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

[Sheogorath]

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

Town Crier: "Attention townsfolk, the King has announced free compulsory voluntary abortions for all! I suggest you cheer."
Crowd: "Yay."

Yeah, that would be really good for your peoples loyalty :P

[Aves]

good lord, no

There are other methods than the Chinese. Most medieval communities had very low birth rates. Population growth in medieval settlements could simply symbolize a frozen number of dwellings and a limit on people allowed in the city (forcing new towns and rural settlements). Since a city is only supposed to symbolize a central point of authority (not the only settlement in the province)... limiting population (and of course, tax income in turn) is both resonable and something actually done in the middle ages. That is why settlement incentives and tax-relief was so often offered to citizens of various kingdoms... thank you, though for the sarcastic reply

[Bob the Insane]

Well in my England campaign with the Timescale set to 0.5 I have some pretty huge cities...

London is one example (the capital) and it's pop is 40K+ and is perfectly happy with the 6 free militia units and no general, or with a general Very High tax is fine...

The we have Antioch and Jerusalem which have slightly larger populations than London and are again controllable but this time with a full stack of militia units in there (even with the distance to capital penlty)...

Now if I had not made efforts to the convert the population to my religion and didn't take care to protect my self from spies than those provinces could easily be quite a problem. Note having even one enemy spy in your settlement has a significant negative effect on public order.

I really do not think squalor is the problem it was in RTW and it will not cause serious problems all on it's own, but it is not completely nerfed either and in a difficult region far from your capital and religion it has the potential to become a problem.

[knoddy]

public unrest in towns in nowhere near as hard to control as it was in Rome. Im in the middle of my thrid campaign so far, and ive never had any trouble with civil unrest, the only exception being antioc, when i took it with a crusade and didnt convert the population quick enough. Generally religious unrest is the biggest problem for me, and with a few priests/imams that is easy to overcome. in my moors campaign, i just took marsillie (sp) and it was rioting for a few turns cos i forgot to exterminate. sent in 3/4 imams, turned the tax rate down, built a small religous building, and a race track, and once it got to about 50% muslim i was fine. btw all my camps have been on hard.

so i def feel much easier to keep cities under control then in ROme, where it was abosultly impossibly to stop cities revolting once ur empire got a certain size :(

Cheers Knoddy

[Quillan]

Venice was over 50K population in my Byzantium game, and I had no problems maintaining control over it. However, it was not with 1 militia unit. I had 18-20 units in the city. The negative to public order from squalor caps at 80%. It was either 100% or 120% in RTW, so I'm finding this much easier to control.

[Zenicetus]

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

I don't know if this works in M2TW, but one trick for managing unrest in big settlements in RTW was to set army size to huge, and recruit vast numbers of peasants to send to the front lines... either as cannon fodder, or as loyal subjects (with the right religion) to populate cities that you exterminate. It was one way to recycle surplus population.

[Quillan]

It doesn't work in this game. For one thing, peasants are only recruitable at castles. For another, it doesn't look like recruiting troops takes away from the settlement population.

[Akka]

Most medieval communities had very low birth rates.

Completely wrong. Average medieval birth rates were extremely high. What was very low was the increase of population, because death rates were also very high, particularly that of young babies.

[Musashi]

It's really really simple to avoid squalor in this game.

Just don't build any of the farm upgrades. At all.

If you never build even land clearance, then your city population will never go much past 28000 or so. At that population level it's easy to keep them happy with the public order inducing buildings and a couple of militia squads.

It means your population grows slower, so you won't get to the highest tech level as fast, but you'll have VASTLY less problems with rebellion and unrest in the long run.

[Grimmy]

Actually, it would be kind of a hoot if once the first settlement of whatever faction we were playing was built on "the new world" we'd start seeing a reversal in city pop to represent all those adventurer types heading off to pillage and plunder as well as those undesirables being transported off to serve as bondservants and thralls to those same adventurer types.

[Dooz]

Well, would you look at that, a perfect opportunity to self-promote. If any of you guys are interested, I did a little bit of text editing and reduced population growths in a little "mod" I put together to suit my playstyle. You guys can check it out if you want, it's the link in my sig. That, along with not investing too heavily in farm upgrades greatly improves gameplay. My current French campaign feels really good compared to vanilla. I'm sure more work will be done in this field by more experienced modders once the patch and extractor come out, but until then you can still have a playable game.

[ScrapTower]

It's really really simple to avoid squalor in this game.

Just don't build any of the farm upgrades. At all.

If you never build even land clearance, then your city population will never go much past 28000 or so. At that population level it's easy to keep them happy with the public order inducing buildings and a couple of militia squads.

It means your population grows slower, so you won't get to the highest tech level as fast, but you'll have VASTLY less problems with rebellion and unrest in the long run.

If you dont build any farm upgrades, you tech slooooow because tech depends on pop. You also miss out on the extra cash from the crops and the extra pop.

[Dooz]

If you dont build any farm upgrades, you tech slooooow because tech depends on pop. You also miss out on the extra cash from the crops and the extra pop.

Heh, that's exactly the kind of gameplay I go for. I like staying at techs for longer to enjoy them longer, get to know them better. Also, I like the tighter economy because of the lower population. Different strokes for different folks is the law of the land.

[Musashi]

If you dont build any farm upgrades, you tech slooooow because tech depends on pop. You also miss out on the extra cash from the crops and the extra pop.

Yeah, but you can't have it both ways. Population growth is what CAUSES squalor.

[Nestor]

Personally I don't build farms except for castles. I am still pretty preoccupied by the way squalor was working in RTW.

I can control cities with population around 35000 with the second level farms.

Can someone positively say that you can now control huge cities with top level farms?

[danfda]

I have a Russian campaign with Novgorod and Moscow both at about 45k-50k in terms of population, and each have up through crop rotation researched (only irrigation left to go). I have absolutely zero problems with Novgorod, as it is consistantly at about 125% happiness level (it is, however, my capital, and my faction leader is present with about 6-8 units of militia). Moscow sits at around 100-105%, with a general and about 6-8 militia units, and I've never had any revolt issues. Squalor in both, I believe, is at 80%. I have not built all of the pub. health buildings (have about one left in each, but I am in no rush). The only revolt problem I've encountered had to do with a newly taken huge city with a solidly catholic population, which should come as no surprise. All in all, squalor effects seem greatly reduced and much more reasonable. My main issue is with rebels--most of my garrisons are for rebel killing...I need to edit that down...

Control seems to be possible, Martok, very possible...

EDIT: Forgot to mention, but pop growth varies between -0.5% and 0.5% in both cities.

[andrewt]

Huge stone wall gives 15% order. Mayor's palace gives 45%. Pleasure palace gives 25%. City watch (3rd barracks) gives 15%. Huge cathedral gives 30%.

Sure, the final upgrades are expensive but the mayor's palace is only 4800 for the last upgrade and gives 45% total. You'll need to upgrade your settlement level so you'll have the 15% from huge stone wall. The city watch is only the 3rd barracks upgrade so it's pretty cheap. You can build church and brothel upgrades depending on which is cheaper at the moment. Since squalor is capped at 80% (30k pop at huge stone wall), you can put low taxes for an additional 30%. You also get 6 garrison units for free upkeep and these should give 10%.

The fact is, the squalor cap pretty much means building farms is ok. The first 2 upgrades pay for themselves pretty fast and allow you to tech up fast and get higher trade income faster.

[ScrapTower]

Huge stone wall gives 15% order. Mayor's palace gives 45%. Pleasure palace gives 25%. City watch (3rd barracks) gives 15%. Huge cathedral gives 30%.

Sure, the final upgrades are expensive but the mayor's palace is only 4800 for the last upgrade and gives 45% total. You'll need to upgrade your settlement level so you'll have the 15% from huge stone wall. The city watch is only the 3rd barracks upgrade so it's pretty cheap. You can build church and brothel upgrades depending on which is cheaper at the moment. Since squalor is capped at 80% (30k pop at huge stone wall), you can put low taxes for an additional 30%. You also get 6 garrison units for free upkeep and these should give 10%.

The fact is, the squalor cap pretty much means building farms is ok. The first 2 upgrades pay for themselves pretty fast and allow you to tech up fast and get higher trade income faster.

Thanks for the info.

[Barny Bangs]

This thread reminds us why the Black Death can become a dear friend later in the game

[Vlad Tzepes]

Yeah... it bankrupted me... nice friend. Black Death is sooo powerful, lucky it lasts only a few turns.

Me neither, I don't have problems with squalor, looks easier than RTW - then vanilla RTW anyway, after it was patched RTW got milder as well.

[Waleed]

I played RTW heavily and Squalor always became a problem late game no matter what you do. I've been playing a campaign as the moors and most of my cities in the iberian penninsula have over 40k units, cordoba has about 52k now and I have no trouble with loyalty there. Of course the provinces are greater than 95% muslim and I have 6 units of garrison (free, gotta love it). I always built up my civic order buildings as those usually give u an additional 10% at once. If it dips down a bit I lower taxes for a few turns and build another building. Right now cordoba is at about 120% with normal taxes and 6 garrisoned units and remember it has 52k population. This is really good as I don't have to pay upkeep for the soldiers and I get MASSIVE income from Cordoba every single turn. One thing I find good to do is keep an army of light cavalry around some of your larger cities and if one has trouble with loyalty suddenly just send that garrison in. Light cav move really fast on the campaign map so it's a good way to respond suddenly to a sudden loyalty problem.

Also one thing you're going to want to do with some of your cities especially those closer to an enemy is keep spies in them. I always wondered why a province in Iberia would have unrest when i control the seas and land nearby and have no rebels in the province. When an enemy spy enters your city it causes unrest in your city. This can be pretty high sometimes with more experienced spies causing sometimes about 30% unrest in some instances. Keep a good spy or two in some of your biggest cities and also make sure you always have a good network of watch towers to keep an eye on enemy spies.

[Bob the Insane]

I played RTW heavily and Squalor always became a problem late game no matter what you do. I've been playing a campaign as the moors and most of my cities in the iberian penninsula have over 40k units, cordoba has about 52k now and I have no trouble with loyalty there. Of course the provinces are greater than 95% muslim and I have 6 units of garrison (free, gotta love it). I always built up my civic order buildings as those usually give u an additional 10% at once. If it dips down a bit I lower taxes for a few turns and build another building. Right now cordoba is at about 120% with normal taxes and 6 garrisoned units and remember it has 52k population. This is really good as I don't have to pay upkeep for the soldiers and I get MASSIVE income from Cordoba every single turn. One thing I find good to do is keep an army of light cavalry around some of your larger cities and if one has trouble with loyalty suddenly just send that garrison in. Light cav move really fast on the campaign map so it's a good way to respond suddenly to a sudden loyalty problem.

Also one thing you're going to want to do with some of your cities especially those closer to an enemy is keep spies in them. I always wondered why a province in Iberia would have unrest when i control the seas and land nearby and have no rebels in the province. When an enemy spy enters your city it causes unrest in your city. This can be pretty high sometimes with more experienced spies causing sometimes about 30% unrest in some instances. Keep a good spy or two in some of your biggest cities and also make sure you always have a good network of watch towers to keep an eye on enemy spies.

Nice post and I agree with everything in my experince of the game...

[Beefeater]

I've not found Squalor to be anything like as bad in MTW2 as in RTW. Waleed's light cavalry idea is excellent.

To be honest most of the unrest I get in MTW2 comes from my lazy habit of not leaving enough spies in settlements. 3 spies in every border settlement, and any settlement where unrest is above 20%. Big Brother is watching them...