omg how?

[Aegrim]

Ok, a brief walk through of how i've got this far.

After starting out as the Greek cities i managed to grab the Roman city on Sicily and buddy up with Carthage. Aswell as push north on the greek mainland and take that. Rome quickly became a menace and i really couldn't afford to ignore them so i had to concentrate everything on pushing them back.

After heading up north and taking the area to the north east of italy over the sea on the map i was coming up against ever larger armies and decided i needed to open another front to drain Rome's resources more and began invading from Sicily.

I had also made an alliance with the Seleucid's, but (same with Carthage) without my knowledge they'd been attacked and completely run over, Carthage by numidia, and Seleucid by Pontus, Pontus quickly steam rolled over my badly defended cities on Asia minor and stopped at the sea before asking for peace a few turns later. I agreed but vowed to return with vengeance.

After taking Italy i fortified all the passes through the Alps, and pretty much held there, moving almost all my generals to the east for a massive multi pronged invasion of Pontus, just as my armies were ALMOST ready, i ask for some maps and such and discover that Egypt is beginning to plough through their once good friends Pontus, so i hurry up and attack, Egypt takes one of my target cities and i just decide to snatch it right from them. I take all of Asia minor eventually, getting stuck around the area that is now Israel thanks to what appears to be Egypt's entire army hanging around the area.

After discovering that the roman city to the west of the alps is only connected to the rest of france by 2 easily defended bridges i snatch it, not after taking on 2 roman armies of 2000 men with my 1500 (3 units defending the bridge, the rest taking on the other army). Epic victory.

But now all my cities are complaining about squalor, but i've already built all of the health buildings i can and almost all of my cities are on low tax.
how the hell do i keep them from rioting about this? I've already had 2 rebellions.

btw, i'm new to rome tw, although i've played medieval II before i played this (rome is better tbh). This is actually my first game, i didn't enjoy playing as the romans so modded out the files to let my place as greece

also i'm 10 cities from victory, is it normally this hard to keep control of all your cities this far into the game? or do you just have to try steam rolling later on?

[Strom]

My guess is that you're being hit by the culture penalty. If you take over a city that worships different gods then it's really hard to keep people happy, especially on harder difficulty levels. If you sell the old church and build one of your own (one that boosts happyness rather than growth), then you can generally manage the population.

On higher difficulty levels this is essentially required, I remember having a small town with a full stack garrisoning it rebel before I figured this out. Incidentally this led to one of my most entertaining battles ever as both armies were made mostly from low morale levy pikemen and at one stage during the battle about 75% of both armies were routing simultaneously... (Adding more troops increases happyness but becomes prohibitively expensive after a while, and you can only fit so many troops in a settlement at one time. Note also that adding a unit to the build queue removes that many civilians from the city so it's sometimes possible to prevent a city from starting a riot by queueing up enough units so its population drops to the point where your existing garrison can handle it.)

Various other buildings also give you a culture penalty but generally when you upgrade them they switch to your culture so you can wait the problem out. Churches have such a large effect, though, that you simply cant counteract it and the city wont grow to the next city size without rebelling.

Other than that I seem to remember (and I'm a bit rusty) that some factions simply don't have the tech to maintain large cities so you can always move the garrison out, let them rebel, then sack/exterminate them to keep the lid on things for a while. I don't think that the Greek Cities are one of those factions though.

[Aegrim]

hmm, that seems reasonable in Italy and such, but this is Corinth for example, the city right next to Sparta just to its north, they must be wading through their own muck in this city, and there's nothing else i can build so sort this out, just make the people more happier to not quite mind the mess :S

[Romulus_A]

Is your capital at the center of your empire? If it's not, then this could be one of the reasons.

Also, another thing that I find handy, to eliminate that nasty culture penalty, is to exterminate all settlements that posess a large population. Just as well, the less people in a settlement, the less people to deal with in general.

Finally, as for Corinith, I'm guessing Corinith is one of your largest cities? If it is, then this is what'll you have to expect from your large cities, larger squalor, and larger amounts of public disorder. There is a small fix to this though until you can get the next level of sanitation system. As you see in your building scroll, you have at least 2 buildings you can construct to increase happiness. Although it may seem like a small increase, even that little amount can be substantial.

And if all this fails, then you can always fall back to the fool-proof way of sending your military to watch over your town. I don't mean sending armies of hoplites and what not to watch over the towns, just train peasents. Peasents give the same garrison bonus to public order as any other unit, making them a cheap asset for keeping order.

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Another way to do this, is that if you've got a strong economy and don't mind losing a few cities for a turn or two. Then just take the whole garrison out of the city, let the rebel, then conquer it again, then exterminate the population, no matter where it is. It usually makes them all happy.

[Selifator]

Strangely enough, people in RTW like having 9/10th of their pop getting killed. Or it is the prospect of certain death that makes them calm.

[The Rights 2]

hey i like the idea of killing 10,000 people just so theyshut the hell up.as the old saying goes when in rome... kill them all! ::Evil Laugh::

[Benz282]

hmm, that seems reasonable in Italy and such, but this is Corinth for example, the city right next to Sparta just to its north, they must be wading through their own muck in this city, and there's nothing else i can build so sort this out, just make the people more happier to not quite mind the mess :S

I don't see any sanitation buildings in there, lol. You sure you have built Sewers/Public Baths/Aqueducts? If not, then that's definitely your problem.

Also, I'm not sure what temple-chain you have built in that city, but if possible, you should build the temple-chain that gives Law bonuses (all temple-chains provide the happiness bonus). The Law and Happiness bonuses should do wonders for your public order.

As has been said before, spam peasants or simply exterminate the little bastards, lol. <---- Great source of income, btw

[Lord Romanus III]

You kids are crazy for telling him to build peasants. If he is the Greek Cities he can build Militia Hoplites. As far as Corinth goes, what temple are you building? You need Athena for the Law Bonus.

[Selifator]

Peasants are lower in upkeep, and they have more men in a unit than militia, and btw if you call us kids for giving a good advice what does that make you?

[King_StuvartiniusIII]

Putting spies in your cities has an effect on public order.... not sure if it's for the better or not though :hmmm:

P.S. 100th post!

[chizabc]

Remove garrison-wait for rebellion-assault city-own rebels-massacre populace

[htismaqe]

Peasants are lower in upkeep, and they have more men in a unit than militia

They're also pretty much worthless if you actually have to use them. Peasants should really only be used in cities that have virtually no chance of being sieged, at least IMO.

[Benz282]

They're also pretty much worthless if you actually have to use them. Peasants should really only be used in cities that have virtually no chance of being sieged, at least IMO.

Well, it depends on the city in question, what faction you are playing, and the desperateness of the situation.

If you are the Romans, your options for cheap garrison infantry are highly limited, and Peasants are the best option (obviously with some HI and Archer support where possible). As for the Greek Cities, I'm not sure what the upkeep of Militia Hoplites are, but unless there is threat of attack, I would still suggest Peasants; especially if he needs to get the population down quickly.

Truth the told, the only time I think Peasants wouldn't be the best option is when you have Warbands, Levy Pikemen, or a similar (60-man) unit, with low upkeep.

[htismaqe]

Well, it depends on the city in question, what faction you are playing, and the desperateness of the situation.

If you are the Romans, your options for cheap garrison infantry are highly limited, and Peasants are the best option (obviously with some HI and Archer support where possible). As for the Greek Cities, I'm not sure what the upkeep of Militia Hoplites are, but unless there is threat of attack, I would still suggest Peasants; especially if he needs to get the population down quickly.

Truth the told, the only time I think Peasants wouldn't be the best option is when you have Warbands, Levy Pikemen, or a similar (60-man) unit, with low upkeep.

I guess I should have noted that it's not just peasants who are worthless. Most of the "cheap" infantry units are worthless for city defense.

I use missile units of some kind for city defense, regardless of faction. There's always the chance they'll induce routing before the enemy breaches the walls.

I've found that if you're defending a backwater city that doesn't have an offensive force nearby, you're already dead if you're engaged in street-level, hand-to-hand with the enemy inside your own city.

[Benz282]

I guess I should have noted that it's not just peasants who are worthless. Most of the "cheap" infantry units are worthless for city defense.

I use missile units of some kind for city defense, regardless of faction. There's always the chance they'll induce routing before the enemy breaches the walls.

I've found that if you're defending a backwater city that doesn't have an offensive force nearby, you're already dead if you're engaged in street-level, hand-to-hand with the enemy inside your own city.

I'm sure we all know that defending a city with only Peasants is a foolish endeavor. However, what we are talking about is garrisoning a city so it doesn't rebel, not defending one.

I hope you weren't assuming we were all recommending he uses Peasants as the bulk of his standing army

[htismaqe]

I'm sure we all know that defending a city with only Peasants is a foolish endeavor. However, what we are talking about is garrisoning a city so it doesn't rebel, not defending one.

I hope you weren't assuming we were all recommending he uses Peasants as the bulk of his standing army

Certainly not!

I understand the use of cheap units to suppress rebellions, but I just don't see the use. They're worthless if the city gets attacked from outside.

Skirmishers are almost as cheap, require very little upkeep, and do a far better job defending in the off chance that an enemy sieges your city.

[Benz282]

When trying to suppress revolts, while you can recruit just about anything to do so, you have to remember that it helps to bring the population down a bit as well. All units take away from a city's population when recruited, but Peasants, Warbands, Phalanx Pikemen, and SSP/Royals take far more than all other units. A full 50%, in fact.

So, if you chose to fill up your recruitment queue with standard (40-man) units, you will be taking between 180 and 1440 men (depending on your unit size setting). However, if you fill it up with Peasants (or another, 60-man unit), you will be able to take a good 2160 men out of the population; just like that. Generally, simply filling up the queue with Peasants is enough to improve public order. This gives you a bit of "breathing room"; so you can wait for troops to arrive from other settlements or simply wait for the Peasants to finish training and have them give you the "Garrison bonus" directly.

Generally you wont have a city revolt due to squalor early in the game, so by the time populations get that high, the fighting will probably be far from the cities in question. As such, you probably wont need to defend those settlements from other factions anyways.

I exterminate all cities I capture, so I usually only have squalor in my core provinces, so if I need to worry about defending them, I'll probably have bigger problems than worrying about revolts

[htismaqe]

When trying to suppress revolts, while you can recruit just about anything to do so, you have to remember that it helps to bring the population down a bit as well. All units take away from a city's population when recruited, but Peasants, Warbands, Phalanx Pikemen, and SSP/Royals take far more than all other units. A full 50%, in fact.

So, if you chose to fill up your recruitment queue with standard (40-man) units, you will be taking between 180 and 1440 men (depending on your unit size setting). However, if you fill it up with Peasants (or another, 60-man unit), you will be able to take a good 2160 men out of the population; just like that. Generally, simply filling up the queue with Peasants is enough to improve public order. This gives you a bit of "breathing room"; so you can wait for troops to arrive from other settlements or simply wait for the Peasants to finish training and have them give you the "Garrison bonus" directly.

Generally you wont have a city revolt due to squalor early in the game, so by the time populations get that high, the fighting will probably be far from the cities in question. As such, you probably wont need to defend those settlements from other factions anyways.

I exterminate all cities I capture, so I usually only have squalor in my core provinces, so if I need to worry about defending them, I'll probably have bigger problems than worrying about revolts

If you're playing on H or VH campaign, you'll likely have to defend those core cities against REBELS.

[htismaqe]

When trying to suppress revolts, while you can recruit just about anything to do so, you have to remember that it helps to bring the population down a bit as well. All units take away from a city's population when recruited, but Peasants, Warbands, Phalanx Pikemen, and SSP/Royals take far more than all other units. A full 50%, in fact.

So, if you chose to fill up your recruitment queue with standard (40-man) units, you will be taking between 180 and 1440 men (depending on your unit size setting). However, if you fill it up with Peasants (or another, 60-man unit), you will be able to take a good 2160 men out of the population; just like that. Generally, simply filling up the queue with Peasants is enough to improve public order. This gives you a bit of "breathing room"; so you can wait for troops to arrive from other settlements or simply wait for the Peasants to finish training and have them give you the "Garrison bonus" directly.

Generally you wont have a city revolt due to squalor early in the game, so by the time populations get that high, the fighting will probably be far from the cities in question. As such, you probably wont need to defend those settlements from other factions anyways.

I exterminate all cities I capture, so I usually only have squalor in my core provinces, so if I need to worry about defending them, I'll probably have bigger problems than worrying about revolts

FYI, if you're EXTERMINATING all cities you capture, how many people are removed from the population when you train new units is a moot point.