Some questions about managing big Empires

[Quantum_AI]

Not a fan of world conquest but I do like getting somewhat big and powerful. However, it gets sort of tedious managing big empires.

- How do you manage all the trade routes? I can micromanage all the trade routes for my capital province as it does gives nice empire-wide buffs and is worth it. But setting up dozens more for each province gets tedious and it yields only modest local benefits. So I just ignore it for the most part but then it seems I am playing sub optimally.

- Some provinces have like 2-5 cities! Do you destroy them to make 1 big capital city? Often the biggest city is not even the capital and I usually have to spend a lot of mana on fixing all this for new provinces. Again, you can just completely ignore it but I like fixing it.

- Moving slaves around to get good surplus is fine for small empires, but for big empires it does not scale so well.

You can totally just ignore all of this and just go map painting but that is boring too. How do you guys handle all of this?

 

[Dayvit78]

Other than min-maxers, I'm pretty sure the rest of us just optimize until we get tired - which maybe you could say is about 50% of potential. What I mean is, you'll always take good care of your capital, and after that it's depends on how much brain/click finger energy you have. Maybe when I first load a game in progress, I'll spend a lot of time on pause doing this. But then i want to play, so eventually I'll just let time run. Then next time I'll load and do some more optimization.

Another point would be your current focus (or game goal). So maybe right now I feel like focusing on culture, so I'll do all the optimization (setting up buildings, moving slaves to get majority culture, etc) that will help towards that goal, but ignore trade routes and other non-related things. Then let it run a bit until some other focus comes up. Maybe someone declares war, so you can't pay attention to culture until it's over (I mean you could, but it's brain draining). Or maybe you notice alot of low loyalty and you have to take care of that since it's more urgent/important.

Last point may be some pet peeves. For example, like you, I don't like provinces with 5 cities! So I try to get rid of them immediately. I also hate regions not having governors, so whenever there's an opening, I drop everything to solve that in an optimal way (meaning also check other governors if they've become corrupt or maybe rebalance the family jobs)

Anyway, this is how I play, and I suspect many other players are similar.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Thanks, so it seems I am not doing something wrong because I do it the same way. I only optimize my capital and dont bother with making trade routes elsewhere.

QoL improvements for big Empire management was the thing I wanted most. Hope they get back to it one day.

 

[DukeLeto42]

- How do you manage all the trade routes? I can micromanage all the trade routes for my capital province as it does gives nice empire-wide buffs and is worth it. But setting up dozens more for each province gets tedious and it yields only modest local benefits. So I just ignore it for the most part but then it seems I am playing sub optimally.

Set all non-capital provinces to auto-trade (I believe the tabs to go to are titled National Overview -> Administration -> Provinces; you'll see the little trade amphora button has a red "x" to indicate that trade is manual). Sadly, there isn't a "automate all" button or a default-upon-conquest option, so it's still a good bit of clicking, but thankfully just once per province.

- Some provinces have like 2-5 cities! Do you destroy them to make 1 big capital city? Often the biggest city is not even the capital and I usually have to spend a lot of mana on fixing all this for new provinces. Again, you can just completely ignore it but I like fixing it.

Cities are generally better than settlements, offering +1 trade good by base and having more building options (including the main conversion / assimilation buildings). As food budgets are no longer so tight and cities offer more trade routes, it is very manageable to support multiple cities and destroying them is counterproductive. There is also nothing "historically accurate" about torching extra cities. It is, however, advisable to focus investment in provincial capitals rather than secondary cities.

- Moving slaves around to get good surplus is fine for small empires, but for big empires it does not scale so well.

Yes, at some point it no longer makes sense to shuffle around slaves except for the rarest of trade goods (amber mostly).

 

[olivenkranz]

...

Yes, at some point it no longer makes sense to shuffle around slaves except for the rarest of trade goods (amber mostly).

Gems, Gold, Incense, Silk as well