(Basic) How do you grow a city?

[Phaedo]

Now, in previous games, if I wanted to grow my cities, I just knocked the luxury slider up to 60% and watched the boom. Maybe I'm not too bright, but this tactic doesn't seem to work on the culture slider. Obviously, pretty much all of the city specialization stuff doesn't matter if you can't get a city to size 20, so, a couple of questions:

When does a "We love the Despot!" (&c) day occur? How do you get it to happen? Is there any point in worrying about specialists until you've hit city size 20?

And more generally: what are your strategies for growing cities, when do you grow them?

[Proteus_MST]

Of course this tactic doesn´t work with the culture slider,
as it is different from the luxury slider from previous games.
The dulture slider just determines how fast your borders grow and how much influence your city exerts on the surrounding tiles

How do I grow cities?
Hm, most important is to get as much health and mood increasing resources as possible and (before free religion) have as much cities with your state religion as possible (if you have foudned multiple religions it also helps to get all your religions to all cities within your empire (as every religion within the city allows you to build its religion specific buildings [which tend to increase the mood of the citizens ])
And thats (aside from resources and religions/civics the other thing which has an influence on mood and health of your citizens, i.e. buildings. Build the buildings which have an influence over mood/health in your city/ies

As for specialists.
I use them way before the city reaches a size of 20, especially in cities designed to produce great people.
Often a combination of specialists and tiles worked is better than getting all tiles worked

And, after all, I have rarely cities in my empire which are bigger than size 15. Seems to be another thing which distinguishes Civ IV from previous versions of civ

[Quillan]

That's not 100% true. In Civ 3, the entertainment slider made for happy citizens. In Civ 4, it determines cultural growth, as Proteus said, but coliseums theaters both provide a little extra happiness if your cultural slider is greater than zero. If I remember correctly, coliseums provide 1 happiness per 20% culture, and theaters provide 1 per 10%.

[Datajack Franit]

oohh

[Proteus_MST]

Ah yep, I totally forgot this.

Broadcast towers seem to do the same thing (1 happy face per 10% )

[James M]

Civ4 is a game where you need to actively plan/manage growth; once you get towards yor current happiness and health limits new citizens may be a liability. Sometimes I'll deliberately starve city down so that it can work towns or mines rather than being forced to work a farmed plains/grassland (at least pre-biology)

To grow your cities... build them near food specials unless you have no alternative, build granaries, and collect all the luxuries and health-resources you can. Empire building seems to me to be *dominated* by resources.

Specialists are great in comparison to most mediocre terrain.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by James M
Sometimes I'll deliberately starve city down so that it can work towns or mines rather than being forced to work a farmed plains/grassland (at least pre-biology)

Why starve them when you can use them to rush stuff?

[James M]

'Cuz the most common reason I'm stressed for food and starving them is unhappiness, and I don't think that rushing would help much.

In truth I haven't used pop-rushing at all so far, so I don't know how useful it is.

[Aileron]

Originally posted by James M
'Cuz the most common reason I'm stressed for food and starving them is unhappiness, and I don't think that rushing would help much.

In truth I haven't used pop-rushing at all so far, so I don't know how useful it is.

Whip em! Works great if you're being attacked and need more defenders fast. Gets rid of the angry extra citizens. Afterwards, some are angry because you whipped them, but I think it wears off fairly quickly.

Not good if you want to grow the city though.

[Krill]

The culture slider gives hapy faces equal to the amount of commerce directed to it. In other words, if you had 10% slider, and that put 3 commerce towards culture, you also get 3 extra happy faces, assuming no collesium/theatre.

[James M]

Hmm, I didn't know that... in that case the effect combined with just a colloseum should be quite dramatic.

Might not be worth it for just a couple of citizens in one city, but I guess it would be useful after pop rushing.