Tips for Population Growth?

[caspian]

I'm having trouble building up my population in the Italian peninsula. Most of my cities have either population loss or stagnant growth. I even tried enslaving the cities I took from Gaul but I didn't see any change in the cities with governors. Maybe I missed something in the readme or should I just hire mercs and disband them in the cities to boost up the population.

I really want to get the Post Marius legions!

[Garnier]

What year is it? I'm playing with 4tpy, and I am going to wait til 170 BC for republican legions. Its 184 right now, so thats 56 turns away. Just be patient.

[Teodosio]

I'm having trouble building up my population in the Italian peninsula. Most of my cities have either population loss or stagnant growth. I even tried enslaving the cities I took from Gaul but I didn't see any change in the cities with governors. Maybe I missed something in the readme or should I just hire mercs and disband them in the cities to boost up the population.

I really want to get the Post Marius legions!

I had the same problem: many of the Italian cities just don't want to grow. They seem to reach the "stedy state" with 0 growth before 24000 population.
I have found 3 main solutions:
1- Appoint a governor with farming, health or squalor reduction bonuses: many traits and ancillaries provide them, and if you add one such governor to a city he could increase growth by 1-2%;
2- Set taxes to minimum, or, if you have auto-managed taxes, remove garrisons and temples in order to have low taxation;
3- Wait for one city to grow, then build the imperial palace, and while the palace is building train city watches from that city and disband them to the next-to-grow city. The first is usually Reghion or one of the Sicilian cities, because they have the food import bonus. Consider that you can move 5000 men with a full stack of city watches; once you fill another city start building the palace and train militia from there.
Let me know if this worked!

[Garnier]

I will only use the transfer populations via militia thing, in 170 BC when I've waited long enough to make the imperial palace. I do allow myself to hire mercenaries and disband them, since they are so expensive anyway, its usually not worth it.

[BiggBudd]

I take it you have already built all sewers and farms?
best bet is to enslave a large city, just remove all guvs from their cities b4 you attack except for the 1 city u want more pop in, then enslave, all slaves will go to the 1 city where u left a guv, i get about 4-6k slaves per go if the enemies city is big. Then put bk all the other guvs, Biggbudd.

[Teodosio]

I take it you have already built all sewers and farms?
best bet is to enslave a large city, just remove all guvs from their cities b4 you attack except for the 1 city u want more pop in, then enslave, all slaves will go to the 1 city where u left a guv, i get about 4-6k slaves per go if the enemies city is big. Then put bk all the other guvs, Biggbudd.

That would work but it would be too much trouble if you have 20+ family member. Let's do the trick in the quickest way possible, transfer population via city watches