How to maintain control of the big Huge cities in the East

[RedGuard]

Im playing as the Abbasids and I've conquered persia, but in places like Esfahan, Merv and Nishapur they keep rebelling either to Rebel faction or to the Seljuks (who Ive defeated multiple times now) I've noticed that I will be in the green, move a governer out and back in and it still won't return to green instead PO is at like 30 and I have a full stack maintaining control. I've just begun extermination but I'm getting the same results( it just stays green longer). Also population growth is out of control at like +12 each time I do this which makes extermination basically meaningless. I am now going in the negative and losing a lot of my troops. Someone help me.

[Swarbs]

1. Always exterminate a large or huge city when capturing it
2. Destroy all buildings which reduce happiness and law, and boost population growth without boosting PO (fairgrounds, local guard, warehouses etc)
3. Focus on building law buildings first, particularly those like gallows and barracks which reduce population growth. Also city halls and the great library building if you have a huge city
4. Make sure your garrison stack is full of the most powerful and largest melee units, which will have the greatest boost to PO
5. Make sure your governor has the highest positive impact on PO possible (I've had some with a 50% bonus), and ideally with high dread not chivalry, as chivalry will boost population

Basically you want to make population growth as low as possible and public order as high as possible. Extermination maximises your ability to do this by minimising population at the start, thus giving you more time to build the law and happiness buildings you need.

[+Marius+]

1. Always exterminate a large or huge city when capturing it

Nevah.
I begign ruler.

[k/t]

Is it realistic for a city to be that hard to subdue?

Benign?

[RedGuard]

My governer was the Heir-caliph of the Abbasids, who starts out with two dread and through future battles had 7 dread, but it was still not enough to quell the discontent. I even set Esfahan as my capital and still when I moved two of my three generals out it went to 30 PO- even though the governer was still there and there was a full stack of soldiers. Theres got to be a script or something that makes these factions artificially come back because Ive built every law building I could find in my huge city and still nada.

[Lifthrasir]

The PO should improve with time (about 15 turns or so). It will also be adjusted again in the next version.

[Swarbs]

My governer was the Heir-caliph of the Abbasids, who starts out with two dread and through future battles had 7 dread, but it was still not enough to quell the discontent. I even set Esfahan as my capital and still when I moved two of my three generals out it went to 30 PO- even though the governer was still there and there was a full stack of soldiers. Theres got to be a script or something that makes these factions artificially come back because Ive built every law building I could find in my huge city and still nada.

It's not just the dread, it's the overall traits. A general with lots of dread can still cause unrest and lower law. You need to try moving different generals in and seeing which ones work best - the one I had with a 50% PO boost only had 3-4 dread but had lots of traits which boosted law.

Although even then it was an effort to subdue even large cities, and huge cities had to be handled carefully, with pretty much a full stack of top tier infantry (Alamanoi when playing as ERE, Dismounted Knights as a western faction, Abna Spearmen probably the best bet for the Abbasids) in order to keep them from revolting.

Have you built the Dar il-ilm (Great Library) and Great University, as they add a substantial amount to happiness and law even though they aren't obviously PO buildings? And make sure to demolish the bazaar.

[Zanze]

If its anything like the trouble I am getting from Konya and Tbilisi from the Georgians, I wish you luck. I'll be outside the gates of Constantinople in a few turns with my Zengid game and I am considering staying outside for a very long while due to the PO nightmare that city probably will be.

[bigdaddy1204]

1). Try moving your faction leader to the troubled city. I found that this makes a huge difference. Cities go from being ungovernable, to green public order just from this one tip.

2). Sometimes because the AI is retarded, it hasn't built any of the 'Town Hall' buildings. You need the highest level of Town Hall to stand any chance. Unfortunately, you are unlikely to have enough time to build that up. So I press ' to open the command console, then type 'process_cq [insert name of the city here]' and hit enter. That instantly builds whatever building you had in the queue. You may need to do that several times to upgrade the Town Hall quickly to the top level.

[Zanze]

Well, to make things worse my Faction Leader just turned into an Usurper. Oops. He moves an inch / turn. I may crumble if I cant send him into a hail of Byzantine arrows soon..

Is that a permanent fix though? If a Faction leader moves into a town will it have a permanent reduction to the PO nightmare? Or is it just his lifetime.

[Lifthrasir]

it has been mentioned several times already. I just hope that MWY has fixed it for the next release.

[bigdaddy1204]

Well, to make things worse my Faction Leader just turned into an Usurper. Oops. He moves an inch / turn. I may crumble if I cant send him into a hail of Byzantine arrows soon..

Is that a permanent fix though? If a Faction leader moves into a town will it have a permanent reduction to the PO nightmare? Or is it just his lifetime.

Wow, if your faction leader gets this trait I would consider quitting the campaign and starting again. It will make it unplayable. Armies constantly rebel. Public order and loyalty become impossible. It is not worth your time. Just start again.

As for whether it resolves the PO nightmare, yeah I found it pretty effective. The only thing to watch out for is when he gets old - if he is about to die, make sure your faction heir is nearby so that he can go straight into the town. Otherwise you will have a rebellion the minute he dies.

[Zanze]

Wow, if your faction leader gets this trait I would consider quitting the campaign and starting again. It will make it unplayable. Armies constantly rebel. Public order and loyalty become impossible. It is not worth your time. Just start again.

The thing is happening... Only thing that confuses me is the movement malice. He didn't have that before. He became faction leader while governing Tbilisi and was able to move all across to Kayseri and spearhead the attack on Konya / Ankara (Faction leader needed authority). Only after taking Konya from the Seljuks of Rum did he finally succumb to the movement speed thing. So far I've only lost Acre, Tabriz, and Tbilisi. Konya tried. All armies have been general lead, but almost everyone has 0 loyalty at this point. Fun...