Growing Castles

[ArPharazon]

Generallya given faction will start with one major city and one major fortress. The faction’s best troops will likely comeout of that fortress when it acquires enough population (I believe 18000) tobecome a citadel. This is difficult todo, will happen later in the game, and may not happen at all.

Ofcourse I add all population growing buildings such as farms, try to maintain a governorthere who has the traits to help population growth, and try to add anything thatwill increase trade. More trade will helpwith population growth at certain break points. The earlier this is done in the campaign the better. I imagine developing the trade in surroundingprovinces will help as well since that will increase the trade of the fortress viathe paved road.

Thequestion is can the same be said for population happiness? Is it worthwhile to always add happinessincreasing buildings as well or am I wasting my gold pieces?

There are the samedifficulties of course for getting a castle to fortress level.

[Trueman.]

I always keep my citizens happy, it's only important to develop the unit training buildings in your area of recruitment, if you conquer additional area, work on happiness. You'll probably get attacked a lot, and you might need to take the levy soldiers outside of the city or castle, I always keep my population happy so they won't revolt when I take out my garrison to counter attack or something similar. Generally, the highest your public order, the better, in all settlements, so if you find yourself with no more buildings that allow creating units, and an influx of cash, start building happiness buildings like the shisha bar or the brothel.

[ArPharazon]

I'm quite aware of all that. All my cities / castles are green w/ just a few yellows. My specfic question is about maxing out castle population growth. Does happiness levels affect population growth at certain break points like trade does or not? If it does I'll build every bldg that increases happiness including such buildings as higher end barracks that I might not other wise build. As for the brothel it doesn't occur in catles and I don't build it in high income cities managed by a governor for it increases the chances of bad traits for the governer.

[k/t]

Happiness does increase population growth. You can see that in the population bar in the settlement tab.

[ArPharazon]

What I see in the population growth bar in the settlement tab is harvest corn icons, farm building icons, trade wagon icons, governor influence icons, low tax bonus icons, and sometimes a building icon for 'buildings of entertainment, fun, culture ,and good public order'. This last is once in awhile so I'm not sure exactly if that refers to particular buildings or a general public order level or what. That is what I am asking about. How do we get this icon in the castle type of settlement. If I have a cahnce to get this bonus by buidling barracks to increase public order then I'll do so even though what I am after in the long run is the upper level stables.

[k/t]

Hmm, was I thinking about public order and not happiness? It's been a while since I've played M2.

[nein]

Best thing to do is convert into a town, pimp out the population and then convert back into a castle... unfortunately this is not possible with castles above level 2?

[k/t]

You can convert any castle, but once you build stone walls in a city you can no longer convert it to a castle.