Managing :(

[Saldrin]

This is starting to get on my nerves: the unhappy faces usually associated with "its too crowded".

I *thought* I've been doing a great job, when I see a city is growing fast, I usually add a specialist, convert a citizen, or switch a farm with a cottage. But no matter how hard I try, I still get the unhappy faces.

Add building, techs and civs that add happiness seem to just do as they say: add happy, they do not remove the unhappy population. Only building worths its salt is the globe theatre, but we only get one of those

What can be done about these evil slackers that complain? I won a space race, and continued playing, I had my culture up to 100% made it as far as Future tech 20 something, and I noticed those were of very little benefit. All they do is add happiness, but don't scratch the surface of the unhappy.

I guess as a modding point, it would be cool if every other future tech removed a , instead of just adding all .

But, since this is the stratigy forum, besides euthanizing the city by starving them out, once they are there, how do you get rid of them? Or is there anybody modding something to add a building that acts as a "minor globe theatre" that actually does something about the unhappiness?

[Arrian]

Really? What level are we talking about here? I've been playing on Noble and recently Prince (middling difficulty, I know), and haven't been having problems managing happiness.

Adding a *does* effectively remove a They cancel out. The only way you get a mad city is if your unhappyness is greater than your unhappiness. If you have temples/cathedrals, theatres, colosseums, markets, forges (happy bonus w/gold and silver?) *and* are using the culture slider, I'm honestly confused as to why you're having problems. How big are your cities? Are you at war?

-Arrian

[Saldrin]

It wasn't a bad problem, meaning my cities were not smoking and refusing work, it was just there later on in the game I had 20 unhappy and 60 happy in one of my cities. Why wasn't the unhappy going down? It was a generally a small city, only a 14 IIRC. Running US, enviromentalism, free religion, and free speach. And it was fully built, all I had left to build was wealth/science or culture.

And watching what goes on as you discover future techs, they just add happy, not remove the unhappy. Yeah, I guess they balance out.... but why is there only one game aspect to remove?

I guess I'm being a micromanaging freak that wants to get a "perfect" city.

[padillah]

I think he doesn't want them there in the first place. Just none. Just not at all.

And I think it's unrealistic.

BUT, I also will use this to about a complaint that I have. Nothing in this game goes away! You can find ways to overcome it, but it never goes away.

I was chugging along great and bumped into Issabella. She demanded tribute and I told her to... I said "no". She went away and we started trading. We traded for over 2000 years and she finally had a positive outlook towards me. I did, eventually, give her tribute. BUT, to her dying day there at the bottom of the pop-up was:
-1 "You did not give us tribute."

I was NEVER able to get anything better than "Cautious".

That seems a little far gone, no? Yes, I realise that there are countries that have been at each others throats for thousands of years but they are not TRYING to be nice. I'm talking about activly trying to be nice and giving gifts does nothing to reduce the old anger.

Tom P.

[Arrian]

It doesn't work that way! I get the problem now!

See, you will - no matter what - have those 20 "unhappy" faces. They're not actually unhappy people, though. Your 60 (!!) happy faces more than counterbalances the 20, so you have a net of +40 happy (wow). Your city should be celebrating your greatness, with fireworks and whatnot (we love the ___ day).

In CivIII, that same city would show all 14 citizens as being happy and it would be celebrating. But it's the same thing - it's just displayed a little differently (IMHO, more elegantly).

-Arrian

[Pluko]

The way it works is those unhappy faces will always be there, they represent the causes of unhappyness. As long as the number of happy faces is greater then the unhappy, there are no adverse affects. you only lose production when the unhappy > happy. 1 person stops working for each unhappy more than happy.
Hope this helps.

[Saldrin]

Originally posted by Arrian

In CivIII, that same city would show all 14 citizens as being happy and it would be celebrating. But it's the same thing - it's just displayed a little differently (IMHO, more elegantly).

-Arrian

That explains it perfectly! Thanks.

I was thinking in the mindset of playing Civ3, that having the unhappies represented an actual working citizen as unhappy.

[Quillan]

I forget the exact point, but beyond a certain population level every new population point is unhappy by default (the base point changes with difficulty level). If you have 20 unhappy faces in the city, that just means that the city's population is 20 over the base point. It won't change. Like Arrian said, it's simply a different way of displaying the same information. You can look and instantly see what effect things will have. Say you're contemplating going to war with someone who trades you sugar, spices, and silk. That would lose you three base sources of happy faces. You can glance at your total number of unhappy/happy faces and see if the war will cause the cities to become disrupted.

[John-SJ]

Yes, you don't have 20 unhappy and 60 happy citizens. What you have is 20 unhappy points and 60 happy points. The happy far overbalances the unhappy in this case.

If, OTOH, you had 20 unhappy points and say, 18 happy points, then you would have 2 unhappy citizens.

With +40 happy points you are doing great!

edit: This post was a little late I see. Well, better late than never?

[Arrian]

[DaXX]

what's frustrating for me is they're all complaining about the city being too crowded... my happy/unhappy ratio is usually like 9 / 9 meaning i'm right on the edge of having citizens stop working... i've had to use the "avoid growth" option a lot to stop this from happening


the solution to the overcrowding seems to build settlers, but the maintenance costs of having so many cities seems to prohibit this... so i'm stuck. i can link up luxuries but there arent many of these to go around... or create buildings that make happiness...


just seems like a convoluted way to deal with over-crowding, do the people really think "oh i've got access to gems now the city isnt so crowded any more"... =/

[QuestGAV]

In addition to using settlers to stunt the growth of your cities, having a 1:1 happy/unhappy ratio with surplus food says that you have a great opportunity to put some specialists to work. You'll generate GP points and pop some of those big game changers out rather than having the city grow and having to deal with the subsequent unhappiness.

[Shr3dZ]

With diamonds and rubys lining the sidewalks you tend to forget how crouded the city is

[Derelict]

the solution to the overcrowding seems to build settlers, but the maintenance costs of having so many cities seems to prohibit this... so i'm stuck. i can link up luxuries but there arent many of these to go around... or create buildings that make happiness...

Depending on your strategy, there are a few other things you can do to keep down the unhappies due to "overcrowding". First, and easiest, is to get to Monarchy and switch your civic to hereditary. Then you'll get an extra +1 for each military unit stationed in each city. It's also a low cost civic and is fairly easy to obtain early in the game.

Another option, at least mid game and beyond, is nationhood. Each city gets +2 for having a barracks.

A final option I'ved used for this or pollution concern is to "slave rush" your cities into shape. It's most useful when your cities have outgrown themselves a bit, before you could have the fuller compliment of "happy" buidlings to keep down their angst.

Basically you switch to the slavery civic and que up buildings you want up quickly and then slave drive them into existence. You'll reduce your population via the use of slaves though chances are, if you are doing this the cities are already fast growing and should recover fairly quickly.

Another way to look at it is that you just took those angry good for nothing complainers and forced them into slave labor...I mean, they weren't working for you anyhow so the population hit, generally speaking, is not all that negative and you can actually get a handful of things built very quickly despite their unhappiness. Yeah, yeah...it's a Stalinesque approach I suppose but it does have its merits.

All the same, it does help to shape up the infrastructure of your cities quickly so that you can get things on track and stay focused on your main or "real" goals.

Still, you should avoid using this in slower growing cities because their production will be hampered for a while as a result.

P.S. I've noticed that some of the AI civ's also, in the late game, will swap for short periods into slavery as well, often when they are at or are going into war. I haven't quite figured out just what the AI is trying to do, perhaps rush build a few things with population so they don't fall behind in some respect while their war carries on. Dunno.