I'm re-evaluating my strategy...

[Ludens]

1) What should the growth of my cities be early, mid and late game? In both my Julii games, in the early and mid games my capitol had a growth rate of around 3.5%, while Patavium with a higher tax rate and less population had 7%. I know different areas have different farming outputs, but what would you reccomend for early, mid and late game? I've heard that 7 is the magic number at huge city.

2) How does slavery work in 1.5? I've gotten 'Town Grows' messages right after enslaving a town. Does it dump them all at once?

3) Is there any trust factor? If I backstab my allies, will all the world refuse to get an alliance with me?

4) Didn't the time of the Pharoes end long before RTW's timeline? Alright, so it's off topic, but it's been bugging me.

1) In her guide, Frogbeastegg recommends 8% bruto growth, including growth resulting from any building upgrades or trade items (grain, slaves), but without substracting negative modifiers. This way your city can grow to the highest level, but without squalor cripling it overmuch. Off course, this applies to civilized factions only: for Barbarian factions you should aim for a lower growth in my experience, as their cities have only three levels (this can be tricky given that Warbands are so expensive in population terms).

2) Vonsch explained this pretty well, but I will add that the enslaved city and any cities it trades with get a +0,5% growth bonus from the slave resource. This resource lasts twenty turns. (Or at least, this is what should happen: some people report that it does not work: have a look at this topic if you are interested in the details.)

3) There should be, but since R:TW diplomacy is moronic to start with I doubt anyone would notice if it isn't there.

4) Absolutely. By the time the game starts, Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemic dynasty. They styled themselves pharaos, but they were Hellenes (Macedonians, to be precize), and they largely fought like Hellenes: in phalanx formations, supported by heavy cavalry. It is one of the major historical inaccuracies of the game. Egypt was one of the Diadochai, the successors, of Alexander the Great's empire. After Alexander's death, one of his generals, Ptolemaios (better known as Ptolemy), hijacked Alexander's funeral procession and brought the body to the first city Alexander ever founded, Alexandria in Egypt. There Ptolemaios established his own empire, and married Alexander's sister, Cleopatra. The Ptolemic dynasty was characterized by a distinct lack of originalty when it comes to names (as all their pharaos were called Ptolemaios and many or all of their sisters Cleopatra) and dynastic incest, as Ptolemaios' descendents reinstituted the old Egyptian custom of the Pharao marrying his sister. Then again, Ptolemaios himself was closely related to Alexander and thus to his wife, but I am not quite sure how close (I heard he was a half-brother, but the claim is debated).