2 Questions about colony and reforms

[xjlxking]

Basically, I just want to get to the point.

1- Are there any reforms in this game and if so, how do I trigger the?

2- Can someone give me some advice on how to convert a region/settlement to a colony without it destroying me. I'm playing as Macedonia, my enemies Armenia and Gaul have gotten rather too big, so I withdrew my attack from Egypt and attack armenia. My attack with 5 stack of armies were able to take 5 regions. After I build a colony, the settlement all start to rebel. Yeah, they are suppose to, but even with most building built like temple of Zeus(3rd level), a city full of garrison, and taxes set to low, they still rebel. Next thing you know, the cities are under major attack and I have little units to spare. What am I doing wrong.

[Hurlbut]

Plant 10 diplomat in a region you want to take, let them take their sweet, sweet time while they work their magic converting a large part of the population of the settlement to your native culture.

[Grimbold]

What Hurlbut said

Launch a diplomatic attack. The more diplomats you put in a region, the more population gets converted. The happiness of that settlement will gradually decline towards the current owner.

Im not entirely sure, but placing spies also influences that aswell.

I tried that once, but it aint my style. I prefer doing it the normal way. If im faced with the same situation as you're facing, i just role play and say: if you rebel, you die, simple as that.
The way i see it, its far easier to colonize a region with 3-5000 ppl than one with 10.000.

[Hurlbut]

I never used the diplomatic attack and if a settlement had rebelled, I would certainly enslave or exterminate it (Haven't expanded Germania that far yet).

[Grimbold]

I never used the diplomatic attack and if a settlement had rebelled, I would certainly enslave or exterminate it (Haven't expanded Germania that far yet).

I prefer extermination.

Enslaving (which spreads that population through other settlements) often causes discontent in other cities which are already near their limit.

Although extermantion is bad in the long run, its good in this way. It allows for the decimation of great part of (in this case) the barbarian population and - as i said before - its easier to convert a lower number.

This is annoying in the end game. Certain factions are almost fully developed so the conquest of said faction is harder, because, colonized or not, they'll rebel, due to the fact that their cities contain large populations which are alrdy set in a specific culture. So you have to worry about those troublesome rebels and the likely attacks that come from the settlements which havent been conquered.

[Celestial Oblivion]

Well first of all you don't have to convert a city. If you are in a situation where you are likely to still be attacked, I would just leave the local culture as it is. You will get up to 15% penalty for foreign governor/faction leader, but that's nothing compared to the potential 100% of converting too early.

When deciding to convert, always look at the settlement details and check what the nearby settlement culture bonuses. If the territory is surrounded by foreign cultures, it will be far more difficult to convert. If a couple of your culture regions are nearby, it is much easier. Thus territories on your border (or islands) tend to be the easiest to convert. This also means that once you convert a region, all adjacent regions will become easier to convert, so plan your colony building accordingly.

Once you decide to convert it, if its at least a city build your culture building first. That 10% bonus makes it a lot faster and will allow you to use fewer diplomats or convert faster. Try to keep a governor in them as well, especially once you have huge cities and can recruit them anyways.

If you happen to conquer a settlement that already has a colony/native to your culture but the majority of the population is of another culture (I.e. Saba conquering Western colonized Seleucid or Ptolemic territories), now that gets tricky. Usually within a couple of turns your culture will reclaim the majority, but until then even the max 80% garrison bonus and low taxes might not be enough to restore order. This is the ideal situation for the martial law temples, which while it means destroying the pre-existing temples (and ruining that city's economy), it can allow you to hold the settlement long enough to convert the population. Once converted, you can always switch back.

Another thing worth noting (though this is just my observation, unlike the other I have no proof this works) if you use extermination is that there seems to be a minimum population to troop ratio required for settlements to rebel. In other words if you have more troops stationed than people living in a city, it is extremely unlikely they will rebel. They will riot (possibly killing your governor!) but you will keep control of the city.

[xjlxking]

Okay, now why is extermination bad? This basically how my economy runs. I try to exterminate and pillage anything that get in my way just for the loot and stuff. It helps the economy and lower population so I can keep order.

Another thing which is the biggest problem. I usually play the short campaign but always continue. The reason is, after a while, all the city become huge, or large and it's hard to keep order and keep a large army, after all, as the empire gets bigger, you need more troops. garrison, and better economy. Any ways, by the time they do, I start to see that most of the city start rebellions to the point I am kick out of most of the cities. Even if I start exterminating the lot of them, the pop still finds a way to rise just as quick and before you know it, I can't maintain the empire

[Celestial Oblivion]

Okay, now why is extermination bad? This basically how my economy runs. I try to exterminate and pillage anything that get in my way just for the loot and stuff. It helps the economy and lower population so I can keep order.

Another thing which is the biggest problem. I usually play the short campaign but always continue. The reason is, after a while, all the city become huge, or large and it's hard to keep order and keep a large army, after all, as the empire gets bigger, you need more troops. garrison, and better economy. Any ways, by the time they do, I start to see that most of the city start rebellions to the point I am kick out of most of the cities. Even if I start exterminating the lot of them, the pop still finds a way to rise just as quick and before you know it, I can't maintain the empire

I don't think anyone said extermination was bad, but if you can manage it you do get more money from keeping people alive and forcing them to pay taxes than extermination, which just forces your other cities to take a larger chunk of the tax burden. Now if its a city fairly far from your capital and it will rebel otherwise (or if its a city that you have no intention of holding), then that's an ideal situation for extermination.

Ironically I never play the short campaign, but I rarely have any public order problems from my established regions. Newly conquered regions will need fairly large garrisons or low taxes for perhaps a decade for me to convert the population and get rid of that annoying building culture penalty, but unless they are quite far from my capital even large and huge cities I can hold with less than half a stack. Consequently I rarely exterminate people after initially taking the settlement because I hardly ever lose control of the settlement. Afraid I don't know what your problem is.

Oh and for triggers, the Marian Reforms are still in the game. In addition to Rome a handful of other factions get new/improved units plus the standard armored bodyguards.

Oh and for whoever said spies help with conversion, I don't think that is true. Theoretically they could but non of my spies have gotten any traits that do that, so it certainly isn't common if they can.

[xjlxking]

Okay, great, thankz.
And for the reforms, can you tell me specifically the one for Greek and Roman factions how to trigger them that is

[Celestial Oblivion]

Okay, great, thankz.
And for the reforms, can you tell me specifically the one for Greek and Roman factions how to trigger them that is

Its the same as Vanilla, which is a Roman faction (effectively Rome, since the Rebels should get wiped out quickly) needs to build an Imperial Palace (I.e. get a level 5 city) in Italy. This trigger is hard coded and the only one in the game, so even if you are playing as the Greek Cities you have to wait for the Romans to get Spartan Pikeman for example. If you take all of Rome's Italian cities before then, the reforms will never occur, which can be a good thing as Rome is a lot harder after the reforms, so you can kill them easier, but you may not unlock your entire roster. The benefits that I know of are...

Rome: Almost entire Roster change, mostly the same as in Vanilla.
Carthage: All units with "Civic" in their names can be trained with +2 experience
Greek City States: Lose Spartan Hoplites (not Royal Guard, just unique Hoplites trained in Sparta) for a new Macedonian Phalanx Unit (Again only is Sparta)
Seleucid: Gets their copied Legionaries (Hypastists I think they are called) and argyraspids.
Egypt: Gets armored Ethiopian Axeman in the East African AOR.
Gaul: Lose Naked Fanatics for Heavy Swordsmen

If you aren't playing as any of these factions, the reforms are probably a bad thing (as they make your enemies stronger) and you should take Rome out early if you have the chance. Otherwise, its up to you to decide if the roster change is worth a more powerful Rome and other enemies.

[Grimbold]

Extermination is "bad" in the long run.

If you build up cities, give every upgrade it needs when it comes to buildings that influence the economy in a positive way, that city will produce more, having a larger income.

When you reach the end game with almost everything build in city, at which point you'll probably have around 20.000 population in a city, that said city will have a huge income.

More population = more workers = more production = more income

I once had Athens with an income of over 10.000. At the time that was insanely high for me.

[xjlxking]

Its the same as Vanilla, which is a Roman faction (effectively Rome, since the Rebels should get wiped out quickly) needs to build an Imperial Palace (I.e. get a level 5 city) in Italy. This trigger is hard coded and the only one in the game, so even if you are playing as the Greek Cities you have to wait for the Romans to get Spartan Pikeman for example. If you take all of Rome's Italian cities before then, the reforms will never occur, which can be a good thing as Rome is a lot harder after the reforms, so you can kill them easier, but you may not unlock your entire roster. The benefits that I know of are...

Rome: Almost entire Roster change, mostly the same as in Vanilla.
Carthage: All units with "Civic" in their names can be trained with +2 experience
Greek City States: Lose Spartan Hoplites (not Royal Guard, just unique Hoplites trained in Sparta) for a new Macedonian Phalanx Unit (Again only is Sparta)
Seleucid: Gets their copied Legionaries (Hypastists I think they are called) and argyraspids.
Egypt: Gets armored Ethiopian Axeman in the East African AOR.
Gaul: Lose Naked Fanatics for Heavy Swordsmen

If you aren't playing as any of these factions, the reforms are probably a bad thing (as they make your enemies stronger) and you should take Rome out early if you have the chance. Otherwise, its up to you to decide if the roster change is worth a more powerful Rome and other enemies.

I never knew this. Very interesting

[DimeBagHo]

Celestial Oblivion's advice on culture conversion is very good so I'll just add this: You can use diplomats to influence culture. When you want to convert the culture of a region the ideal is to have 50% of the population converted already by the time your colony is completed. That will minimise the unrest before and after conversion.