Squalor!!! What causes it? How to deal with it?

[Augustus In Command]

Recently squalor has been causing major public order problems in some of my largest cities. My capital, Carthage, has a large amount of squalor and it's causing 65% of the unrest in that city. I made sure that I upgraded to councillors' chambers as soon as the city grew in size. I can't understand why I have so much squalor in my cities. Please help!

What I need to know is:

A) What causes squalor?

B) How can it be dealt with?

Thanks for any help!

[Sponge]

iam not to sure but i think you get squalor when you get any trade biuldings , you can counter it by making biuldings like sewers and public baths ,etc but this doesnt get it away completely you will always have it,

you can edit the files to make sewers give a massive health bonus then it will be gone completly

[Augustus In Command]

you can edit the files to make sewers give a massive health bonus then it will be gone completly

Now that would be cheating. :wink:

[Mikelus Trento]

I hadn't noticed that it increased with increased trade development myself. I've always felt it was a function of city size vs public health buildings.

So, to minimize it's development in the first place, don't build up anything that will increase growth rate in your naturally fast growing cities, eg Patavium, Carthage. Also, use population control by building peasants that you can then move them to less populated cities that ned them. Strive to have your population in a city grow to the next palace stage only after you have finished building all the improvements at the current stage.

In your naturally fastest growing cities, make sure to build the public health buildings as a priority. The sooner they are build, the sooner they have an effect.

When all else fails, if your squalor is uncontrollable, the ultimate solution is the same as unrest from overcrowding...move your army out, pump up the tax rate to the highest to encourage rebellion, then when the city does rebel, conquer and exterminate. Remember, great empires are not maintained by timidity.

[Hanno the Navigator]

In your naturally fastest growing cities, make sure to build the public health buildings as a priority. The sooner they are build, the sooner they have an effect.

This may be not the best solution. public health buildings increase population growth, so they can only provide temporary relief. If you're betting on a plague to lower a city's population, they will decrease the odds.

Apart from that minor point, your hints are good; I use such a strategy all the time. Instead of publich health buildings, which I reserve for cities that really seem to have a big squalor problem and not much population growth, I build entertainment/law buildings. This will help to keep the tax rate up and thus decrease population growth. Except in frontline/recruitment cities, I build roads, mines and trade buildings first to increase the income, and then do the stuff that increases happiness. I reserve public health and especially farms for last, or in the former case, as needed.

[Spadicus]

iam not to sure but i think you get squalor when you get any trade biuldings , you can counter it by making biuldings like sewers and public baths ,etc but this doesnt get it away completely you will always have it,

you can edit the files to make sewers give a massive health bonus then it will be gone completly

I don't think health buildings reduce squalor...something in frogegg's guide? I think squalor is purely population based, and trade buildings increase population growth rate.

Ship your population out of your cities by building loads of peasants and get them slaughtered.

[Severous]

What I need to know is:
A) What causes squalor?
B) How can it be dealt with?

a) Increasing population.
b) Reduce the population, dont do things that increase population growth, build to offset the negatives of squalor, bigger garrisons.

As Carthage in two swap games I took over from other players I had big towns with public order problems caused by lots of population/squalor:
- used the execution squares and police hqs to boost law
- demolished trade type temple in favour of better public order type
- very high tax to boost short term cash income and reduce pop growth
- no/few farm upgrades
- peasant garrisons

Good luck

[trench]

a) Increasing population.
b) Reduce the population, dont do things that increase population growth, build to offset the negatives of squalor, bigger garrisons.

As Carthage in two swap games I took over from other players I had big towns with public order problems caused by lots of population/squalor:
- used the execution squares and police hqs to boost law
- demolished trade type temple in favour of better public order type
- very high tax to boost short term cash income and reduce pop growth
- no/few farm upgrades
- peasant garrisons

Good luck

You da man with the plan.

[cudakite]

-Solution

Make lots of peasants, put them all on one little boat and send that boat to attack your emeny's biggest fleet. Population control without the upkeep cost.

[Spadicus]

-Solution

Make lots of peasants, put them all on one little boat and send that boat to attack your emeny's biggest fleet. Population control without the upkeep cost.

Heh genius. And there I was with huge marauding peasant stacks .

[cudakite]

LOL yeah. Don't give them the chance to keep running away!

[Steuner]

-Solution

Make lots of peasants, put them all on one little boat and send that boat to attack your emeny's biggest fleet. Population control without the upkeep cost.

Or buy like 3 stacks of peasants and attack armies of maximum 300 men... Then you can even use your peasants for summit

But I love you idea! :]

[iKossu]

Make lots of peasants, put them all on one little boat and send that boat to attack your emeny's biggest fleet. Population control without the upkeep cost.

Now that sounds a bit harsh.

It's to do with unit size. Not quality.

I've thought about this but I wasn't sure. Thanks for the information!

[Augustus In Command]

I'll be honest here: I've never built a unit of peasants in my life. Does it reduce the population or something? I can never justify buying peasants when I can have town militia for the same upkeep cost.

[Spadicus]

Whenever u build units, the population reduces by the number of men in the unit.

If you build loads of peasants, your population will reduce and you can then disband the peasants in a smaller town to increase its population, or send them against enemy troops and get them slaughtered. It's murder, but it gets the job done :laughing:.

[Mikelus Trento]

I'll be honest here: I've never built a unit of peasants in my life. Does it reduce the population or something? I can never justify buying peasants when I can have town militia for the same upkeep cost.

If you play on max unit size, each peasant unit will reduce your population by 240. At the cheapest cost of what, 100 gold? They also are the cheapest upkeep, and therefore the most cost effective eway of a slow reduction in population (vs extermination), and possible use of building up the pop in towns needing more people to upgrade.

[NobleNick]

Squalor is caused by population. One point of squalor for every 3000 population, to be exact.

Every point of squalor gives you -1% to population growth.

Every point of squalor gives you -10 to PO.

To control squalor, you must control population growth. The easiest way to do this is to very carefully manage your farms (i.e., do not build farm upgrades past land clearance, unless you know what you are doing).

For some preventative and curative actions you can take to counter squalor and low P.O., please see my post in this thread. There are also some good posts by others, if you search for them, as this question comes up a lot.

Hope that helps.

[Kaidonni]

As previously mentioned, increasing population causes squalor. Building trade buildings has NOTHING to do with it. Unless those buildings have a pop growth bonus. Health buildings...they can help. A bit. But they increase pop growth as well as public order, so...

Be careful about building farms. They add pop growth. Yes, they're important income-wise. But they do increase pop growth.

Try using peasants as garrison. They are the best. Eventually, though, there will be serious problems with squalor. The peasants just add to the garrison's effect on public order. Now only if the health buildings actually DECREASED squalor slightly as another advantage rather than providing a pop growth bonus.

[NobleNick]

Building trade buildings has NOTHING to do with it. Unless those buildings have a pop growth bonus... Eventually, though, there will be serious problems with squalor...

Many great points, Kaidonni; but I have comments on the two listed above...

I am not sure you are correct on the first point. In fact, I am pretty sure that economic buildings do have an effect (other than the direct PG bonus of markets), I just don't know exactly what that effect is. The reason I say this is that Victoria's in-game advice for dealing with low PO includes modifying the economy. Maybe she is just talking about lowering taxes? But that is not a long term solution (in fact, it makes the problem worse). So my GUESS is that there is something more going on, here.

On the second point: There is absolutely no need to have any problems with squalor if you design your cities correctly. I do agree that problems with squalor are, statisically speaking, all but inevitable with some cities that you capture later in the game; but that is only because they have been irrevocably screwed up by the A.I. There is not a city on the vanilla map that can not be a thriving contributor to your empire *IF* mangaed correctly from the start. A case in point is the pesky perinnial problem population post of Patavium. This is the city most often cited for PO problems; but even this city is easily controlled if managed correctly from the start. (I make it my goal, if my starting position is near this city, to capture it first thing; before it gets hosed by the A.I.)

[GORE]

What I need to know is:

A) What causes squalor?

B) How can it be dealt with?

a) over-population, inadequate public health facilities

b) upgrade sewers and temples ASAP, build any building with public order bonuses, lower population buy recruiting soldiers from the province and stop upgrading farms or desperate measures is to allow the city to rebel then attack and exterminate populace.