RTR VII Feature highlight: Establishing control over conquered settlements
Establishing control over conquered settlements
RTR VII places considerable emphasis on the process of integrating conquered settlements in your empire. The process can be divided into two phases. Your first aim is to bring a settlement under your control. The second is to establish a lasting peace.
Bringing a settlement under control
In RTR VII, settlements can exist in two states: stability (green temple icon) and transition (red temple icon). Whenever you conquer a major settlement, you will have to guide it through a phase of transition. Newly conquered major regions have a public order of 0%. During the phase of transition, you will have to raise public order to 70% before the settlement revolts.
The transition phase is started by the construction of the first level of your government building. The building represents military occupation. The transition can be sped up by recruiting informer spies. Also, if you have planted a conspirator spy before capturing the settlement, he will turn out to be of considerable help (see also the feature highlight on spies, informers, assassins and traitors). In addition, you will have to take all measures you would normally take to raise public order: stationing a governor with a sizable garrison and lowering the tax rate.
Integrating a settlement
Especially when you are expanding far from home, you will be facing high penalties to public order. Moreover, if you expand into a zone historically inhabited by peoples from different culture, you may suffer a hidden penalty cancelling bonuses to law and happiness from buildings. If you have managed to complete the phase of transition, chances are you're still relying on a governor, a large garrison and low tax rates to keep the peace. Now begins the much slower process of integrating the settlement in your empire.
As per usual, you should replace foreign culture buildings with those of your own culture and construct buildings providing law and happiness bonuses such as places of worship and entertainment. Perhaps most important of all, however, is to further build up your government. Constructing a second level will complete the phase of transition and reset your settlement to a state of stability. Upgrading the government building also removes (part of) the hidden penalty to public order. Depending on your choice, the building itself may contribute to increasing public order.
Example [reference to image]
In this example, I have just captured the settlement of Bononia. In the settlement scroll, you can see that public order is at 0% [1.1]. As long as I do not start the period of transition, adherents of former rulers will continue to cause trouble [1.2]. To start the transition, I should construct the Roman policy building [1.3].
Having constructed the policy building, the settlement is now in a phase of transition [2.1]. On the first turn, my occupation was damaged, so this is actually the second turn. The influence bar shows progress of the transition [2.2]. In this example, public order has risen to 70% thanks to a superb leader and relatively low penalties from the distance to capital. Things won't be this easy further away from home! To complete the transition, I am starting the construction of the second level of the government [2.3]
Once the second level is completed, the settlement is reset to "stability" [3.1]. The influence bar is also set firmly to "stability" [3.2] and, unless your government building gets destroyed will stay there [3.3].
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