content settlements in brittania

[Ozzman1O1]

how will my roman explorers be able to make the minor britain citys or should I say villages,content,and whats the point of having them if they dont give me a dime?

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hullo Ozman1O1
Am I correct in thinking that you wish to improve public order and the income of your newly captured British Cities?

Regarding finances, it often can be wise to up your tax rate to as high as it will go without causing "red" public order, below 60%. As previously stated, the more people in the settlement, the higher the levels of tax you will gain. Despite this sounding positive this will increase squalor, a major public order problem, so you may wish to balance these factors out. Building up trade boosting buildings can also help you in growing your settlements finances.

Moving the capital closer to these cities will also aid your income, although primarily through decreasing the income penalties caused by corruption. Building buildings with a law bonus can also help lower this factor - law both removes corruption, and increases happiness at the same time making it the best possible bonus available in R:TW. Temples are generally the best for this purpose since their higher levels can reduce corruption by a huge amount. If you don't have temples dedicated to law bonuses, you may wish to destroy the ones you have to construct them. Ensure that public order is stable first, or you may have rebellious problems while you construct them.

A final note on finance, no city is ever losing you money, regardless of what the display says. Every city contributes to your funds, even if it does seem to be losing money every turn. This is because the game subtracts military upkeep from every settlement before showing its details to you.

Due to this problem, a more accurate depiction of your empire's finances can be seen on the end of turn report. A more accurate depiction of individual cities financial contribution can also be seen, although this requires manual work.

Quite simply, open up the the settlement details scroll, and look at the financial summery. Add up all the items in the "+" section, and then subtract all the items in the "-" section excluding military upkeep. Your result, is your city's financial contribution to your empire.

Moving on to public order - high taxes, unrest, squalor, cultural penalty and distance to capital are factors which great leaders could do without. Squalor is possibly the worst:

To prevent squalor, the best option is to simply prevent growth - as a wise fellow once said - "your war is not against squalor - it's against population growth". Population growth will always occur in even the least hygienic and well fed settlements, yet it can be slowed down by avoiding health and population boosting buildings, including farms. In addition, avoiding enslaving the populace can also be a good method of avoiding this problem.

Unfortunately, your only resort against squalor, once you have it, is building heath buildings and similar happiness structures, as you have said. I do believe, however, that they do not actually resolve squalor and instead simply counter-act and, over time phase their good out by piling huge amounts of population upon your settlement creating a worse squalor issue. You could also upgrade the Governor's palace, yet that can make things worse in the long run too.

The best thing I find if the problem is too out of hand is abandoning the settlement, leaving it to revolt, and then returning to exterminate the populace. It reduces the population's numbers, yet also removes income within the settlement, so, if you're desperate for cash, then you may wish to avoid this evil strategy.

May I also suggest that you try rebalancing the population. Simply train many units of peasants in your largest cities and disband them in your smaller ones. This migration moves men from the large city, that could do with less people in the populace, to a smaller one that requires the population to expand to the next level to gain better troops. If you have no small cities that require this boost, send the Peasants to their deaths - stick 'em on a boat and send them into pirate/enemy infested waters. They will soon be dead, leaving you with nothing to worry about!

By doing this though, sacrifices will have to be made - to get the best military units you require maxed up cities. In certain strategically important cities, these rules will have to be broken. As long your British cities aren't constantly under attack, you probably won't need to do that though.

Secondly, the more people there are in a settlement, the higher the income. Although this won't matter if you aren't extremely rich already, it could be damaging if you are not. If the latter is the case, you may have to carefully balance growth with squalor.

Unrest is caused by recent conquest of a settlement, governor's traits and enemy spies stirring up trouble!

Sadly, resolving unrest caused by the settlement changing hands in unresolvable and cannot really be changed without the help on a unrest reducing governor - sorry.

However, checking out your characters can solve unrest. Does the governor have unrest causing traits in his selection? If he does then get your calculator out and add things up! For every happiness influencing point which is positive, such as influence/subtraction from squalor, add 5% onto your totals unless a percentage is given and then instead add that on. Then subtract everything negative, taking away 5% per point of anything unless a percentage is given. If the governor's rating on your calculator turns out to be below 0 (causing more problems than he is resolving) then take him out and find somebody with a better rating.

Enemy spies are the chief cause of unrest, causing +5% unrest per subterfuge point. Put your own spies in the settlement to track them down and get them executed for their evils, this may take a few turns, however, so it may not be useful if you need an emergency quick-fix.

Cultural penalty is caused by buildings of a different culture being in your settlement. For example, if the Romans were to capture a Greek settlement with many Greek buildings then this factor would run rampant. It causes a -5% penalty per building that is not your culture with a 20% penalty for the governor's building. It does, however, reach it's maximum capacity at 50%.

It can be removed through upgrading the buildings in the settlement to the next level, upgrading the governor's residence, and the city, to the next level and destroying buildings not of your culture, although it's best to do a balancing act here and thing about the positive effects of the building versus a -5% happiness penalty.

Distance to capital is possible the easiest resolved of all the factors in R:TW happiness! Simply move the capital closer to the dangerous settlements and they will be much happier! Corruption, a major income reducer, will also be lowered in this process.

However, bear in mind that other settlements may become unhappier and more corruption riddled if the capital is moved away from them. It's best to browse around for a good place to locate your capital throughout a turn, making sure that everybody is satisfied with your choice of re-location. You can find a tool to help you with this here.

On a final note regarding public order, you should bear in mind, as well as prevention, that the cure can be equally effective. If you ever have problems the construction of a law or an increased happiness building can never go amiss. Law is much better since it also aids your financial situation by reducing corruption, but in counter-acting rebellion problems, either will do.

Good luck Ozzman and congratulations on your promotion to member

[Ibn-Khaldun]

well ..
i wanted to say something but Omanes sayd it all

[Warmaster Horus]

If you're trying to use a large garrison to quell rebellion, then the maximum Public Order a garrison can add is 80%. So it's no use having 1000 men in a town if 100 will do the job.