How to remove squalor?

[Espinoza]

I'm suffering with a big problem in the mid/late game, majority of my cities are losing
happiness because of squalor,i've already tried to begin another campaign but even if I
invest all in health or whatever to help the people in the beginning of the game is useless, is there any way to remove COMPLETELY or just set less squalor growth? And nice mod I really loved it.
Thanks, and sorry for my english

[Rhomphaiaphoros]

As far as I know, squalor is somehow related to the amount of population in a settlement, so that there is always some squalor present in settlements with enough population. The negative effects it has on public order can be countered somewhat by constructing buildings that increase happiness and law. The best way of dealing with squalor is not letting your settlements grow too much in the first place, but if I remember correct, the amount of squalor drops if the number of people in the settlement drops too. So, you can always destroy some of those buildings that increase health/population growth in order to get rid of excess population, though I have to warn you that there is a chance for this course of action resulting in a plague (fortunately, those are pretty rare, and actually I have never even seen one in EB, only in vanilla RTW).

- Rhomphaiaphoros

[pbwu1f]

Squalor-the condition or quality of being squalid; disgusting dirt and filth. Build or upgrade sewers, aqueducts, hospitals, etc.

[Boriak]

Plagues are definitely possible in EB, I've had problem in my Roman and Makedonian campaign with it. However, if you're trying to decrease the population in the cities, plague is definitely the way to go. It even has RP properties; large cities often suffered from plague (Take Athens during Peloponnesian wars, for example). Just remove characters and good units from the cities (it's not good to use good units as garrisons anyway). If the city rebels because the FM abandons it, wait until the plague ends and retake it. You can reduce city population further then. Just make sure the FM that retakes your city isn't selfless or he will get that 'trouble sleeping' trait.

One thing to note: in my Makedonian campaign I had a problem with one city continuously getting the plague. After some time I realized this must be caused by an enemy spy that has infiltrated that city when it first got infected. Then he kept infecting the city. So I sent a spy of my own in that city that flushed out the enemy spy, then used an assassin to finish him off. An assassin to save the city. Felt more like surgery!

[torongill]

Hospital upgrades and health buildings upgrades are the way to go. You can also install a governor who has traits/retainers that reduce squalor. You can never remove it. Squalor depends on the number of citizens and the size of the city. If you have a large city and say 6 000 citizens, this will mean low squalor, since large cities can accommodate up to around 40 000 citizens(with all upgrades). However, if you have 20k in a city, they will not have enough place to live and breathe, and this will increase the squalor to immense proportions. Eventually, you will achieve a balance and your cities, healthy and cheerful and happy their citizens may be, will not increase in population, because people will think it's too crowded, rent have soared to the heavens and a takeaway for two from a respectable pub costs more than a day's wage for an honest blue-tunic worker.

[Enyalios]

If you have squalor problems, I don't think hospital and health buildings will help at all. Hospital and health brings better public order, but also increases your population which inevitably leads to more squalor. Basically the affects of health buildings offset each other -> 10% public order due to health = 1% squalor increase, or something like that. The best way to cancel out squalor is to build purely public order buildings (ie. City garrison, Temples, Field of Marshal Games etc.). This way public order is increased without increasing your population size. I'd focus on temples that don't have health bonuses first if you're having public order problems (if you're Romans, Jupiter is best for this). Health buildings should be used to increase population, not public order.

[Aenima]

Don't build farms. That makes your population grow and in time it'll go through the roof, and RTW has never been any good with squalor, from my own experience. The more people in a city, the more squalor, the less public order. I don't know how, or if at all, EB has been coded to deal with it, but I'd just advise avoiding farm/increasing-population buildings as a rule.

[bobbin]

The best way to deal with squalour is to not have your cities get too big too fast. It is acutally possible to stable cities without massive garrisons or governors even at the biggest size.

My general rules are:
Never building more than the first or second level of farms, these buildings are indestructible so once they are there you are stuck with them.
To make up for the lack of farms you can build granaries and industrial farming, although when you get to Large or Huge City size demolish these as all they do is add to growth and reduce public order/trade wealth.
Pick you temples wisely.
Build everything else available that will improve public order.
2-6 units of cheap garrison troops depending on the city.

Follow those and you should be able to have stable settlements that aren't stuck in never ending cycles of excessive growth and unrest.

[Canaris]

Also its worth to mention that delaying with building new Core ( imperial palace, propraetor palace etc ) building after you reach population cap for the new level will make squalor shoot up to the roof .

[muaythaisoldier]

its really hard to remove squallor but you can use pack managers to alter the data on the actual buildings to turn squallor down. there are better options though as squallor is simply negative happiness

What i chose to do instead is use a pack editor to open data_rome2.pack and change the happiness effect of taxing heavily into a positive. i changed it from -15 a turn to +50
I can therefore keep taxes up ultra high and keep gaining happiness every turn.

The issue with this is that every time the game patches it removes the fix and I have to keep redoing it. So the solution to that is to download the radius mod and alter the radius pack after its in your data folder. You do the same thing changing the tax effects and it stays because that mod file doesnt get altered by patches. you use a mod manager to enable the radius mod.


It was far easier then trying to reduce squalor if you ask me. I used the Pack file manager on the data_rome2 file and edited tax levels under the DB tab. there are a few tax marked tabs under db but i edited the top one and it seemed to affect the rest too. you have to remember to turn off "read only" in the pack file managers menu's tho or it wont allow you to save it.


Google total war pack editor and youll find it.
download the radius mod from the mod forum and they have a link to the mod manager in their forum post