Squalor

[Hochmeister]

What exactly is "squalor" in your settlements, and how do you avoid/reduce it? For a number of years in the game my settlements have been doing great and i was getting 10,000+ florins each turn, but now I have massive squalor in my settlements, causing the public order to fall drastically, forcing me to both increase the garrison and reduce the taxes, both of which cost $$$!

[Lavastein]

squalor is the bs term for "too many people" no city ever revolted because of too man people. to deal with this you can do a few things


1. move capital to a more central spot of the problem, upping the chances of content because of proximity of capital.

2. build things that make people happy, churches, entertainment centers and ironically, food suplies which ups population growth but makes people happy.

3. let the city rebel and then exterminate the populance. I find this harsh measure only to be used when you can afford to keep the troops around the area and crush the insurgents.

[bjeil]

Yeah, id like to know too.

Seems squalor increases when your population is pushing the limit of your city. For example, if your large city is pushing its limit, but you dont have the money to upgrade, squalor will increase.

I dont know specifically what reduces squalor though, except upgrading your settlement.

[Hochmeister]

Ah okay, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

[Lavastein]

np. just be aware that when taking a city ALWAYS exterminate the population. the only exception is when you need the money, then sack it instead, BUT ONLY if the city is not huge otherwise youll end up dealing with squalor. castles you can just sack because they dont usually go rebel on you.

[Delexit]

hm did u try chaning the value of farm/pop in costum files ?

I can point you to what ive done, global 2 removed from farm production, coupled with a 75% reduction of starting population

the above is from moding forums. the result is a really cool pop with barelly no problems - but the same goes for AI = an action packed situation + a more ballanced evolution
without mods the moment u can get militia archers pack ur cities with them; had London at +40k pop with 14 archer units and after awhile it start loosing pop & a constant 95 public order. that without any mods.

[Spiff]

Squalor is caused by having too many people. It represents unclean living conditions caused by cramming too many people into a small area. The only real way to combat it is lowering the population of a city, or balancing it out by making them proportionally happy in other ways (e.g. churches and such.)

Lowering the population of a city has become somewhat difficult in Medieval2. In Rome you could just train a stack of peasants and move them out the city to lower its population, but for some reason this doesn't work in Medieval, so you're pretty much stuck with an ever increasing population. I'm not sure if this is a bug or intended from the developers, but it seems very pointless to remove this feature as it was a significant part of managing a city in Rome.

Exterminating populations is one way to deal with this problem when conquering new lands, but it will of course make your general more dreadful and probably lower your standing with the Pope.

[Lavastein]

but a dreaded general is better because he has better command ability. The pope is usually bothersome and only on occasion does he deal with you in a matter like "stop attacking or xcom" if you build your churches and walk a fine line when he orders you to do things you can throw a board at him and get away with it.