Well, the Arenas and the next level of city decrease squalor. I've never gotten to huge city level, although my capital is 5/6 the way done building the Imperial Palace. I dunno if overpopulation occurs in Imperial stage. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

If you got good guys with management skills, they can take squalor on, but my family has a command talent, not managment. I don't really mind unless they riot.

The only way to effectively reduce squalor is to lower the population. Squalor is caused by rising population. Granted Sewers and Baths don't directly reduce squalor, but they are squalor counters.

I exterminate any huge city that isn't growing or can't be made happy despite every effort.

As far is know, baths and plumbing increase public health which is the opposite of squalor, so it does in a way decrease it, just not directly...

Squalor is a function of population. Population changes squalor as well as special attributes of some governors. Nothing else is pertinent. When too many people are crowded in a large area, you get squalor because the majority of the people are literally dirt poor. Managing squalor is all about managing your population. Squalor cannot be avoided. What you can do is make the people happy by building entertainment centers and using them, adjusting taxes, and eliminating unneeded buildings which add to population once you've crossed the 24K population threshhold.

For the thousandth time, extermination doesn't help you! Besides being dementedly unrealistic in a historical sense (mass murder of Roman citizens, great idea!), it simply shifts the burden of your military upkeep to other cities with higher populations. I've never had a city revolt ANYWHERE except the hard coded gladiator revolts which cannot be avoided. If you keep people in the 24 to 28K population range, use the tools you have to manage happiness, and throw regular games, you popularity will soar and squalor simply won't matter. This is why there were bread and circuses in Rome NOT exterminations!

It also doesn't matter if a city shows negative income as long as your end of turn report shows you in the black. I have military production cities that never show a profit, and they never will. The people are happy, the squalor is through the roof, and I get my military hardware pumped out like clockwork. Squalor is a challenge you should learn to live with, not seek to eliminate because it is intrinsic to the evolution of the ancient city structure.

Old Celt,

When you talked about destroying unneeded buildings for reducing population growth, what buildings did you intend?

Some temples give a bonus to population growth, so they could be replaced. Forums and higher produce a population bonus, so they might be removed also. I've found I can use a combination of good governor, tax rates, and building management to get zero growth soon after the 24K level is passed. There really is no reason to keep growing cities after they reach the top level.

I destroyed some buildings, but the people only got mad and the situation have become even worse. I with Seleucid, and I tryed for example to destroy the Merchant's Quarter in Jerusalem(because its population got already to 36000! ), but then the public order went down - what should I do? Can you tell me SPECIFIC name of buildings that i should destroy, and despite that my people won't riot?

dorratz,

I don't know the buildings for your faction but you have to look at what each building does before deciding. If a building gives 10% happiness and a 0.5% population increase, the logic of destroying the building is dependent upon current happiness. If it is 80% now, you don't want to lose 10% more and go into revolt conditions. Use games and or races to keep people happy. When they can stand the loss of the building, you take it out. Put governors with high influence (the green wreathes) in high population cities. Build health and entertainment buildings (arenas, hippodrome, aqueducts, sewers) and watch the city detail scroll to see how people are doing. Garrison size can contribute up to 80% happiness. If you mouse over the soldier icon in the detail scroll you can see if increasing garrison is an option. Sometimes, you can queue up a few town watch units to stay out of revolt status.

The best way to avoid this problem is to manage for it as far ahead of time as you can. While you are building the 5th level governor building, you should be looking for ways to stop population growth. If you haven't planned for this ahead, it will take some careful actions to keep the people happy while you build what you need. I had everything in place for a city once, and the governor had 6 influence wreathes. Then he died. The city went red that turn, and I had to go to daily races and games, low taxes, and queue up several garrison units while I rushed another governor there.

Another option can be to move your capitol. If the city is giving you large distance from capitol penalties. City management can be fairly involved if you want to really do all the work yourself to govern. Culture penalties also can make happiness a severe problem. When you conquer a town, destroy any old temples as soon as the happiness level will allow it. Replace them with temples that give law and order bonuses, but never population bonuses. Upgrade as quick as you can. This will greatly help in the culture penalty area.

what buildings decrease squalor in the barberian factions (mainly Briton). and since my other post dose nt seem to be goin down well how do u find the tech trees on non roman factions?

[This message has been edited by blockeyking1 (edited 01-14-2005 @ 04:44 PM).]

I will have to try those ideas old celt...

THIRD TRY FOR SIG... IT MIGHT WORK..

IT DOES!!!

thank you Old Celt!

Just fill up the garrison, low tax, the happiness buildings, if possibl, good governor, and it should be fine. Get the colloseum/hippodrome thing for Romans, or the equivalent for others. Daily race/games, low tax, good garison will ensure no revolts.

"And throw regular games"

Playing as the Roman Bruti yes, I effectively managed settlements in this way.

However now playing as Egypt, there is no such facility.

I have had to vacate and re-take cities on several occassions, tried everything, built everything to help happiness and reduce squalor, had younger Generals ready to replace ageing one, moved Capital. Nothing worked, must admit haven't tried removing certain buildings, perhaps I'll try. sounds kinda dangerous though!

I wish I could defeat the growth temples. In my Carthage campaign, I built the growth temples in Lilybaeum to support a larger training of troops in order to get the Scipii off the island. Now, however, I'm stuck with those temples and lots of squalor. I've got the awesome temple now, and if I destroy it, there will be a 20% public order decrease, invoking my city to riot. There is nothing that can stop growth now, though I'm slowing it down as much as possible building huge amounts of quinquiremes (20 men less than peasants, and one more turn to complete, but I can at least use them for something).

Grecian, the 'arena' of Egypt is the Execution square I think though it doesn't give the option to throw games of course.

btw: Egypt shouldn't have a big problem with happiness I think, all temples give happiness and law...

Yep I have an Execution Square, the City I have the problem with Is Antioch, my Capital City is Thebes. I think Antioch is a Seluicid City, as I,m at work not sure what type of temple I have there.

I play v/hard-v-hard. Obviously this would have some impact.

ok, I think you might have to move your capital no matter what, if you play Egypt, and your capital is Memphis you should move the capital. remember that 'distance to capital' which makes people rather unorthodox is reduced by reducing the distance to capital (check the settlement detail scroll for more details )

If Thebes is your capital then that is your problem. Thebes is about as far away from every Egyptian province you can get. Move your capital to a more central part of your empire.

I moved my capital to Antioch in fact. Actually, as Eggies, my best income city was Antioch with 4200 or so. Since my empire strethced from Armenia to Arabia to Tunis to Ionia to Babylonia.

I build the line of execution square (police HQ..etc) first before any other building when I finish with a larger upgrade.

[This message has been edited by Echowinds (edited 01-15-2005 @ 10:02 PM).]

K I.ll move my Capital, last night I wherever it was possible ie: Happiness levels high I destroyed alien temples and re-started my own factions, for those that are un-sure, it works, if you occupy a settlement with an alien temple:-

Destroy it, hapiness levels improve quickly.

Moved Capital helps alot, didn't realise it could make that much difference.

Thanks

[This message has been edited by Grecian (edited 01-16-2005 @ 09:57 AM).]

I would like to add that governor traits are an easily overlooked factor in squalor levels. Some traits add +3 to squalor levels, but you wouldn't know that just by looking at the name of the trait (like Gluttony). It's a good idea to get into the habit of checking the traits (and the trait definitions by mousing over them) for governors in important cities. I found some governors increased squalor so much that their modifiers eventually caused growth to stop before I could reach 24K. Yanking them out of the city restored a couple points of growth instantly!

Temples of wealth like Mercury for Brutii give lots of negative traits that make squalor and/or reduce happiness. I had a large temple to Mercury in my capitol, and it was giving my fledging governors traits like: Cheapskate, Tightfisted, Downright Miserly. After you reach a point of strong economy, I think replacing the temples with a law based one like Juno for Brutii or Jupiter for Julii, I haven't seen much that was too bad coming from them. Seems like they generate the "Feeling poorly" type ones but that doesn't hurt a non combat general.

Just for the record, a good alternative to exterminating your populations would be to enslave them. That way, at least your smaller cities will grow faster. Or, if your problematic huge city isn't a military production center, you could try making peasants in that city and moving them to other settlements, disbanding them, and thus causing those settlements to grow (this avoids the hassle of getting an army to a city, letting it revolt, sieging it, then killing/enslaving everybody). The only disadvantage to this is you don't get the bonus from looting your city. Also, every time you exterminate or enslave the population of a city, that city has a population boom. This increases public order until the boom is over, but it also usually means 5%+ population growth, which quickly gets you back to where you started. Also, unless it's completely vital, avoid building the pop growth increasing temples. Once you get to large city they become useless, and making them Pantheons usually has significant disadvantages compared to the other temples. Often underrated, Public Health increasing temples are probably better choices than population growth increasing ones (as public health inadvertantly increases population growth). Odeons, Execution Squares, Taverns, Arenas, are all vital to keeping cities under control. I've had cities with nearly 45,000 people still growing, completely happy, and MAKING money (granted it was Athens and my capital). You really just need to take the time, and read and understand what everything does, how it affects pop growth and public order, and using common sense from there. (On a side note, I think any really populated city that stays happy for a while gets a plague to minimize the population. It's never failed that when my cities are approaching 45,000 citizens, they always get the plague.)