The Fear Factor of your town has pros and cons. When peasants are more afraid of the player, they produce more goods (a pitchman will produce two jugs instead of one).

NegativeEdit

It is quite simple to instill fear in peasants. In the "town buildings" tab, there is a noose in the far right hand side. This sub-category has gibbets, gallows, stockades, chopping blocks, stretching racks, dungeons, cesspits, and dunking stools. They all contribute equally to the fear factor of peasants. Stockades, gibbets, and gallows are recommended, because they take up the least amount of space.

There is a maximum fear factor of 5. Workers will be 50% more productive, and your popularity takes a beating at -5. Your troops will also fight worse:

This is why it is not so good to have a maximum fear factor. The more orange dots are above your soldiers' heads, the more demoralized they are, and their fighting effectiveness is undermined. 3 orange dots indicates a -3 fear factor, or -15% combat effectiveness loss.

The best combination of extra production, loss of fighting prowess, and popularity would be something like the following:

• A Fear Factor of 2, possibly 3;
• A single hops farm;
• Four breweries
• Approximately four inns, or as many as it takes to provide 100% ale coverage.

The ale coverage will provide a +8 popularity bonus, minus 2 or 3 for the fear factor. If churches are present, and there are no taxes, a lot of food variety, etc, the player can still cruise at about +6 to +9 popularity while still getting the extra production from workers. This also keeps the troops from becoming too demoralized.

PositiveEdit

It is possible to do the exact opposite: make the troops fight harder at the expense of weakened industry. The tab next to the negative device tab (appearing as a flower), will allow the player to build positive devices. These include gardens, statues, dancing bears, and maypoles. Note that the flags are merely eye candy, and do not affect the fear factor in any way.

A good method to quickly determine a +1 fear factor is thus: Place one maypole, then as many gardens and statues as it takes to make children playing around the maypole. That indicates at least a +1 fear factor.

The higher your positive fear factor is, the more green dots will appear over your soldiers' heads. A +4 fear factor will result in four green dots, which means the troops will fight 20% harder.