Unrest

[Kommodus]

Does anyone know what the major factors affecting unrest in a settlement are?

At first I thought it would be the obvious ones, including:

• Recent conquest
• Overpopulation leading to squalor
• Bad governors

(I left out different religions, because I expect that only affects religious unrest).

However, recently I began to suspect another cause, that being heavy recruiting (especially in a recently conquered city).

You see, I've been having problems with unrest in some of my outlying cities, such as Antioch, Cairo, and Alexandria (I'm the Spanish). Antioch in particular has suffered from riots a couple of times. My attempted solution has been to keep hiring militia to expand the garrison, but it looks like I may only be contributing to the problem by doing so - the growth of unrest outstrips the benefits I gain from having a larger garrison.

What do you guys think?

[MStumm]

Looks like your cities are infested with enemy spies. You have to put your own spies in the cities to counter this.

[HoreTore]

Unrest is caused mostly by enemy spies. Recent capture also seems to affect it. Also, every city outside your original lands have a base unrest level at 10-20%.

That's the unrest part of PO(public order) penalties, if your post refers simply to PO penalties, then squalor, religious unrest caused by the presence of heresy/other religions/unpious governor, distance to capital and unrest caused by spies are the major ones...

Squalor can't be reduced except by upgrading the level of the settlement, you'll have to fight it with PO bonuses like health and happiness.

Religous unrest is reduced by coverting with priests, and putting in a pious governor.

Distance to capital can't be reduced, except by changing capital. Always try to have your capital at the centre of your empire.

Enemy spies can be killed by putting your own spies there.

[Kommodus]

Thanks!

That's the unrest part of PO(public order) penalties, if your post refers simply to PO penalties, then squalor, religious unrest caused by the presence of heresy/other religions/unpious governor, distance to capital and unrest caused by spies are the major ones...

I was referring only to the unrest part of the PO penalties, since I think I know what causes the others. I was wondering if perhaps one PO penalty could affect another; for example, squalor causing unrest to increase.

It sounds like that's not the case. Sounds like I'll have to call on the secret police...

[Siven]

What can you do if a settlement is slowly losing Public order even though youve got lots of militia in there, spies, the King, taxes on normal etc.

I have Edinbrough and atm its losing order each turn and with 36000 population and almost fully upgraded i cant think of anything else to do .

Do i let it rebel then attack and sack it?

[TevashSzat]

Don't sack since the city population will quickly grow back, but instead exterminate

[sapi]

Be warned though that after you exterminate you will have precious few chances to upgrade the settlement for years to come.

It's often best to juggle PO until it reaches the final level of a city, then exterminate if necessary.