Governing tips and tricks

[MrFancypants]

Anyone having trouble with squalor? Here are some tips how to handle it.
As Roman it makes sense to build all those healthincreasing buildings like public baths as early as possible, but from a certain size on you can't do much against squalor, or so it seems.
-Something you can do is to recreuit thousands of peasants and send them to smaller cities which need more population. Just disband those units in these cities and their population will grow a bit.
-always exterminate populace when you capture a city. The city will produce more money, you will get more money from looting and you reduce squalor along with the size of the city.
-if nothing else helps just let the city revolt, the senate will reward you for recapturing the city and you have a chance to reduce the size of the city
-if you don't play on easy or medium recapturing settlements may not be so easy because the Rebels get a lot of units, so in this case use the following trick, if the plague breaks out in one of your cities send some spies there. Then send those spies to those cities which have grown to large -> problem solved
-another thing to do is to sell every building in the settlement and then to sell the city to another faction. This faction will invest a lot of money and if you like how the city looks like you just capture/bribe it again.

If you need more money:
-sell you map information, you can make a lot of money like this
-get trade rights with as many nations as possible, build ports and watchtowers along your roads (traide increases if you can see the whole road between two cities, which isn't always the case), make sure that you bribe/kill rebel armies or fleets, which might disrupt your trade routes

Rebels:
-either bribe them or have one or two armies near your home cities who deal with them. This is a great way to turn your more useless generals into experienced soldiers

generals:
-you have to take care where you let your generals stay. If you play as barbarian don't let them stay near a tavern, the buildings of a city influence the retinue/traits your general gets
-move retinue between old generals who will soon die and young ones, who need them

naval warfare:
-if you want to sink an enemy fleet once and for all sorround it with yoru ships and then attack with one large fleet.

ok, that's it for now. Hope some of these tips helped you Now let me know your ways of ruling the world.

[USMA2010]

My little tips:
-Build paved roads early on, especially if you are one of the African nations. There is such a large expanse between cities that you need to move quickly, or else you may just loose a settlement.
-Establish trade rights early on with everyone you can.
-At first, concentrate on construction of shrines, sewage systems, farms, markets etc... these will greatly increase the production and profitibility of a settlement.
-NEVER MOVE THE CAPITAL. I learned this the hard way. Doing so will automatically put half your settlements in revolt, which really sucks.
-Only establish an alliance with an honorable state, and one where war can be avoided. If you are the Selucids, ally with Greece, Macedon, Rome, etc... An alliance with Egypt won't last long. Dont ally with the barbarians, they will betray you very quickly.
-Upgrading ports wont just allow new unit production, but increase the size of your maritime trade fleet as well. It will make you a very rich man.
-Pick a few cities that are far apart and favor them. Lower their taxes, build up their garrison, and build everything you can. If the enemy overruns all other cities in that area, the one that you favored will never fall if you did it right. (Trust me when I say that EPIC stone wall is not an understatement).

[MrFancypants]

Moving your capital can actually be a good idea. The reason you get so many revolts is just that you spread your troops, able governors and taxrates in a way that gets you a good situation with your current capital. But the best thing you can do is to set your capital to be a city in the middle of your empire. Like this the "distance to capital effect" in many of your cities can be reduced.

[USMA2010]

Well, say you are the Greeks. Moving it from Sparta to Athens is not a bad idea, it may work well.
But moving it from Sparta to, say, Rome, is suicide.

Public baths and that stuff reduce squalor, obvisouly. But building farms also helps. With tens of thousands of people to feed, huge stores of goods really help. And so does a secret police...

[MrFancypants]

Well, moving your capital from Athens to Sparta doesn't have such a large effect. Lets say your are Briton and just finished invading Egypt, if you keep your capital in Britain you just won't be able to pacify those faraway cities (I tried decimating them to about 300 inhabitants, they still revolted), your only chance is to move the capital to Rome or something similar and to readjust tax rates/troops and so on in all cities.

Farms actually make everything worth. More food increases your population growth which is the main reason for squalor, which in turn is the main reason for unrest. I usually sell my farms as soon as the city is as large as I want it to be.

[USMA2010]

I just realized how important it is to be loved.

I am playing the Egyptian campaign, and am currently waging a war of attrition with the Selucids. They attack, and I beat them back sort of thing...

Well, they took a city of mine, the one to the east of Jerusalem, Bostra. I had always kept the taxes lower there, and built up a great infrastructure. It had paved roads, huge farms, a good defense, a merchant's quarter, the whole nine yards. Immideatly, the loyal Egyptians revolted! I had not only gotten back the city, but got an entire army out of it! Not to mention killing their governor. Just for the hell of it, I'm making sure that these are the soldiers that attack Antioch when the time comes.

[LIGHTNING [NL]]

Well, I am playing as Romans (jullii) again and it's also important not to get too loved. I was incredably popular with the people, but the senate feared my popularity and demanded the suicide of my faction leader, or would declare war! Ofcourse, I did everything to prevent it and I sent my faction leader to his death. And a year later the same thing happened. And another year later again! So then I had enough of it, and I am now at war with every remaining faction in the game...

[USMA2010]

Dude, you pansy.

You end up fighting them anyways! And besides, with the right army, the Romans arent that hard to beat. Ive had harder battles with the Germans than the Roman Legionary.

[Chiefy]

Originally Posted by MrFancypants

I usually sell my farms as soon as the city is as large as I want it to be.

Are you sure this is possible? I would love to do this but the game won't let me. Does the civ you are playing have anything to do with this?

[USMA2010]

I keep my farms to keep production good. If there is a plague in one of my cities, and another one needs to be depopulated, I follow these steps!

-Remove the Army garrison from the healthy, overpopulated city.
-Move a soldier that carries the plague into the overpopulated city.

TA DA!

This is also a good way to soften up an enemy before you lay siege to them. One infected spy brought the population change level to -7.5%. Over 6 years, thats a lot less soldiers to fight against.