Overpopulation

[guermantes]

when you say to 'whip' the population, do you mean hurrying production of a building and thus sacrifcing 2 population? but if yes, that results in 1 unhappy face for 6 turns. is that really a good strategy?

[Quillan]

First, with regards to your screenshot, to get more "happiness" you either need access to more luxuries, or more religion. It's very early in the game, obviously. Do you have any of your cities that contain either Judaism or Hinduism? If so, spread it there via missionary and build a temple. If you're running Paganism, I think just the religion alone will give you 1 happy face, and the temple will give another no matter what religion civic you're running.

And as to whipping being useful, well, that city is producing 17 hammers a turn. Just one point of population will give 30 hammers on normal and 45 on epic, so it would give you 2-3 turns of production. Yes, it does make a difference. The only real drawback to unhappiness is a very small loss of productivity, and no "We Love the Ruler Day".

[Yosh]

when you say to 'whip' the population, do you mean hurrying production of a building and thus sacrifcing 2 population? but if yes, that results in 1 unhappy face for 6 turns. is that really a good strategy?

Yes - whipping the population is a fun way of saying I'm hurrying production in exchange for population

And yes, whipping the population can be an extremely effective strategy!

Consider this:

you have a high food/high commerce/low production city. Before that city can really shine, it needs some infrastructure - market, library, bank, etc... To build those buildings with the available production would take a prohibitively long time - by the time the buildings were up and running, significant time has passed.

However, by sacrificing 2 population to pop out that library, you are suddenly gaining a critical piece of infrastructure that adds value for every turn it exists. The lost population will grow itself back in time (faster if you emphasize food governor), and you are putting those angry citizens to work! Say this hypothetical city has 12 research/turn and 1 angry citizen (won't work). You whip the library out, and for a net loss of 1 *working* citizen, you are now generating 15 beakers/turn. In just *12* turns, you've researched fishing with the extra 3 beakers that gained you! In addition, within 10 turns you almost certainly have regained at least 1 lost pop, lost the unhappy from the whipping and putting you at the happiness cap once more and ready to whip again!

EDIT: re-worded for clarity

[greenday_234]

Other ways to help Unhappiness

One very powerful word, Representation. Through the use of this civic option you will gain 3 happy faces per 6 largest cities and 3 beekers for every specialist. Rep. has helped to greatly reduce my unhappiness issues.

[Yosh]

Rep comes very late unless you have the pyramids. Depending on getting the Pyramid weakens your strategy by forcing you into a certain path.

In the early game, and especially on the higher difficulties, getting a religion (+1 happy/city with state rel.) is not always an option. An alternative, then, is to beeline for Monarchy and Heredity Rule (+1 happy/military unit in city). Often, it is the only way to reduce unhappiness without whipping when the cap is low.

All things being equal, however, I'd say that in the early game, slavery - non-calender/monarchy happy resources aside - is the most efficient way of controlling the unruly citizens

[guermantes]

thanks! i'll try to whip my city in to shape then and see what happens... :-)

[Shaka II]

[SIZE=1] PS. Is there an obvious thing to do in the screenshot below to get rid of the unhappy face. (I pushed a market to the front of the build queue but I want to learn how to counter unhappiness and unhealthiness by other means then building buildings that yield coins and culture.)

If you're under hereditary rule (monarchy), each garison unit adds 1 happy face. That's the easiest way, and it also encourages an adequate defense. Representation allows +3 happy faces in the three largest cities. Other than hooking up luxuries, I would check to see if you need health or happy faces and trade with the AI accordingly. If you have too much health and not enough happy faces, trade the appropriate resource to balance the situation. Markets are important, try to trade for the resources that are affected by market. Be a conqueror and acquire more than your fair share of resources.

[Willem]

Re: Overpopulation

Originally posted by Snaeferu
how do I make that go away? , my cities are suffering from unhappiness due to it being "too crowded"

It's nothing to worry about really, it's just one of the mechanics of not making it to easy to grow your cities. Just keep up with happiness generating buildings like Temples, Coloseums etc. It would be foolish to start starving your cities etc. just because of that.

[Willem]

Originally posted by guermantes
PS. Is there an obvious thing to do in the screenshot below to get rid of the unhappy face. (I pushed a market to the front of the build queue but I want to learn how to counter unhappiness and unhealthiness by other means then building buildings that yield coins and culture.)

Thanks!

Build that Coloseum, that will take care of the Angry citizen. That's what it's in the game for.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Yosh


Yes - whipping the population is a fun way of saying I'm hurrying production in exchange for population

And yes, whipping the population can be an extremely effective strategy!

Not if you're trying to control happiness it's not. Pop rushing causes unhappiness in the city for a certain amount of turns. You'd just be shooting yourself in the foot and making matters worse.

[Quillan]

Actually, you won't if you do it right. Use the same city as an example, which has a happiness cap of 5. If it is at a population of 6, there is one angry citizen. If you pop-rush an improvement which costs you 2 points of population, the city will complete the improvement in the next turn, with a population reduced from 6 to 4. You'll pick up one temporary point of unhappiness, but lose two points of unhappiness due to the population being reduced. The net effect is your unhappiness is one point lower than it was the turn before. The unhappiness due to the slave labor will be gone before the city grows back to size 5.

Yes, the city will have a lower output for a bit, but in the long run you will come out better using pop-rushing in a controlled and deliberate manner than just letting them build things.

[cal_01]

Originally posted by Shaka II


If you're under hereditary rule (monarchy), each garison unit adds 1 happy face. That's the easiest way, and it also encourages an adequate defense. Representation allows +3 happy faces in the three largest cities. Other than hooking up luxuries, I would check to see if you need health or happy faces and trade with the AI accordingly. If you have too much health and not enough happy faces, trade the appropriate resource to balance the situation. Markets are important, try to trade for the resources that are affected by market. Be a conqueror and acquire more than your fair share of resources.

If you have hereditary rule, whipping one citizen can get you two warriors or approx two archers. That's approximately a gain of one happy face!

[guermantes]

I tried the whipping strategy 3 times in the same game and even though i haven't finished or won it yet (but I am in the lead) I feel that compared with my previous few games I am not so haunted by angry non working citizens. When it happened I pop-whipped and then it took a longer time than usual for that dreary red face to show up next to my city again :-)

[joncnunn]

Guermantes, it would be a good idea to look at cities that are showing "1" in the turns until growth line. Unless implementing a whip stategry click on the "avoid growth" option if the happyness exactly = unhappiness on the bottom right to avoid the city growing and producing an angry citizen. And rebalance the workforce in favor of shields and move up a happy improvement in the queue. When the happiness improvment completes, go to the city, turn off the avoid growth option and rebalance the workforce.