Squalor and PO problem

[aeterna789]

Hello, I'm playing Rome Total War for some time now (great game by the way) and has taken much of Europe, the senate is dead, the brutii has been exiled to Rhodes and skipii is in disarray (i'm playing julii) anyway, my empire is vast but squalors had made city mannagement very problematic. Is there an easier way to solve this problem than slaughtering my own people?

[Mablung]

Welcome!

Squalor comes with population (as I'm sure you know) and in vanilla Rome there is no way to limit squalor. You can, however, keep it in check. Don't let your population positives ever grow above 8% if possible (the optimum growth rate as per Frogbeastegg's wonderful FAQ) as it will stop at around 24000, the perfect number. This will also allow you to build infrastructure to counter the effect of squalor.

Try not to lower taxes as this will on exacerbate the problem - the population will increase faster as will squalor. If you're in a position where this is absolutely neccessary, I would suggest taking Rhodes for that huge 40% trade bonus from the Colossus. Arenas can be useful, although rather expensive. Instead of building farms, build public health buildings - not only do you get a population bonus but the public health amount also contributes that number to happiness.

Micromanage your governors and build academies and their upgrades. This means placing your governors strategically to deal with larger/unruly cities. Academies help you gain ancillary characters and you can then shuffle them around your family members so as to a)save good ones before a character dies and b) load bad ones (slubdergullion, drunken "uncle" etc. onto those about to leave this mortal coil).

Destroy all buildings from other cultures as this will contribute to the unrest value in cities. It is important to integrate the populace in this way as soon as possible.

My last piece of advice is to centralise your capital so as to minimise the "distance to capital" unrest value. You could also set it slightly off centre to provide a larger effect to a newly conquered region etc.

[aeterna789]

Hmm , cool i'll try it out, however, how do i deal with the towns that went beyond 24k population? guess i do need that "population control army" after all.

[Mablung]

Use that only as a last resort, remember that a large population generates substantial tax income. Try your very best with the techniques I posted above to keep them under control until you can build sufficient infrastructure to relax a little. This may involve maxing out the garrison (remember that 80% is the maximum value so there's little point building more troops once you've reached it) and shuffling governors. For garrisoning I prefer town watch as I find peasants a little cheap in terms of realism but peasants are simply the best garrison unit in the game as unit quality does not have any influence on the effect on happiness.

[Severous]

Hi

You might want to move all troops out of a big city (24K+), put tax up very high. Advance one turn. The high tax limits population growth (might even shrink), and the riot will kill population. Take control next turn to avoid rebellion. The increased tax income might offset the building damage that occurs during riots.

As Mublung says for many other tips.

[aeterna789]

Ok, i got a box full of governors with their mannagement (nearly) maxed out and got them governing the most high level cities in the empire. And i'm building public buildings instead of farms (do i have to keep my farms as low as prossible?), well i'm going to last resort on the large cities specially the greek cities coz their population are 30k above and the sqalor level is a serious problem (hey free 20k denari).

[Mablung]

It really does depend on the base farming level of the region - some are more fertile than others. I tend to build the second level of farms at the most. Management does not help keep a city under control, only influence - that might be where you're going astray. With cities that size don't worry so much about management but influence, they will make enough off trade and tax to keep them earning enough.

[andym]

If i find i have unruly cities etc ,i tend to pull out my troops,raise the tax to max then when they rebel,lay siege and kill the population then repair.Seems to work for me.plus it keeps the troops on their toes!

[NobleNick]

...my empire is vast but squalors had made city mannagement very problematic. Is there an easier way to solve this problem than slaughtering my own people?

No. That is probably the easiest, given where you are; but a better way is to avoid the problem. Please see my post in this thread.