Partisan troubles!

[HeadSouth]

First off just want to reiterate how much I like this mod, mostly because it solved the horribly annoying issue of Macedon conquering all of Europe and also added cool countries like Epirus.

Anyway I am now playing Carthage and after successfully building my economy and running a handsome profit with generally happy cities, I am running into problems. I've conquered Iberia and am building my auxillia buildings, but no matter what I do there seems to be an inordinate amount of dissent in every province. The same thing is happening in Italy and Sicily. I deleted all the cultural buildings but the few you can't delete (walls, town squares) are apparently enough. I've had this same problem with my other campaigns. Barely any of my cities are actually happy, in fact. What do you suggest?

Furthermore, all my same-culture African cities are starting to lose money and become angry also, but I suspect this has more to do with overcrowding.

Also, as an offhand question, how is the garrison bonus to happiness calculated? I've had small garrisons with massive bonuses and huge ones that barely helped at all. Do mercenaries or understrength units give less of a bonus?

[Mogan]

Well, I know garrison bonuses are calculated in percentage of troops per citizen. So 200 soldiers in a 2000 pop-settlement, will give more bonus than a 1000 men-garrison in a 15000 pop-settlement. The other stuff, I'll leave to someone more experienced.

[Caesar Augustus]

Are you playing with the culture shock add on? I know that has a big impact on settlement loyalty.

You could also look at the influence of your governors, check for enemy spies too. They make a huge difference to the happiness of the population.

[Carados]

First off just want to reiterate how much I like this mod, mostly because it solved the horribly annoying issue of Macedon conquering all of Europe and also added cool countries like Epirus.

Epirus for the win!

Anyway I am now playing Carthage and after successfully building my economy and running a handsome profit with generally happy cities, I am running into problems. I've conquered Iberia and am building my auxillia buildings, but no matter what I do there seems to be an inordinate amount of dissent in every province. The same thing is happening in Italy and Sicily. I deleted all the cultural buildings but the few you can't delete (walls, town squares) are apparently enough. I've had this same problem with my other campaigns. Barely any of my cities are actually happy, in fact. What do you suggest?

As CA asked, are you running the culture shock add-on? If not, the only thing I can think of is that you are occupying the settlements and that you are completely destroying all the buildings when really you should be replacing them instead. Although you still get a culture penalty for these buildings you still get the public order bonuses, so you should refrain from destroying cultural buildings straight away because the lose of the public order bonus is much more damaging than the increase in culture unrest.

Furthermore, all my same-culture African cities are starting to lose money and become angry also, but I suspect this has more to do with overcrowding.

Overcrowding most likely. Build happiness buildings if you haven't already. Also, make sure that you are upgrading your settlement size. You need to upgrade the market buildings to unlock the higher tier government ones (bazaar/forum for 12'000 population and great bazaar/forum for 24'000 population).

Also, as an offhand question, how is the garrison bonus to happiness calculated? I've had small garrisons with massive bonuses and huge ones that barely helped at all. Do mercenaries or understrength units give less of a bonus?

Mogan has a good enough answer for that. Note that everything is relative on the statistic screen. Just because something looks like it has a tiny garrison bonus doesn't necessary mean it has a tiny garrison bonus. It's all proportional to the other bonuses/penalties that the settlement currently has.

[HeadSouth]

Nah I'm not playing the culture shock add-on, I'd probably go crazy and destroy my computer if I tried it. Thanks for your help though, I never really considered building a lot of temples. By the way, is it better to upgrade smaller temples into big ones or build new ones to each god?

[JaNuZ99]

Nah I'm not playing the culture shock add-on, I'd probably go crazy and destroy my computer if I tried it. Thanks for your help though, I never really considered building a lot of temples. By the way, is it better to upgrade smaller temples into big ones or build new ones to each god?

You can build smaller temples faster, but on the other hand you can get double the happiness bonus with a larger temple, i guess it depends on how close to revolting the settlement is, another thing, tried lowering taxes?

As for your cities's reduced income, over time they bring in less $$ unless you disbanded nearby expensive troops, Mercs, and eventually all you can do is recruit a lot of troops to lower population and then send those troops to fight and die.

If you want to be evil, let the cities revolt,.tale them back and exterminate the population.. as I c it, only the rich survive

[Carados]

You can build smaller temples faster, but on the other hand you can get double the happiness bonus with a larger temple, i guess it depends on how close to revolting the settlement is, another thing, tried lowering taxes?

Small temples are best if you're going for a quick happiness boost. If that isn't an issue then the larger ones are better because you can then get the respective priests in your retinue.

As for your cities's reduced income, over time they bring in less $$ unless you disbanded nearby expensive troops, Mercs, and eventually all you can do is recruit a lot of troops to lower population and then send those troops to fight and die.

If you want to be evil, let the cities revolt,.tale them back and exterminate the population.. as I c it, only the rich survive

DON'T DO THIS!!
The way the game displays the money for each settlement is misleading. Just because it is in negative figures does not mean it is losing money. The game divides the total faction's upkeep between all the cities proportional to their population size. The largest cities will have to pay the largest upkeep and thus "lose" the most money. However, in real terms, they are making far more money than your other settlements.

[JaNuZ99]

DON'T DO THIS!!
The way the game displays the money for each settlement is misleading. Just because it is in negative figures does not mean it is losing money. The game divides the total faction's upkeep between all the cities proportional to their population size. The largest cities will have to pay the largest upkeep and thus "lose" the most money. However, in real terms, they are making far more money than your other settlements.

what!! U mean... but.. wow... I killed a lot of ppl out of ignorance in too many campaigns to count...

Lol Carados thanks for telling me and know you've saved a lot of my future subjects from extermination!

[Caesar Augustus]

Yeah, about the only time when it's a good idea to exterminate is when you need an immediate cash boost. That's the way I see it anyways.

[U.pxl]

If you want to know how much income is created look at the detailed city browser (or something like that) in your settlements screen.

Playing as the Romans I almost always exterminate outside of Italy.
This way I have some time to build up some happiness buildings thus manage happiness more easily.
Also I find it symbolises the looting that happened when soldiers captured a foreign city so more historical accurate.(feel free to share if you have a different opinion)

Problem with this system is it takes quite a while before the settlement will provide a descent amount of tax income again, which is one of the biggest gold revenue’s in game, especially early on.

[U.pxl]

Yeah, about the only time when it's a good idea to exterminate is when you need an immediate cash boost. That's the way I see it anyways.

This on very hard?
I find it almost impossible and immensely expensive to keep newly conquered territory under my control.

[Caesar Augustus]

This on very hard?
I find it almost impossible and immensely expensive to keep newly conquered territory under my control.

Nope, I usually play on Hard campaign but Medium battles.

I find the only difference is that the AI attacks more often because it's gets about 5,000 more gold per turn. I don't think difficulty has any effect on loyalty, population growth etc.

On very hard I guess you'd be a bit more strapped for cash as the AI gets 10,000 gold a turn, so you'll need to re-train your own armies (and keep more armies) than on other difficulties, so you won't have as much money for happiness buildings.

[JaNuZ99]

Nope, I usually play on Hard campaign but Medium battles.

I find the only difference is that the AI attacks more often because it's gets about 5,000 more gold per turn. I don't think difficulty has any effect on loyalty, population growth etc.

On very hard I guess you'd be a bit more strapped for cash as the AI gets 10,000 gold a turn, so you'll need to re-train your own armies (and keep more armies) than on other difficulties, so you won't have as much money for happiness buildings.

Even on VH/VH I. seem to do well, I can afford to field four four stacks most of the time early on BTW.

P.s to whoever I promised screenshots of my awesome struggle with haul, sorry I thought i took em with frapper, but they are not in the folder :'(

so i continued on and killed gauls armies and overwrote the saves where they were still alive.

Sorry, it was bloody fun, in the battle following my ambush ( 15 out of 1200 gauls survived)I lost a whole legion! But luckly my reienforcements where enough to break the severely weakened enemy and i won the battle.

The foe where so few in # they slinked away into the woods never to be seen again

you know what, its off topic, but i just gotta share the details!

ok so starting off 268 i ambushed a gaul army crossing over the Bononia/Arretium border (lol as it happens the ambush was only possible becuase my full stack was hidden in a nearby forest area on THEIR side)
so the plan went without a hitch, i attacked the front and rear of the enemy march with my auxilia, and i used my roman troops to attack the center and with italic calvary providing some shock damage
it was over in ten, they were scattered and destroyed (only 15 Gauls got away)

following that the gauls sent a full stack (there last one) to Ariminium, where the disgraced Levinus and a legion were garrisoning. I merged troops, got some fresh units from Arretium to replace weakened aux units and then i place my full stack behing the gaul's and wait frot them to attack next turn, i opted to lead and all my troops.

The gauls break the gates and charge in... into the spear-points of my marsi, heavy marsi and picene spearmen! (muhaha, the AI's calvary got mauled) but eventually they are overrun and route (and well its not a pretty site, pools of blood filled with their bodies line the streets) the gaul swordsman march up the avenue that leads to the plaza, there they encounter my marsi swordsman and my Roman troops.. its a tough fight, but the gauls begin to kill whole units and push forward, but with all these dead unit gone, i have space for my reinforcements.. i march them, have them stop (it was critical that my garisson hang on a little longer and that my reinforcements where fresh)

eventually all my defenders are lying in pools of blood or running like ninnys. (levinus is dead btw)

but here comes Decimus with his full stack (good thing i opted to lead them) the enemy still hasn't gotten to the plaza (here something extraordinary, towards then end of the battle i notice that not a single dead enemy troop is even near my plaza, the AI kept the Gauls in that avenue, which is their fatal mistake)

i send in my spearmen to charge their rear, meanwhile i send my roman troops through the alleys to the other end, once there they attack the front of the enemy line in the avenue... its all just a big grind, my troops, eager and fresh against the now tired/exhausted enemy troops, clammed together in that main street. my troops mauling both sides.. pushing them towards the center, my skirmishers showering the enemy as my spearmen push forward.. and my hastati push simultaneously on the other end! it was magnificent! the enemy routed/ began to fight to the death!, they were slaughtered!

it was really fun, the last full stack the Gauls had, lying beneath the soles of my troop's feet, (their general/faction heir, the last enemy unit to get cut down )

and Levinus died "in a heroic calvary charge into the enemy" and so did most of my Garrison, so there one less financial burden, relatively few casualties for my full stack, but then again they where fresh when i had them attack, and they happened to be the most exp/best armored soldiers i had)

EPIC WIN!! yess, and that is my story , thank you! (lol all i have to now is kill a measly half stack near jesuinis and take Bononia too and i will control everything south of the Padus without hinder! and i still have 3 years till the first Punic War! (plenty of time to raise two new armies)

P.S. i plan to reenact the failed plan to attack the Carthaginians homeland, (historically i think it was a failure, in my game i plan on destroying their armies and give the Numidians some new lands )

@U.pxl well personally, due to my house rules i only use the exterminate option in the following cases:

1. I ALWAYS exterminate Carthage,Corinth,Sparta, Alesia (why Alesia?, well its the capital of my second biggest enemy early on, and well that is where Vercingetorix holed up against Cesar, even if Cesar did just enslave the city afterward) , and of course Syracuse
2. Cities that revolt
3. Cities governed by former generals turned traitors (i don't like defectors, they can always expect an assassin to be nearby if they do)
4. Rome if i feel like reenacting the social wars

hehe, fun...

[Carados]

It really depends on the settlement in question. Some are a lot easier to keep under control, some are an absolute nightmare. If you can keep it under control then it is best in the long term to occupy the settlement. If you can't viably keep it under control, then enslaving the population is best. Extermination is useful if you need an immediate cash boost. It can also be useful in areas that you don't expect to keep for long - if you're going to lose it eventually you might as well prevent the computer from benefiting from it. You can also do it just to saviour your triumph over someone, but I would only do this sparingly because exterminating 10'000 people means you have 10'000 less people to tax