What is "Max Population" or "Population Limit"?

[slackerjoe]

I'm a new player to the Civilization franchise and I've been having a great time with Civ IV. I really do want to improve and move up in difficulty levels, so I've been reading many of the strategy and education posts, which have been so helpful.

One term I come across a lot that I haven't figured out is "Max Population" or "Population Limit". This would seem to be the ultimate or best population size for a particular city.

Sometimes I know my cities grow too big and get filled with unhappy citizens, so I'd be interested to know exactly (1) how to calculate the "max population" or "population limit", and (2) how to manage my city to make sure it gets to that size and stays at that size without growing more.

Also, (3) if someone could advise how to manage a city that has a severe overpopulation porblem. I've been switching to slavery and killing off the excess, but I wonder if there's a better way to handle that.

Thanks!

[Blake]

The max city size is the city happiness, beyond that point growth is basically self-defeating.

The best population control is Specialists as they don't bring in any food. Working mines can be good too. For specialists either build libraries/markets etc, or run Caste System.

[stormwriter]

Well, specialists don't BRING IN FOOD, but they consume twice as much food as the average person, right?
Do you recommend adding some specialists under it says STARVATION? (It seems like you can only add a specialist, maybe two, before you get the starvation warning...)

[DaveMcW]

There's no such thing as producing negative food, but every citizen does eat 2 food.

Net food effects:
-2 Unhappy person
-2 Specialist
-2 Plains hill
-1 Plains forest
+0 Grassland forest
+1 Flood plain cottage
+2 Irrigated flood plain

In the long run food is the limiting factor in city growth, since happiness/health can be improved to any level with enough future tech.