Cities Overcrowded

[Ralelen]

Does anyone have a good way to releave my over crowded cities so I can get these workers back to work?

[Optimizer]

To improve health: Build aqueducts and hospitals, clear jungles and collect food resources.

To improve happiness: Build temples, cathedrals and colosseums, and raise cultural spendings.

[Quillan]

Happy faces! You can't relieve the overcrowding, short of starving/drafting the city down to a lower population level. What you can do is get some happy faces to make those people happy and counter the unhappiness from overcrowding.

Some ideas:

Gain access to luxuries. Each luxury will add 1 happy face in each city connected to it. If they are yours, build whatever is needed to access those luxuries. If they require advanced tech (like Calendar), research it. If you have none, either trade or go military to gain access.

Religion. Spread religions in your cities. Build temples and cathedrals when you can. All these add happiness.

Adopt the Hereditary Rule civic. Under that, you'll gain 1 happy face for each military unit in a city.

Build theatres and coliseums. Both will add happy faces.

[Blake]

Whipping (slavery) is pretty effective at reducing large populations. Killing 4 population has the same happy hit as 1 population, so it can be effective to let them overgrow a bit, then whip. But I usually prefer to not allow them to grow so large in the first place, work mines or make specialists. Turn on "avoid growth" when cities hit the happy limit (remember to turn it back off tho!).

Hereditary rule is pretty good, you can just keep up stacking warriors and archers and stuff. This is very cost effective if the added population works cottages or other financial improvements. You also have a larger army to make the AI cower.

[Arrian]

Killing 4 population has the same happy hit as 1 population, so it can be effective to let them overgrow a bit, then whip.

Really? Hrm.

-Arrian