It's too crowded

[kamidan]

Hi,
How do I go about aleviating overcrowded cities? I have a couple cities that has a bunch of pissed people because heir city is too crowded.

Thanks,

[Tokyo Sexwale]

You can't get rid of the crowded negativity - you will always get one crowded red face for every population you city has. What you need to do is raise the number of happy yellow faces in the city. You can do this by building temples and other buildings, getting access to luxuries like gold and using some civics, like Heriditary Rule gives you one happy face for each military unit in the city.

As longs as the yellow faces are greater than or equal to the red ones, your city is happy. Otherwise each unhappy person over that refuses to work, making your city less productive.

[kamidan]

Thanks,
Now it makes more sence to me.

[LDiCesare]

You can also kill some population using slavery (make sure you kill at least 2 since it cause 1 more unhappy face per use), or drafting. It's generally usefuk to stunt growth when you reach the same level of happy faces/red faces: Use extra citizens as specialists rather than work food tiles.

[Tokyo Sexwale]

Yes, definitely don't be afraid to use slavery. Crack that whip and finish your buildings quickly, especially if your city has a couple of food specials to replenish the lost population quickly. Building graneries first also helps as your city regrows quicker. It's a big part of the early game... just check your happy/unhappy faces before and if you have a few extra happies, whip the building in.

[Tattila the Hun]

But slavely is wrong...

[Tokyo Sexwale]

Lol.... for a long time I didn't want to use it because I wanted to be a "good" leader to my people. But it really helps on Monarch and above. When I feel a little guilty I just remind myself that this is a sim and not an RPG, hehe.

Actually, it might be an idea that you should be able to capture enemy populations when you destroy a city and send them to your own cities for whipping in buldings.

[Will9]

You can just stop the growth if the population gets to high.

[patcon]

Originally posted by Tokyo Sexwale
Lol.... for a long time I didn't want to use it because I wanted to be a "good" leader to my people. But it really helps on Monarch and above. When I feel a little guilty I just remind myself that this is a sim and not an RPG, hehe.

Yeah, I try to have my game-style reflect my personal real-life code of honor. Unfortunately, that doesn't always give optimal results in civ. Maybe there should be a diplo bonus for standing by your word. "OK, you didn't stop trading with Egypt when we were at war with them so we didn't like you, but that war has been over a long time and we now see that you stand by your friends in times of trouble and we would like to be your friend now."

Actually, it might be an idea that you should be able to capture enemy populations when you destroy a city and send them to your own cities for whipping in buldings.

You mean like every other conquering civ in ancient times? (Even some in modern times - Japan and Germany in WWII come to mind.)
This brings up two interesting concepts - population relocation and selection of who to whip.

Who to whip should be a choice for the player doing the whipping, and this choice should have some effect on the unhappiness. A Roman-controlled city wouldn't whip Roman citizens if Egyptians were available, and the Romans wouldn't be unhappy at all about it, but maybe Egyptians in other cities would hear of this and become unhappy. A city in a religion-of-your-choice (I don't want hate mail) Theocracy might prefer to whip "heathens" rather than "brothers of the faith" and suffer little or no unhappiness among the faithful as a result.

Population relocation is something I miss greatly from earlier versions of civ. I liked having a population-pump that could produce workers who could move to another city and join it. To make it really interesting, maybe relocation should be tied to civics. Under some civics relocation may not be possible; under others, forced relocation may be an option; under others, relocation may occur spontaneously in response to a variety of factors. You could even have relocation to another civ under the proper circumstances.

There is a lot to think about here from a game-play angle. I'll have to devote some serious thought to it when I get some time.