Cities are too large and cramped. What to do?

[Willem]

Originally posted by Mateo1041

We both put our workers on autobuild. Makes it easier so as to not micromanage like crazy.

That's not really a good idea, unless you have a few Workers in your control to fix things afterwards. The automated Workers don't always do things as efficiently as they could. At some point you'll need to go in and manage things yourself.

Can a city be automatically set to not produce a food surplus?

Well yes and no. There is a button you can select that will prevent the city from growing any larger. But no, there's no way to set a surplus limit, you need to do that yourself just through proper placement.

You mean put a citizen on a forest square or mine? We're still a bit new to the city screen, so we'll have to look into it.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Don't have everyone working on a farm, diversify more until you get your food production to a manageable level. You can place people wherever you like, you're not limited to where the game puts them. And if you feel you still have too many farms after that, turn a few into Cottages and get some wealth happening.

And if you have a city that's still producing tons of food, it might be worthwhile turning it into a Great Person "farm". This is a city who's main function is cranking out Great People. Add as many specialists as you can, of all the different types, and build the National Epic in it. You'll be pumping out Great People in no time.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Mateo1041
How do you know when a city is too large, though? People get unhappy?

There's no such thing as growing too large. The key is growing them at a speed that allows you to manage the happiness infrastructure. You don't want to be building nothing but happiness buildings in order to manage the problem. Let your cities grow at pace that allows the odd Library or military unit once in awhile as well.

Incidentally, unhappiness is one of those problems that sort of fixes itself eventually. Once you get a bunch of unhappy people, your city won't be able to produce enough food to allow it to grow any more. Of course there'll be alot of wasted production, but at least the problem won't get any worse on you.

I've always thought 4-5 tiles was minimum so as to not encroach on my other cities' resources. Does that sound about right?

That's what I strive for early in the game, but when the land starts getting filled up, you might have to make a few compromises here and there.

And there's always going to be the odd spot that just won't quite fit in with your overall scheme. Even a city that's 3 squares away from another can get to be a respectable size if it has some decent food squares in it, so there's no point in being too fixated on 4-5 squares. Flexibility is the key in this game.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Mateo1041
If you could pick a population number that most commonly represents the happy cap, what would it be? That would help me have a point of reference. 20?

There's no such thing as a happy cap, it will vary according to the game. You might end up with a ton of luxuries nearby which would increase your overall happiness, Or you could be making so much money you can afford to crank your Culture slider up a little higher. Or, if you're running Hereditary Rule, you could just garrison a few extra soldiers there.

And it also depends on what you've built in your cities. If you have every happiness building that you can fit in, the threshold is going to be alot higher than if you had built none. So there's no such thing as an arbitrary number, you just have to keep an eye on your cities and deal with the situation accordingly.

[vondrack]

If you could pick a population number that most commonly represents the happy cap, what would it be? That would help me have a point of reference. 20?

The happy/healthy cap is a moving target (at least what I had in mind using the term). In the city screen, look above the map, to the right of the food/production gauges - there will be two lines showing something like

8 > 6

Using smilies to imitate the ingame icons... The left part would be your current "cap" numbers - as long as the right parts are lower or equal, you are not penalized for excessive unhappiness or unhealthiness.

Watch the "cap" numbers grow as you hook up luxuries, health resources, station troops in cities etc. Mousing over these two lines gives a breakdown of what exactly you are getting (un)happy/(un)healthy faces for. The effect of hooked resources is further summarized in the columns along the right edge of the screen.