CITADEL location

[achilles-91]

i wonder which are best locations to get citadels as fast as possible. i know they are Adana, Palermo, Nicosia.. any else ?

[hbk_123]

Caesarera (spelling?) capital of the Turks.

[achilles-91]

nice, but any else ? somewhere in north, or west ? i know only for toledo

[Lord of Shadows]

Granada, Turku (Finland), Tunis, Corinth...

[Shaun]

What's the quickest way to tech up to a citadel, by the way? Just upgrade the farms as much as possible?

[Honors Bastion]

What's the quickest way to tech up to a citadel, by the way? Just upgrade the farms as much as possible?

Farms combined with a high chivalry general. If the genera also happens to have the Good Farmer trait and the architect ancillary then those will help as well.

[Lord of Shadows]

Well, I build everything. But yes, farms are best I think.

[Nikolaj-11]

The castle that became a Citadel the quickest for me was Hamburg.

[Strengelicher]

Upgrading a castle to citadel level is almost impossible in SS 6.4. To identify which castle is suited, check the base farm level in the settlement details (represented by grain icons). Pick one with at least four icons. Few castle type settlements have five grains (Adana might be one, can't remember now), and I cannot remember one having six, but there may be one. Then max out all building lines that facilitate growth - that includes farms, the brothel and the church line. Do not build the gallows.

Traits and ancillaries you want to look for in the governor you place in the castle are any that reduce squalor and/or promote growth. Anything granting a bonus to law, public order and such is irrelevant. The best ancillary is the architect (-2 squalor), the artist is also useful (-1). Concerning traits, I think the good builder and extravagant lines are helpful, but can't remember for sure. Also, your general should have his chivalry maxed out. That is very hard to do, basically you must take him out to many battles when still young, and when he has about 8 chivalry from occupying settlements and releasing prisoners, move him to the castle, where he will gain +2 from the tourney ground line. If you manage to do it, post a screenshot, many people would like to see it happen.

[Shaun]

Doesn't building brothels also facilitate your governors to get bad traits that may actually reduce population growth?

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

Yes.

[Shaun]

Okay, so what's the most foolproof way of quickly growing your settlements? Farms and churches with a high chivalry governor? How do churches aid growth? And since castles are typically used for producing military units, how does constant recruitment affect growth? I know in Rome when you recruited units it directly reduced your settlement's population count, but don't think I have seen this in Medieval.

[Strengelicher]

Okay, so what's the most foolproof way of quickly growing your settlements? Farms and churches with a high chivalry governor? How do churches aid growth? And since castles are typically used for producing military units, how does constant recruitment affect growth? I know in Rome when you recruited units it directly reduced your settlement's population count, but don't think I have seen this in Medieval.

The most foolproof way to grow your settlements is to set taxes to very low. This will directly boost growth. Also, if a governor is present, he will gain chilvalry in a trait line which is called kind ruler or the like. His chivalry will give a further bonus in growth. Then, you should build all buildings which give a growth bonus. You can check whether this is the case by selecting the building in the first box of your building queue and then check the growth line at the top of your settlement details screen - if you see an additional growth symbol greyed out, the building will give a bonus once it is finished.

For maximum growth, you need a governor with chivalry maxed out (must be achieved via battles) and - if possible - further traits and ancillaries which boost settlement growth. Note that some ancillaries can be transferred from one governor to another by drag & drop, eg the architect.

Farms and churches are not the most foolproof war to grow settlements, they are not better or worse than other growth facilitators. I always choose the building which is cheapest and quickest to build as my next building project.

Churches aid growth because they make people happy. In game terms, public happiness makes the settlement grow.

Constant recruitment in settlements does not affect growth at all. This applies for both city and castle type settlements.

The brothel building line will raise chances of your governor gaining negative traits. However, these traits mostly do not affect growth.

[Delvecchio1975]

The most foolproof way to grow your settlements is to set taxes to very low.

you can't set the taxes to low in a castle-type settlement, only in city types.

Farms and churches are not the most foolproof war to grow settlements, they are not better or worse than other growth facilitators. I always choose the building which is cheapest and quickest to build as my next building project. Churches aid growth because they make people happy. In game terms, public happiness makes the settlement grow.

yes they are the most fooproof. farms increase food production and the second level church building reduces squalor.

The brothel building line will raise chances of your governor gaining negative traits. However, these traits mostly do not affect growth.

but brothels add nothing to growth either - they don't reduce squalor, don't increase food production, and don't give your leaders traits that do these things either.

[Strengelicher]

Hmmm... statements from the venerable Delvecchio1975 are not to be taken lightly. The first one is true, of course - my tax theory only applies to city type settlements, maybe I did not express myself clearly enough there. The second one surprises me - I did not know of ANY building to reduce squalor. It was my firm belief until today that some buildings give growth bonuses (due to increased happiness, public health or the like), but do not reduce the level of squalor. Concerning the third: I am reddened with shame. All these years I thought the brothel gave a bonus on happiness, which in turn gave +0.5% growth. Have I been so wrong? I would have to consider myself unworthy to issue further comments on these forums...

[Nikolaj-11]

I test it by keeping the settlement details page open and then select/deselect the buildings.

I don't know what variables apply, but at times both "Brothel," "Library," "School," etc. can give a boost in population growth.
Maybe these buildings are dependent on one another, maybe churches too. Counsil chambers do the same but with more of a guarantee in my experience.
When I build any of the above buildings I only ever do it at a time where I can see it benefits my growth, this always results in a 0.5 boost the turn it's completed.

How am I to interpret this if I am wrong then?

[poisoned goat]

Public health doesn't really reduce squalor, it just adds 5% public order and 0.5% population growth per level.. which essentially counteracts the effects of squalor.

IIRC, happiness does nothing except prevent revolts. High population growth rates give a bonus to public order (depending on difficulty level, VH is 4% I think) but not the other way around.

[Strengelicher]

Just did some testing, and it appears growing settlements is a bit more complicated than I thought. The town hall building line gives two different bonuses - a "public order bonus due to happiness" and a "public order bonus due to health". I shall henceforth just call them "happiness bonus" and "health bonus". Building the first level town hall (incidentally called "town hall") gives a happiness bonus of 5% and a health bonus of 10%. The health bonus seems to translate directly into an additional growth of 1%. At least this is the case in smaller (city type) settlements - maybe it will be reduced in larger cities, that remains to be tested. I could not ascertain that the 5% happiness bonus translates into another growth bonus.

However - buildings which grant only a happiness bonus generally translate into a growth bonus as well. I demolished an inn (brothel line level 2 - giving 10% happiness bonus) in a city and growth immediately dropped by 1%. Hence we may deduce that in contrast to Delvecchio1975's bold theory the brothel line does boost growth (which is in line with my experience). Strangely, I demolished a tavern (brothel line level 3 - giving 15% happiness bonus) in another city and growth only dropped by 0.5%. From this we may deduce that not every 5% happiness bonus translate into 0.5% growth bonus, but that there are other factors influencing how much growth bonus the additional happiness gives. Either the different buildings interact with one another or the size of the settlement plays a role in this.

Also, I verified that no building reduces squalor. This crazy theory has been obliterated, and I will be happy to receive rep from my fellow SS 6.4 explorer and scientist Delvecchio1975.

The city watch building line by the way grants a law bonus, and first field experiments (demolition of whole cities) indicate that a law bonus does NOT translate into a growth bonus. But testing continues.

Oh, and one more thing: I saw that TRADE can also boost growth. I have not yet found out if that just applies to sea trade or to trade with other factions. But at least sea trade with other factions gives another growth bonus.

[Nikolaj-11]

The first class in the market and port seem to give me growth bonus, but I don't remember getting it from its higher tiers.

Do you think total population of a settlement affects squalor or further growth rate?
In my HRE campaign my two largest cities Milan and Constantinoble only hover around 0.5% 1.5 at highest even with all of the growth bonuses. Paris, Nuremberg and Naples also seem to linger.
The only og my biggest cities with a high growth rate is Venice, my capital.

Is this all because of "Distance to Capital?"

[Delvecchio1975]

Strengelicher - rep awarded! although what in my dictionary reducing squalor and adding health is the same thing, while literally it's obviously not. I did notice like you did that trade buildings can increase growth, but to come back to the OP, there are no trade buildings in castle type settlements.

Apart from that, I'm still stubbornly unconvinced that adding a brothel can increase growth. I always leave them till last to build (since castles never have issues with public unrest), and keeping a hawk's eye on the growth percentage, it just nevah evah EVAH changes. I'll replicate your test when I get the chance.

The city line hall is great for growth, indeed because of the health (reducing squalor, ha!) bonus. Again, none of those in castles.

So concluding (for now - I'll be BBACKK), in castles type settlements build farms and churches, and get a chivalry general. They are often quite dashing which makes all da single ladies tart themselves up to no end, which in turn leads to men to their comb their beards and pick flowers, with many babies as a result. I'll check on the brothel line, but I can't see how prostitution would be inducive to the creation of human life - au contraire, mon ami.