Squalor

[Xehh II]

I'm about half-way through my game and now castles have become useless, so i've changed most of my castles into cities but i've got this problem called squalor, it's ruined me, every single on of my cities is rebelling. My question is how do I stop squalor?

[HoreTore]

Simple answer, you can't.

Squalor is linked with the population level, up to a maximum of 80% squalor.

The only thing you can do, is boost happiness. Build town halls, barracks, etc etc. Anything that gives a law, health or happiness bonus. Also, make sure you have a good governor. For every point of dread or chivalry you have, you get 5% public order. Dread is the best if your problem is squalor, since chivalry also adds to population growth, which in turn gives more squalor.

Also check their traits. Specifically for traits giving bonuses or penalties to public order. You can have a 5-chivalry governor, but due to some bad traits, he reduces public order...or the opposite.

Oh, and remember to turn down taxes and keep enemy spies out of your settlements(by placing your own in the settlement).

[Spajus]

Short term solution has to be garrisoning.

If you're at an advanced point in the game, you probably have very high populations.

First thing to do - get a garrison (either build them in the city, or move them in from a nearby army). Set the tax rate to very low.

Secondly, look for any upgrades you can make to your walls - walls dictate the size of your city (large, huge, small etc). Concurrently, the size of your city compared to the population determines the level of squalour.

Thirdly - concentrate on building the quickest buildings for adding happiness.

[HoreTore]

Garrisons tend not to be the answer to squalor. The reason is, that in a big city, say 35 000 pop, even a full stack army wont give you more than 10-20%.... It can be the last drop, but don't count on it...

[gardibolt]

Happiness buildings are really the key, and you have to plan ahead. Once you start having public order problems, it's too late to be building them. But if you've built all of the public order buildings available, and have a reasonable sized garrison, a couple spies to keep out saboteurs and malcontents, and sufficient priests to keep religious problems down, then squalor shouldn't matter too much.

[vonsch]

Or just weed out the worst of the malcontents. Pull out, let it rebel, conquer it. Exterminate the scum!

(But use a non-chivalrous general!)

[Bob the Insane]

With the 80% cap I am really not finding this the problem it could be in RTW where Squalor alone could provoke revolt...

Now as long as you keep up the reglious buildings, Barracks building and garrison there really needs to be an additional factor reducing public order to cause problems (religious unrest, bad govenor, enemy spies, rebel stacks, distance to capital)...

[HoreTore]

It is a problem in the crusader targets however... You sack the city down to size, and by the time you've got religion under control, squalor hits you bad because of your chivalrous governor...

[TevashSzat]

Yep, not as bad as RTW where sometimes a full stack of garrison and high level happiness buildings doesn't work due to high squalor and distance from capital penalty

[_Aetius_]

I think squalor is still to big a problem in M2TW, it's not as big a deal as in RTW, but its still a persistant irritant which you can't remedy.

Sometimes I find no matter what I build a couple of turns later its back the way it was, it just doesnt seem realistic. I know there were even in the grandest cities, slums which suffered massive overpopulation etc but this is a real pain in the backside on a game. It sucks up a massive amount of funds to just keep settlements happy only for a brief time, allowing cities to rebel and then exterminating does work, but is hardly realistic.

Bleh, im just moaning about nothing as usual.

[The_Emperor]

I have to admit I am happy Squalor is less of a game breaker than it was in RTW campaigns but it is a problem nonetheless...

The problem I find is that lowering taxes also promotes population growth in its own right. However in keeping with the RTW way of doing things I outright refuse to upgrade the farms unless I really have to in order to kick start a short growth.

Really I have a fixation of controlling the growth so squalor is less of a problem, but your right it is a problem. But the real problems I find come when you get religious unrest combined with Squalor (usually the result of Heresy rising in that zone).

But saying all that squalor was a huge problem in RTW, and it especially was when you had a culture penalty on unrest in the town because of buildings of another faction there. (Not much in itself but if you capture a city at the top of the tech tree you are screwed in trying to change its culture to your own)

[_Aetius_]

I have to admit I am happy Squalor is less of a game breaker than it was in RTW campaigns but it is a problem nonetheless...

The problem I find is that lowering taxes also promotes population growth in its own right. However in keeping with the RTW way of doing things I outright refuse to upgrade the farms unless I really have to in order to kick start a short growth.

Really I have a fixation of controlling the growth so squalor is less of a problem, but your right it is a problem. But the real problems I find come when you get religious unrest combined with Squalor (usually the result of Heresy rising in that zone).

But saying all that squalor was a huge problem in RTW, and it especially was when you had a culture penalty on unrest in the town because of buildings of another faction there. (Not much in itself but if you capture a city at the top of the tech tree you are screwed in trying to change its culture to your own)

Thats exactly it, squalor hurts public order, the obvious thing to do is lower taxes, but that means more people are being born each turn which increases squalor in the long run. There is only so much you can do to keep the population happy, you simply get to a point in the game where many of your cities are way beyond huge and the populations are massive.

I dont see the point in updating farms either, the last thing I want is overpopulation, I can make money easily enough it im not having to cram units into cities just to keep them happy because the population exploded.

I think the jump from one level of a city large to huge for example isnt great enough, it can literally cripple your economy to pay 9600 for huge walls if you need to construct 3 or 4 in a short period of time because public order has tumbled with squalor. Its a constant burden that you keep having to upgrade cities, especially for relatively poor factions. I don't think it should cost anywhere near as much as it does to upgrade settlements and I think the gap between stages should be much greater.

Squalor must exist, but it shouldnt be such a damn pain to deal with especially as you can't eradicate the problem and keeping it in check costs a fortune.

[Slug For A Butt]

Gardibolt is 100% correct. It's about planning ahead, you really should be building happiness and law buildings way before you need them. Once you find you are building them to stave off rebellion it really is too late.
Build them early, and keep your population rise in check by raising taxes. I really have never had a problem with squalor in M2TW, unlike RTW...

Thats exactly it, squalor hurts public order, the obvious thing to do is lower taxes, but that means more people are being born each turn which increases squalor in the long run. There is only so much you can do to keep the population happy, you simply get to a point in the game where many of your cities are way beyond huge and the populations are massive.

My point exactly, you need to tackle unrest before it starts to hurt you. Sounds to me like you are doing it the wrong way round, if you are reacting to unrest it's catch 22.

[Mother Yoda]

Find that the best way to deal with overpopulation and squalor is to rase the tax rate to very high. Then you withdraw all of your units form the city. Wait for it to rebel. Finally once you besiege the settlement you should a) sack it if you are lacking money or b)exterminate it if you have plenty of money.

[_Aetius_]

Gardibolt is 100% correct. It's about planning ahead, you really should be building happiness and law buildings way before you need them. Once you find you are building them to stave off rebellion it really is too late.
Build them early, and keep your population rise in check by raising taxes. I really have never had a problem with squalor in M2TW, unlike RTW...



My point exactly, you need to tackle unrest before it starts to hurt you. Sounds to me like you are doing it the wrong way round, if you are reacting to unrest it's catch 22.

Oh I agree entirely, sometimes it's about whether or not it can be afforded though. I always build the basic structures which increase law and happiness ASAP. However the cost quickly escalates for such buildings, sometimes you cant afford them for every city that will need them, maybe I just devote to much elsewhere.

I'll try and adapt to nip the problem in the bud from now on.

[Xehh II]

It's to late for me, when I resumed my game after a couple of turns every single one of my cities rebelled those french came down(i'm spain by the way)killed the rebels and I was pushed into north africa.

[Slug For A Butt]

@Yoda. Cheesy.
Just make happiness and law a priority once your economy is off the ground and you won't have to do that. Once you are making a decent profit every turn, just concentrate on law and happiness, it will pay off in the long run. Just avoid the temptation of another greedy hundred florins profit a turn in the short turn and look at a longer term empire. Remember... when you have to drop taxes and increase population growth to stave off rebellion you've lost those few hundred florins anyway, and it's a harder way back.

@Aetius. I usually start to concentrate on happiness and law when my city is over 6000, before then it's all money money money. After 6000 you should be turning a good profit anyway.

[sapi]

I really don't see that squalor is that big a problem - indeed i actively build farms to encourage population growth.

By the time squalor becomes a real issue, you should have both built buildings to keep the population happy and have quite a few 'glory' bonuses from successful crusades and the like.

My cities are welcome to rebel - but if they do, their walls will be razed and the population slaughtered.

[Foz]

I'll preface this by saying that I have yet to find squalor a substantial problem in M2TW, but that's likely only because I plan things ahead in games like this...

Having said that, though, I can see how it could be a huge issue if you get even close to letting it really affect a settlement. One thing I've seen mentioned is that farms cause growth, and therefore promote squalor. Taking that a step further, has anyone noticed that a lot of the public order granting buildings also promote growth? IIRC any health bonus contributes to growth, and the town hall series as well as the churches both eventually grant health bonuses. Any of the pure happy buildings also grant growth for each 2 you have. So if you let yourself get to the point where you have to build any of those buildings I mentioned to maintain order, you get a growth bonus along with it, which pretty much guarantees in a few turns you're going right back into the same situation. As has been mentioned previously, the only really viable strategy is to make sure you stay out ahead of it by stockpiling PO.

If you do find yourself trapped at low taxes and no spare public order, it's often too late (i.e. eject and prepare to sack/exterminate), but sometimes you can escape it. Military buildings can help here, as they provide PO without any growth - one of the few things I can think of that do so. On top of those, it's probably useful to remove any chivalrous governor if possible (to kill growth), install a dreadful governor (PO w/o the growth of chivalry), and bring in/build more garrison to get control of PO. After those measures, you should upgrade any of the earlier mentioned PO buildings that also cause growth as a side effect - you need to get enough PO slack to bump taxes up and alleviate all the growth that's causing you problems.

The biggest thing, though, is that you should always make sure you've controlled all other things that negatively impact public order. That is, be sure you deal with religious unrest, distance to capital, and enemy spies. Squalor alone is never enough to give a city PO problems, and the most effective thing you could ever do is to eliminate the other things that are much more in your control. So of course do everything you can to limit squalor, but realize that it's far easier and more effective in the end to deal with the other things that are PO problems, since they can all be completely or largely eliminated, unlike squalor. Any one of those 3 things, if out of control, can easily sink a given settlement - especially very large ones, as they are precariously balanced. However, if you convert the population quickly and efficiently, locate your capital smartly, and field spies in a defensive capacity to protect your cities, you'll generally find that squalor becomes a non-issue.

[Garnier]

Squalor works fine and properly the way it is. Squalor is basically the population. The higher the population, the more entertainment and law etc you need. The higher the population also the more tax money you get. If you dont build happiness buildings then you will have problems perhaps, but personally I have never had a problem with the populations growing out of control. Except for example jerusalem, but I usually donate it to one of my allies after taking it anyway so thats not an issue.

[dopp]

Castles are excellent for maintaining order far from your capital. If vassals were more reliable, it would also be a great way to hold territory (effectively giving you two capitals).

They should let us convert big cities back into castles. I would dearly love to level Jerusalem to the ground and build a fort in its place.

[Slug For A Butt]

Maybe they shouldn't let us do that because of the precise point you make.

[sapi]

I do think that you should be able to convert a huge city to a castle, but at the cost of a complete rebuild from scratch and PO penalties in neighbouring provinces

[Furious Mental]

Well personally I can't see how the actual logistics of turning a town of 24,000 people into a castle surrounded by rural manors would have worked, so I can understand perfectly why it is impossible in the game.

[dopp]

Castles and towns represent you focusing on either the feudal, manorial system or giving more automony (and resources) to building up the towns. Converting a town to a castle simply means you build more castles in the area to control it, install a local nobility, distribute the lands to landowners, establish villages etc. So you aren't actually vaporizing Jerusalem with its 32,000 people and building a castle in its place, you are just concentrating on the castles more. Castles and towns are an abstraction anyway; do you really think that there are only two castles and one town in the whole of Medieval England?

A better explanation would be that they don't want cheesy strategies revolving around constantly and conveniently 'switching' back and forth between castles and towns.

[TevashSzat]

But, still I can't imagine the English just tearing down London except for the city center where they build a castle and then tell everyone who was living in the city to just go off and form some villages by themselves