City Loyalty/Public Order Effects?

[Flavius Gonzo]

Does a city or castle's loyalty or public order affect anything other than the cost to bribe it? Does it affect rebel respawn rates?

Just wondering if there's any advantage to setting taxes lower so that public order stays above 100%, or if the only thing I need to worry about with public order is when it dips below 75% and the city riots.

[Kobal2fr]

Well, I had gotten the habit from MTW to set taxes to Very High by default as long as happiness was over 100%, but in M2TW it seems brigand spawns are not tied to happiness %age but to tax setting : in my current campaign as the HRE I found myself setting all my home provinces on Normal to avoid empire-wide corruption, and rebels have almost completely stopped popping up, whereas I had one appear somewhere every other turn on Very High setting.

Other than that, I don't think there's any benefit to having happiness over 100% besides what you've mentionned, but bear in mind that high taxes mean less population growth, which in turns means less taxpayers in the long run.

[IrishArmenian]

I try to keep public happiness over 115% so I can notice a city's happiness level drop before it is too late and rioting. Population growth is a must for me, but then again, barring the plagues, I rarely encounter stagnant or decreasing populations because I build I love my infrastructure: farms, roads and townhalls (good mix of health and happiness bonus).

[Flavius Gonzo]

OK, thanks for the tips. I played a few turns tonight trying to keep public order above 100%. It seems like it might have decreased the rebel spawn rate, but it kills your economy!

I'm thinking a good strategy might be keep public order above 100% in settlements near an enemy, where you can't afford to divert soldiers to fight rebels. Everywhere else though... tax heavily!

Thoughts?

[Zarky]

I think Castles public order wont be even a problem unless you put there totally corrupted a**hole
for cities make sure there are good generals with either chivalry if you want more population growth, or with Dread to keep them in order. Keep enough big garrison and try to keep taxes at high what ever happens, or you will catch bad taxman, just build town hall series and if you don´t keep governor, build brothel series too. and with High you won´t ruin your economy if you keep expanding regularly. The settlements you have in your hearthlands are usually the biggest so they will be corrupted eventually and squalor rate grows so keep them happy so long yoiu can with high taxes and then let them revolt and slay them all (after you reach 24000 population and have built the wall, you don´t have to wait ages for city to grow back again)
Preferr sacking so you usually don´t destroy any buildings.

[Kobal2fr]

Something to keep in mind also : any tax setting below High has a chance to give the governor bad traits. Very High has a chance to give them good traits, but also some Dread. Low setting gives Chivalry.

[alpaca]

The best approach is to have low tax rate normally to give your governor the kind ruler line, and to increase it extortionate/very high (with disillusioned happiness) when finishing a building as that gives the GoodTaxman line, so you can have 30% extra taxes while maintaining a huge pop growth, which is nothing to sneeze at.

[Kobal2fr]

Yah, I too noticed while revising the traits that while good/bad taxman triggers happen on building completion, the chivalry trigger for low taxes is checked each turn, so if you really want to minimax your governors you can do that. Borderline exploit though, I'd say - or at least very, very gamey

[alpaca]

Yah, I too noticed while revising the traits that while good/bad taxman triggers happen on building completion, the chivalry trigger for low taxes is checked each turn, so if you really want to minimax your governors you can do that. Borderline exploit though, I'd say - or at least very, very gamey

Yeah, can't help it really. If I play a game I often tend to powergame it
And I agree, it's an exploit. So I don't often do it anymore. Just said it works best

[Sentinel]

IMO Rebel spawn rate and pirate spawn rate work the same way as they did in RTW. The rate is set at the beginning of the campaign from one of the files (can’t remember which one). From then on the rate is completely random. There might be a region modifier that gives certain regions a higher or lower problem with rebels than others.

Setting taxes higher or lower affect mainly the public order, population growth, and income, but dose not effect the spawn rates. Neither does law building, town upgrades or city verse castle.

Setting taxes so that the PO stays at 70% or above should be good enough to prevent unrest.

The best way I have found to avoid bad traits for governors in not to use them as governors. They are one of the best cavalry units in the game so put them on the front line winning battles. It won’t matter then if they have a minus 60% to tax and trade.

Edit: The file to modify is the descr_strat.txt. The larger the number against the rebel spawn rate the fewer the rebels.

[alpaca]

IMO Rebel spawn rate and pirate spawn rate work the same way as they did in RTW. The rate is set at the beginning of the campaign from one of the files (can’t remember which one). From then on the rate is completely random. There might be a region modifier that gives certain regions a higher or lower problem with rebels than others.

Setting taxes higher or lower affect mainly the public order, population growth, and income, but dose not effect the spawn rates. Neither does law building, town upgrades or city verse castle.

Setting taxes so that the PO stays at 70% or above should be good enough to prevent unrest.

The best way I have found to avoid bad traits for governors in not to use them as governors. They are one of the best cavalry units in the game so put them on the front line winning battles. It won’t matter then if they have a minus 60% to tax and trade.

Edit: The file to modify is the descr_strat.txt. The larger the number against the rebel spawn rate the fewer the rebels.

I don't think you're right there.
As an example, playing with the moors I frequently got rebellions in Cordoba at the start of the game (and with frequently I mean almost every turn). After some time, they became fewer and fewer and later completely disappeared - I didn't get brigands there for 30 turns or so.
I'm not sure what caused them to drop, but I think it has either something to do with public order or law levels and such, because I usually had taxes at vh there (needed the money)

[Kobal2fr]

Hmmm, maybe there's a hidden loyalty business going on ? Wasn't there something like that in MTW, where a province you had owned for a very long time would have extra high levels of unrest for anyone else and spawn stacks loyal to you ?

Or could just be that you just happened to send imams all over the place to squash those silly catholics and their funny hats

[alpaca]

Hmmm, maybe there's a hidden loyalty business going on ? Wasn't there something like that in MTW, where a province you had owned for a very long time would have extra high levels of unrest for anyone else and spawn stacks loyal to you ?

Or could just be that you just happened to send imams all over the place to squash those silly catholics and their funny hats

Nay I took extra care to keep the religious level constant to exploit the good taxman thing

[lar]

does anyone know whats up with some places having constant unrest? is it just certain provinces have a base unrest level?

[Kobal2fr]

I believe so, yes. At least it was the case in MTW, and I'm quite convinced the same goes for RTW.

For example, back in MTW, holding control over Portugal, Scotland or Ireland was a very, very great pain in the derrière, as they required almost half a stack just to reach the loyalty level not to revolt every other turn