Did this happen to anyone else playing "Turtle" style?

[King_Sulieman_YHWH]

Okay, so 'Turtle' style playing is when you build up very slowly, defensively, with emphasis on economy and defense. You don't expand very quickly, instead you fortify each of your territories to the maximum, not in garrison, but in buildings etc. Then you wait for other factions to war with you, usually.

In my previous game as Spain(Kingdom of Leon-Castille), I played like this after kicking the Moors out of Iberia very early on. I kept playing this way through the year 1200, and the Mongols were out east causing trouble. The only lands I had taken were the Moors' southern Iberian towns, a couple rebel towns, the two towns in Ireland, and the two towns in Scotland. I had marriage alliances of 2 with France and 2 with Aragon, and 1 with Portugal, so no one would attack me!

Then, despite having buildings for public happiness, as well as decent governors, some of my towns started rebelling, then eventually I'd completely lose the town to a rebel uprising! It started happening in Britannia as well, so it wasnt a localized thing with Iberia. I'd retake the towns and sack them to kill off some of the population, but then other towns would start doing the same thing.

I finally got fed up with it and quit the game. I was disappointed that I was at war with my own faction and it was for seemingly no reason. Why didnt my allies betray me? Has this happened to anyone else?

Needless to say, now I slowly continue expanding, even if its real slow, just to keep that self-destruct syndrome from triggering again.

[Erwin Rommel]

yeah i did that once in MTW and in CIV3, in the long term your the loser no matter how many money you get...even if you got the best armies......they'll just come at you EN MASSE.

[Old Geezer]

What level of difficulty was this? The settlements did go red faced before they revolted didn't they? Were the governors corrupt? Sometimes a bad governor can really get people upset. I the city is 100 percent catholic and the governor is a flagrant pervert and public nose picker the middle class stirs up trouble.

[sherbs]

I've just quit my latest game for the same reason.

Playing as England, I've just taken rebel towns, have been defending Caen against France since turn 5 or so, as usual and news is arriving about trouble in the East. York is rebelling and every other town in England has a yellow face or worse. As it's all down to squalor, there's not much I can do about it and I haven't even started conquering yet.

I read lots of threads where people are having great times conquering the world. How? How do you get the money to support large armies and still have peace back home?

[JonR]

You are building government buildings, right? Town halls and the like.
They help a lot against squalor and they give law bonuses.

[Sher Khan]

You have to keep track of what exactly is making your cities unhappy.

Even when they're green-faced. My general rule of thumb? I start countering any negatives in my city once public order dips down to 120% on Normal taxation levels.


How are you managing your taxation? Setting taxes low for a good while can really help you grow (I had a small kingdom of nothing but huge cities by the time the Mongols arrived with Venice), but once you start hitting that mark, public order really catches up and even low taxation levels will start leading to revolts.


Set taxes high to everything but villages and very small towns, unless said tax level causes a revolt.



If you properly turtle your economy, mass revolts should never happen. I play periodic campaigns like this, and I manage to have huge cities with over 150% public order in general up until the black death arrives.

[sherbs]

I build just about everthing in all towns but I'm at the stage now where all my negatives in the settlement scroll are down to squalor and there's nothing I can build to affect that. The only way I can see is, as the OP said, to massacre your own populace.
This brings me back to my original question. How do you maximise your towns for income to support your armies without them descending into squalor?

[Lost Crusader]

My guess would be that your armed forces are larger than can be supported with your current economy. To counter this, you overtaxed your people, and they rebelled.

You can deal with this in 3 ways:
1. improve your economy (build ports, roads, markets, mines, merchants)
2. reduce your army
3. expand
4. send your army to a nice enemy town, sack it, sell all of the buildings and leave it to the rebells

[sherbs]

My guess would be that your armed forces are larger than can be supported with your current economy

If I don't build, I make 4-5k per turn

improve your economy (build ports, roads, markets, mines, merchants)

Ever town has every improvement up to level 3

reduce your army

Not that big. I have two half stacks and a garrison defending Caen

expand

This is the point. I am at the stage where I can expand as my castles can produce good units, I can afford them and my homeland is at least 90% Catholic in all regions. Then just as I'm about to start planning, every town is going down the tubes. It's down to SQUALOR. No advice I've seen here addresses that. In this game, how do you manage your regions to give you maximum income without eventually having to put all your resources into saving your own land?

[jalen911]

I never play like that. But I think it's like true history develping.

[nosjo78]

See my post entitled Turtling 101. Dump those settlements in the British Isles, pick up north Africa, and get your chivalry, piety, and authority on your king and heir up.

[Lost Crusader]

sherbs, squalor maxes out at 80%, it can't go any higher. In one of your post you said that the squalor is the only thing that gives you trouble. A direct way to decrease the squalor is to upgrade the city walls. Have you done it in all your settlements?

You've also said that you build almost everything in all of your cities. For example, in huge city, the walls, huge cathedral, mayor palace and pleasure palace will give you +115 happiness. Do you have all this buildings (at maximal available level)?

What is your tax level? You get some happiness bonus for having low taxes.

I suppose you already know this, but I'll say it anyway: increase your garrison and have a high chivalry governor with some good public order traits.

[Bluice]

I had marriage alliances of 2 with France and 2 with Aragon, and 1 with Portugal, so no one would attack me!

Never a sealed deal mate.

I had the exact same thing happen to me and it was because my king has massed a lot of dread and lost authority due to the assassin's operations across the map. Therefore the governors start getting traits mentioning distrust to their king and rebellion and the king will actually get a trait called "Offends the nobility".

But I am playing Stainless Steel and I'm unsure as to whether that is actually just an added trait from the mod.

[homefry]

This game wasn't meant to be played turtled from the beginning.

You need more settlements to support the more expensive buildings. After capturing 30 or so settlements, you can start to turtle.

[Sher Khan]

This game wasn't meant to be played turtled from the beginning.

You need more settlements to support the more expensive buildings. After capturing 30 or so settlements, you can start to turtle.

Far from it!

I played a Milan campaign where I had only 5 cities and 1 castle. I had them up to huge city and building the most advanced buildings available without my treasury dipping below 50k.

And I never sacked a city (or even conquered one aside from Rebel Marseille, Florence, and Ajaccio).


The key is to having minimal army levels, which makes it that much harder when you face an enemy, but all the more rewarding.

[King_Sulieman_YHWH]

Well I must admit, my King was a guy with dread and no authority, and one of the governors had zero loyalty and I couldn't move him! But the city stayed in my control .. lol

Then it rebelled and that general died in the rebellion, even though he himself had kind-of rebelled against me already.

Guess I gotta be a good guy King now if I want to keep my Characters chivalrous and loyal and authoritarian ..

PS: I've become weary of building farms past land clearance to prevent this rapid growth and squalor issue..

[Renco]

Playing as Scotland, Edinburgh usually hits around 48,000 pop by turn 20 for me, it's because I have really chivalrous generals and I just leave them and build farms. The point is that after a chivalrous guy goes away the town will lose the chiv pop bonus. To be governed by a nice guy works up the populace into a sexual frenzy and increase the rate of growth by 5% or something. Send a chiv guy packing for a while, make him fight so he won't get lazy. Your towns should reduce in pop, thus reducing Squalor.

I'm assuming you already have max walls.

[nosjo78]

Playing as Scotland, Edinburgh usually hits around 48,000 pop by turn 20 for me, it's because I have really chivalrous generals and I just leave them and build farms. The point is that after a chivalrous guy goes away the town will lose the chiv pop bonus. To be governed by a nice guy works up the populace into a sexual frenzy and increase the rate of growth by 5% or something. Send a chiv guy packing for a while, make him fight so he won't get lazy. Your towns should reduce in pop, thus reducing Squalor.

I'm assuming you already have max walls.

How are you getting 48,000 population by turn 20. I'd have to say thats impossible unless your playing a Later Era mod.

[Chim]

Sulieman, you should probably have posted this in the SS section of this forum. Because you are playing that mod right? It would also help King Kong if you told him your problems with the game there.

[Vaxholm]

Are you using a mod? It sounds to me like you might have gotten the "offends nobles" trait. If you get that, about half your settlements will rebel in the next few turns. Assuming you've got governors out there.

If that's not the case, do the following:

1. Upgrade the walls
2. Garrison to the max on free units
3. Make sure there are no spies, rebel armies, heretics, inquisitors, or enemy priests/imams in your territories
4. Focus on building town hall buildings (town halls, council chambers, etc.) as they help the most, then go on to the other buildings
5. Make sure your religion is above 90% in all regions
6. Make sure you have a governor in each settlement
7. Check those governors for bad traits
8. Add cheap units above the free unit limit as necessary, sometimes you just have to do this if a settlement gets too large

If you do all this, and your settlements are still rebelling, then somethings wrong. I will say that I've never experienced the problem you're describing except for with the offends nobles trait. You should be able to control those settlements.