What is the best meathod to growth?

[justicarab]

cause i feel like it takes sooo long to grow settlements, and most ai settlements grow way faster than mine, am i doing something? is there a general rule of thumb?

[Lortano]

Low taxes, farms, characters that reduce squalor. That's about it really and the game has been designed to have a lower population growth than vanilla.

[justicarab]

Low taxes, farms, characters that reduce squalor. That's about it really and the game has been designed to have a lower population growth than vanilla.

What is the best way to train gov to have low squalor.?

[Lortano]

Well....ummmm....I really don't know But a lot of the characters from the books and films do have traits that reduce squalor to begin with, such as Aragorn.

[Lothar135]

Even with the best rabbit breeder (governer for growth) the villages and towns grow very slowly. You can do the same thing I did - mod it yourself and raise the growth, its quite easy, although you have to spend some time to do it. I raised the effect of chivalry (respect) of generals, I renewed the squalor reduction of architect and master builder and I also raised the bonus of buildings, which give you population growth (sheep farms, caravans and melkor temples). Its hell of a lot faster but it still takes a lot of time to grow a village to something better.

[Ngugi]

Governors as a rule have little impact on a settlement growth (or at all really, making them most useful as generals, not as governors). Mind you, this as aid above is not a mistake but the creator intent, to be in line with the world Tolkien described.

Not all ancillary and trait descriptions are up to date, so best way of knowing, beside if you check the files or even mod them as Lothar suggest (and modding is always encouraged!), is to check a settlements information scroll, send a general in and see what's the change.
Some characters as Gandalf and Aragorn for sure improve growth.

Beside farms also Town Hall-buildings, and for good Men factions there's Breeders-buildings, evil Men get a pop growth bonus from caravans and Dwarves from mines. Keep the tax low, beside from the turn when a building is completed, then have it at high, for the governor to get good instead of bad economical traits!

AI growth is better because AI settlements get a growth bonus to strenghten them, for the sake of challenge, as AI is also dumb.

[FriendoftheDork]

When did Architect ancillary get nerfed? I seem to remember this was one of the almost required ways to grow a settlement to large size (forget about huge), but in my Dale campaign I saw no difference in squalor when I put my King in the city, who has the ancillary.

I checked the ancillary file, and it has squalor -2 and construction 10, but these effects are not shown in the settlement details, buildings cost the same whether the governor is in our out, and as I said no change in growth.

The only things that works are traits and Respect, and 8 or more gives a meager +0.5 growth bonus.

[Withwnar]

When did Architect ancillary get nerfed?

TATW 3.0 from memory. Part of the growth rate overhaul on which King Kong spent much effort.

Architect's "Squalor -2" is commented out; no squalor reduction. Respect is the only character effect that gives growth bonus, and it needs to be 7, not 8, I believe.

[FriendoftheDork]

TATW 3.0 from memory. Part of the growth rate overhaul on which King Kong spent much effort.

Architect's "Squalor -2" is commented out; no squalor reduction. Respect is the only character effect that gives growth bonus, and it needs to be 7, not 8, I believe.

The Kind rules traits actually work, reducing squalor. Try it with Aragorn (or was it Gandalf?)

Anyway, I removed the semicolon, but the squalor effect (as well as building discount) still won't work in my loaded game. Is it not savegame compatible?

here is the code I edited:

Ancillary architect
Type Academic
Transferable 1
Image ZArchitect.tga
ExcludeCultures mesoamerican, eastern_european
Description architect_desc
EffectsDescription architect_effects_desc
Effect Construction 10
Effect Squalor -2

[Withwnar]

A few traits give negative squalor. Not sure what I was thinking there, maybe that no ancillaries have the squalor effect.

I don't know if it's save game compatible. But the Construction one wasn't commented out in the first place so not sure what you mean by that one "still" not working.

SPF_SQUALOUR in descr_settlement_mechanics.xml controls how squalor plays its part in growth. In fact, all SPF_ ones are population growth factors.

[FriendoftheDork]

A few traits give negative squalor. Not sure what I was thinking there, maybe that no ancillaries have the squalor effect.

I don't know if it's save game compatible. But the Construction one wasn't commented out in the first place so not sure what you mean by that one "still" not working.

SPF_SQUALOUR in descr_settlement_mechanics.xml controls how squalor plays its part in growth. In fact, all SPF_ ones are population growth factors.

Yeah it is strange.. I checked the building cost with and without the governor with the Architect, and it did not change.

I've been messing around with settlement file before, but I didn't want to go overboard this time. I just want what the game tells you ingame to be true. If the architect says it should reduce squalor by 2, it should. Else the ancillary should be edited to say "useless, does nothing at all" or some such. I did notice for the traits though, that the level one KindRuler squalor reduction is ; out, but not the higher levels. I've only verified that the higher levels work.

I can't find any line there that should affect how ancillary squalor reduction works. I see among the comments are a value, such as after SPF farming_level it says 0.4, while the actual pip is 1.0. which I guess is the same as in vanilla.
"SPF_SQUALOUR" is set to 0.5, but that just means normal squalor is halved, is it not?

[Withwnar]

"SPF_SQUALOUR" is set to 0.5, but that just means normal squalor is halved, is it not?

Yes. It should mean that Squalor -1 translates to -0.5. So you'd need -2 in a trait/anc to see any effect.

[Lothar135]

Yes. It should mean that Squalor -1 translates to -0.5. So you'd need -2 in a trait/anc to see any effect.

One of my governors has trait/anc which give him -3 squalor. However, there is no difference in squalor no matter if the governer is in or out that settlement. Maybe you need -4 to see any effect. I dont know. I am looking at SPF_SQUALOUR and there are several numbers - I dont know what they do, can you clarify it?

This:
<factor name="SPF_SQUALOUR"> ;1.0 is -0.5% per population of 1500 0.8
<pip_modifier value="0.5"/>

[Withwnar]

Ah, now I understand. I've been wrong about this SPF_SQUALOUR thing so far.

It's referring to how much the settlement's squalor affects the settlement's growth. It isn't about how much a trait/anc's Squalor affects settlement squalor.

If squalor = 1 then for each 1500 population there will be an extra -0.5% growth boost, i.e. a 0.5% growth reduction.

e.g. At squalor = 1:
1500 people = -0.5% growth
3000 people = -1.0% growth
4500 people = -1.5% growth

i.e. The more people, the larger the impact that squalor has.

If squalor is 0 then there's no impact on growth.

If squalor is 3 then:
1500 people = -1.5% growth
3000 people = -3.0% growth
4500 people = -4.5% growth

All of that so far is for a pip_modifier of 1.0. If it's 0.5 then all of the above results are halved. 0.8 is the value in vanilla M2TW; maybe that's why it's in that comment.

So the equation is:
growth rate impact from squalor = squalor x (-0.5) x (population / 1500) x pip_modifier

Squalor automatically comes with population size and is affected by wall size, those things are hardcoded (I guess). The Squalor effect in traits/ancs just adds/subtracts from that inherent squalor value that the settlement currently has.

So yeah, -2 Squalor in a trait is not +2% growth, nor +1% growth (2 x 0.5 like I said in an earlier post). There's more to it than that: the population size.

Furthermore, the settlement details scroll does not tell you how much squalor the settlement has, only the resulting growth impact from that squalor. To figure out the current squalor value you'd need to reverse that equation:

                growth rate impact from squalor
squalor =  -------------------------------------------
           (-0.5) x (population / 1500) x pip_modifier

...or...

           (growth rate impact from squalor) x 1500
squalor =  ----------------------------------------
             (-0.5) x population x pip_modifier

Once you have that number then you can subtract the Squalor reduction amount that a trait gives, then plug that resulting number back into the first equation to figure out how much impact that trait will have on growth. Easy.

There is also the possibility that this "per 1500 population" thing is not a decimal calculation, rather that it goes up in stages of 1500. So, to use the first example, 1600 people is NOT -0.56666%, it is still -0.5% because 1600 falls within the 1500..3000 bracket. If true then that really makes things difficult to calculate precisely. Oh yeah, and the displayed growth rate impact will be rounded to the nearest 0.5%, just to make life even more difficult.

Lastly, there's the pip_min and pip_max values that limit the squalor value to within that range of values.

On the other hand I could still have this completely wrong. Maybe the true info is out there somewhere but I'm yet to find a tutorial on this file.

So, to summarise. Does a Squalor effect in a trait/anc affect settlement growth? ... ... It might.

[FriendoftheDork]

Wow, that was a lengthy post Withwnar. I hate to burst your bubble, but I think you are interpreting this all wrong, and way too complicated.

They way I see it SPF_SQUALOR is simply the amount of squalor the settlement gets depending on it's population size. Settlements with low population will probably have no squalor at all, 10000 people should mean a lot of squalor. I'm assuming what you put into "code" was simply your assumptions, not found anywhere in the files. The file simply says: 1.0 is -0.5% per population of 1500. I assume this is simply triggers, for each 1500 population, squalor affects pop growth by another 0.5%. This is exactly the same way Chivalry affects squalor too, once the threshold is reached it simply gives a 0.5% population increase bonus. .

Thus the 0.5 pip modifier should mean either two things, for every 750 population you get 0.5% squalor, or for every 3000 population. A quick check in my own campaign shows that the smallest Dale village, currently 1460 pop in my game, has 0% squalor. Giving it 200 more pop still leaves it at 0 squalor. However, when I gave it 1800 it gets 0.5%, and at 2240 it game me 1% squalor, and 5% unhappiness from squalor. This may be because I didn't upgrade my town walls, not sure.

My experiments seem to indicate that at least there is some sort of decimal counting, as squalor comes faster than I thought. It may round up somehow.

Anyway, the reason some traits do not seem to make a difference is because some of these are commented out, but usually just the first level. So if you have -2 squalor from a trait it probably works.

[Withwnar]

Perhaps my opening wording was wrong - "It's referring to how much the settlement's squalor affects the settlement's growth" - but everything that followed it in my post still seems right to me.

pip_modifier is just that: a modifier, a multiplication factor. Whether its modifying the squalor value of the settlement, or modifying the squalor-to-growth% calculation, is academic: it amounts to the same result. i.e. In this formula...

growth rate impact from squalor = squalor x (-0.5) x (population / 1500) x pip_modifier

...it doesn't matter where the "x pip_modifier" is placed, which thing it is multiplying; the answer comes out the same. (Unless it was multiplying the 1500 of course.)

I'm assuming what you put into "code" was simply your assumptions, not found anywhere in the files.

It is based on the comment in the file: "1.0 is -0.5% per population of 1500". And yes, that was an assumption because I can only assume that this comment is correct. I have not seen squalor calculations explained anywhere else. This comment is not present in any vanilla Kingdoms files. So it must have been King Kong (or other team member) who put it there - whether it's something they know to be true or just a best guess I can't say.

They way I see it SPF_SQUALOR is simply the amount of squalor the settlement gets depending on it's population size.
...
I assume this is simply triggers, for each 1500 population, squalor affects pop growth by another 0.5%.

It can't be simply a function of population size because that would not explain the squalor drop when walls are upgraded: the population hasn't changed* yet the squalor has.

* Okay, it will change a little during that turn end in which the walls were completed, but squalor goes down a lot.

It would also mean that the Squalor trait/anc effect does nothing, ever.

I believe that "squalor" (in that formula) is:

[some calculation based on population size] - [some calculation based on wall size] + [sum of Squalor effects from traits/ancs]

...where "some calculation" means hardcoded and the formula unknown to us. (Maybe someone knows what they are.)

And the resulting value of that "squalor" is limited to the 0..10 range (in TATW) by SPF_SQUALOR's pip_min and pip_max values.

That all seems logical to me. But, again, I'm not claiming that I'm right.

EDIT: on reflection, I believe that my initial wording was correct: "It's referring to how much the settlement's squalor affects the settlement's growth". A "pip" is the icon on the scroll, where 1 pip represents 0.5%. So a pip_modifier is modifying the final calculation (displayed result), not some internal factor in the calculation.

An therefore a correction: pip_min and pip_max would mean the allowed range of the resulting "growth rate impact from squalor", not the range of the "squalor" value. Not sure if that means that there is a maximum of 10 pips (5%) or a maximum of 10%. I think it's the former.

[Lothar135]

Woooow, this seems way to compicated for me. However, i can confirm, that in city with 19500 population (Dol Amroth), there is -3% squalor growth and my governor with -3 squalor trait changes this to -2.5% growth.

[FriendoftheDork]

Woooow, this seems way to compicated for me. However, i can confirm, that in city with 19500 population (Dol Amroth), there is -3% squalor growth and my governor with -3 squalor trait changes this to -2.5% growth.

Only -3? Thought it would be more. What is the name of this trait the governor has?

[Lothar135]

-3 is "only" to you? Its my best antisqualor governor!

Trait/anc are "architect" and "active builder"

[FriendoftheDork]

-3 is "only" to you? Its my best antisqualor governor!

Trait/anc are "architect" and "active builder"

I was referring to the actual squalor, not squalor reduction. Although the number seems ordinary, I just assumed larger cities had more than this (damn Dale and their small population).

Active Builder according to the file gives -1 squalor, although there is a ; before it so it might not work. Architect is -2, but also commented out, but the latter did not seem to work in my game. In my own game I have one with Good Ruler that is supposed to give -2 squalor (but -1 in the file). He seems to do nothing by himself in a settlement with 4800 people (1% squalor), but I shall try to give him the architect and see if that does anything. It could be that -3 squalor equals 0.5% squalor reduction somehow.

More complicated than I thought :/


UPDATE: Yes, Architect + Kind Ruler (total -4 squalor) stacks to actually give -5% squalor, or +0.5% population growth in a smallish city. On another note, Biarn the Cuckhold, who is a Miserly Cheapskate and Sloppy Builder gives a whopping 8 squalor (reduced to 7 for a good trait), and increases population loss from squalor from 0.5% to 2%. So these traits do seem to work (finally!), just much reduced. It may just be how it works in vanilla as well, or somehow the squalor attribute (positive or negative) is reduced somehow.

I'm gonna mess with the SPF squalor value to see if this changes.