Squalor....

**Lucius Tiberius Vorenus** · April 18, 2008, 01:30 PM

I've only been playing RS a week or two, scratched my first campaign due to incorrect settings(H/H), upgraded to H/VH.

In RS I'm finding squalor extremely high in the medium to larger cities even with very very low relative populations. I have the highest available Aqueducts, ect. I always build them immediately after I construct a new governers palace/imperial palace.

While I realize some temples give certain public health bonuses, are we relagated to only building these temples in every city to keep squalor at a manageable level?

Is there anything in the works to upping the bonuses for public baths and the likes?

**Squid** · April 18, 2008, 02:33 PM

There is nothing that can be done about squalor. As the settlement gets bigger, squalor increases. Health bonuses are a two edged sword when it comes to squalor. One one hand it counters squalor (like any happiness or law bonus), but one the other hand it also increases growth, which increases squalor. Building wise nothing directly reduces squalor (it can't be done), there are a couple of traits/ancillaries which will reduce squalor slightly, but again those would be linked to specific characters and not something you can have everywhere.

**Gotthard** · April 18, 2008, 03:21 PM

Frankly, I think the bonuses to baths and the like are TOO high... squalor caps out at 100% penalty to order, and... 25% on growth (iirc) If you mean it's harder to keep cities under control due to squalor (and other effects) this is what we were going for. 385% order in some cities seems a bit much to me.

**Lucius Tiberius Vorenus** · April 18, 2008, 04:13 PM

Squid I see your point.

It's seems with combating squalor, damned if you do, damned if you don't... lol

**century x** · April 18, 2008, 04:30 PM

I will tell you guys the secret to this problem.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

**HMonk** · April 18, 2008, 04:53 PM

Exterminate them, (works for me)

**Coldcall** · April 18, 2008, 05:34 PM

Originally Posted by Lucius Tiberius Vorenus

I've only been playing RS a week or two, scratched my first campaign due to incorrect settings(H/H), upgraded to H/VH.

In RS I'm finding squalor extremely high in the medium to larger cities even with very very low relative populations. I have the highest available Aqueducts, ect. I always build them immediately after I construct a new governers palace/imperial palace.

While I realize some temples give certain public health bonuses, are we relagated to only building these temples in every city to keep squalor at a manageable level?

Is there anything in the works to upping the bonuses for public baths and the likes?

Have you got spies in your cities near the front? Enemy spies often cause unhappiness in cities. That could be whats happening but if you dont have a local spies or the enemy spies dont get caught you wont see them.

**naeblis** · April 18, 2008, 06:33 PM

mhmm, extermination is the best unhappiness cure out there, solves it nearly instantly, and the sounds you get, mhmm, tasty plus, you sometimes get the awesome title of "the Butcherer" so its an all around good thing

**snuggans** · April 18, 2008, 07:05 PM

what you should be looking at is public order, not squalor. if public order is fine, then forget about squalor. in every single heavily developed city which has great public order you will find a very long bar of squalor in the settlement detail scroll, without fail. like squid says, its not something that you can just disappear or reduce to tiny amounts like unrest or culture penalty, and having tons of it doesn't necessarily mean your city will revolt.

to be honest you should only be having public order troubles with newly conquered cities that are usually full to the brim with unrest and culture penalties. otherwise you either have a bad governor, a lack of a governor, a lack of garrison, or a lack of the correct buildings up.

**Lucius Tiberius Vorenus** · April 19, 2008, 03:43 AM

As far as extermination, unless Im mistaken, it's not an option for RS, at the bottom option after you capture a city, where it usually says exterminate, in my version of RS it says "relocate populace"...

**El Crumb** · April 19, 2008, 04:23 AM

The relocate option has replaced the extermination one in RS1.5 As the the modders decided this would be more realistic. It works along the same lines though, you have a massive drop in population and a hefty rise in booty (the plundered type not the shakin' type)

This is still a dramatic measure in my eyes, especially against one of your own cities. An alternative is to raise a stack of peasants/militia and march them to a city which has low growth or has been recently conquered and the population dispersed. This will help when it comes to reaching new building levels in that city/town.