Culture Penalty

[ISA Gunner]

Well i've just started playing FOE and it looks really good and im really liking it. My problem is that when i conquer a Major settlement, the happiness level is ALWAYS 0%. Even if i set taxes on low and have a full 20 unit legion stationed in a Major settlement with a population of 1000, they still riot and rebel. So basically, i can not play the game seeing as i can not conquer new territory as a result of this and i have no idea what to do. Some help would be appreciated.

[Pat89]

Try to take some of the surrounding mini-regions first. They have a cultural influence on all their surrounding regions. Meaning that your target region will gradually turn to your culture before you move in. In the worst cases you can also get some agents (eg one diplomat and spy or something - not too much, since that unly ruins gameplay ad takes away the challenge just as much as the add_money or population cheat does) in the region, which have an influence as well. Then when you've moved in, the first thing you should do is to build up your government, which after aprox the second level takes away the biggest part of the unrest in this city.

It takes some time to conquer a region, but if done right, it's very much possible. Just marching in and exterminate the population might have worked in vanilla, but it's just not enough - and not needed imo - here.

[ISA Gunner]

It's still pretty pathetic Patrician, even with a spy and all the the neighboring regions belonging to me and no enemy Family Members in the region. I mean seriously. My Legion for 2500 men can't stop a town of 2300 from rioting? Is there anything i can edit or do so as to make the Cultural unrest much less?

[Freshmaker]

It is pathetic! Seriously what would an army need to do once garrisoned? Set up guard rosters? Clean and repair weapons? Tend to wounded and conduct adminstrative tasks?

Of course not! They must tame the populace!

All joking aside, you are right that it seems a bit unfair. However, this is Rome Total Realism and the team is doing the best they can with the game we are given. We work around RTW's restrictions and Pat works very hard to balance the game (It is a huge part of the next patch). As evidence in Iraq and Afghanistan, just having troops in a region doesn't prevent rioting. I would say in some instances the troops presence brings out more violence.

Be persistent when grabbing territory. Send in your agent's, take over the mini-region's, push all the enemies out of the region and then take over the city. Expect it to revolt a few times. If you keep at it you will eventually keep ahold of the city.

Please look past the Soldier / citizen ratio and imagine how much of a nation's resources and efforts are consumed to wage war and to expand it's borders.

[King Pyrrhus]

It's still pretty pathetic Patrician, even with a spy and all the the neighboring regions belonging to me and no enemy Family Members in the region. I mean seriously. My Legion for 2500 men can't stop a town of 2300 from rioting? Is there anything i can edit or do so as to make the Cultural unrest much less?

The population levels of the cities are obviously way too low!

Or are you telling me Carthage had only 10,000 inhabitants in the third century BC? C'mon now...
So you really can't say things like your legion of 2,500 (granted, a consular army would like be 25,000) not being able to subdue a populace of 2,300, you know?
I like the system, especially the citizen levies. They're really weak, but there are soooo many of them, as it should be.

In my campaign as Carthage, only Saguntum ever revolted on me and kicked my dudes out. Every other city, I was able to take and build up my gov.

[ISA Gunner]

I know, i know. I really appreciate the hard work of RTR. I've been a big fan or RTR since i first downloaded PE 1.9 in 2007. I'm just not used to a ridiculously unhappy population. I mean, Kroton turn after turn rebelling against an entire Consular army after it was occupied after being captured from the Epirotes is a bit rich. It's not like it was Appolonia or something. I mean, i know the population is only 2300 in game but it's still a town. And although i consider that 2300 population to represent 2300 fit and healthy men ready for active military service, i still can not comprehend that 2300 of them would even DARE to fight my Legions on the streets seeing as they're outnumbered 10 to 1. Ah well. I'll try and go by what you told me Freshmaker, cheers.

[Clearchus of Sparta]

The problem with large populations is also that you would suffer from unrest giving you the same constant revolt problem.
You must have seen the "I let it revolt and then retake it and massacre the population" tactics of RTRPE and other mods. By the time you add distance to capital effects, the further away regions can become almost impossible to control.

By keeping population and growth down we hope we have given you some different challenges to overcome.

Low population means hopefully, you wont be fighting stack after stack of cheap units (because the AI has only enough money to recruit skirmishers)
Low growth with finances under control means you must be more careful of your people and how you expend them, picking your fights more carefully. Deciding on recruiting more cheaper units or less of the better units.
Low pop with finances out of control means you have to re-consider your strategy.

[Pat89]

I said you should convert the culture BEFORE you invade...
So if you have garrisons then it's too late already

[Arkaeyn]

I don't think anybody's mentioned it yet, but building the government structures is absolutely necessary. The first level, Occupation, is usually just a turn and not too expensive, and should be enough to prevent a rebellion if you have a full stack in a small town. The second step, which usually has two choices and the names depend on the faction, is the key step. If you can get that second building up, you're pretty well set. Still, there will probably be at least one rebellion unless you take the surrounding mini-regions, load up the area with spies and family members, and have a huge stack in a small city.

One other tip that is probably too early in the game for you, but may come in handy at some point, is to have a kind of super-governor who moves into newly conquered regions. If he has a high enough influence and some strong traits, he can help pacify the population and make building time and cost decrease.

[Pat89]

Ark, imo filling the region with spies and other agents/fms is just as much cheating as using the add_money cheat. The whole purpose of the culture thing is that it slows down the expansion rate, which gets pretty much useless if you use such mechanisms

[Arkaeyn]

If it's the difference between someone giving up the mod in frustration or using an exploit to continue to enjoy RTR, I'll take the latter. Since it's a single-player trick, what happens between a faction and their spies is between them and their God. ;-)

[Pat89]

Yes, I agree. But I just want to make people aware of the fact that this trick is more in the cheating group rather than the fair one

[Arkaeyn]

And I didn't actually recommend it, I just said that rebellions were more likely unless you were to do that.

Couldn't you just jack up the upkeep on spies, diplos, and assassins, o master coder?

[DukeCanada]

We could, but thats rather unfair to the people like me who dont use the trick

[Pat89]

We could, but thats rather unfair to the people like me who dont use the trick

Like he said

[Clearchus of Sparta]

We could, but thats rather unfair to the people like me who dont use the trick

Why would that be unfair?

If you dont use them, you have no extra cost, if you use lots of them..... you suffer (as cheats should)
unless of course Im missing something here

[Pat89]

Why would that be unfair?

If you dont use them, you have no extra cost, if you use lots of them..... you suffer (as cheats should)
unless of course Im missing something here

If you increase the upkeep a lot, then you do suffer with normal use as well...

[Caligula Caesar]

Or we could disable their culture...

[Pat89]

Is that possible? If so, then I wonder why we haven't done so yet

[Maurits]

AFAIK, is it a trait that causes the culture, for instance 'Roman'. By disabeling this trait the issue would be solved.