Slowing population growth

[townie33]

I have always had the issue of city populations growing out of control, even with a high chivalry and high authority king I am still at a yellow happiness level at normal tax rate. Is there anyway to solve this besides letting the city rebel and then slaughtering the citizens? I try to build law or happiness buildings but it only lasts so long and then its worthless because I have to upgrade the city. And i don't want to build stacks of militia units to garrison the city. Is there anything I can do to slow population growth?

[Vince Noir]

Refrain from buildings that increase populations growth, such as town halls and health amenities. Furthermore don't build any brothels, not only do they increase the population growth but they also create squaler problems. Also don't build any farming improvements.

If your still not happy, go to Settlement Mechanics in the MTW2/mods/StainlessSteel/data folder and open it with notpad. Then adjust the 'pip mod value'. This controls the range of effects that your actions and the games actions reproduce. I'd recommend lowering the values that concern your problem by about 0.5.

For instance:

<factor name="SPF_FARMING_LEVEL">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_FARMS_BUILT">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.75"/>
<city_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_HEALTH">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_BUILDINGS">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_TAX_RATE_BONUS">
<pip_modifier value="0.80"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_BUILDINGS_FUN">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_GOVERNORS_INFLUENCE">
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="2"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_TRADE">
<pip_modifier value="0.2"/>
<castle_modifier value="0.75"/>
<city_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="25"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_SQUALOUR">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_min value="0"/>
<pip_max value="32"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_PLAGUE">
<pip_modifier value="1.0"/>
<pip_max value="32"/>
</factor>
<factor name="SPF_TAX_RATE_PENALTY">
<pip_modifier value="1.5"/>

The highlighted areas are that which I would recommend to mod.

[jsktrogdor]

There are people who are fans of letting a city rebel (just upping the tax rate and abbandoning it), retaking the city and massacring its population. You could also intentionaly infect the city with a disease, when a disease strikes one of your settlements find a character in the settlement thats listed as aflicted with the disease, then drop him into the settlment you wish to de-populate.

Myself I would advise you go the opposite route: build as many happiness buildings as you can, drop taxes to low and grow the city till its huge making oodles off the tax and trade dollars.

[townie33]

Thanks for the quick responses, but i have two issues:

1. I am having issues saving files that i have changed, I have yet to find the security setting that fixes that.

2. If I set the taxes to low, i know with a big enough city it will still make a lot of money but is it possible for the happiness to still drop below 105%? Because I want to make sure that I will have no civil issues in my cities.

[Silent Assassin]

Thanks for the quick responses, but i have two issues:

1. I am having issues saving files that i have changed, I have yet to find the security setting that fixes that.

2. If I set the taxes to low, i know with a big enough city it will still make a lot of money but is it possible for the happiness to still drop below 105%? Because I want to make sure that I will have no civil issues in my cities.

Ok here is what you need to do keep your taxes atleast at normal build your farming buildings ASAP and upgrade your walls when enabled, to keep your cities clean from rebelling keep enough garrisons in them like atleast the minimum should be the free upkeep slots. Build churchs, get priest on your lands keep good governers in your cities.

One more thing if you still have problems build a good spie and send him in the city where you seem to have a problem, there is maybe another faction spy there that makes trouble in you land...

[Vince Noir]

You should be able to keep your cities happy with normal tax rate. If not, there has to be religious or possibly military reasons. If you have had the tax level at low for too long, then when you raise them again, unrest will increase. Furthermore if it is a city that borders another faction, there is a high chance spies will be in that settlement. This severely increases unrest.

As for saving files, whats the problem? Can you explain better?

[townie33]

The security settings on my computer wont allow me to save the file.... its odd really. It says it can't find the right spot to save, it may be that my security settings are set on high ( i have vista on my mac and I don't want to ruin either program).

[Careless]

The security settings on my computer wont allow me to save the file.... its odd really. It says it can't find the right spot to save, it may be that my security settings are set on high ( i have vista on my mac and I don't want to ruin either program).

I (I forget if this was on my vista 32 or 64 machine) had to move the file to another folder outside of the MTW folders, turn it off read-only, edit it there, and then move it back to turn all factions playable. I imagine this would fix it for you, too

[Vince Noir]

Hmm, well I still use XP (refuse to convert!) but...Try Wordpad, Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, etc etc and see if it's just the one program or a wide-spread problem. Second, try saving a new file to a different directory and wait to see if the problem crops up there. Finally, you may want to consider a System Restore back a few days to a time prior to the problem occurring.

[jsktrogdor]

Rebel pretty much said everything I would of, ill sum it up:

1: Farms
2: buildings that increase happyness
3: a high "Unrest" (the pitchfork) % usually means a spy
4: upgrade citys as quickly as possible
5: religion
6: make sure the general is loyal

When I observe those 6 rules carfully Ive never had any issues with settlement order.