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[Zrk2]

Eventually. Sometimes the population keeps growing until it does become riotous and evict your ass. Then they are a problem.

[mainiac]

Eventually. Sometimes the population keeps growing until it does become riotous and evict your ass. Then they are a problem.

Yes but the population growth is exactly matched by the happiness bonus from the public health building!

Suppose I have a city that has zero growth.  I build a sewer in it.  It gains %5 happiness and %.5 population growth.  So the population grows until squalor increases by 1.  This cancels out the happiness bonus and cancels out the population growth bonus.  So the city is stagnant again but stagnant with a population that is bigger without being any more unhappy.  Thus more income without any real downsides...

This relationship holds even if the population isn't stagnant when you build the sewer.  While the population grows faster the value of squalor minus public health will always be less then or equal to what you would have without the sewer.  Building the sewer is essentially moving the finish line, it slightly increases the maximum population you can have before squalor causes rioting, meaning that you have either more time or as much time before the riots.

[Stworca]

Eventually. Sometimes the population keeps growing until it does become riotous and evict your ass. Then they are a problem.

Aka. Carthage, Memphis, Alexandria, Jerusalem... and so on.
Aka. The great cities of +10% pop growth.
Aka. The "Fuck you" cities.
Aka. The whole point of destroying sewers is avoiding 24000 with 2% pop growth.

Public health canceling the pop. unrest is all fun and games, but the entire point of destroying sewers is never reaching 20000+ to begin with.
It's not the sewers that are the issue, but the natural crops and existing farm buildings, which sometimes equal sick, sick pop growth.
That .5% from sewers, while not directly causing a problem, will make the OTHER bonuses to become painful, and thus destroying sewers in Carthage, Alexandria and others is always recommended. Because without that extra, harmless .5%, it's easier to control the other nasty +6%.

[mainiac]

How does it become easier though?  While it's true that the city will grow faster in absolute terms, the rate of it's unhappiness growth is not faster unless there is some mechanic I am unaware of.  Is there some mechanic I am unaware of?

While I'm asking about game mechanics I might as well toss another question out.  I think that troops retreat faster if you put them into guard mode, is this the case or am I drawing erroneous conclusions?

[Criptfeind]

The +.5% would most likely work on the population made by the +6% and vica versa. Thus getting it to the tiping point sooner. Even if the tipping point is further out.

[Zrk2]

Oh man, I just saw your super peasants. That made my day.

[mainiac]

The +.5% would most likely work on the population made by the +6% and vica versa. Thus getting it to the tiping point sooner. Even if the tipping point is further out.

I don't think my ideas are getting through so let's do some excel-fu.  The calculation for squalor is negative .5% growth and 5% happiness per 1500 population, with a max squalor penalty of 20, imperial palaces eliminate the squalor of the first 24,000 people. I make an excel formula to calculate the population growth rate of a city with a 5% growth rate without squalor or sewers and a population of 24,000.

Starting on turn 6, the city does have more squalor without a sewer then with it (4 vs. 3).  However the difference is only 1, meaning that it is offset by the happiness boost.  Both cities hit maximum population on turn 26 (39081 pop, 10 squalor vs. 40617, 11 squalor).  Every turn in between, the squalor is either 1 or 0 higher with the sewer.  This means that the sewer never actually hurts you on the population unhappiness front.  This holds with the larger sewers too, although they increase the population growth rate, that increase doesn't offset the happiness boost.  Everything maxes out on population on turn 26, regardless of sewer size, but the unhappiness growth is slightly slower with a sewer.

[Criptfeind]

Well then, I don't know, and I am interested now.

[Zrk2]

This is good to know. I may be wrong.

[Stworca]

Actually it's about the lost causes, where there is no way of keeping the fully developed city without 19 peasants and a governor-god.
Destroying sewers (and markets!) makes the 240-peasants-each-turn spam last for this tiny bit longer.

The difference between 5% and 5.5% at 12000 may not seem like much, but that is still 60 extra people. It's an extra peasant group every 4 turns.

Now : i am by no means an expert on the game, and thus i am probably making a mistake pinning "lost cause" tag to some cities, but due to the fact that money isn't really that much of a problem when you conquer your enemies, i never really felt the need to calculate things too much.

Still : You are right about Sewers being a worthy addition to most cities, and it was an oversight on my part.
Edit : Added parts 40 (where we lose a city siege!) and 41

[mainiac]

Peasant recruiting would be that missing link I was searching vainly for.

[Criptfeind]

What happened to the ninth fallout video? It just skips from eight to ten.

[Stworca]

What happened to the ninth fallout video? It just skips from eight to ten.

Thanks for pointing that out, it failed to process (sits at 0%)  Not sure if i should take 10 down and re-upload in order.. oh well.

[Blackray Jack]

I'm another guy chiming in to say nice job on the videos so far. You actually inspired me to buy Rome: Total War two days ago, which I was surprised I could run so smoothly on this old comp. (And the SA LP of Medieval II: A Scot in Egpyt inspired me to buy that one too, which after some finagling I can run).

Looking forward to the rest of this playing out.

[Criptfeind]

Got to admit after seeing that last video and your second real loss, I'm getting a bit worried. You seem like since you have reformed the NPCs that you have been taking way to many causalities. I mean, with having to fight the red Romans though all of southern France, the British soon to attack, two big stacks of purple Romans, the Greek cities killing a large number of your troops, and Egypt learning the secret alchemy to make generals from thin air I'm worried that you will simply run out of troops before they do. I mean, the Egyptian front and the Spanish front already look to me like you are being run very very thin, and with losing over half your troops in the Greek front...

I dunno. Are you winning?