Overcoming the grain "bug" (city management)

[hungry]

A lot of people seem to be having huge problems dealing with grain imports. Their cities are growing too fast and they're getting multiple revolts/rebellions and/or the plague even if they maintain large expensive garrisons. Rather than being a bug, I think that it's a challenging management feature of RTRPE. Apparently, prior to being patched RTW had unlimited squalor and perhaps even an unlimited distance penalty. City management is much fairer in RTRPE than it is in RTW (both pre and post patches). Without the grain "bug", city management in RTRPE would perhaps be too easy.

There are many reasons why grain is such a big issue. RTRPE has:
* more provinces with the grain resource and, in the Black Sea area (and Pakistan) in particular, several of these provinces share borders. The latter can be very nasty as the grain resources can form a network so that every province sharing a border or a nearby port will get the combined grain growth bonus of all of the provinces in the network. In the Black Sea area, it's easy to get 7.5%+ grain growth in over a dozen settlements if you are too expansionistic. Partially offsetting this is that no province starts with 5.0%+ base farming like IIRC Carthage, Patavium, and Corduba did in RTW.
* no peasants. In RTW, training peasants reduced settlement populations, training could be done immediately upon conquest, and the peasants were often cost effective garrisons. With the required phase buildings in RTRPE, you can't train any units immediately except for low population/non-garrison ships and agents.
* buildings that require more turns to build. And in particular, the governor buildings for large and huge cities require an agora and a great agora, respectively.
* an irreplaceable Town Square in every settlement which can make the foreign culture penalty bigger and more permanent.

On the positive side, RTRPE has:
* a fairer traits and ancillaries system. It's easier to get good governors who have influence and law bonuses.
* the ability to build multiple temples in each settlement.
* several factions that get a substantial law bonus when they build their phase/barracks buildings.
* some factions that have an (increased) ability to build police, theatre, and health buildings.
* cost effective javelin (and less cost effective medium infantry) units to act as garrisons. (I especially like the berber javelinmen unit. Gallic warbands are good too.) These units, however, are not available everywhere and to every faction, and can't be trained immediately upon conquest.

If you manage to turn a profit in these problematic settlements/provinces, you have overcome the grain problem. Let's look at possible solutions from the worse case to the best case scenarios.

In the worse case the grain resource in the province not only causes the settlement to eventually rebel, it will cause many other settlements to do the same. In that case, don't capture the settlement or if you must attack it, capture it and immediately let it rebel (if possible) and don't recapture it. In my current campaign, I haven't captured the rebel settlement of Anchialus (in Romania). It would take a monumental effort to keep it from eventually rebelling and it would increase grain imports in several of my settlements from 6.0 to 7.5. When the nearby settlements are safe from eventual rebellions, then I'll capture the settlement.

Here's a political map of RTR: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ical_trm60.png

In situations where the settlement is sure to eventually rebel but won't cause others to do the same, exterminate the population when you capture it. Even with a few rebellions later on, you should turn a profit. That's what I'm going to do with the hugely overpopulated rebel settlement of Sinope (unless it gets the plague soon as some of the other AI settlements in the Black Sea area have done) and possibly with some of the Pontic settlements.

In other situations where it'll be difficult to prevent a rebellion, enslave the population when you capture the settlement. In which case, if the province has the grain resource, you might want to avoid/delay building roads and ports. Roads and ports increase the number of nearby settlements that will get grain imports. Also be aware that grain imports often won't show up immediately upon capturing low population settlements but they will eventually. I'll note here that the slave trade does NOT cause populations to grow faster despite of what is shown in the settlement details scroll. However, enslaving does cause half the population of the newly captured settlement to be immediately transferred to your other settlements that have governors. Managing where the slaves go is very profitable but it takes tons of planning/time. You may prefer exterminating the populations or sparing them and accepting a few eventual rebellions.

Attached are the settlement details scrolls from two of my campaigns.

The 1st is from my Carthaginian campaign. Agrigento has just maxed out at 100 squalor and I managed to avoid revolts even with a small garrison. I hadn't anticipated the full extent of the grain problem so I had to bring in my best governors to keep the peace. Hasdrubal expired a few turns after this screenshot and I only managed to ship in Hamilcar with a turn to spare.

The 2nd is from my current Macedonian campaign. I just captured/enslaved Heracleia and it has an absurd public order of 375%. That shows the awe the citizens have for my fast expansion. Seriously though, the population boom bonus (which doesn't seem to have a ceiling) will disappear at the same time that I expect the squalor will eventually go up to 100, so I'm preparing now for very low public order later. (The governor and his army will march to Sinope so most of the garrison and influence bonuses will disappear immediately and I will raise taxes to very high.) (Edit: I just noticed that I have Nicopolis in the control panel. I must have been looking at Nicopolis and then accessed Heracleia from the Overviews scroll.)

[hungry]

To get a more concrete view of what's going on, I've attached the starting positions of three factions that surround the Black Sea area.

The 1st attachment is a view of the Thracian faction. 5 settlements, Campus lazyges, Sarmisegetusa, Campus Getae, Anchialus, and Antiphilos have the grain resource. Their provinces form a continous bloc so that all 5 settlements can get 5x1.5%=7.5% grain growth. On top of that, Tylis, Ratiaria, Oduba, Viscus Venedae, and Campus Scythii are in provinces that share borders with this bloc. They too can get the 7.5% grain growth. Antiphilos, Campus Getae, and Anchialus can have dockyards and so up 3x3=9 additional settlements in the Black Sea area could get 7.5% grain growth from sea trade. So from this single bloc, potentially as many as 19 settlements can have +7.5% grain growth. (Debeltos also has grain, but it doesn't share a border with this bloc. It's independent.)

The 2nd attachment is a screenshot of the Pontic faction which just manages to squeeze in all of the grain resources in the area. Eupatoria, Pharnacia, Heracleia, Armavir, and Artaxarta form another 5 settlement bloc. The mouse pointer is at Heracleia. This bloc is tricky to spot as the provinces containing Heracleia and Eupatoria share a tiny border and the provinces containing Pharnacia and Armavir share a short border. 9 settlements are in provinces sharing borders with this bloc. The bloc has 2 settlements with port capability, so up to 6 additional settlements could get grain imports. So from this bloc, potentially as many as 20 settlements can have +7.5% grain growth.

The 3rd attachment is a view of the Sarmatian faction. Khersones, Kerkenitida, and Tanais have the grain resource. 4 settlements are in provinces sharing borders with this 3 settlement bloc. All 3 settlements in this bloc have port capability, so up to 9 additional settlements could get grain imports. So potentially 16 settlements can have +4.5% grain growth.

In total there are 14 grain resources around the Black Sea area. It's possible that any province that borders the Black Sea or the Aegean Sea could get 14x1.5=21.0% grain growth. I wonder what would result if something close to that happened. According to therother in his squalor topic, there is a cap for growth squalor at 25.0%. Together with base farming and others, a settlement may have more that 25.0% growth factors.

In the worse case the grain resource in the province not only causes the settlement to eventually rebel, it will cause many other settlements to do the same. In that case, don't capture the settlement or if you must attack it, capture it and immediately let it rebel (if possible) and don't recapture it.

I've thought of a 3rd option. Gift the settlement(s) to another faction. The only diplomatic option with rebels is bribery, so you can't gift the settlements to the slave faction. The ideal settlements to give away are Campus Getae, Pharnacia, and Kerkenitida. Doing so would break up the large blocs into 3 two settlement blocs and 8 independents. (This is assuming that the grain growth bonus doesn't work with foreign factions, which has been the case as far as I've seen. Even if grain growth is possible across factions, trade is not possible with the slave faction and these gifted settlements could rebel.) You could then capture all of the settlements in the Black Sea area free of management fears and give these 3 strategic ones away just prior to getting huge squalor. You might even be able to avoid having to exterminate or enslave as many settlements when you first capture them. These 3 strategic settlements could be recaptured whenever you see fit. The same type of planning could be applied to the blocs in Pakistan, Egypt, and North Africa.

I'll try giving away Campus Getae to the Iberians (or the Carthaginians). Perhaps it'll then rebel (due to the distance), hopefully to the slave faction rather than reviving the Thracians. :hmmm:If that works, I'll give the Iberians Pharnacia too and I won't have to exterminate any settlements in the Pontus-Armenia area.

[florin80]

I`m not entirely sure where you`re heading with this, but such loooong posts deserve a reply of some sort. And some rep. As to my contribution. You can remove those grain resources very easily in all regions or in just some regions. I can tell you how if you want. Unless you actually know how and you don`t do it so that you can pounder on the problem.

[hungry]

^florin80

Thanks. RTRPE is the first mod I've played of any game. My knowledge of the inner workings of the game is limited to viewing the more obvious data files like export_descr_unit.txt.

I would only want someone else to remove the grain resources if it made the mod more realistic. Yes, a bunch of maxed out population cities around the Black Sea is probably unrealistic.

I like that many of the rebel settlements around the Black Sea area have the grain resource. That discourages us from grabbing the settlements and so RTRPE does a good job of simulating the huge pirating problem that occurred in the area.?

Others may want to do a mini-mod, but I'll stick with the original and move on to Extended Realism or RTR VII GC when I want a change.

[florin80]

Nobody`s working on rtrpe anymore. The chances someone will come and make a mini mod are slim. The RTR 7 GC is not around the corner either that`s for sure.
If you care to do the changes to rtrpe yourself it`s rather simple and as long as you make a backup of the file first you`ll be fine no matter what you do to it.
Basically you need to edit descr_strat from
Rome - Total War\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign if you play with the RTW exe
and if you play with the BI exe the descr_strat from here:
Rome - Total War\Data\world\maps\campaign\barbarian_invasion
The path is for the simple, no modswitch version of rtrpe. The mod swith version installs in a RTRPE sub-folder. So Rome - Total War\RTRPE\Data\....

At the beginning of the file you`ll see a list of resources. Scroll down until you get to the grain ones:

resource	grain,	194,	78	; Pontica
resource	grain,	191,	78	; Halys
resource	grain,	215,	1	; Muscat
resource	grain,	348,	66	; Aria
resource	grain,	345,	86	; Dheri
resource	grain,	352,	43	; Khybor
resource	grain,	343,	116	; Gandara
resource	grain,	255,	61	; Ambi

You`ll notice that to their right there are the names of the regions so you know which to remove. And you don`t need to physically delete them. Just adding a semicolon in front will make the game`s engine not read them anymore. Like this:

;resource	grain,	194,	78	; Pontica
;resource	grain,	191,	78	; Halys
;resource	grain,	215,	1	; Muscat
;resource	grain,	348,	66	; Aria
;resource	grain,	345,	86	; Dheri
;resource	grain,	352,	43	; Khybor

Save the file and exit. Then delete the map.rwm file again by double clicking the campaign_map_reset batch file and start the game. For the changes to take place you need to start a new campaign. It`s also possible that your saved games prior to the modification won`t work with the edited file. So, as I`ve said, make backups before you start.

Of course, feel encouraged to continue your thread and ignore the modding part. You`ve made a number of interesting points.

[Quinn Inuit]

Florin's posted what's definitely the easiest way. I took a slightly harder one in the ExRM (not too much harder--I'm lazy) and simply repurposed one of the existing resources*, changed its icon, and said it was grain in the resource description. As the grain bug is hardcoded to actual grain, that's an effective workaround.


*If you mouseover it, you can probably guess which one.

[florin80]

The even harder way to do it is to balance the farming values in descr_regions so that the grain trade will actually be needed for certain regions to grow to certain levels and not spiral out of control like presently. But it has to be a hell of a lot of work getting everything just right.

[AqD]

The even harder way to do it is to balance the farming values in descr_regions so that the grain trade will actually be needed for certain regions to grow to certain levels and not spiral out of control like presently. But it has to be a hell of a lot of work getting everything just right.

Already made in my mini-mod

The easiest way is to replace grain with something else (using a faked name "grain") to remove the effect, and reduce farming level by 50%.

It works fine here. I can never get any huge cities unless I put very good governor or pay $$$ to force migrating people... (I just sent 5,000 citizens from Babylon to Media )

[hungry]

I didn't want to give grain a bad reputation. Grain is the best resource in the early game by far. You can set taxes on very high and get the same growth as a settlement that doesn't have grain would get with low taxes. And this is available immediately to several settlements. Or you can easily pump out the biggest units without hurting settlement growth. Gold and silver require mines. The really good trade goods don't come to the forefront until the mid and late game. (BTW, why hasn't salt been added as a trade commodity? Apparently some people weren't worth their weight in salt. )

The problem isn't really the grain, but the squalor. Grain is more to blame for making garrisons less effective. The other problem with grain is just a matter of discipline. It's tempting to pour too many resources into fast growing cities knowing that they will be cash cows later. With slow growing towns, sometimes there is nothing left to build so you don't have to spend money on them. Towns only require small garrisons. Military buildings can be built before happiness and economic buildings so you can train your core units sooner (rather than heavily depending on mercs). Towns make smaller demands for governors so you can have more generals. In summary, slower growing settlements, while poorer, are easier to manage.

^florin
Yes, if I were to mod the grain resources, I would adjust base farming levels too. I imagine that I would nerf the grain blocs by removing every other grain resource and replace them with +2 base farming. Not +3 because increasing base farming increases farming income while grain does not. More historically accurate and game balancing changes would have to be done by the creators.

[Quinn Inuit]

That would be awesome, but I'm just not up to that.