City growth

[Darviathar]

This may be a Byzantine-specific issues, as they are the only faction I've played with the new version...

My cities grow up *way* too fast. The first building I produce upon reaching a new city level is the town hall line of improvements. By the time that is done I'm usually 80% of the population needed to reach the next level, so I build roads then to unlock the next marketplace, and before they are done, I'm usually past the population minimum for the next level. I realize the black plague will come along eventually and kill a lot of the population off, but I would like to raise the population limits for the city sizes. Where is the file I need to raise the cap for the levels?

[tekablok]

I agree. The growth of the population is too fast. In fact, the problem is that you're about 25000 in your major towns within 40/50 years, and you cannot afford the buildings and walls allowing them to be upgraded. As a consequence you're helpless to fight squalor and the resulting civil disorder.

Another point, which has already been said I think : we should be able to convert castles to cities (but not cities to castles). It would be fair because when you start in an area composed half castles / half towns you can't earn money... We should have the choice to convert them.

Just my 2 cents

[Darviathar]

I agree. The growth of the population is too fast. In fact, the problem is that you're about 25000 in your major towns within 40/50 years, and you cannot afford the buildings and walls allowing them to be upgraded. As a consequence you're helpless to fight squalor and the resulting civil disorder.

Another point, which has already been said I think : we should be able to convert castles to cities (but not cities to castles). It would be fair because when you start in an area composed half castles / half towns you can't earn money... We should have the choice to convert them.

Just my 2 cents

I too like being able to make the decision to change between city/castle. The island castle of Rhodes is a good example of a province that simply isn't going to serve much purpose.

[Creslin]

im not sure if its changed in newer versions but in 5.4 and earlier no castle without metropolis is really that great for byzantium, the unit options from fortresses kinda suck, citadel is only really awesome because firethrowers are incredibly powerful.

I like the no convert thing but in light of that rule it might be time to look at thinning out the number of castles in some parts of the map, the single province island castles in particular as well as maybe a few in spain. There is really no reason that corsica and sardinia are both castles, the AI doesnt use them properly and they are useless for the player..

palermo is fine but there should be a landbridge to the rest of italy again because ive fought the sicilians a few times and they dont use any of the castle units to defender their mainland stuff, you fight huge militia armies with no cavalry support and its just a joke to take those cities, while they sit in palermo with huge stacks of norman knights doing nothing because the AI just sucks at doing reinforcements by sea.

And ya i agree growth on cities is really fast, the AI cities dont seem to grow that fast either, i dont see the AI with any huge cities at all while im sitting with constantinople at 300k pop and athens/thessalonica/preslav at 150k.

[Darviathar]

im not sure if its changed in newer versions but in 5.4 and earlier no castle without metropolis is really that great for byzantium, the unit options from fortresses kinda suck, citadel is only really awesome because firethrowers are incredibly powerful.

I like the no convert thing but in light of that rule it might be time to look at thinning out the number of castles in some parts of the map, the single province island castles in particular as well as maybe a few in spain. There is really no reason that corsica and sardinia are both castles, the AI doesnt use them properly and they are useless for the player..

palermo is fine but there should be a landbridge to the rest of italy again because ive fought the sicilians a few times and they dont use any of the castle units to defender their mainland stuff, you fight huge militia armies with no cavalry support and its just a joke to take those cities, while they sit in palermo with huge stacks of norman knights doing nothing because the AI just sucks at doing reinforcements by sea.

And ya i agree growth on cities is really fast, the AI cities dont seem to grow that fast either, i dont see the AI with any huge cities at all while im sitting with constantinople at 300k pop and athens/thessalonica/preslav at 150k.

300k in Constantinople? That's about historically accurate for the time period! Just *what* year have you gotten to? I keep restarting for various reasons, and have never approached that sort of population.