happiness meter dudes

[dirt]

wow... i mean.. um... i'm playing on deity for the first time (i finally beat the game on emporer last week and i decided i would probably never try deity, but here i am) anyway, i'm sorta holding my own, but it's rough when you start out with one unhappy citizen out in the boonies. i mean, i'm doing okay, but my question is, there is a city, pretty close to my capital, and it has 2 citizens. my government type is monarchy. well, there are three pikemen in the city, but there is still one unhappy person, so when i looked under "happy" there is one red guy and one black guy! who the heck is this black guy???? and what is he doing to my city! i must get rid of him! hehe, if anyone has any idea... it's not in the civilopedia, and it's not in the instruction book... i'm at a loss

[DaveV]

The black guy is a very unhappy citizen, and will appear when you have "too many" cities. How many is too many depends on difficulty level, government, and map size. Ways to make him go away:

1) Luxuries (including Elvis or Hanging Gardens) will convert very unhappy citizens to happy (not just content). Most view this phenomenon as a software bug.

2) Fundamentalism and Communism are immune to black hatted citizens. Rush to the Statue of Liberty, convert to one of those governments, and your happiness worries are over.

3) With enough happy wonders and improvements, you can keep your cities in order (a temple should convert the citizens in your example from black and red to red and red, then your troops can convert them to blue). Troops alone can't do the job.

4) Disband a few cities and play perfectionist.

[dirt]

dang, heh. that's what i thought. Why is it with the MGE we got this huge instruction manual, and every time i have a question, it's not in there? it's super annoying. that's why we're lucky to have this forum, with all the people who can beat deity before ad1 helping us out. super-unhappy citizens. that's just wrong... heh, thanks

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by dirt
Why is it with the MGE we got this huge instruction manual, and every time i have a question, it's not in there?

You should say thank you to the authors.
IMO the manual gives exactly what is needed to play the game.
After that, most of the pleasure is discovering the details, not written in the book, which make you more performing at any level...and you have got this forum when you need answers to the questions you haven't answered by yourself yet.

[Smash]

...and if it was all written down it would make "War and Peace" look like a pamphlet.

[Laertes]

Apparently, in a big empire under monarchy, you can get rid of unhappiness by moving military units out of the city.

This seems perverse, but I have seen it stated on these forums several times, although I have never remembered to try it myself.

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by Fergus Horkan
Apparently, in a big empire under monarchy, you can get rid of unhappiness by moving military units out of the city.

This seems perverse, but I have seen it stated on these forums several times, although I have never remembered to try it myself.

It's a quirk of the Hanging Gardens. Confusing when you first encounter it, but manageable thereafter!