Affecting Population Growth

You’ll likely quickly notice the first way to control your settlement’s future: taxation. It’s easy to adjust your settlement’s taxes and just as easy to notice its immediate effect. In general, higher taxes mean smaller population growth; higher taxes also contribute to citizen unrest, which affects public order. But higher taxes also generate more tax income from your population. On the opposite side, lower taxes mean larger population growth and less citizen unrest (at least due to taxes!) but less tax income generated from your population.

In the long run, it’s not to your advantage to increase your settlements’ populations as quickly as possible. It’ll certainly get you into the higher tiered structures faster but it won’t matter if you don’t have the economy to support them. In fact, fast population growth can adversely affect a settlement through squalor (more on this later). Check the settlement details page to see what’s affecting your population growth both positively and negatively.

To succeed in the long term, it’s wiser to concentrate on building each settlement’s economy to its fullest potential before worrying about population growth or even conquering new settlements. Keep your tax rate relatively high to curb population growth, though not at the expense of public order. Use the tax income to begin construction of the tier’s important structures; once in place you can begin to focus on growing your population. Focus on public order-boosting and economic structures.

Adjusting taxes has an immediate affect on population growth percentage.

If you do want to increase population growth, you can do so by lowering taxes, which as an immediate effect. If you are the Julii family, construct a shrine to Ceres (and its subsequent upgrades through the tiers) to receive a bonus to population growth. Increase your cities happiness (by increasing public order) through sewer structures, temples, farms, trade, etc. Examine the settlement details to see what’s adversely affecting public order and counter it. As the city grows, you can increase happiness with races and games as well as increasing the frequency of races and games. The better your farming system, the more population you’ll attract.

As you conquer new settlements, you can increase population throughout your other settlements (at least those with governors) by enslaving the population of your newly conquered settlement. This disperses population throughout your other settlements. After doing so make a quick scan of each settlement’s details to see the effects of the influx of new citizens.

Squalor negatively affects population growth and public order. Combating squalor means proper city management from the settlement’s inception.

Squalor is a problem that arises from essentially too much population without the necessary infrastructure support. It’s basically inevitable for larger cities. Too many people mean that some are living in squalor, which affects your population growth and more importantly your public order. As stated before, it’s best to grow slowly. Concerning yourself with money over population growth will allow you to put the structures in place to help adequately support a higher population (build the sewer line early too). If you find squalor a problem in the future, then curb growth completely with higher taxes. Counter the hit to public order with increased games or races or other means. You could also relocate some of your population through training and moving them to another settlement.

Something that can "kill" population growth is the plague. If you have a settlement infected, remove any infected members from the town and it may recover over several turns. It’s possible to infect other settlements with the plague so be careful moving units into other towns during these events. On the same note, though, you may want to utilize the plague as a devious tactic against enemy settlements. It is possible to infect the enemy. Try sending an infected spy into an enemy settlement. Be sure your settlements have the public health structures, which you should have built early on. These can help curb the plague quicker.

Maintaining Public Order

Public order relates to your settlement’s level of happiness. The higher your citizens’ happiness, the greater your public’s order; the lower your citizens’ happiness, the greater your public’s disorder. Public order can affect population growth and even income so it’s important to keep your citizens happy. Numerous variables can affect your citizens’ happiness. Don’t forget to monitor the settlement details frequently to see what’s making your populace happy or angry.

There are many ways to improve public order. Keeping your population entertained with cultural and sporting events is one of them.

• Higher taxes lower public order while lower taxes raise public order.
• A garrison (even just a handful of town watch) can increase public order. The lack of any garrison and defenses can lower public order. Don’t overdo a garrison, however. It’s not cost effective and seems to increase squalor in the long haul if you keep a large army garrisoned for extended term.
• Increased public health adds to your public order. Increase health by adding sewers, and subsequent enhancements, to your settlement.
• A governor’s high influence rating can increase public order.
• If a settlement is a far distance from the capital, it can lower public order.
• Entertainment activities (games, races) can increase public order. The frequency of the activities can also affect public order.
• Many temples have bonuses to public order. Be sure each of your settlements benefits from a temple. Choose wisely since each settlement can have just one type of temple (for instance you can’t have a shrine to Ceres and a shrine to Jupiter in the same settlement).
• A population boom can actually enhance public order.
• Cultural differences can lower public order. For instance, if you occupy captured settlements from a different faction, the cultural differences between your leadership and the occupied citizens lead to public disorder. You can affect this by exterminating new settlements upon capture or even moving armies into the settlement and disbanding as well as eliminating buildings, particularly temples it seems, from the prior regime.
• Cultural buildings, such as trade structures, enhance public order.