City management

City management is needless obscure in Rome: Total War. Neither the manual nor the Prima strategy guide does a good job of explaining how to run cities.

The player has to weigh four issues when managing cities: income, population growth, population happiness and defenses. While it’s possible and often advisable to focus on one of these issues, it’s not healthy to neglect the others for an indefinite period of time.

Income is mostly dependent on trade for the civilized states, while farming is a bigger concern for many of the starting barbarian cities. So keep in mind that a fancy market means little in Campus Scythii, but in Athens it’s a much better choice than a farming upgrade. High taxes increase unrest and slow population growth rate.

Population determines the city’s size. At certain levels of population, the city will upgrade – typically 2000, 6000, 12000, 24000 population. This upgrade will be finalized once the player builds the next-level governor’s palace, warrior’s hold or whatnot. Once that building is complete, the next tier of buildings unlocks. These are usually direct descendents of your previous structures. Thus, a wooden palisade becomes a wooden wall and, for civilized nations, can be upgraded to a stone wall, large stone wall, massive stone wall and finally epic stone wall. Some structures like coliseums appear only in the later tiers. Population growth is dependent mostly on the location of the city (Alexandria will always grow bigger than Palma), but also certain city improvements. Markets and health improvements like sewers and aqueducts, and some temples, increase population growth rate and final population size.

Population happiness is one of the more complex problems. Starting cities are always the same culture as the player’s nationality, but conquered cities need to be converted. Upon winning a city, a player is presented with the options to occupy, enslave or exterminate the local population. Large enemy cities will likely revolt even with a large garrison present. As a general rule, I exterminate populations over 15,000 and enslave those over 8,000. Enslavement takes half the local population and distributes it among your other cities (though only those with a family governor). This rule varies, depending on how large my occupying army will be, and if the general leading it can be a good governor (look at his prestige and management stats). Also, cities of a similar culture to their conqueror – like Britons and Gauls, or Macedonians and Greeks – are less likely to rebel. Many temples in the game provide twice the order benefit than their typical counterparts. Often, this is split into Order due to Law and Order due to Happiness. For all intents and purposes, there is no difference between the two.

Defenses, of course, are your armies and city walls. Border cities should focus on getting at least Stone Walls up and establishing unit-building structures before worrying about the economy, unless you’re secure on that border. Keep in mind that larger cities take a disproportionate burden of army support costs, thus they tend to run profits in the negatives. Don’t wipe these out just to make them run in the positive, because you only press greater stress on the remaining large cities.