Unhappiness from nearby pop-rushing (2)

[DrSpike]

Just after the 1.17f patch was released I posted a thread about what I thought was unrest in one of my cities due to rushing a settler in a nearby city, with the rush disbanding the city. There were a few replies, but no-one confirmed this was a "feature".

In my most recent game I've experienced this again, and have seen no threads in the meantime implying others had experienced this. Basically it seems like if you rush a settler to disband a city (and remove any unhappiness associated with that city) the unhappiness gets transferred to the nearest city.

Both games I've seen this were at deity level, if that makes any difference. Anyone else seen this?

[Ethelred]

It has been discussed. Several times at least. The answer is; Yes its a feature. To stop or at least slow the recruitment cities exploit apparently.

Unhappiness is inherited by the settler. Or transferred to a nearby city. The details are still a bit vague from what I have seen. I am not into pop rushing like that so I haven't seen the affect myself yet.

[DrSpike]

Thanks, must have missed it.

I too am unsure of the exact mechanics, because I had so much transferred unhappiness in the city I hadn't rushed from that 20+ units wouldn't quell it. I definitely only rushed 5-10 units, and each rush should make the first citizen (there was only one) experience one more unit of unhappiness. Something doesn't quite add up.

[Whoha]

20 units cant act as military police, unless your mod permits this

it seems you have to keep your temporary cities for the game or give up pop rushing,unless you wish to deal with unhappiness for 1/4th the game.

I havent done any tests but i think having the unhappiness spread over multiple citizens by bulking up the population makes it go away faster.

[DrSpike]

Of course..........long day, being slow. The limit is below the amount I rushed, if you include the settlers themselves.

You can of course still pop rush. I was fighting a war against a foe with far too many free units, and the AI isn't shy about pop rushing more. I kept a city because it was in the right place to heal my units and then pop rushed a few more units from the captured city using some of my stock of captured workers. This is still fine, if you avoid doing as I did and try to rush a settler to make the city your own. I guess you can probably give it to an AI civ, or let them capture it.

As for your own recruitment cities it's still ok it you place them in the right locations. You can keep them as a size 1 with a taxman forever and rush whenever you have more workers than you need.

[Ethelred]

I definitely only rushed 5-10 units,

ONLY? I only pop rush the temple myself. If anything.

and each rush should make the first citizen (there was only one) experience one more unit of unhappiness.

Each rush makes a citizen unhappy for FORTY turns. And you are no longer killing the unhappy citizen when you pop rush. Which never made any sense anyway. So you have accumulated 5x40 pop turns of hate for your demonic behaviour. Not counting that barracks I bet you pop rushed as well.

I don't think its just one pop that is unhappy for 200 turns either. I have noticed that the cities I have taken from the drafting and whipping AI have had far more than one unhappy citizen and it took a long time for them to forgive me for the AI's transgressions. Very long. More than 40 turns I think.

This is the way I think it may work.

Its 40 pop-turns per rush.

IF the city has more than one pop THEN the unhappiness is allocated to more than one inhabitant. One inhabitant per rush.

IF the city does not have as many inhabitants as rushes THEN the unhappiness is held in reserve to be applied past the 40 turn mark till all the pop-turns are used.

Example:
If the city has only one inhabitant then 200 pop-turns of unhappiness will take 200 turns. If it has two inhabitants than it will take 100 turns.

It may be more complex than that but that would make only on variable needed to acount for the unhappiness. Which would make it easier to transfer unhappiness to a settler or an adjacent city. Less bookeeping is a good thing. Less to go wrong.

Soren said in that chat the forty turns might be excessive.

korn469 - but it seems like 40 turns would really hurt communism

Soren_Johnson_Firaxis - korn: that is possible. we are watching it closely. this was clearly the biggest change with the patch.

later
Soren_Johnson_Firaxis - right now, I am assuming pop rushing might have been weakened too much instead of too little, but only time will tell.

So maybe pop rushing will be a little more usefull after the next patch. 40 turns seems a lot to me. Even in the Industrial Age that comes out to 80 years and in the Ancient Era its 2000 years not counting the change in turn length. Per pop rush

[DrSpike]

Cheers for your response. I was just being slow about the amount of viable military police after an extremely long day.

I rushed more units because I didn't intend on keeping the city, as I said.

[BillChin]

Pop rushing is still a powerful technique in version 1.17f. The loophole is using junk cities with one entertainer to process workers. Build workers, or capture them. Join the workers to the junk city, join and then pop them to create units.

Capturing enemy cities during the despotism era can bring much unhappiness. The AI whips at will. If a player captures such a city and then disbands it, the built up unhappiness may be high. Better to raze if the AI seems to be whipping.

[DrSpike]

Or combine your two ideas and keep the captured city with a taxman (better than entertainer), and use it to rush with captured or normally produced workers. I do this sometimes when the city is well placed to heal my units. It is, as you say, unwise to hold out any hopes of the city being any other use.

[optimus2861]

Just an (obvious) question: why would you inherit an AI civ's pop-rushing unhappiness? If the people were that p***ed off at the AI, wouldn't you think they'd be, you know, happy that you kicked him out and are now ruling the city?

Obvious answer, I suppose: to keep the player from making full use of captured AI cities...?