Cities on the Edge of Revolt

[CMcMahon]

If you guys have a city that's just constantly on the edge of revolt, what do you do? Currently (in both my Greek and Selucid games), Thebes, Memphis, and Alexandria are always around 70%, even with full garrisons and low taxes. I've built odeons, I've expanded, I've built temples, I've built academies. And frankly, I'm sick of having to check on the cities every turn. And the problem isn't with the governors, either. So what should I do? Pack up, move out, wait a turn, siege, and then enslave them (again) or slaughter them? And will that idea even work?

[antisocialmunky]

Gift the cities to your enemies and invade/exterminate. Its more reliable since you don't get huge stacks of 9 star fully upgraded rebal peasants.

[CMcMahon]

That's a rather good idea. I like that.

[vale]

well another way is that increase it trade. go to the

rometotalwar/data/export_descr_buildings
open it up and add in these line in all the governors and imperial palaces

trade_base_income_bonus bonus 6
law_bonus bonus 8

make sure you do it like the text though.

[Ice]

Where is ur capital? Try moving it to a more central location.

[CMcMahon]

well another way is that increase it trade. go to the

rometotalwar/data/export_descr_buildings
open it up and add in these line in all the governors and imperial palaces

trade_base_income_bonus bonus 6
law_bonus bonus 8

make sure you do it like the text though.

What exactly will that do? Increase the effects of each upgrade?

[Macedon]

I usually let them rebel, then reconquer and crucify them all...
Be advised that it gets some nasty vices to your general.

[PseRamesses]

Like Macedon stated - exterminate them!
For a town under 6000 pops I keep 2 garrisoned units plus the commander. For 12000 I keep 4 etc etc. If the city outgrows me like you describes I build one peasant each turn for a couple of turns and when the loyalty no longer can stay above 100% on low settings I pull my troops out, 2-4 troops plus 4-6 peasants, and set the tax slider so that loyalty is 0%. Let is rebel and retake it. Before you take it though you can pull out commanders in cities that you don´t want to get the pop-boom from enslaving the rebel town. If exterminating there´s no need for such action. Don´t use a general for theese clensing(sp?) operations. Oh! I actually auto-calc theese since I find it tedious to fight a battle with peasants and it works great!

[Conqueror]

Exterminate, then wipe all the buildings that contribute to population growth (all markets/traders, public health buildings, some temples, anything that reduces squalor) and DON'T rebuild them. Set taxes to max. This will cause the population growth to halt, which will guarantee that the city will always have low enough a population to be kept under control by a full peasant garrison. Then you can just leave the city be and forget about it

[vale]

exterminate them actually bad to your economy anyway, by adding those line you increase trade therefore your people are happy, when they are happy they are less likely to revolt and you wil have more pop to generate a larger amount of income every turn. Even though you see the negative number of income below the city but that is not what it is currently generating. This way you will be able to focus more on conquesting other, instead of having a civil war every few turns; it can be quite troublesome when you have to spend dinari on army to kill off city that are revolt.

[katank]

@ vale, not true. More population does mean more income but the marginal levels are not sufficient to justify additional garrison.

Population is only good for getting up a tech level. In end game, all my huge cities have 400 population or pretty close to that in spite of having all the upgrades. A bit unrealistic but cheap to just garrison with a single peasant unit.

Also, do the extermination with a captain if you don't want vices for the general.

I usually enslave to boost tech of other cities and enslavement is actually good for the general.

[player1]

If you guys have a city that's just constantly on the edge of revolt, what do you do? Currently (in both my Greek and Selucid games), Thebes, Memphis, and Alexandria are always around 70%, even with full garrisons and low taxes. I've built odeons, I've expanded, I've built temples, I've built academies. And frankly, I'm sick of having to check on the cities every turn. And the problem isn't with the governors, either. So what should I do? Pack up, move out, wait a turn, siege, and then enslave them (again) or slaughter them? And will that idea even work?

If city is so problematic that you don't have time to build up infrastucture to compensate only options are to let them rebel and then enslave or exterminate.

Enslave is good, since technicly you don't lose a population (half or city population is distibuted to other cities with governors). But make sure other cities are capable to endure influx of population boom.

If enslave is not valid option, then use exterminate. That will buy your enough time so next time the city gets big, you'll be ready with needed infrastructure.


P.S.
The advantage of smaller cities is that garrisons are more effective (less troops needed) and lower squalor. Of course less pop, less taxes and trade.

[professorspatula]

Ah the dreaded: 'Thebes', 'Alexandria', and 'Memphis' trinity of never-ending revolts. They're probably amongst the most difficult settlements to keep in order, even when you have the Pyramids wonder that removes Egyptian culture penalties in those settlements. Their growth rate is insane, mostly due to their 3% growth bonus due to the trading of grain. If you don't have a good governor that reduces squalor, and/or has high influence, it's a struggle to keep those 3 settlements trouble free. As others have suggested: exterminate the population as many times as is necessary until you finally have all the best public order upgrades you can get. Raise the taxes to the highest setting once you've killed off most of the population as this will reduce their desire to procreate at a speed rabbits would be proud of. And then fill the garrison with cheap (and castrated) peasantry.

[Muska Burnt]

ya i never got why they would revolt when everything is fine like one year green next year blue... i would just wait till they revolt and extirminate and that would last a while

[CMcMahon]

I've gone to the method of peasant garrison and simply giving up the settlement to a convenient enemy I hold at bay for the specific reason that they're completely impotent: Parthia. Everytime that Alexandria is pissed, I pull out the peasants, gift it to Parthia, and then take it back, no questions asked. Then I enslave everyone. Again.

[katank]

Gift and exterminate repeatedly.

You should move out the garrison just a very small amount manually so you can do this more often.

Ejected garrisons use far more movement points.

Reduce the huge cities to 400 pop! Unrealistic but very efficient

[Siris]

Just keep a super upgraded garrison, low taxes, newest temples, & your set.

If not, like it was mentioned previously, leave, give it to one of your enemies, & then sacq it, slaughtering them all.

You should have a much higher "respect" level -- which is what I like to call it.

[Garvanko]

Interesting stuff. And its not just the Memphis, Alexandria, Thebes triangle..... Carthage, Thapsus and most of Sicily are pretty bad as well.

And full stack 9 star peasants are no fun at all.

[professorspatula]

Yea the Carthage and Sciliy thing can be bad, but the Egyptian triangle tends to be worse because of the additional grain imports they receive - two lots instead of one. In both cases, do as the Daleks do: EXTERMINATE.

As to super peasants: aren't they fun. A bunch of pitch-fork wielding farmers who usually spend their evenings kicking their own crap outside their homes, utterly destroy trained legionaries and spearmen, just like it happened in real history.

[antisocialmunky]

Wasn't that what the Visigoths eventually became after they got pissed off enough?