Captured City Revenue Maintenance.

[Didz]

Having just started my expansion into Gaul I was surprised to notice how much more advanced these barbarian cities were to my own.

Massilia for example had an income of 10,000 denarii per turn. Whilst my spies reported that the Averni capital had an income of no less than 38,000 denarii per turn, which was more than the income of my entire empire at the time.

So, I was quite excited at the prospect of taking these cities, although I kind of expected much of the income to dissappear as soon as I burst in a trashed the place.

Anyway I took Massilia first and being careful to control my troops I limited my looting to enslavement as was traditional, rather than buring the place to the ground. I was pleasantly surprised and rewarded when at the end of the turn Massilia did indeed contribute 10,000 denarii to the Imperial war chest, and began looking forward with glee to taking the Averni capital with its even greater rewards.

However, my joy was short lived because it seems that as I build in the city the revenues are dropping rather than going up, and its now down almost to a par with the other cities in my Empire.

I can only assume that whats happening is that I am tearing down the barbarian buildings and replacing them with inferior Roman ones. So, for example a Roman trading centre replaces a barbarian market.

Can anyone confirm that this is the case, and if so whether it is actually better to avoid building in captured cities?

[Rex Basiliscus]

I don't know why you have demolished a market... the only things that I demolish are barracks (which I cannot use) and temples which give me no bonuses. Demolishing profitable ones and replacing them with inferior ones will obviously result in loss of income.

[Didz]

Ah! well that was basically the gist of the question.

It seems that the buildings that survive the assault continue to deliver the benefits they did to their previous owner even though they are culturally incompatible. However, the build menu ignores them and invites you to replace them without lower value builds of your own culture.

So, basically if i can live with the culture penalty, I'm better off ignoring my own build tree and leaving the alien buildings in place if they are delivering benefits.

I suppose the only reason to do otherwise is if one eventually hopes to work higher up the build tree for that building type than the existing building, as you obviously can't upgrade buildings from another culture.

So, is there definitive list of alien culture buildings that still deliver benefit, or is it just barracks and temples that can be destroyed without penalty?

[Rex Basiliscus]

Well most of the buildings give some benefit. Even if they aren't of your culture. But the culture problem will in time diminish, or disappear completely, so there is no reason to destroy buildings for that. Like I said, I only destroy the barracks and temples that don't give anything (click on the temples and you'll see - eg. if laying the Romans, the temple of Marduio (or sth like that) of the Gauls gives you no benefit). Plus the barracks usually cause some unrest penalites.

[Rikokrates]

Well most of the buildings give some benefit. Even if they aren't of your culture. But the culture problem will in time diminish, or disappear completely, so there is no reason to destroy buildings for that. Like I said, I only destroy the barracks and temples that don't give anything (click on the temples and you'll see - eg. if laying the Romans, the temple of Marduio (or sth like that) of the Gauls gives you no benefit). Plus the barracks usually cause some unrest penalites.

I have a question. When a captured city's population has been assimilated, i.e no culture penalty. Is this when buildings which have a positive/negative public order effect start having a detrimental effect on public order?

For example: I capture a barbarian city as the romans. The barbarian temples reduce unreset and keep the (barbarian) popluation happy. Many years later the population are romanised (no culture penalty), do these temples now cause unrest?

[Rex Basiliscus]

The temples will have to be upgraded... that is the way that you can "romanize" a population. For them by doing this, nothing actually changed... just the name of their god is different, but they still worship the same deity
Without doing that, the negative bonuses remain.

[Rikokrates]

The temples will have to be upgraded... that is the way that you can "romanize" a population. For them by doing this, nothing actually changed... just the name of their god is different, but they still worship the same deity
Without doing that, the negative bonuses remain.

So in other words if you cannot upgrade the building then it will offer negative "bonuses", when does it change from being positive to negative? When the culture penalty is zero or before?

[NerZhulen]

I confirm that captured cities in gaul are epicly developed, especially in advanced trade and production

[Didz]

I'm still getting my head around some of the subtleties of the building tree and city management in RS2. Like not building certain buildings in the city of client state.

What I did notice last night was that having captured a city, if you right click on each of the buildings in it the resulting building description tells you how that building affects your newly acquired city. For example in one of the Gallic cities I captured all the temples still provided happiness bonuses except one that delivered a happiness penalty. So, I destroyed it and the city's happiness rose, so it does work.

[DeWitt8]

You know you CAN upgrade buildings of another culture with your own of next level as long as they don't represent the top building of that tree (excluding barracks)?
Of course there are faction/culture specific ones, it does not work with them.

The only reasons to bulldoze a building in a newly captured city which you can hold would be

a) it gives penalties (like some barbarian barracks do)
b) you need happiness and want to lower the culture penalty - which afaik doesn't diminish over time, but the fewer foreign buildings you have
c) roleplay reasons, to simulate the destruction and chaos that occurs after the siege, and the incompatibility of some cultural ways of production or whatever you can make up. I do it that way.

[Didz]

You know you CAN upgrade buildings of another culture with your own of next level as long as they don't represent the top building of that tree (excluding barracks)?

Thanks I did wonder if that was possible. For some reason I thought it wasn't but it may just have been a coincidence that Massalia didn't have a market for some reason.

[RedGuard]

i've brought up this same problem before but it hasn't been answered. as a matter of fact i was laughed off the stage because i sound like an alarmist when i said the Arverni are way overpowered. they conquer the belgae in 20 turns and without early intervention from the romans they conquer germania and head for scythia. ive seen it happen. ive let it happen.

[Didz]

i've brought up this same problem before but it hasn't been answered. as a matter of fact i was laughed off the stage because i sound like an alarmist when i said the Arverni are way overpowered. they conquer the belgae in 20 turns and without early intervention from the romans they conquer germania and head for scythia. ive seen it happen. ive let it happen.

In my case the Arverni got into my bad books far too early by landing an army on Corsica and attempting to sieze Aleria in the opening few turns of the game. Having driven them back into the sea, my spies rapidly reported the existence of a large Arverni encampment on the coast of Gaul called Massalia and Legio III was dispatched to raise it to the ground in reprisal and as warning to them to stay out of Roman affairs.

The city was duly attacked, depopulated and every building in it destroyed. Legio III then returned to Rome leaving the city in ruins, and shortly afterwards spies reported that it was occupied by the Carthaginians, who were still in possession many years later when we returned to occupy it for good.

I suspect that this actually blunted the Arverni expansion as I never had any further trouble with them in my game and the only reason they are being conquered now is that they had failed to make peace or offer tribute since the incident and are therefore the natural target for expansion after driving Carthage out of Northern Italy.

Nevertheless they do have some huge settlements and far more armies of warriors than seems supportable from the small area they occupy. I currently have three Legions in their lands which is a massive commitment for a tribe of barbarians.

[Kasey]

What may be linked to this is army upkeep relative to a city's population.

Your total army upkeep is divided amongst your different cities' income based on how populated the city is - A small island town with c. 2k population will be paying a fraction towards your army upkeep and generals' salaries compared to the major cities of 20k+ populations.

So what you're seeing when you capture the settlement is a well-developed city with trade buildings (As has been stated, Gaul develops fast) with a tiny population (Thanks to enslaving the populace) and so it appears to bring in lots of cash. However, as the pop. grows back relative to the city, the income appears to go down whereas in reality all of your other cities will theoretically be profiting since the army upkeep is being distributed more.

Could be very wrong (Feel free to correct me) and hugely long-winded, but first post on these forums after 4+ years of being the silent observer

[Rex Basiliscus]

What may be linked to this is army upkeep relative to a city's population.

Your total army upkeep is divided amongst your different cities' income based on how populated the city is - A small island town with c. 2k population will be paying a fraction towards your army upkeep and generals' salaries compared to the major cities of 20k+ populations.

So what you're seeing when you capture the settlement is a well-developed city with trade buildings (As has been stated, Gaul develops fast) with a tiny population (Thanks to enslaving the populace) and so it appears to bring in lots of cash. However, as the pop. grows back relative to the city, the income appears to go down whereas in reality all of your other cities will theoretically be profiting since the army upkeep is being distributed more.

Could be very wrong (Feel free to correct me) and hugely long-winded, but first post on these forums after 4+ years of being the silent observer

Your first post on these forums and you're already sounding like an expert Ofc you're right. The bigger cities will appear to be paying more for the upkeep, so income will drop... you can check that in the settlement details.

[Didz]

Well at the moment I'm letting the Gauls go on worshipping their own gods as the temples are providing positive happiness despite the culture penalty. In fact, Massalia is a real cosmopolitan mix having been occupied by the Arveni and the Carthaginians and has temples from both present providing positive happiness. But so far I haven't opted either to annex it or make it a client state so its in a sort of indeterminant state of government at the moment. Probably under military law in reality as my Legion is still in the city.

Like Rikokrates I'm quite curious whether this state can continue or whether at some point something I do will cause the temples to switch to negative happiness.

I've already got caught out by building Roman government buildings in a Client State, which say they will deliver positive Law but actually generate negative happiness once built if the city considers itself independant. I wonder also whether this might change after a city has been granted Citisenship status.

[DeWitt8]

I really think you guys overcomplicate things here. I may be wrong, but to my knowledge the cultural penalties are just caused by the existence of "foreign" buildings in the city. Raze them, upgrade them, whatever, and this penalty will vanish. There is no romanizing going on in the background or whatever - this shouldn't be mixed up with unrest after the conquest, which will cease over time.

Also there is no changing of building boni over time. Temples won't switch, and building roman government buildings do give the boni as stated in their description as well. The latter only lead to happiness mali in a client state, as stated correctly in the client state building description.

[Rex Basiliscus]

I really think you guys overcomplicate things here. I may be wrong, but to my knowledge the cultural penalties are just caused by the existence of "foreign" buildings in the city. Raze them, upgrade them, whatever, and this penalty will vanish. There is no romanizing going on in the background or whatever - this shouldn't be mixed up with unrest after the conquest, which will cease over time.

Also there is no changing of building boni over time. Temples won't switch, and building roman government buildings do give the boni as stated in their description as well. The latter only lead to happiness mali in a client state, as stated correctly in the client state building description.

This.

[Guga]

This.

To undesrtand how building "capabilities" work you have to know that buildings as seen on the campaign map (city tab) are not that many as in the export_descr_building.txt (EDB) file. In that file are coded building lines witch "internal name" for each building. So on on a city tab we can have for ex a temple of Jupiter if build by Romans, temple of Zeus if build by Greeks, temple of Ball if build by Carthaginians etc. but int the EDB it is only one building identified by it's "internal name". This "internal name" building has a set of capabilities (happines, tax, population etc boni\mali or recruitment). Each of those capabilities can be limited by faction that owns this city, cuture, resources present in a province, other buildings in a city or an event (ex marian reforms) or a combination of those. So if you are Roman you only get the capabilities available for Roman faction. If you conquer a city from Carthage, mentioned temple will give you bonuses only available to Romans, but it will retain it's original name and look until you upgrade\raze and rebuild it. In that way a single building can give boni\mali depending on faction that owns a city. Also buildings that are undestroyable and unupgradable will always retain their original name.

Edit:
If, in the above, I say "name" it means name as seen in game not in EDB.

Hope it's clear . And sorry for any language mistakes - i'm not a native speaker.

[the.phoenix]

To undesrtand how building "capabilities" work you have to know that buildings as seen on the campaign map (city tab) are not that many as in the export_descr_building.txt (EDB) file. In that file are coded building lines witch "internal name" for each building. So on on a city tab we can have for ex a temple of Jupiter if build by Romans, temple of Zeus if build by Greeks, temple of Ball if build by Carthaginians etc. but int the EDB it is only one building identified by it's "internal name". This "internal name" building has a set of capabilities (happines, tax, population etc boni\mali or recruitment). Each of those capabilities can be limited by faction that owns this city, cuture, resources present in a province, other buildings in a city or an event (ex marian reforms) or a combination of those. So if you are Roman you only get the capabilities available for Roman faction. If you conquer a city from Carthage, mentioned temple will give you bonuses only available to Romans, but it will retain it's original name and look until you upgrade\raze and rebuild it. In that way a single building can give boni\mali depending on faction that owns a city. Also buildings that are undestroyable and unupgradable will always retain their original name.

Edit:
If, in the above, I say "name" it means name as seen in game not in EDB.

Hope it's clear . And sorry for any language mistakes - i'm not a native speaker.

PERFECTO .............. i wish to rep you bt i dont know how to ......