Well first of all there is nothing wrong with a growing, unless it is going to rebel. I going to assume its on the verg of rebeling get some units together outside the city in range to attack the city. After that remove your garrison, if the garrison has good units with it combine it with the army out sid ethe city. Then turn up the city's taxes to teh fullest and let it rebel. the attack the city with your army outside the city. after the you gain control of the city. i suggest you exterminate the city's population. And let the city grow grow back up at this point you can build some farms and aqueducts for money and better happiness. You may need to repeat the step later in the game. Also don't put a government in teh city so if you enslave the popluation of other citys it wouldn't go to carthage. Hope this helps.

Rebel it on purpose, until you can get it on very high tax. When the population levels start getting to big, the population growth goes to a negative until the settlement is at a normal happy level.

^(90% sure that happens)

[This message has been edited by TTK_GeneralNoob (edited 11-28-2005 @ 06:54 PM).]

You reduce growth by having governors with bad farming traits and by increasing taxes. I suggest you increase happiness by lowering taxes, building temples, amphitheatres and public health buildings, garrisoning with 19 Peasants and a governor with decent influence though. Also, the more Carthaginian buildings you can replace with your own the better (disregard the last if you are Carthage).

You can also train units, esp. peasants, reducing your population. Not the best long-term solution though. How is slave trade? Is it making your city's population 'boom'? Make sure your generals are out of the city if you "Enslave" when you conquer.

PS, Sow... Sowed... Sowing: e.g, "Sow the ground with salt."
Sew means to make, repair, or fasten by stitching, as with a needle and thread. Sow means to strew or cover with something; spread thickly.

If such problems do occur with a technologically advanced city, letting it rebel on purpose would not necessarily be a wise choice as any advanced buildings located in the city would allow rebels to field advanced and powerful units against you (silver chevron Armoured Hoplites, Libyan Infantry,or Naked Swordsmen outfitted with the occasional weapons upgrade are a big pain in the rear). A better solution would be to present this near revolting city to a rival faction (preferrably one who you can afford to make war on) and present it as a gift only to retake it after closing the diplomacy screen. This eliminates the threat and trouble of putting down the more potent rebel units and is relatively bloodless (for your troops of course). Feel free to exterminate the populace and litter the roads with the disfigured and crucified remnants of your miserable peasants!

[This message has been edited by idiot_savant (edited 11-28-2005 @ 09:49 PM).]

Everytime you feel the population is getting too big, send an army there, allow the city to revolt and exterminate everyone. Also delete any growth buildings and raise taxes.

Sorry offtopic: Roman "salting the land" system didnt work for long, cause they rebuilded Carthage as their own City .

I also have problems with carthage at the moment. Here's what I did:

Instead of letting it revolt, I removed the governor, because even though he has a good influence, he's just a temporary solution, the man will die at some point and there's no guarantee the next one will be as good.

And then let the city level itself out, by removing buildings which boost population growth, such as trader/market/forum and sewage systems.
And by leveling out, I mean that at some point growth will be zero after these steps combined with crowding which also reduces growth, in my case at around 27.000.
It's on military build policy, happiness is 80% but stable. And a full garrison of course.
So, with no growth and no governor, nothing will upset the balance, and city can remain stable potentially forever.

So in short:
remove governor
full garrison
remove growth promoting buildings
and generally strive for growth of 0 or less.

Since its in the thread title and referenced a few times in the posts, I'll tell a true tale of irony about the salt (we need salt and iron to live)...

At the end of the third Punic War (264-146 BC), the Roman army and Roman fleet sieged Carthage. The Carthaginians resisted desperately, dragging the siege out for three year. Carthage was finally starved into submission in 146 BC, but at great cost to the Romans... who were naturally not happy about that. Of the original 250,000 Carthaginians, only 20% (about 50,000) survived. Gee, sounds kinda like the "exterminate" option in RTW... except in this case, Rome enslaved all the survivors. Then the Romans burned the city for 17 days!

After Carthage was destroyed, the Romans cleared the charred ground, and plowed it. Plowing leaves small rows (like mini-ditches), and into this freshly plowed and very fertile soil, the Romans sowed salt. Of course, salt is not a crop... in fact, salted soil will prevent basic crops (like the various wheats which were essential to ancient civilizations) from growing. Then the Romans pronounced a curse on the land. They felt that Salt + Curse would ensure that their bitter enemy and anyone else would never again build a civilization on the site of Carthage again.

The irony is this: Within 25 years, in 122 BC, the Romans themselves wanted to found a new city on the dead site of Carthage. This was primarily because of its strategic position in the Mediterranean. BUT... the curse was actually a psychological barrier for potential settlers, since they really believed in that kind of stuff! They told outlandish tales of things like supernatural wolves attacking even the city's boundary markers... and guess what... within 30 years, the city had failed and was abandoned (but not because of the salting).

It was Julius Caesar that proposed to found a new colony at Carthage, but it was not until after his untimely death that Colonia Julia Carthago succeeded and became a thriving Roman city. In fact, the ultimate irony was that by the mid-first century AD western Roman empire, it was the 2nd largest city... only behind Rome itself!!

So to keep this on topic, it would be historically accurate to exterminate the city again and again, .

Or gift it to an enemy and capture it back again- No casulties garentied!

Or you could enslave the city twice by the giving and retaking method. Seems like a waste to kill all those hardworking peasants.

had the same problem with alexandria playing as the seleucids. Revolted, so retook and enslaved. Revolted AGAIN, so retook and enslaved AGAIN.
On the third revolt i sent in the army, and destroyed the damn city, destroyed most of the buildings and abandoned it. Out of spite i kept on sending plague bearing spies there to keep the population down to next to nothing. That'll teach them

You'll want to completely destroy Carthage and then rebuild it, nullifying any culture penalties. Then just allow it to grow, building all the happiness-raising buildings (avoid farms - markets raised population growth so you may or may not want to build them.) Also note, Carthage in my game finally levelled out at 49,000 population. I had Mundus Magnus though, so I'm at a pleasant 125% happiness level.

Usually I can maintain controll over the city as the population grows, but eventually squalor levels will become uncontrollable and the plauge will erupt. While it may last for a few turns it will bring the population down to a reasonalbe level. I usually do this because i dont want to slaughter my own people, but I have used the revolt reconquer method. And, just for the record the story of rome salting carthage's soil is in fact a myth. Also in response to Poeni carthage was rebuilt but not on the same spot as the original carthage. Intrestingly enough the vandals end up occupying the new carthage(not new carthage in spain) and with it as the center of their empire they sac Rome. happy endding for the spirit of dido.

Call me naive, but I thought the whole purpose of this game was to increase the number of your cities and make them expand and pay.....
If you are having problems with this concept, try looking at the city characteristics a little more often and GOVERNING! Letting a city rebel or exterminating its population may 'work' in the ultra short term, but it means you are hopeless at good governance. Solution? Try using both military and economic long term strategies. Its what Rome is set up for, and what makes it so addictive because the subtleties reflect real imperial problems.