Growth rate question

[Larsel]

So in my SS 6.4 venice campaign byg 2, VH/VH, RR/RC I have been focusing a lot on growing my settlements.
The result is 2 huge (rome + venice) cities before turn 50. Milan is on its way as well. But i have a hard time getting citadels. I have 3 fortress' which are close to becoming citadels (Ragusa, Palermo and Tunis). Matter of fact i am very close, having palermo with a population on 22404 which are 96 people away from the citadel upgrade. But i just can't seem to get those last 96 people -.- I have a full chivalry general with Architect and artist which reduces squalor by 3 if i remember correctly.. In Venice I have great university and Rome will soon have great artist studio (or whatever it is called). I am building these in hope of getting some useful traits for population growth, so i was wondering if anyone could give me a list of possible traits that increases population growth and also what settlements that can actually be upgraded to citadels/huge cities.

thanks

[Anesthetize]

Check your descr_settlement_mechanics.xml file in SS6.3/data folder. There seems to be an erroneus (unless it is in fact intended to be that hard) entry in it for some people.
Check the line
<level name="fortress" base="9500" upgrade="22500" min="500" max="23000"/>
and make sure that max is in fact higher than the upgrade. For some people (including me, once) the max limit was at 20-21k, which caused the settlement to "max out" before it hit the upgrade limit. I think it requires a growth of +7% per turn or something to be able to make it to 22.5k from the 20k threshold to be able to upgrade without editing this.

At least, I presume that is your issue. If not, you can always reduce the pip_modifiers for squalor or increase growth somewhat if you find it tedious to deal with.

Edit: I see that you don't necessarily want to change it, if you think it is working as you want it. It does make citadels more sparse, but sadly, only for yourself. The AI has innate growth bonuses to their settlements, which cause them to be able to get plenty of citadels before you usually can. So look at it as a difficulty tweak, if you may. As for growth, everything that reduces squalor helps. Also, maxed chivalry. I'm unsure whether the law traits work towards it.

Here is a list on the different traits and how the can appear: http://noctalis.com/dis/totalwar/m2tw_traits.shtml

[Larsel]

So this is what i found:

<population_levels>
<!-- city -->
<level name="village" base="500" upgrade="1000" min="500" max="1500"/>
<level name="town" base="1000" upgrade="3500" min="500" max="5000"/>
<level name="large_town" base="3500" upgrade="9500" min="500" max="12000"/>
<level name="city" base="9500" upgrade="19500" min="500" max="25000"/>
<level name="large_city" base="19500" upgrade="30500" min="500" max="60000"/>
<level name="huge_city" base="30500" min="500" max="500000"/>
<!-- castle -->
<level name="moot_and_bailey" base="1000" upgrade="2000" min="500" max="1500"/>
<level name="wooden_castle" base="2000" upgrade="4000" min="500" max="5000"/>
<level name="castle" base="4000" upgrade="9500" min="500" max="10000"/>
<level name="fortress" base="9500" upgrade="22500" min="500" max="21000"/>
<level name="citadel" base="22500" min="500" max="30000"/>
</population_levels>
</root>

I see it is not the same as you wrote, so should i change it ? Or lower the max ? What should i do?

[Anesthetize]

It's exactly what I meant
If you take a look at the <level name="fortress" base="9500" upgrade="22500" min="500" max="21000"/> line, you can see that the game requires a population of 22500 to be upgradeable (upgrade="22500"), but that the maximum allowed population for a fortress is 21000 (max="21000"). So, naturally, it is difficult to make a city grow at 22500 pop, when the most you can have is 21000... The only workaround in game, is if your city grows the entire 1500 pop in one turn from 21000 (=22500), which requires a very large growth %.

So, what you do to "fix" it, is that you simply edit the max="21000" value to something larger than 22500, for instance 23000. This will allow your fortress to reach the required population for it to be upgradeable. I also believe this is save game compatible, and just requires a restart (of the game, not the campaign).

[Larsel]

Thanks a bunch. And yeah, it was very hard to get that growth rate after exactly 21k as you said. It would always end up with 0.5% plus or minus and eventually end up at 22404, which are JUST below the 22500 -.-. So all I have to do is open the descr_settlement_mechanics.xml file with notepad and change the max value ? Are you sure it is save game compatible ?

[Anesthetize]

Im not sure, but it doesn't have any negative effects if you change it. If it isn't, it will be applied to your next campaign. But I am pretty certain it is.
You can refer to the line i posted from mine earlier. Just bump it to 23000 and you'll be fine.