9999 Problem --Need Help

[StarGazer]

It is my first game. I am now in Monarchy. All of my cities are growing fine, except for two: Tours and Rheims. Although these two show surplus food and their granaries are full, they both show "9999" for the number of turns before the population will increase. In other words, they have stopped growing. They are not in revolt; the citizens are happy/content. They both have a population of six.

Is this a bug? Or, if not, what do I need to do in order to get the cities growing again? Creating a settler or worker doesn't work. All that does is to reduce the population, but as soon as it reaches six again, the 9999 appears and the growth stops.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Robm]

Not a bug, because it is showing you are infinately away from next growth. To get past size six you require a aquaduct. At size 12 you will stall again unless you build a hospital.

[StarGazer]

Originally posted by Robm
Not a bug, because it is showing you are infinately away from next growth. To get past size six you require a aquaduct. At size 12 you will stall again unless you build a hospital.

Thanks, Robm. Hmm, an aqueduct, eh? Sounds plausible. The only problem is why other cities are growing past six WITHOUT an aqueduct. For example, Paris is now population 10. But maybe that's because it's next to a river and also on the coast. I'll have to investigate this further. Maybe coastal cities don't need an aqueduct, but interior cities do.

[Spartan187]

Cities adjacent to fresh water don't need aquaducts.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Robm
Not a bug, because it is showing you are infinately away from next growth. To get past size six you require a aquaduct. At size 12 you will stall again unless you build a hospital.

Ah but this is a bug if they don't let you know why. There should be some piece of information to tell you this. I assumed when I was first playing that it was the whole aqueduct thing but then another one of my cities was still growing. Took some major reading to find the answer. Come on Firaxis we deserved better than this.

[KokuKitty]

They do let us know. It is in the manual.

I'm not flaming ya, but lets not complain something is a bug when it is clearly noted in the manual.

Thanks

[dweez]

I actually encountered a bug involving this situation: my city "got stuck" on population six, without saying anything about the cause so I started reading the manual all over again and discovered the aqueduct thing. Built one, but the city still said 9999 although the food boxes were filled. After a couple of turns I found a way around it: I created starvation and as soon as the food level dropped below maximum the text changed to "growth in 1 turn" and then I got my pop expansion.
I have only seen it once though and all the other cities are behaving correctly.