Questions I needed answered

[ayanlavic]

Hi guys! I'm sure this question has been exhaustively answered before, but I would appreciate it if you could give me some direct answers to my question or show me the links. Thank you in advance

- How does the settlement details work? What's up with all those blinking icons? How about those percentages? I thought at first 100% (as in public order) is the ideal, but I noticed 130% gives you green face (I might be wrong). How does that really work, all those minuses and pluses? I can't make the heads and tails of it, so what I do is if I have a problematic settlement, I just queue all those buildings with public order/happiness bonuses, garrison them in the meantime, and just have to give my economy a little rest. But what I wanted is to really know what plagues my settlement so that I can remedy it.

- How can you really deal with the squalor? Can you minimize it or it just keep growing and you just have to deal with it? (same with public order)

- I know that you can send spies to another faction's settlements and cause disturbances, so I figure it also works the other way. Then how will I know an enemy spy is in my settlement and how can I throw him out?

- What is the best percentage for population growth? I read once it's risky to upgrades farm because it increases population and hence squalor. Does it really work that way?

- What's the easiest target for assassins? I had a real hard time developing them up

Thanks again in advance.....from a compatriot of PacMan

[Jacket60]

the easiest target for assassins are other assassins IMHO and as far as catching other spies, just have a spy garrisoned in your city. I can't really help you with the other questions though, sorry

[ayanlavic]

that's great...thanks

[AytchMan]

On settlements: the blinking and faded icons are effects that will be added or subtracted in the future but I can never remember which is which. As for all of the pluses and minuses, they're simply a summary of everything that affects your settlement's growth rate and public order. I wouldn't worry about them individually; only the net percentage (say, 110%) matters. As far as "what plagues your settlement" goes, just concentrate on keeping that net number high enough to avoid riots and revolts. But there's no magic number that's best. It depends on your style of play because it's tied to a three-way tradeoff -- population growth, income and stability.

[Tankfriend]

I just queue all those buildings with public order/happiness bonuses, garrison them in the meantime, and just have to give my economy a little rest. But what I wanted is to really know what plagues my settlement so that I can remedy it.

There's hardly much else to do apart from what you have mentioned already. You should try out these as well though:
- Train and use your priests to fight religious unrest, especially in freshly conquered provinces or provinces bordering those of a faction with a different religion. Just send a priest somewhere inside the borders of a certain province to affect that province. Religious unrest can actually have quite some impact on a settlement's morale.
- Try to get a general into every city. Also pay attention to their piety and chivalry/dread levels as well as their traits and ancillaries. Those can have a huge impact on almost any aspect of a settlement.
- Try to get rid of any rebels or enemy armies wandering around in your territory. They cause devastation and that has an effect on settlements as well.
- As has been said before, get some spies into settlements that are extremely likely to revolt. They're probably infiltrated by an enemy spy.

- How can you really deal with the squalor? Can you minimize it or it just keep growing and you just have to deal with it? (same with public order)

The only way you can somehow minimize population growth and thus squalor is by not building any advanced farming buildings. Squalor is mostly produced by very large settlement populations.
You'll have to deal with a very slow settlement growth rate though.
If you haven't got that many scruples, you can also force a settlement to rebel by putting up maximum taxes, removing any garrison units and (only if necessary) destroying buildings with a bonus to public order. Once they've rebelled, take the city back again and then annihilate the population. That's an extreme measure though because it costs you a lot of money and income and you'll need some time to re-grow the city.

- I know that you can send spies to another faction's settlements and cause disturbances, so I figure it also works the other way. Then how will I know an enemy spy is in my settlement and how can I throw him out?

The best thing you can do is sending in a spy of your own. Another thing would be to station a general there that has traits and ancillaries increasing his personal security because that's working against spies and assassins. I'm not sure if the spy has to actually spy on the general rather than the settlement to cause this effect though.

- What is the best percentage for population growth?

It's hard to tell because it's largely dependent on wether you want to keep the population under control or grow the settlement as fast as possible. It's also important to take the type and place of the settlement into consideration.
Personally I never had any serious problem with upgrading the farms to their maximum.
Anyway:
You should always build every farming improvement with castles because they've got a bad growth rate anyway and they're going to be your main source of military units (and thus, they'll have the most population getting used up).
If you're playing an Italian faction, you should consider on building better farms in cities as well because you're most likely using your cheap and superior militia forces.
And you should also build all the farms if your settlement is having a very low growth rate in general (e.g. a poor desert province etc.).

A growth rate between 1-2% should generally be the thing to aim at (and actually the rate you'll most likely reach anyway). Any lower and you're falling behind tech-wise, any more and you're getting your cities squalor and other problems up very fast.

- What's the easiest target for assassins? I had a real hard time developing them up

I'd also say low level assassins or spies. The most difficult targets should be a high level general, a king and the pope.

[miniwally]

And attempting to assasinate the pope gives you the possibility of an entire different video you only see if you attempt to assasinate the pope.

[ChivalryUK]

This is a really good question, I can never figure out those blinking icons either! Can anyone give a definitive answer?

As for population growth, I read somewhere the other day that squalor is capped, so it won't go beyond a certain point regardless of how populous the city gets. I don't know if this is true though. Bear in mind (spoiler?!) that you get two lovely plagues to come along and reduce your numbers around turn 80. Nearly 30 turns later and my cities still aren't earning as much as they were before the scourge from God...

[Agent Miles]

I’ve had cities with populations over 36k and they never rebelled and squalor wasn’t a problem. Wealth is based on settlement size, because buildings and guilds are set to certain population thresholds. For example, mines and trade buildings can’t even be constructed until a town reaches a certain population. So the fast track to wealth (and power) is growing your settlements. You can best do this with farms, low taxes and a governor with high chivalry and also churches, town halls and trade buildings in cities.

If a settlement is a conquest, then occupy the settlement as this can increase chivalry of the conquering General/Governor which will increase population growth by .5% per point of chivalry (and will kill the least number of citizens). Always start by setting taxes to low, as this also will increase chivalry of the governor over time and directly affects population growth as well. Then build a church/mosque, as this too can increase chivalry of the Governor through traits and also adds .5% to growth for each 5% of happiness that the building causes in cities. Now, build all farms to increase population (and income). Also, if your governor is in a settlement with improved farms (+3) then this can allow the Overseer ancillary for a further bonus to farming (and mining). Trade can also add .5% to growth in cities as does the health bonus from the town hall series of buildings.

Whenever your settlements are upgraded, always construct those structures that increase population growth first. That way you get access to the best economic buildings and military units in the shortest amount of time. Once you have a booming population, everything else can be done more easily. Here’s the run down:

At .5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 139 turns.
At 1% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 70 turns.
At 1.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 47 turns.
At 2% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 36 turns.
At 2.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 29 turns.
At 3% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 24 turns.
At 3.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 21 turns.
At 4% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 18 turns.
At 4.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 16 turns.
At 5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 15 turns.
At 5.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 15 turns.
At 6% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 12 turns.
At 6.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 11 turns.
At 7% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 11 turns.
At 7.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 10 turns.
At 8% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 9 turns.
At 8.5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 9 turns.

So a settlement with a starting population of 500 if left to grow at .5% would hit 1000 in 139 turns. If tweaked to grow at 5%, it would reach 32,000 in only 90 turns. (I got Granada to grow at 8%) The advantages are obvious.

Also, knowing the doubling rate, you can calculate whether a citadel-to-city conversion will get you that citadel upgrade more rapidly growing as a city than staying as a fort. If you convert a small fort to a town, build a church and farms (which won’t be lost in conversion and you should have built anyway) and station a good governor there with low taxes, more often than not, you’re going to get that upgrade faster.

For example, a fort growing at 2% takes 36 turns to double in pop., but as a town with 2.5% (factoring in just the effect of low taxes), it will double every 27 turns. If you needed the population to double twice, then you have saved 18 turns minus the actual number of turns that it took to convert to a town and then back (and you can calculate if this is going to be to your advantage, but I’m guessing that it would be). The numbers don’t lie.

[Roman14]

Also if you want more information try the great information thread it has alot of guids that helped me out.

[Deadman1709]

The Squalor in M:TW2 is much easier to deal with than R:TW. SO you don't need to worry much.

Assassin: work their way up. Easiest and most abundant are captains. They wouldntt have much effect on the enemy much they sure train your assassins.
Then low lever diplomats. Priests are also nice targets. Cardinals are quite hard.
Merchant is so-so.
Assassins are just so hard to find and whack one. Meanwhile, captains are all over the place.
Young family members are also easy targets.
Heir, King are harder.

Pope is surprisingly easy. An 6-7 assassin can get a 50% chance. When I played as Spain, I once whacked a Pope every 2 turns or so.

Of course, you can always exploit.

A nice dirty trick from me.

If an assassin has a chance of 20% or more, I can relatively exploit them and whack the guy.
This is how I do.
Quick save before you strike (The outcome seems to be fixed).
Order the assassin. If miss. Quick Load.
Move the assassin next to the guy. Quick save.
Whack him again (It seems that the computer recalculate the outcome).
If miss, quick load.
Move some other character.
Quick save.
Whack the guy again.

I used to destroy the HRE by assassins.

Now as Hungary, I'm destroying the HRE, invading the Danes and sitting north of Italy. I have about 2 assassins in the Holy land. 1 in France, killing generals, Cardinals. 2 in Denmark, killing the generals. 2 in Russia. 1 in North Italy, 1 around Rome (just in case the Pope, a Hungarian, messes with his former employer. Some did, and he got a crossbow bolt to the chest). And another in the remnants of HRE. They are usually accompanied by a spy to spot targets.

But remember, your assassins are not Altair.

An accompanying spy make any espionage acts much harder. A city with 1 general, 2 spies are nearly impossible to whack the general. Same with spying.

[ayanlavic]

f an assassin has a chance of 20% or more, I can relatively exploit them and whack the guy.
This is how I do.
Quick save before you strike (The outcome seems to be fixed).
Order the assassin. If miss. Quick Load.
Move the assassin next to the guy. Quick save.
Whack him again (It seems that the computer recalculate the outcome).
If miss, quick load.
Move some other character.
Quick save.
Whack the guy again.

I do that too also, when I'm trying to deal with heretics...but i mostly use my assassin now to sabotage buildings while trying to build my forces for an invasion

[CobraStallone]

Tankfriend gave a very complete answer, I just disagree on one point, making your city rebel and exterminating it dosen´t cost you a lot of money if you had a big garrison or an army nearby, in fact you can loot a substancial amount of florins.

[Jianadaren]

- How does the settlement details work? What's up with all those blinking icons? How about those percentages? I thought at first 100% (as in public order) is the ideal, but I noticed 130% gives you green face (I might be wrong). How does that really work, all those minuses and pluses?

Each category has two rows. The top row consists of positive effects and the bottom is negative effects.

So for the the first category (Population growth) you might have baseline farming, farming upgrades, happiness, health, governor's influence in the positive parts, and squalor and tax penalty in the negative parts. The positive minus the negative results in the net effect (this is what you're concerned about).

The same principle applies for each category.

Faded icons are those which will be added when your queued buildings are completed. For example, if you build a farm upgrade, you'll notice that a faded farm upgrade icon will appear in population growth and income. This indicates that a farm upgrade will be built, and the results of that upgrade are shown. Beware though, because with trade income it is unreliable sometimes (trade is dependent on the nearby settlements' trade abilities as well as your own).

Flashing icons are those that have just disappeared (or will disappear). They might do so because of excommunication (reconciliation), declaring war , or having your trade route blocked.

Oh, and public order can go well beyond 100%. If it falls below 70% then your settlements might riot, then revolt.

- How can you really deal with the squalor? Can you minimize it or it just keep growing and you just have to deal with it? (same with public order)

The only way to deal with squalor is to reduce population. However, population is good in its own right, so you shouldn't try to reduce squalor per se. Instead you should just deal with it.

- I know that you can send spies to another faction's settlements and cause disturbances, so I figure it also works the other way. Then how will I know an enemy spy is in my settlement and how can I throw him out?

You won't for sure, but enemy spies increase unrest, so if your settlement has high unrest, there's a chance that it might have some spies in it. The best way to deal with that it to fill the settlement up with your own spies.

- What is the best percentage for population growth? I read once it's risky to upgrades farm because it increases population and hence squalor. Does it really work that way?

I would say the higher the better. As far as I'm concerned, the goal of settlement building is to make it as advanced as possible. And the only way to advance it is to build buildings. So, if you have lots of available buildings to build, then you don't need population growth as much as you need money to fund the construction (so raise your taxes and don't focus on population increasing builds [check your settlement details to determine which buildings increase population - you might be surprised]). But, if you have no useful buildings left to build, then you need to upgrade your settlement (by increasing the population and building walls). (So lower your taxes and focus on the population builds).

- What's the easiest target for assassins? I had a real hard time developing them up

I'd say army captains are the easiest. I question whoever decided enemy assassins were good targets because 1) there aren't very many 2) you can't see very many because they're covert agents 3) they're tough to kill.

At .5% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 139 turns.
At 1% growth, a settlement’s population will double every 70 turns.

Be aware of the rule of 72. The product of the growth rate and the number of turns required to double is 72. If the growth rate is 10% it will take roughly 7.2 turns to double the population. For continuous compounding the rule is 69 (while the game uses annual compounding), so the rule of 72 might be more accurate. In turn, for quadrupling the rule is 144, and for tripling is 114.

Proof

2=e^0.69
ln2=0.69lne
0.69=ln2

So if you want to find out what the rule is to increase the population by say, 50%, then you could figure it out with your calculator. Then add a small premium (maybe 5% to reflect that it's annual and not continuous compounding).

1.5=e^x
ln1.5=xlne
x= ln1.5

[ayanlavic]

thanks, this helps a lot...sorry if I'm nitpicking, if that's the right word -- the details, that is....it's so much fun if you actually knew what's going on to enjoy the game, and those settlement details just confuses me

You won't for sure, but enemy spies increase unrest, so if your settlement has high unrest, there's a chance that it might have some spies in it. The best way to deal with that it to fill the settlement up with your own spies.

Do I need more than one spy? And does the Spy traits/level will affect how I'm going to expel the enemy spy?

Do you have to be an enemy of a certain faction in order for your spy to lower public order? I mean, if you're allied or neutral with another faction and you send one of your spies into one of the other faction's settlement, will it cause a dip in public order?

And an unrelated question: Say for example I'm Denmark and HRE and Milan is fighting but I want them to stop it, can I do that via diplomacy? Or if England and Scotland are my vassals, and then they start fighting, as their lord, can I make them stop - you know, some kind of adjudicator?

[Jianadaren]

thanks, this helps a lot...sorry if I'm nitpicking, if that's the right word -- the details, that is....it's so much fun if you actually knew what's going on to enjoy the game, and those settlement details just confuses me

Do you understand it now, or do you need a better explanation?

Do I need more than one spy? And does the Spy traits/level will affect how I'm going to expel the enemy spy?

More spies and better spies do a better job at expelling. So yes and yes. As to how many you need? No way to tell - yo're not even sure if there's a spy there in the first place.

Do you have to be an enemy of a certain faction in order for your spy to lower public order? I mean, if you're allied or neutral with another faction and you send one of your spies into one of the other faction's settlement, will it cause a dip in public order?

As far as I'm aware, no, it doesn't matter. People just don't like spies. And if the spy has the plague (a little rat will show up on his picture), then you'll give the plague to that entire settlement.

And an unrelated question: Say for example I'm Denmark and HRE and Milan is fighting but I want them to stop it, can I do that via diplomacy? Or if England and Scotland are my vassals, and then they start fighting, as their lord, can I make them stop - you know, some kind of adjudicator?

You could try, but there's nothing direct you can do. With the former case if your reputation is really strong, if you allied with both of them, they might declare peace. Or if you ally with one and declare war on the other the other might get scared and ask for ceasefires all around. That might end hostilities. You could also ask someone else to attack (although maybe starting a new war isn't the best way to make peace). A further strategy might be to get the Pope involved. Maybe if you kill the priests and sabotage the churches of the more-favoured faction (thus making them more equal), then the Pope might step in and force them them to make peace (if both factions are catholic and neither are excommunicated). A final strategy might be to "break it up boys" and somehow put a buffer-state in between. Take or make them give you any and all border states and then gift them to the Pope. Then they'll stop attacking each other.

As for the latter case - I have no idea. I've never heard of it happening, but maybe someone else could shed some light.

[ayanlavic]

Do you understand it now, or do you need a better explanation?

Yeah, thanks, thanks a lot...you've been very helpful...a little perhaps, but I'm getting the idea. But if you can add a bit more, that would be really appreciated. I guess I can't see immediate results yet because buildings take a lot of turns to complete, so I tend to recruit militias or put some militias from nearby settlement, then later forget about it until I noticed my finances are suffering. .. But what I do now is I construct all buildings with public order/happiness bonus, try to get some good general, put a spy if necessary, then if things get a little peaceful, I construct trade buildings. Is that a good strategy?

A final strategy might be to "break it up boys" and somehow put a buffer-state in between. Take or make them give you any and all border states and then gift them to the Pope. Then they'll stop attacking each other.

Yeah, I tried that trick once. I was playing Hungary then I invaded Austria and gave it to the Pope, because HRE is fond of sieging Budapest from Austria

[Jianadaren]

Yeah I think you're getting it.

Doing exactly like you're doing will make your settlements happy. As just extra things make sure the settlement has the same religion as your faction (use buildings and priests/imams), keep your capital in the centre of your empire (to reduce "distance to capital" penalties, be careful with taxes, keep enemies out of your lands, and don't get excommunicated by the Pope.

Check the Great Informative Thread for more info.