Occupying and Developing Settlements

[OBarbas]

Gentlemen:

I've been searching the forum for some guide on the best way to occupy and develop enemy settlements. I've made a botch of it during my first current playing of RTRPE. For instance, I occupied Sicily and started building Phase I through III. At Phase II I was able to start recruiting Greek Peltasts and Libyan spearmen. But the towns grew increasingly disaffected, mainly the cultural penalty. I tried destroying all Carthaginian and Greek buildings to counter that, and building my own temples. But no matter what I did, or how many troops I stationed in the settlements, eventually they have revolted and destroyed everything.

What are the best methods for countering the cultural penalty and, overall, occupying enemy settlements and developing them to be stable components of my GLORIOUS EMPIRE?????

Thanks guys for your help.

OBarbas

[Delvecchio1975]

when i occupy a settlement I hover over the exterminate button: if it's about to kill more than 10 000 citizen i actually do it, if it's between 5 and 10 000 i enslave it, and if it's less than 5 000 i just occupy it. That should result in you having time enough to keep everyone happy before the city becomes to big and revolts ...

temples: if you conquer a barbarian settlement as a civilized nation (and the other way round) you won't be able to upgrade the temples already there - break 'em down. otherwise leave 'em be. you can break down their barracks to get some extra cash if needed, it won't affect happiness, as far as i can tell.

after occupying/exterminating/enslaving check the happiness.
* if it's well over 100% start building barracks, they generate a bit of happiness, and you'll be able to train more units to keep unrest down, but they are slow to build.
* if happiness is still below 100, check the happiness in the detail view of your settlement. if the reason for unhappiness is mainly squalor, build sewers & aqueducts, if it's mainly culture/unrest penalty build temples, academies, odeons, execution squares and that sort of thing.

voila, that's my strategy for newly conquered settlements!

[thegravytrain18]

Yeah, I'm having a problem with this lately. I build temples, have fullstacks, low taxes, station family members, and I usually exterminate/enslave. But it seems almost all of my towns revolt at some point. Its actually really really annoying, like half of my game experience is taken up trying to figure out why my towns won't stop revolting. I really think they should look at it in RTR 7.

[PriestLizard]

The biggest problem seems squalor. If you exterminate the old population, you dont get so much of a culture penalty, at least thats my experience. I already mentioned it in another thread: if nothing helps and if its not against your house rules, just leave the town and re-conquer it again, and exterminate citizens again. It will prevent any revolts. Make sure you have a strong army arround though, since there will be large stacks of rebels showing up in the revolted city.

[thegravytrain18]

Yeah, I did that to a town in my Carthage campaign. Originally, it revolted on its own after I took it. So I retook it. Then the unrest went up AGAIN, and there was rioting, so I just left the town, let it revolt, and re-occupied it with the help of the auto-win cheat. I was so pissed off, haha. So far, no problems after the extermination. I started an Armenian campaign and I'm playing much closer attention to my towns, making sure I'm buying the right buildings to combat the particular damaging factor to public order in the city. Which buildings can you build to lower squalor? I know temples and garrisons are good for unrest. I built sewers but they didn't lower the squalor.

[PriestLizard]

AFAIK you cant reduce squalor. Its just a side effect of an expanding town. There a quite some buildings who increase the public order though, like the ones you already mentioned, plus others. Its important to build these early enough in order to prevent major problems.

Be careful with some traits, as they also increase squalor. It might be good to exchange family members if something like this occurs.

I find it rather disturbing to deal with squalor, especially in big cities with more than 30.ooo citizens. Probably its 'realistic' that riots occur from now and then, and that the government has to punch down those riots by re-conquering the city (basically: use military power to get things under control) and by exterminating the revolts (look at Burma now.. lol ).

[OBarbas]

Thanks guys for your invaluable advice. I'll be trying to implement all suggestions. At this point, having conquered most of North Africa and Sicily with at one point 25000 of plunder in the bank, I am reduced to -3355 money, I have been ignominiously expelled from Africa and Sicily by frenzied revolution, and I'm in a life-or-death struggle with frikkin Gauls who just KEEP ON COMING from the north. Arrgghh my empire my empire, woe is me!!!

[SuleymanGroznii]

After taking over a city, I repair what I messed up and start up Aux Phase 1, an execution square if its one of those factions (+10% public order for less than $2K? I'll take it...), and even sewers/public baths if it'll also add a growth spurt bonus to public order (which is typically +15-20% public order less than $2K).

I check the settlement details, choose the various options to see what effects they'll have on pop growth, public order, and income (you can just undo the selection), and then decide which construction projects give me the most bang for the buck. I also think that keeping a garrison that leads to at least 30% of your public order is optimal (at least until your settlement is just the best place on earth to live), and keep in mind that its the # of soldiers in your garrison, not their efficacy on the battlefield, that leads to better law and order points.

good god, do I feel like a nerd right now

[Switch]

Aye, I get a fair few cities that seem unable to sit still and succumb to my benevolent rule. Exterminating big cities definitely helps, but you have to start building public order buildings pretty soon, as the population will start to climb and unrest will build.

For me, most of the conquered cities will stabilise after a couple of decades, but some continue to be in the Blue/Red. In these cases, my favoured methods will be making sure that I have an Arena or some building which allows me to hold Daily/Monthly/Yearly games, as it gives you an option of Low taxes AND Daily games if things start to go to pot.

Secondly, and even more helpfully, simply sticking a family member with a lot of influence in a city will help greatly (unless they have traits that make them a hated, tyrannical ruler .

If stuff gets really desperate try and gain control of wonders which give happiness bonuses. The Temple of Zeus at Olympia (conquer Elis, IIRC?), gives a loyalty bonus in all settlements. That would probably be a last-ditch attempt to stop all your cities revolting, though .