"its too crowded"

[civ4lyfe]

I played civ 2, then when 3 came out I was in full bore. I lived through the million worker march, etc.

Now 4 is here, and I have played non-stop, and by no means am I a vet, and am probably just average or slightly below.
I won on prince via sr a couple of times with no barbs, but usually I am playing on noble.

My question (and yes I searched all through the forums as I have lurked here forever), but I have not found a direct answer, or it is possible I just did not understand the answer.

My people are always yellin it is to crowded. I am an expansionist, I enjoy culture and very late wars, usually after a cultural victory. I understand the resources to make them happier, etc.

I have tried turning off growth thinking this would keep there from being even more unhappiness due to it being to crowded, but the terminology confuses me. I want my cities to grow. When they complain of the crowding, should I increase food production? If not then they starve. The same if I assign specialists, the food slider drops.

The other thing is that if I do manage to get my crowding issue handled - by playing with the aforementioned items, it seems my production does not correspond. Maybe this is not linked, but it sure feels as if it is.

I want to give mad props to not only sid n crew for putting out yet another excellent product, but this community for being an amazing resource and a fun place to hang out. I will try not to lurk so much in the future, and thanks in advance for any suggestions you can offer.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Specifically, do your cities actually have pop refusing to work?

Every pop over your happiness level will refuse to work in any way. They will eat 2 food, however. So, once you hit that happiness limit you need more happiness before you can get anything usefull out of growing.

That's not to say there's not times when it's not good to grow beyond your happiness:

About to add a few lux by taking an enemy town? Sure, let your cities grow a little early as that angry citizen will go to work as soon as the new lux is added, etc.

[ben_sphynx]

I believe that 'Its too crowded' is the main cause of unhapyness, and one gets one unhappy point for each unit of population in the city. You cant do anything about this other than make the city smaller.
Other things can cause unhappy points too, such as wars, other civs with emancipation, drafting or slavery rushing. These all have possible ways of reducing them.

The main cause in most situations just just the sise of the city (ie Its too crowded), and one cant do anything about it, if one wants to have population.

It is balanced by happy points, which have sources such as difficulty level, luxurys, temples, theatres etc.

Provided a given city has more happy points than unhappy points, it is fine; when it is more unhappy than happy one gets red citizens who refuse to work (pictured under the specialists).

[couerdelion]

What sphynx said

Basically every citizen in your city will complain that it is too crowded. You'll get one unhappy red face for each unit of population.

In this game, as opposed to CivIII, you need to make sure you have at least as many happy faces as unhappy. For each point below, one of them will simply refuse to work - even then, the whole city doesn't shut down and your only handicap is that you still have to feed the "slackers"

And that's even before you discover social security

[Hauptman]

this is the games way of slowing your growth...

On prince difficulty you are given, for free, 5 free happy points. now when you hit population 6 you exceed that happy cap, and growth stops. So you get christianity, and it increases happiness by 1. Build the temple and you add 1 more. Your city will then grow until it hits the next happy cap. new luxury resources add lots of happy points and a larger empire will hold more. Basicly, this gives you the insentive to go out and explore, conquer, and trade. otherwise you'd just sit on yer lawrels and still be able to compete, wich isnt much fun.

[civ4lyfe]

Thanks guys, good information.
To sum it up for myself, when my citizens are complaining of it being to crowded, and there is no immediate way to make them happier, just stop the growth for the time being?

[Quillan]

Not exactly. What they are saying is the citizens ALWAYS complain that it's too crowded. If you found a new city, size 1, and open the city window, you'll see a single unhappy point there. Hover your mouse over it, and the popup will explain what the unhappiness is about: "It's too crowded!". Just ignore what they're saying about it being crowded, that's just flavor text. All other forms of unhappiness are things you can do something about. The one about being crowded is simply the natural flow of the game; you get one point for every point of population, and have to counter it with happy faces.

[civ4lyfe]

got it thanks
/me ignores it

[Martinus]

Yeah, what others said - the "It's too crowded" is simply the standard difficulty level unhappiness penalty/handicap.

[Just_Matt]

What about the yellow fumes rising from some cities (before fallout and late game problems)?

There aren't any swamps around. How do I fix this?

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by Just_Matt
What about the yellow fumes rising from some cities (before fallout and late game problems)?

There aren't any swamps around. How do I fix this?

yellow (green) fumes are the little ugly green puke face. Unhealthiness. many buildings (granery, grocer) add health as well as resources (wheat, pigs). Also a way to slow your growth and require you to build.

[Just_Matt]

You folks are the best! Thanks!

[Crossfire]

Sometimes when you hit that unhealthy point it snowballs and you end up with 2 or 3 citizens who refuse to work. Unless you have additional happiness points coming online immediately, this is the perfect time to use Slavery and pop rush a building or unit out. This will immediately increase your growth rate by 2 times the number of citizens you burned and you will quickly gain back any lost productivity. This is a great source of production in the early game for those cities that produce tons of food.

The green fumes can pretty much be ignored until you run out of food and start starving. Even then, you can pop rush to alleviate the problem if you need the extra production.

[snafuc4]

I may have read things wrong, but IIRC a city with unhappiness is more likely to defect to another civ if it's on a border

[Just_Matt]

Just a follow-up. Switching to Slavery and whacking a few peeps to rush a building is simply fantastic. Nobody complains about being crowded anymore!

I'm being serious. Really, I am.