Hanging gardens make you unhappy

[couerdelion]

I guess I had too much production in my capital so found myself thinking how nice it would be to build the Hanging Gardens. That health is a nice bonus but the free citizen in all my cities would be very nice indeed.

I miscalculated what that free citizen was and when the gardens were opened, the new citizens who flocked to London simply idled around the city centre complaining how dirty or noisy the place was. What was more, they wanted me to feed them. Initially, my city priest had to be diverted from his highly productive meditation and put to work on the land just to feed the ungrateful swine. I had to put up a theatre and pay for some cultural diversions to get finally get them to work.

So be careful, those extra population have to be kept happy, healthy and fed.

[Silver14]

Whip them. Then they'll understand.

[Blake]

Yup. The extra population are pretty much whip-fodder. In some cases they are useful as growth though, in low food situations, or in cases your happy resources are ever-increasing. In any case you can always just starve them so they aren't a negative thing.

[couerdelion]

Can't whip them

I switch to Caste System when I moved to Org Religion. Specifically this was to give me the fat cross to allow city 3 to capture Fish and Silver so slavery here would not really have helped anyway.

Of course, now that I have the fish, slavery might come in handy but I would still need to look seriously at the whole civilisation to see whether or not this would justify the turn of anarchy I suffer just to up the production in one or two cities. Of course I could combine it with a switch from Org Religion to Pacifism but I rather like the +25% to get those structures up and running.

Although this could be an idea for when I get my three production cities onto full military build up but I think rather it will work far better after I have taken advantage of Caste System once a few new cities are on-line.

[Brael]

Don't post much here but I've been reading for a long time. It actually seems to me that using the population as pop rush material is a bad approach. The Hanging Gardens are 900 shields, from the thread talking about the conversion rate it says it's 30:1, that would mean just to break even on the population:hammers your civilization would need 30 cities. At 60:1 you would still need 15 cities, when looking at it this way you spent more on the hammers than you get back in slavery unless your empire is fairly large at the time you build it.

[Silver14]

The idea is to pop rush in cities where there is unrest due to pop size and hence, not doing anything as opposed to just pop rushing in every city just because you build the HG. The permanent +1 health from the HG is also a factor you didn't consider. If anything the main reason I look to build the HG is to get extra great engineer points.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Silver14
The permanent +1 health from the HG is also a factor you didn't consider. If anything the main reason I look to build the HG is to get extra great engineer points.

Actually I did consider this. It just wasn't relevant to the observation I was making. All the +1 health means is that I acquire a hungry lazy new citizen - who at least is healthy.

[CarnalCanaan]

Who cares about the extra people flocking to your magnificent city. The Hanging Gardens get you more Great Engineers. And more Great Engineers is always a good thing.

[tetley]

Seems to me the correct use of HG is to spam Settlers first.

[Deity Dude]

The health, The Great Engineer and the whip make it a pretty good wonder.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Silver14
If anything the main reason I look to build the HG is to get extra great engineer points.

Likewise. Early game Engineer points are the hardest to get, with only the Forge allowing a single Engineer in a city. It's not until the Iron Works and Factories that you get multiple Engineers in a city. So anything that gives points towards a Great Engineer is nice to have.

[joncnunn]

Just make sure your settlers reach their intended distination in time.

Nothing like your HG finishing one turn before your settler founds a new city.

Certinately one use for you unhappy city would be to build a settler that claims a unique happy resource.

Originally posted by tetley
Seems to me the correct use of HG is to spam Settlers first.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CarnalCanaan
Who cares about the extra people flocking to your magnificent city. The Hanging Gardens get you more Great Engineers. And more Great Engineers is always a good thing.

So what do I do with all these Great Engineers? They are just kinda hanging around in Beijing now.

Should I burn them for Golden Ages?

[scooch74]

Originally posted by Willem


Early game Engineer points are the hardest to get, with only the Forge allowing a single Engineer in a city. It's not until the Iron Works and Factories that you get multiple Engineers in a city. So anything that gives points towards a Great Engineer is nice to have.

Not specifically on point of the thread, but the Pyramids are a good source for those early Great Engineer points as well.

[The_Paladin]

If you can get the pyramids, the hanging gardens can be quite useful and not just by using the whip.

pyramids -> representation
representation -> happiness
fast hanging gardens -> free happy citizens
free happy citizen -> more everything

Otherwise the hanging gardens is just really engineer points plus whip fodder. Works great though if you get the pyramids.