Help for the new guy

[Grinch2020]

Hi all. Recently started playing Civ 4 and have found out quickly how complex it can be. One of the things that I have run into in my cities is the complaint of "It's too crowded!". Other than placing military units in the city im at a loss as to how to go about fixing this problem. Any help here would be appreciated.

[onodera]

Early game stuff:
1. Temples.
2. Colosseums.
3. Luxury resources.
4. Birth control (remove your citizens from high-food tiles when the city is large enough)
5. Merciless hurrying using slavery civic (-2 or 3 pop)

[Solver]

Happiness resources are the most important method. Hook them up ASAP.

[jbp26]

you get one unhappy face for "its too crowded" per population point in your city, its not anything you're doing wrong. theres no way to eliminate this unhappiness, just to match it by adding happy faces to balance it out. you can add happy faces with religion and associated buildings, through happiness resources, and through buildings that multiply happiness resources.

[Nugog]

I find getting the whip out helps reduce this issue.



Happiness resources are important as well - hook them up.

Try and get an early religion (or two) and build the temples.

If all esle fails, switch to the slavery civic and flog em into happiness!

[John-SJ]

Message from the captain: The floggings will continue until morale improves. That is all.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Grinch2020
Hi all. Recently started playing Civ 4 and have found out quickly how complex it can be. One of the things that I have run into in my cities is the complaint of "It's too crowded!". Other than placing military units in the city im at a loss as to how to go about fixing this problem. Any help here would be appreciated.

As mentioned there's nothing you can really do about, it's just one of the game's mechanics. If your cities reach a certain population level, you will get unhappiness because of their size. Just hook up luxuries, add buildings that increase happiness or use civics that add to your city's happiness, like Hereditary Rule.

One thing you can do to try and control it is to not let your cities grow too quickly. I always allow a surplus of only two food so I don't end up with rampant growth. That gives me enough time to add Temples, Luxuries etc. before unhappiness becomes an issue.

And keep and eye on your Unhappy/Happy balance, there's some numbers in the city screen that tells you were that city stands. If you see that the unhappy citizens are almost equal to the happy ones, then it's time to add a happiness building or something else that will prevent them from becoming angry.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Nugog
If all esle fails, switch to the slavery civic and flog em into happiness!

That's not necessarily good advice. Since "flogging" creates unhappiness as well, you could end up with the opposite effect of what you intended. That approach should be used in moderation.

[Jvstin]

Get a religion and build temples. Ideally, this is a religion you founded yourself, so that you can eventually get a Great Prophet, create the religious center building for that religion, and get money raking in for it.

If there are any luxuries nearby, get those and stat.

Watch your population growth. Don't let cities grow too fast without having access to temples or luxuries. High unhappiness can cripple your cities.

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Willem


That's not necessarily good advice. Since "flogging" creates unhappiness as well, you could end up with the opposite effect of what you intended. That approach should be used in moderation.

True - but used well it can get past the "hurdle points" until you can sort out the unhappiness in other ways.

Plus there is the production bonus.......

[snoopy369]

Flogging

Anyhow, if you get past your happiness point, click on emphasize hammers and/or commerce, and then just don't worry about the unhappy people. It's not like older Civs, where it was horrible if you had one unhappy person more than your happies. Life goes on, you just have one guy who doesn't work. It does nothing but waste two food, which you don't want anyway since you don't have any benefit from growing other than potential future people.

But flogging is always an acceptable method Any time 20 or 30 hammers (scaled for game speed) is worth more than the value you get from the person or people taking into account unhappiness, flog them. Always. A city that has +8 food and 3 hammers, and no mines or whatnot to work, I guarantee you is better off flogging a person once every ten turns - or two or three people once every ten turns - than doing anything else, early in the game.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Jvstin
Get a religion and build temples. Ideally, this is a religion you founded yourself, so that you can eventually get a Great Prophet, create the religious center building for that religion, and get money raking in for it.

If there are any luxuries nearby, get those and stat.

Watch your population growth. Don't let cities grow too fast without having access to temples or luxuries. High unhappiness can cripple your cities.

All of these are good advice, except that there are advantages for religions not founded by yourself. Having a religion the AI nearby founded - especially when it's an AI that is neither "friendly" nor "aggressive" - means much less risk of going to war, especially if every one of the AIs near you shares that religion. Religion is one of the main causes of AI vs player war in this game... well, AI declared wars anyway

[Grinch2020]

Thanks to all for the replies. At the very least, this is a very helpful forum! I will try out what you guys/girls have suggested.

[Nugog]

There are many different ways of dealing with this - and any other in game issues.

Try out the suggestions and see what works for your game style.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by Willem


That's not necessarily good advice. Since "flogging" creates unhappiness as well, you could end up with the opposite effect of what you intended. That approach should be used in moderation.

Flogging will create +1 unhappiness and each pop is worth +1 unhappiness, so if your whip only costs one population, then you didn't help yourself at all. Flogging is really good when you have a high population (maybe 15-20), lots of food, and your whip costs you about 4 or 5 pop. You lose a lot of unhappiness, gain some time to develop less cruel happiness resources, and your pop will recover fast with your high food rate.