without success, my advice is to either give the city away to another faction and re-take it on the exact same turn you gave it away... (executing the prisoners with no need for a siege or battle)

or you could seek out some Plague on the map and send a spy to spread it to your overcrowded city.

[hrvojej]

Actually, more people = more money & more population for troops, so growth is good. Especially now that squalor is limited to 100% of negative order. A few quick suggestions:
- in cities far away from the capital build temples which also add law bonuses as this works in addition to their happiness effect, or the double happiness ones
- autotax until you get comfortable with the mechanics, so you don't have to worry about sudden changes
- every now and then check all your cities; if they are on low tax and still approaching 75%, build a unit of peasants or two
- keep one spy in every city
- aim to replace other culture's governor building with your own - another reason why low growth/extermination isn't necessarily a good solution for disorder; also, replace other buildings also when it suits you
- with time you'll learn which cities have permanent unrest values; pay special attention to those

Hope this helps.

[Ed TW]

Thank you all.

[MrWhipple]

Of course you can always make pesants and export excess population to the suburbs and boonies where they could use some good Roman culture.

[Quietus]

You can also train your troops from your most populous cities. However, before you do this, make sure the Upgrade Level building is already contructed or in construction.

I also build public health structures the moment I conquer a city.