Have you taken Rome yet? And what difficulty. I had the same problems and started again as the Brutii. You shoulda seen my Alexandria! -3000 denari! Of course it was the first time i had played the game.
I am not sure if ur a noob so i will post these anyways:

1. Change your capital so the how far from capitalsm depression things don't turn up. Further u are the worse it gets for population hapiness.

2.Delete all farms except the first one, You don't want heaps of farm as it makes the growth go crazy. Also lots of temples, and public baths, maybe colloseum but they are expensive!

3. This happened to me on other settlements, but normally, the population goes at a standstill and than goes on negative which is good as it gets to a population it can handle after a few turns.

4. You want skilled Family members there.

5. Take Corinth for the +4 happiness bonus for all wonder.

5. Garrison Peasants as garrisons only matter about how many, not the quality, get as many peasants as possible, also they have a low upkeep!

I think your main problem is the how far from capital thing, Egypt is on the complete opposite side from Spain! Try to forcus on Spain more? Gl

[This message has been edited by TTK_GeneralNoob (edited 10-31-2005 @ 02:42 AM).]

1. First of all, no cities EVER lose money. Ever. It's not possible. Ask yourself how that is possible. The actual reason your large cities' incomes are shown in the negative is that most of your army's upkeep is paid from there. The larger the population of the city, the more is the share of the upkeep it pays. The way to reduce the upkeep is to train cheap but large units like peasants as garrison in your interior cities. This will help keep the order as well as reduce the upkeep.

2. Like I said, they're not losing money. Train a full stack peasant army in these cities. As soon as you're income becomes positive, start repairing buildings.

3. Go to war immediately. After you capture some cities, you will get more income. Getting outlawed is not something you need right now. Yes, games will make your people happier so accept the Senate missions, and go to war!

4. I don't think so, because I think rebels can respawn. What you should do is build a good army in each area. Eg:- One good army in Spain, one in Sicily, one in Egypt, one for expanding, etc.

Best of luck to you.

Oh wait, somebody already replied.

[This message has been edited by RomanKnight (edited 10-31-2005 @ 02:43 AM).]

When conquering cities it is a good thing to destroy the shrines and small temples and buid your own cultures temples cause these you can upgrade.

If the conquered city is 15000+ population its also a good thing to loot so the population will drop at about 4000-6000. This will give time to you to built happiness structures before the big population of the city becomes an unrest factor, without having a big effect in city production.

Also high influence governors could do the trick.

[This message has been edited by MEGAS_ALEXANDROS (edited 10-31-2005 @ 03:39 AM).]

To TTK_GeneralNoob:
Can you tell us how you destroyed farms? I have never found out how to do that and thought it impossible.

Friesian

I actually like this aspect of the game. It makes it more 'realistic' if you can say that. The high maintanence cost was after all one of the reasons the great empire crumbled.

Anyways, expand, expand and expand. Capture rhodos first, move on to the greek pennisula and finally asia minor. This should give you pretty sweet and steady cashflow.

First of all, thanks for all your help.

I actually do know about cities and army upkeep. I also realized the main reason of the Alexandria and Memphis economic disaster is because I have 2 full stack of high quality troops (Legionary and Praetorian Coharts, Roman Cavalry, Onagers, etc.) However, I dare not replace them with peasents for two main reasons:

1. As I said, as soon as I get one man out of my cities, the public order immediately goes to RED.

2. Before the peace treaty with Egypt, my two cities were constantly under attack. What the Egyptians usually do is send waves after waves of their army to lay siege on my two cities. Even though I won against 5 attacks for each cities, I know they won't stop until they kick me out of Egypt (that is: as soon as I declare war).

Also, I think this might be a mistake but because I was too keen on destroying Egypt, most of my young Generals and best army were deployed on the Eastern Front, leaving the Western part (Spain) still with weaker early armies such as Hastati, Equites, etc. and you should know it takes forever for one General to go back to the west to support my weak old army and aging Generals.

I do love this aspect of the game. Not only are these realistic, they are actually fun to deal with dispite of all the troubles.

Friesian,
Click on the settlement, look at the buildings currently in the settlement and than right click and on the bottom of the new window there should be a hammer which u press to destroy it(or at least something around that).

With farms this option is not available (its lightly grey). Its the same with the government building and the city walls. In your post you advice taking the farms down but in my game version (vanilla 1.3 BI, vanilla 1.2 and 1.1) this is not possible or there must be some trick I'm missing. Thanks for the reply though.

Friesian

O poop ur right. Maybe if u get your city to have lots of rebellions the farms might get damaged?

1. Use peasants for your garrison. They have high unit numbers and low upkeep. This will also reduce overall upkeep that you have to pay at the beginning of every turn, so you save money. I've found that five units of peasants can govern a settlement that is in one of the first three or four levels. In larger cities, I've had as many as fifteen units of peasants and the public order is only 100%. Especially in Carthage.

2. Cut your losses and abandon those settlements. If they continuously revolt as you say they are, it is costing you more money to keep fighting over them than they are actually contributing to your economy.

3. You really have nothing to worry about. It's when the Senate starts making threats rather than rewards that you should consider attacking Egypt. If you abandoned Alexandria and Memphis, combine the two garrisons (or build two equal, but not necessarily full, stacks) and attack Egypt.

4. AFAIK, no, you cannot destroy the rebels. At least not as long as you find conquering the whole map a burden

[edit] Just decided to read the rest of the thread

Quote:

NO! Farms make growth jump. The more peasants you have, the more taxes you extract from the people. Temples are a must. Colloseums are the kind of building that is important, but not enough that you can build it when comfortable for you. Public baths don't add to public order, but they add to health, which is a must for high populus cities.

Quote:

I don't think I've ever seen this happen. And if it does, they can be repaired just like any other building. IIRC, even if a building is 100% destroyed (as long as its in battle), the building can be repaired.

[This message has been edited by KaiserWinterfeldt (edited 11-01-2005 @ 04:09 AM).]

^_^ take his advice dump those usless citys

btw Take the balkans! as any fraction with a port on the mediterranean sea I set off for there as it makes a ton of money and cornith's magical life saving wonder!

Send a general, preferably young with the "fertile" trait to Spain as fast as you can. It takes time, but not doing it is crippling you. Capture all of Spain and Romanize it. Never destroy any sacred circle to Epona. I believe all Roman factions can build from that, not just the Julii. If there are no Epona Circles, then replace any temples with Shirnes to Saturn. When public order is stabilized, and the whole area is under your control, disband the Haistati and replace them with Town Watch, this should alleiviate some economic pressure. Build mines in the cities that can, and procure trade rights with whover possible. Build Roads, and markets, and soon you will have a nice Roman province. From there, reduce any excess units in the region, and train yourself uniform legion. I tend to uses 10 Auxillia, 2 Late cohorts, 2 Roman cavalry, 2 Archer Auxillia, and 2 Light Auxillia. This provides more than enough defense against rebels, and after it is battle tested it will be able to defend Spain in any upcoming civil war. From there, train legions of your choosing (not too many praetorians, they simply waste money) and send them where you wish. Gaul is a good bet, as the Julii will act as a buffer if you fail. If all Gaul is taken, then simply hop to Britain, which should Romanize easily enough. Just like that, you have two developed provinces that can make money or men. The governor should start cranking out babies, and make sure that the one with the best management is sent to Carthage.

Another place that needs to be Romanized is West Africa. Egypt is not that much of a priorty. Do the same thing you are doing in Spain. Stabilize with temples (Saturn), romanize with roads when the region is fully under yor control. Alternate sewers and markets. build ports where you can, and finally upgrade your barracks. From there, train a cheap legion to maintain a rebel free area, and you can do whatever else you see fit. As for Egypt, it seems like it is not going to be holdable, my suggestion would be to utterly destroy Egypt itself, then to leave. Send your legions out, after destroying anything of worth, then march them back in after destroying a weakened revolt army, exterminate, and move on as quickly as possible. When every Egyptian city is exterminated, and its buildings are destroyed, you can decide to go back and recapture, or to ignore the weakened remains.

NOTE: This does not endear you to the senate, so be careful with it. It could backfire. On the other hand, you will need those armies for the civil war, so you do have to do something with them, withdraw or pillage, your choice.

Taking Rhodes was a good suggestion, it will finance your armies. Basically, Romanize all your provinces (areas that are safe from enemy factions) to get income. Organize your army into more manageable groups. And redistrict your generals, so that each region has at least one governor within 2 turns. This will help keep public order.

Good luck.

Spain is already gone--all captured by me. Gaul is destroyed too--Northern Gaul belong to Britons and Germany while the Southern Gaul (next to my spanish borders) belongs to the Julii. The thing about that is that the Julii has at least 8 fully garrisoned Post Marius Red Armies lined up along the borders between my Spain and their Southern Gaul blocking all my accesses northwards(intentions unknown). The only good thing is that the Julii is currently at war with both Briton and Germany (those Barbarians are at war with each other as well). From your experience, could this forshadow a future problem?

Except for one city at the south end of Spain, all of my other Spanish towns are too small to let me build or Romanize anything other than Paved Roads and some crappy military buildings and they don't even allow me to build stone walls yet so that western land is still quite pathetic and weak. What should I do then?

The Egyptian Cities I conquered were mostly Romanized and so are my African cities. One thing I forgot, Thebes (south of Memphis was unconquered), should I take that too?

The reason I do not wish to abondon Alexandria and Memphis yet is because they have Wonders and that I have upgraded them into huge cities with Epic Stone Walls and some of the most advanced buildings. So if there is a way to batter down these Walls I created, I would be more happy to abondon it for now.

For additional information you might like to know, here is a list of destroyed Factions so far:

Spain--By Me
Carthage--By Me
Numidia--By Me
Macedon--By Brutii
Gaul--By Briton and Julii (Germany took a slice from Briton later)
Dacia--By Julii and Germany

As you might see, My Scipii Empire is currently the largest in the World, bigger than Brutii and Julii put together. (the Strongest goes to Julii, and the Most Advanced goes to Egypt at this moment). However, as far as I know, my Empire is currently the one with the most serious problems.

The other thing is that I have just taken Crete with some of my old Legions, enslaved population and my economy has just gone up to about 1,300. With that little money, how do you think I should spend it?

Anyways, thanks for your help.

[This message has been edited by Scorpion216 (edited 12-01-2005 @ 01:55 PM).]

People probably already mentioned this, but:

Cities never lose money. They just seem to be doing so because a disproportionate amount of your population is there, thus it is paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of your army.

Since the number of soldiers is all that matters towards the garrison, the ridiciously cheap peasents are better than the elite urbans. Once you adjust accordingly, maintaining your inner cities should be much cheaper.

Also, anything in Greece would be good to have, as it is very rich and a good position for the upcoming civil war.
Build forts at all of your narrow mountain passes that are on borders with Roman factions.

Once you get some time, you could use peasants built in heavily populated cities to populate your smaller cities. This will allow your cities to develop better and decrease squalor, not to mention increasing religious, cultural, and ethnic diversity throughout your empire(not that the game actually keeps track of this, but that would be cool).

Of course, if you haven't already done this, make trade with everyone that isn't dead. Germania, Briton, and anyone else that are fighting the other Romans would be a good idea, as this would aid their wallets and keep your "allies" occupied.

Slowly tighten a noose around Rome. Build forts right near it when you can, and send in any troops that you can spare. This will allow you to wipe out the Senate quickly when the time comes, making the civil war all that much easier.

Spies and assassins are a must have. Keep spies at all important passes and cities of enemies and Romans, not to mention all of the battlefronts of your brothers in the Julii and Brutii factions. Assassins must be near all major Roman leaders at all times, if you can afford it. Taking away a great Julii general before a battle against the Germans could cause them to win that battle, making their effort last all that much longer.

As soon as you can afford it, get better local navies than your Roman bretheren. You would need them for extensive peasant migration programs anyway.

I hope that this is some help.

Not wishing to be picky but..

"Cities never lose money. They just seem to be doing so because a disproportionate amount of your population is there, thus it is paying a disproportionate amount of the cost of your army"

In this case you are right, but there is a point where the income earned from a city can be lower than the maintenance cost of the troops stationed there to keep a city (either keep in terms of defence, or keep as in public order). The income shown on the screen is very misleading. It would be better to either show gross income only or not to show it at all. Indeed , the gross income would allow you to easily decide whether it was fiscally viable to defend a settlement or not.

Those damn egyptian cities! It is rather difficult to maintain order in those cities, as they have such high population, and high growth. You should be cautious about when you use exterminate, but for these cities, I think it is a good idea to take your army out, let the city rebel, then retake it and exterminate. This will work extremely well on the lower difficulty levels, as the rebels will be mostly composed of peasants. Also, due to the high population levels, you will get a lot of $$ when exterminating, and thus it is a good short term solution to your cash problem. Also, because the pop will be pretty low, you can garrison maybe 5 units of peasants in these cities to keep order, and then take the fight to the egyptians with your worthy troops, rather than blowing a big hunk of your income on having those troops just hang out in the city waiting to be attacked.

Also, I'm not sure if you know this, but the city does not pay for the forces that are garrisoned in that city, they pay for you forces proportionately to how many citizens are in that city. I know this has been beaten to death, but if 1 city hold 10% of your total population of all your cities, then it will pay 10% of your total military upkeep costs. It is possible that you have some expensive units just sitting around, not gaining experience, in relatively safe cities; take those units to your battle fronts, or disband them to save the cost. For instance (depending on unit sizes), disbanding 5 units of elite units could save you over 1000 denari per turn! Those expensive units are great in combat, but they suck as defensive units because generally speaking, the cost of upkeeping a bunch of expensive units will outweigh the cost of having to retake a couple of settlements now and then because you only had peasants guarding the settlements, allowing them to be easily taken.

Regarding: evacuate the city & recapturing it,

I agree that you should probably look at exterminating some of the populace in Alexandria & Memphis, BUT:

If you just pull out your forces & let the city rebel, you'll see that the rebel forces are invariably well experienced & numerous (gold chevron peasants are a pain in the A$$.

It's FAR better to pull out all units from it & give it as a gift (or try to sell it) to an enemy faction. Then reinvade the city the next turn.

If you give the city to another faction, that faction has to build up defensive units in the city before it can oppose you. You will find it MUCH easier to recapture the city afterwards, when it has only one defensive unit.

This will NOT work on VH dificulty level, since the AI cheats & is able to build full stack armies in any city in one turn.

GM

To KaiserWinterfeldt If I could do the cool quote things i would. But what happens when u have a city like Carthage with like all the farms? Your growth will be CRAZY! And hard to keep under control, especially with lategame buildings as they take so long to build. That was the point I was trying to make.

You can still get the first or second farm upgrade and have enough time to build most of the buildings while getting good taxes and a good growth.

I did not read all the posts above but I have some suggestions too:

1)I think that Town militia is better than peasants for a city to keep it happy. I replaced a full stack of army for 4 to 5 five 80s of Town Militia. And their upkeep ios the same as peasants.

2)On the other hand when you recruit army the recruited soldiers are substructed from the city's population. So you can use peasants to move the population wherever you want. I conquered Spain by exterminating every city and then I repopulated the cities by bringing peasants from my bigger cities. (You get the population back by disbanding the units)

3)Egyptian cities are diffucult to hold. Don't bother a lot about your economy. Eliminate one of the factions you are at war at this time and (If you don't start war with another one) you will see the economy flourish again. Well this is not a rule but it happened to my empires every time I had an economic crisis. So focus in the theatre of operations that costs you the most. (If it is Egypt forget it try another one, Egypt takes way too much time to conquer.)

I hope I helped...

rebel8303, first of all, thanks for your help.

Anyways, the only faction that is causing all these trouble (external anyways) is Egypt. Spain is gone and so is Gaul. Everything else, I have to either tread through the Julii or the Egyptian territories to get the others so Egypt should be my target for now (besides, the damn Senates always order me to attack the Egyptian cities/ports anyways).

Gallic and Spanish cities are small, Egyptian cities are huge, I'd say forget about Egypt? And if u want to realyl conquer them use Seluecids

exe1:and train yourself uniform legion. I tend to uses 10 Auxillia, 2 Late cohorts, 2 Roman cavalry, 2 Archer Auxillia, and 2 Light Auxillia.

That is hardly a legion. I like to have a couple preatorian or roman calvalry some archers and the rest cohorts.

Quote:

Quoted from Scorpion216:

How can he possibly afford these? Keep in mind, these armies were for defending safe provinces against rebels and unexpected attacks, not destroying gold chevron Egyptian armies. Also, I am not sure what you meant, I had cavalry, archers and cohorts, exactly what you mentioned.

Quote:

[ q ]TEXT TO BE QUOTED[ /q ]

Ignore the spaces inside the brackets, but otherwise that is how they are done.

10 auxillia is simply too much. Plus auxillia isn't that powerful. If you were to defend against rebels you wouldn't need a full stack army.

[This message has been edited by shadowarmy75 (edited 11-11-2005 @ 10:11 PM).]

I have been playing well for a while. Spain revolted a few times and I exterminated them after each civil revolts. I have finally conquered Thebes and 3 more Egyptian cities (forgot names) but with a high cost though. I also conquered Rhodes and it really helped my economy. Furthermore, I have made trade with every nations that are still alive (except Egypt--which is now my enemy again) but Egypt only have 4 provinces left and they have now based their strategies on stubborn (but extremely strong) defences for now.

But, new problems begin to arise:

1. The Seleucids started sending spies into my cities and I have also caught and killed 6 of their assassins lurking around my cities (with my assassins).

2. My Generals are aging/dying twice as fast as new ones are spawned (come of age). As a result, many of my cities/armies were left without a leader/governer.

3. My greatest trading partner and my only ally (also only faction that has been able to keep the Julii down), Germany has been destroyed. The British has been severely weakened and kicked out of the mainland, leaving the Julii the Strongest faction in the world (My Scipii is still the largest though). The most advanced goes to the Brutii which held all of Greece, Macedonia and Thrace.

4. New message titled "A Chance for Power" has arrived. Although I forgot the content, but now all Romans are allowed to attack each other. The biggest problem is that Spain's defence is weak and the only army in Capua (capital) is pathetically small dispite the Epic Stone Walls. It only has 2 Generals, 1 Triarii and 2 Praetorians. Upon the arrival of this message, the Julii immediately stationed fully garrisoned Red Armies on their borders (5 between their Gaul and my Spain and 3 between their capital and Rome--More are coming as well).

As before, my strongest armies are now stationed in East Africa up to Sidon (6 fully garrisoned Blue Armies but 4 without a General). I have 6 war naval units (3 Corvus Quinquiremes, 2 Triremes and 1 Bireme with only 2 ships left).

Given these new problems, what should I concentrate mostly on now? Continue to conquer Egypt, the Seleucids or the possible upcomming Civil War? Basically, how should I proceed from now?

[This message has been edited by Scorpion216 (edited 11-29-2005 @ 07:05 PM).]