Squalor and Cultural Penalty

**xjlxking** · February 03, 2011, 03:07 PM

Yes! I know we heard it over a thousand times, but seriously, how do I deal with these problems.

Squalor seems to rise as the game progress. How do I stop this? How do I control it. Some of my cities like Sparta can't even build anything besides barracks and some other building that don't help.

As of Cultural Penalty, all my barbarian conquered lands have it.

**Hurlbut** · February 03, 2011, 03:34 PM

A big population bring squalor.

**xjlxking** · February 03, 2011, 03:46 PM

So if one of my cities has a lot of Squalor and a population decrease of 1.0%, I should just leave it and it should stabilize eventually?

**Celestial Oblivion** · February 03, 2011, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by xjlxking

Yes! I know we heard it over a thousand times, but seriously, how do I deal with these problems.

Squalor seems to rise as the game progress. How do I stop this? How do I control it. Some of my cities like Sparta can't even build anything besides barracks and some other building that don't help.

As of Cultural Penalty, all my barbarian conquered lands have it.

Squalor is directly related to population (ensures bigger cities are harder to control as in real life). Culture penalties are from having foriegn buildings in a city. It won't completely go away until you upgrade the city.

**Hurlbut** · February 03, 2011, 04:55 PM

Cull off your populations by recruiting *large* units (good way is to settle them somewhere else and disband to increase population), and make sure you can negate the population growth (easily done using the taxes)

**piranha45** · February 04, 2011, 09:37 AM

Build temples that only give +law/happiness. Tax cities as much as you can. Sometimes, it may help to bring an army next to the city, let it rebel (make sure you've demolished all the barracks buildings in the city), and then reconquer and exterminate it.

**Stilgar CG** · February 04, 2011, 11:49 AM

Combination of high taxes and population growth will decisively contribute to squalor level. Regardless the unit size you play (I play on huge), you would get some level of squalor. Keep taxes on high or medium (not higher), build health boosting buildings (baths) and low- and medium-level farms (food for your people) early in the game. Do not forget to train from all your settlements to keep population uniformly under control. Btw, certain settlements will have more rapidly growing squalor (it is intended so).

**a-woowie.doowie** · February 04, 2011, 01:36 PM

The "governor building" stands for about 25-35% culture penalty. As this building can't be demolished, you should try to keep a decent governor("public order"-wise) and a large good militia(if the governor isn't enough that is). Often in barbarian cities, there are buildings that aren't useful for you at all - such as; taverns(for barbarians). These contribute to the culture penalty despite not being of any use to you at all. Another building that is similiar to this, is the barracks of that particular faction - unless you can recruit soldiers out of it, this should also be demolished.

If you are uncertain of which buildings that are useless - you should rightclick on everyone of those already in your city and read about their affects - demolish if they don't serve a purpose. Remember though, that all buildings from(in your case)the barbarian faction contribute to the culture penalty. BUT also remember that all of the minor buildings together, can contribute to a maximum of 25% of the culture penalty, and demolishing all of them will most likley hurt you more than serve you.

Best way to get rid of it is to; upgrade the settlement, and upgrade those buildings that already are builit by them - but you need, and demolish the rest.

This is why conquering huge cities almost always present a huge problem - despite extermination. The culture penalty from the governor building in a huge city - can't be removed.

**DimeBagHo** · February 04, 2011, 05:16 PM

Squalor increases with population. Ultimately all cities reach a situation where squalor cancels out every source of population growth and at that point the city will stop growing. This is the mechanism that prevents settlements from growing indefinitely and limits city size.

Just to make this point extra clear: anything you do to reduce squalor will allow the settlement to grow larger, but eventually the squalor will return as the population increases. So if your aim is to keep control, rather than grow the population, you should focus on buildings that improve law or happiness.

BTW, if you can control a larger population you should. More people almost always equals more income.

**xjlxking** · February 04, 2011, 10:06 PM

Originally Posted by DimeBagHo

Squalor increases with population. Ultimately all cities reach a situation where squalor cancels out every source of population growth and at that point the city will stop growing. This is the mechanism that prevents settlements from growing indefinitely and limits city size.

Just to make this point extra clear: anything you do to reduce squalor will allow the settlement to grow larger, but eventually the squalor will return as the population increases. So if your aim is to keep control, rather than grow the population, you should focus on buildings that improve law or happiness.

BTW, if you can control a larger population you should. More people almost always equals more income.

Yeah, that is what I noticed. Most of my cities in Greece have a population of 35k plus (this is after exterminating them and holding them for a few turns). Most of them have low taxes, and their population is decrease. But for some reason, the PO is stilling going down.

**Pinkie Pie** · February 05, 2011, 05:28 AM

have a look at settlement details to see whats dropping it

**a-woowie.doowie** · February 05, 2011, 06:33 AM

I'm not sure what "PO" is although I do have a qualified guess, but I'll just hope for someone to explain it for me before I throw out a comment that has nothing to do with it.

**Pinkie Pie** · February 05, 2011, 06:42 AM

public order

**a-woowie.doowie** · February 05, 2011, 08:53 AM

Ah, as I suspected then.

Well the loss of public order is quite natural - a population of 35 000 can't be kept in check by a maximum of 4800 troops(20 x 240) or less with a general. It's only natural that some places get a bit more nasty. A great way to keep public order in check is to get as many wonders as possible, they seem to grant a "wonder bonus" in all your settlements + some of them have abilites which grants populus order overall(such as the temple/statue of Zeus). Last time when I had all the wonders I had a 25% public order boost in every settlement I had under the name "Wonders". Though for this to happen, your empire is pretty much stretched from Greece to Egypt to the center of the Seleucid empire.

Otherwise, I think it's better to have a populus of 20 000 + very high tax rate, than 35 000 with low tax rate - I'm not sure about this though. But I've never been a fan of overpopulated cities. In a 20 000 settlement, you won't need the full militia, just a decent governor and a couple of units. In a 35 000 I can imagine it needing 19 militia units and a great governor. So I'll always stick with the lower-populated cities and use them to their full potential rather than having an overpopulated city with the ability to only have low taxes.