Introduction
G'day all,
Province management is one of the central aspects of Attila Total War. Juggling public order, food and sanitation of your provinces while maximising income is no easy task - especially while playing as the WRE. In the early game, when a hundred different barbarians are trying to rip your empire apart, income is probably not a priority when designing your provinces - you will be too busy spamming your border settlements with guardhouses and providing emergency public order reliefs for your provinces. As you enter the mid-game phase however, when you can actually sit back and start thinking about the long-term future of your provinces, one naturally arrives at a question - what is the building combination that satisfies the three pillars of province management (public order, food, sanitation), while squeezing out as much income as possible?
What you need is a province template - a pre-determined combination of buildings that satisfies public order, food and sanitation, whilst generating maximum income. I saw many Attila players asking online if there are province templates available that they could use for their WRE games, but so far I couldn't find any comprehensive set of templates that covers all of the WRE starting provinces. After some research, I've come up with a complete set. I'm only dealing with the WRE, but the basic principles of province design, contained in this guide, can be used to formulate templates for other factions as well.
<An example of a province well managed>
Part 1 will go through the basic rules of how to mix & match a province template. Part 2 will contain an entire set of province templates for the WRE's starting provinces.
All of my guides are based on Legendary difficulty, since we must always plan for the worst case scenario.
Minimum Public Order Requirements
*Public order will be shortened as PO hereafter.
What is the minimum PO requirement of your provinces? Depending on Religious Differences for each province, it is 23-24. The breakdown is as follows:
-8 for Legendary difficulty handicap
-9 for Immigrants (it starts as -1, then gradually increases throughout the game to reach -9)
-4 for mid-rate taxation
-2 ~ -3 for Religious Differences (see below)
<Lots of PO penalties to counter..>
Your political POWER affects your factionwide public order, but since this fluctuates throughout the game, I will ignore the effects of politics in this guide.
In addition, your emperor may pick up a 'Harsh' trait, which gives -1 factionwide PO penalty. The Harsh trait, if left unchecked, eventually degenerates into 'Byword for Cruelty' trait, which gives -3 PO penalty. It appears that 'harsh' actions, such as razing settlements, killing hostages etc. triggers this trait. Since the razing of settlements is sort of unavoidable in a WRE game, it is extremely difficult if not impossible to avoid your emperor from acquiring the Harsh trait.
<To assassinate Honorius or not, that is the question>
There is a way around it, however. Here's how:
1. Get your emperor a missus.
2. Do NOT declare a heir to the throne.
3. Get your emperor killed through assassination or by doing a heroic kamikaze into the enemy.
4. The emperor's missus will become a regent.
5. Since female characters cannot acquire traits, you can raze settlements & kill captives to your heart's content without worrying about traits.
<Long live the Queen!>
Anyway adding all the PO penalties together, the WRE has a base PO penalty of -23 ~ -24. Your job is to counter this negative PO by constructing buildings that give positive PO.
Basic Principles Of Province Design
*When I mention a building, (-6/+90) indicates -6 PO penalty with +90 food production.
1. Generally, the more ports there are in a province, the greater income potential it will have. This is because Fishing Ports (-6/+90) yield more food than Cattle Farms (-5/+70) or Sheep Barns (-5/50). If food is in abundance, you can even convert one of the ports into a Trade Port for greater income. Provinces with 3 ports (eg. Magna Graecia, Insulae Occidentalis) will be among your richest provinces. Provinces with no ports (eg. Belgica) will be your poorest.
2. The type of resource available in a province will affect its income. Wine and Olive are the best. Fur and Salt also good. Different resources will be discussed in Part 6 of this guide series.
3. The exact location of ports & resources in a province also plays a part. Generally, template design is easier if ports and resources are NOT located at the province capital. Also, it is better for the port and resource to be spread apart into two different settlements, not together in one place.
4. You need at least five food buildings in every province. Exceptions are rare. The food buildings you will need are Food Emporium (-4/+90), Fishing Ports (-6/+90), Cattle Farm (-5/+70), Sheep Barn (-5/+50) and any food-type resources if available. Forget wheat, they are worthless from mid game onwards.
5. Basic city / town buildings (eg. Civitas / Vicus) - most of the time Tier 1 will suffice. Past Tier 2, you go beyond the point of diminishing returns. Yes, in the early game you may need to develop into Tier 3 or 4 in order to stimulate province growth. But if your only concern is maximising income, you rarely need to go past Tier 2.
6. For sanitation management, one of the following models are used:
a. Aqueduct Network in the province capital PLUS 1 Thermae in one of the minor settlements
b. No sanitation building in the province capital PLUS 2 Thermae, one in each of the minor settlements
The sewer type sanitation buildings (Latrines / Sewers / Cloaca) are good for province growth, but not as efficient for sanitation. In the early game, when you need to stimulate settlement growth, you can build and use sewer type buildings for a while, then convert them into Aqueduct Network later.
7. There is ONE building in an WRE game that is commonly required for all provinces for the purpose of maximising income. Make a guess. Circus? Thought you'd say that, nope. Aqueduct Network? Close, but no. The answer is Governor's Palace. For every single province. No exceptions. Circus is required in most cases, but sometimes they are converted into Great Theatre for higher income.
<A MUST>
8. Forget about religious buildings. This includes the pagan temples that you can build in province capitals, and the statues that you can build in minor settlements. You don't need them. See Part 4 of the guide for details on this matter.
How To Read My Province Templates
Now that we've covered the basic principles of province management, we'll have a look at the province of Italia. Before I show you the actual table though, here are the terms & conditions that apply for all of my province template tables:
1. All building stats are from Attila Total War 1.5.0 build vanilla (no mods), playing as WRE Legendary Difficulty, assuming conversion to Greco-Roman Paganism.
2. 0 fertility is assumed, since we must plan for the worst case scenario. Of course some provinces may remain 'Meagre' at the end of the climate change, but razing may lower the fertility so 0 fertility is assumed for all provinces.
3. Since agricultural buildings are not used, 'wealth from agriculture' is omitted in the template tables.
4. WRE gains the following wealth bonuses when the entire Civic technology tree is completed:
Subsistence - 15%
Culture - 15%
Commerce (including Maritime commerce) - 15%
Industry - 15%
Husbandry - 10%
These bonuses are NOT considered in the calculations because:
a. Technologies are researched at varying sequences, so its effects will constantly fluctuate throughout the game
b. You generally do not want to finish the civic technology tree when playing a pagan WRE game, due to the 'loss' of high tier buildings
c. Even when the entire civic technology tree has been researched, combined with the 4% bonus to 'wealth from husbandry' that is described in Point 5, all categories of wealth will gain near identical bonuses of 14~15%, so including these bonuses do not make a difference to the template design. i.e. Even if we include those bonuses, province template will be the same.
5. WRE gains the following factionwide bonuses due to Wonders:
a. Mt Vesuvius (Italia) - 2% bonus to agriculture & husbandry
b. Mt Etna (Magna Graecia) - 2% bonus to agriculture & husbandry
These bonuses are ignored (see Point 4 above)
6. Some provinces have extra Wonder bonuses that apply just for that province. Namely:
a. Rome (Italia) - 10% bonus to culture
b. Ravenna (Venetia) - 10% bonus to culture
These bonuses are included in the template calculations.
7. Maximum profit is the only goal of my template designs. Growth is ignored. Buildings that are useful in other ways but do not contribute to profit (eg. Garrison buildings, Military Jetties) are ignored.
8. Resources (see Part 5 for details) - some resources must be developed wherever you see them. Some, you only need 1 per faction just to satisfy building requirements. Some are not worth developing. Those that you only need 1 will be developed at the following locations:
Timber at Mauretania - Belgica also has timber but I usually raze Belgica early in the game so let's get timber from Mauretania
Lead at Britannia Inferior - Closest from WRE starting position
Dye at Tripolitania - ditto
Iron at Maxima Sequanorum - Iron is only required for specialised military provinces, so Maxima Sequanorum is an ideal place.
Regarding Gold and Gem, again please refer to Part 5 for details. Gold will be developed in Aquitania. Ditch gem.
9. Religious difference - ownership of Stonehenge will be assumed, since Stonehenge has the effect of reducing public order penalties due to religious differences (factionwide). Presence of Circus (Greco-Roman Paganism influence +3) or Great Theatre (Greco-Roman Paganism influence +5) in every province will be assumed. Please refer to Part 3 for details on how I calculate religious difference for every province.
<Reduced religious differences? Wonderful!>
10. Minimum PO requirement = (21 - religious difference) for each province. For example, Italia has religious difference of -2, so minimum PO = 21 - (-2) = 23
11. Greco-Roman Paganism provides +2 sanitation bonus for every settlement. When reading the 'sanitation' column on the template, you must add +2 for every settlement to get the final sanitation value.
12. Building maintenance fees are not included in 'Total with bonus' since, in the game, maintenance fees are not included in the calculation of province wealth. Maintenance fees are deducted separately from the overall faction wealth.
<Building maintenance fees are deducted separately and is not part of province wealth>
13. Every sea has its own value for Piracy which affects Maritime Commerce. Wealth from Maritime Commerce is calculated separately for every settlement, then added together.
14. All the tables are hand-calculated by me, which means they are prone to human error. There can be better mix & match results. If you find any, please report and I will update the tables.
OK here we go:
Italia
This is the province template for Italia. There is 10% cultural wealth bonus due to the presence of Rome (a Wonder). I don't really like building Garrison Quarters since they don't provide any income, but I couldn't come up with a better template without it. The limiting factor when doing the mix & match for Italia is the fact that Salt and Port are located in the same settlement, Neapolis, which makes sanitation management tricky.
In Part 2 I will upload the full set of WRE province templates.
WRE Advanced Province Management Series
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624928863
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=626082337
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=627604661
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=629104910
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=631009077
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=632628967
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624928863
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