Squalor - It's just not fun.

[ScrapTower]

It could be a late game breaker. You can build every single building, but in the end you must let them revolt. You cant raise troops to lower the population. Squalor will always outgrow your best anti-squalor buildings. It's just not fun. I realize it's pretty much a population cap for the game, but give me a check box to stagnate population growth sheesh.

[Maizel]

Well in the late game you should be powerfull enough to retake the city after a revolt. Then exterminate the settlement

[ScrapTower]

Ok I just read on another forum "Squalor is capped at 80 %
you can have a Metropolis with 50k population with a 1 unit garrison and high taxes without problem"

Can anyone confirm this!?

[Faenaris]

Ok I just read on another forum "Squalor is capped at 80 %
you can have a Metropolis with 50k population with a 1 unit garrison and high taxes without problem"

Can anyone confirm this!?

I had a city with 40.000 citizens (-0.5% growth), one governor ( a newbie) and 6 militia units. Loyalty was 110% and I had all the law giving buildings. This was on Medium difficulty though, I think that the harder difficulties make Squalor more potent.

[ScrapTower]

Yeah thats far from a metropolis with 50k population with a 1 unit garrison and high taxes without problem. I dont know if I believe that statement I read on another forum.

[Somebody Else]

My English VH/VH game, kind of a bit dull now, I have 106 provinces, a fair few of them with every buildable building built. Not a single city is below 75%, though, I can't give any exact stats because I've been playing HRE instead.

[Aves]

Really wish you could just stop city growth if you wanted... would be greatly appreciated

[Northstar1989]

You can build every single building, but in the end you must let them revolt.

This is simply NOT true.

Squalor is capped at 16 points (80%, each point is 5%). So you only need 10 points of public order buildings (settlements won't revolt until they hit 65% public order) if all you're dealing with is Squalor, plus more for Unrest, Religious Unrest, and Distance to Capital.

Every faction in the game is guaranteed 5 points of PO from inns (or the Muslim equivalents), 3 from churches, 3 from barracks, 4 from city halls, and 3 from walls. Plus, many factions have extra culture-unique buildings that give extra Public Order: like Bullfighting rings, Racetracks, Art Galleries, and Aqueducts. And Governor traits should be adding a little extra PO on top of all that, unless your Governor is incompetent.

If you really can't keep your largest cities happy enough not to revolt on Low Taxes (gives 6 extra points of Public Order) then you need to gift your most unruly settlements to other factions with different unique buildings for a while, and let them build those before retaking them.

A racetrack is among the most useful, be it lets you hold Monthly Races for a flat 400 florins/month, and daily Races for 800/month, qhich give 4 or 6 points of Publuc Order, respectively. If your Huge Cities aren't producing enough extra Tax income to pay for this with their extra population, you are seriously mis-managing your empire...

A note: centralizing your Capital not only reduces Distance to Capital, it also reduces Corruption (each point of Corruption steals a flat % of settlement income). Note also that Law points not only increase Public Order: they reduce Corruption as well- a little known fact that was also true in Rome: Total War (and made the Scipii by far the best faction in the game for managing a far-flung empire of huge cities...)

With a central capital and not neglecting to build all the Happiness and Law buildings, Public Order should always be at least manageable at Low Taxes: unless you neglected to convert the local population to your religion and are suffering from religious unrest, or enemy spies are causing Unrest in your cities (place spies of your own in cities where you suspect this to perform counter-espoinage...)

And again, if it's not manageable, then you can always gift the city to a Muslim faction for a while, so they can build Hospitals and Race Tracks. With Low Taxes, Daily Races, a central Capital (you can move your Capital through the Settlement Details screen), good counter-intelligence, and a population that follows your religion, no city should ever rebel on you...

By the way, city size caps at 360,000 people. Considering Constantinople, like Rome before it, may have had over 1 million people at its peak (in the 6th century), and there is no reason the Byzantines couldn't theoretically restore it to its former glory with a robust trade network and new Aqueducts; this is too low for my tastes. Does anyone know how I can go about editing it upwards: say to 1,500,000 people?

[SeanGrey]

Thanks for the detailed explanation!