Squalor Control - Non Roman

[trench]

Its so out of control - my people are going to kick me out of my own capital!!!

Playing as carthage.
My capital, carthage has 28,000+ inhabitants.
A govenor with 6 mgt scrolls.
Have upgraded to Baths (for some time now).
Will complete Royal palace at next turn.
Have 7 units in city.

My problem is Squalor is at 110% and the people are ******!
I have done everything: lowering taxes, filling up the recruitment que.
Built Baal Awesome temple - only thing not done is Execution Square.
I have spy and assassin based there as well.

But on the past turn my happiness factor there just went from PLUMMETED!
The people happiness went from Yellow to 45% and I was only able to get it to 60% and exahusted all my options to get there.

I am certain that the city will revolt and kick me out of town on the next turn.

Options? Thoughts? How to avoid?
I dont see where I can build Aquaducts or Plumbing like Romans.
Thanks for any help.

[gardibolt]

You must not have the patches applied; since 1.2 and thereafter squalor is capped at 100% instead of 125%.

I'm pretty sure that to quell unrest your governor needs Influence laurels, not Management scrolls. Transfer some ancillaries that give influence to your gov (or replace him with someone who has a lot of Influence).

Build the Execution Square, and the Secret Police. Those give nice order bonuses that you're cheating yourself out of. The Carthaginians are kind of fascists, it seems, but the people like it.

[Slimshoom]

the only way to lower squalor is to lower your population. Pull your army out, let the city rebel, and then retake the city, exterminating the population. That should solve your problem for a while.

[Marcus Scaurus]

the only way to lower squalor is to lower your population. Pull your army out, let the city rebel, and then retake the city, exterminating the population. That should solve your problem for a while.

No, there's a much easier way. Send a governor to the enemy and give your city to him as a gift. Your garrison will move out. Select this garrison and reconquer the city that same turn. Exterminate the population and you're squalor is gone.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Yes but this will destroy your economy. Anyway, before patch 1.2 you should build public baths as soon as possible, leave a giant amount of military troops there until you can build a Secret Polic HQ. Ancillary Characters and governors with large influence can be effective also. If, however, you don't have enough time to do these things before a city rebel, let those guys rebel because you will have some fun later separating some heads from their bodies .

[Slimshoom]

yes, that will work before you get a lot of squalor, but after you get a lot of squalor, the method i said is the only one that works...plus, it doesnt hurt your eco that much..

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

i dont think there actually is any better way also...
if anyone knows better way... pls tell us =)

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

waw.... good idea... why didnt i think of that? i usually made them reben and i just killed them all, but giving city as a gift is much easier =) maybe we could also sell the city? hehe

[Lusted]

That wont work in 1.3 or 1.5. In the latest patches when you give a city to another faction it automatically get a garrison.

[Imperator of Rome]

Squalor shouldt be in the game,since it is a unrealistic factor in a city....theres no real way to solve it without extermination.

[Slimshoom]

in real life....there are other ways to deal with squalor....but in RTW only extermination works. But there are other methods in real life....if that was what the above poster was talking about.

[gardibolt]

There are other ways to deal with squalor. It's a fact of life, human beings are dirty creatures, creating massive amounts of filth. Unlike most other creatures, they tend to create filth right where they live, making cities, especially large ancient ones, quite nasty indeed. That's why there are big benefits in the game if you are a Roman and can build the upper levels of sewers and aqueducts: few other ancients understood hygiene, at all, with the sort of public health results that you might expect.

Proper city management and squalor planning needs to be done long before your city is huge, though. It has to be done at the lower levels, or you're faced with extermination as your only option. People have gone through this before but the following guidelines should be followed:

1. Except in deserts, don't build farms above the first level.
2. Always build your governor building as soon as you can.
3. Cities with high growth rates need happiness/law & order temples, to the highest level you can build them (though not ones involving drinking like Bacchus and Dionysus--they make your governors into useless perverts).
4. Build public order buildings (execution squares, law buildings, secret police) as soon as you can--even if you don't need them yet. When you do need them, it's too late.
5. Build academies in your big cities and make sure your governors of huge cities have ancillaries that are big on Influence. If they get a military ancillary, send him off packing with someone who will be used as a general.
6. Build the highest level market you can. Shopping makes people happy and the highest market on many tech trees gives an order bonus.
7. Make sure you're getting the full 80% garrison bonus.
8. If necessary, build peasant units and send them to another province that needs people and disband them there. That way you're not losing taxpayers. In fact, in lower tech cities a single taxpayer is worth more than that same tax payer in a large city, so the marginal benefit is more to move them to sparsely populated areas.
9. Raise taxes as high as you can to keep population growth down and income up.
10. Make sure you have spies in your city to catch foreign spies who are causing unrest.

Extermination is a last resort, certainly not a realistic one, and not one that the Romans took lightly. Nor should you.

[hellheaven1987]

Well, I just face same problem as you... and I extermine my people!!!!

[Sitarus Originalus PM-30+]

i think it is good to exterminate yourown people... city starts to be profitable again and you make money out of thema and maybe most important they wont rebel anytime soon hehehe =)

[trench]

FOund my solution without extermination - I gave the management ancillaries all to a general that DIDNT have any negative traits - that got everything under control till the anti squalor benefits of the royal palace started to take effect - in the meantime i also got an execution square built. :laughing: thanks for all ideas!