Am I the only one who sees this??

[Bluevoss]

Friday night, Alpha Wolf and I came to the sudden realization that there is no unhappyness for population size. There is a provision for it in the game, but it dosn't seem to be working.

To me, the is a major omission. Without negative happyness for population size, you lose the following elements of the game...

1) No need to theaters, arenas, etc. Why bother building them, except to combat polution.

2) No need for city moral. Citys don't riot, period. You can do just about anything you want in a city and it dosn't make a difference. Cities are not longer collections of your population, they are just resource generators. Don't even bother to check your cities - they will all be "82" or so anyway. So go to war - what else is there to do.

3) The empire values for wages, food, and gold settings are of little importance. Set them all the way to the stops. Big cities can take it, and you can dip them down only when starting little cites.

4) The whole concept of stopping growth in a city becuase of the negative impact (what negative impact?) is lost. If you build a "pittsburg" city in a cluster of hills, and suddenly the city begins to grow out of these bounds, go ahead and let it. What harm comes from letting it get too big? But if you had to pay for all those improvements (arenas, theaters, etc) you might not be so hot to incorporate all that swampland. You might, rather, hold down growth by playing more of your population into science, merchant, or mechanical fields.

5) Whats the point of having entertainers. Has anyone ever been forced to use it? Elvis was my best friend in Civ2, and allowed you to quickly head off disasters (throw entertainment to the mob and watch them stop and gape - what a life lesson!).

6) The AI's ability to wage war becomes critical, since now you can build massive armies and go on your little military adventures. Without having all those resources available to throw into "might", you might have to be a little more careful in who and when you attacked.

7) As resources become critical, you might drop out of war footing once or twice in a game. Wouldn't that be a change?

Really, arguing about the AI is fine, but we've lost a good chunk of the game by not having this feature in. Drop a line to activision support and mention it - I'd sure like to see this go into a patch.



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Bluevoss-

[XMon]

My cities riot all the time. I'm using 2, 3, 4 or 5 entertainers in most cities and am still having a tough time keeping them happy. I build all the "happiness" buildings that I can afford but still... 8 civs, huge map, impossible game setting. In all fairness though, I think its more a function of distance from capital and too many cities. Most of the cities are in the 20-30 size and even with the entertainers the happiness levels are in the "70s." Without entertainers they dip into the 60s.

Perhaps we're expecting the city size to correlate to the city sizes in CTP1. When you see a city of 30 you think it's huge because it was in CTP1. But in CTP2, a city the size of 30 is common and perhaps we need to try and adjust our thinking and not expect the same results from city size in this game. In the Creation forum some folk are concerned that the cities grow too fast. Why? It's just a number. If anything, in CTP2, my advances are coming slower and it takes longer for me to build units and buildings than what I'm used to in the previous game. At this point (roughly modern era recently having acquired stealth aircraft and cruise missiles etc), I'm used to cranking out the goods but in CTP2 it takes one of my big cities 20+ turns to build a nuclear plant where in CTP1 it would've been 7-12 turns. So...my point is that when you look at the size of the city ya probably can't expect the same behaviors that you'd get from a city of the same size in CTP1. Or I could be wrong...

[Bluevoss]

Yeah, but the point is that a city with 40-60 people could build all those improvements pretty quick. And since you need to wait until stealth aircraft, it means that it dosn't make a difference early on.

The way it should work is that small cities should need small improvements, and improvements are continually needed as the city expands. Lets face it, Rome in 1ad was probably less populated than Orlando of 2000ad, but then again, Rome was probably (over all) a more unhappier place. Circuses - one of the two major items any city needs (trust the romans on this). All citys need some form of entertainment.

Otherwise - its... its DELAYED GRATIFICATION (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Seriously, having the effect kick in way late in the game is not good. It should be a constant problem.

QUESTION: Do you actually SEE a negative population assessment on you city screens? Or is it just becuase of polution?

[Bed23]

dont forget that in ctp2 cities can go to 100 and more

when u ll have a city of size 150(for exemple) come back and say us its happyness

[Alpha Wolf]

Distance and number of cities would be a major difference in game play between us. I like fewer, smaller, and farther apart mostly in forests so I can crank out things fast. The largest city I've gotten to was 27 and but it was only 1000ad give or take a few decades. Pollution was my biggest unhappiness factor. i think its crazy that pollution was a concern but nothing else. At least the happiness factor should be influenced by city radius. i can see your point that these cities are designed to grow faster, but large cities tend to be less happy than small towns in reality. I'd like to see some balance of that. At this point, i've max in my favor all the sliders and my least happy city is 70. Yes, it riots alot but comes no where near the revolution number of 65 (increased from 60). If I were to place more emphasis on getting ramayana, i'd never have to worry. But I'll wait for further happiness complaints until my cities get into the 40s and 50s.

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History is written by the victor.

[wittlich]

I have to agree with Bluevoss - I have had cities which rioted (size 25-30). This was due to population and production pollution. Earlier in the game, when pollution is not an issue, rioting isn't an issue either.

[Davor]

Alpha Wolf. You said in your post you build in forest to crnak out production faster. Forest dont have as much reasources as in plains. I cant see how Forest help your production faster, if anything alot of forests would slow you down or am I mistaken? or did you modify your files?

I thought 60 was the max a city can grow. Can cites grow more than 100?\

Davor

[Alpha Wolf]

quote: Originally posted by Davor on 01-09-2001 02:12 PM Alpha Wolf. You said in your post you build in forest to crnak out production faster. Forest dont have as much reasources as in plains. I cant see how Forest help your production faster, if anything alot of forests would slow you down or am I mistaken? or did you modify your files? I thought 60 was the max a city can grow. Can cites grow more than 100?\ Davor

i thought the terrain values didnt make realistic sense so I modified them. my forests are 5f-20p. And since you get the full benefit of the tile that you put your city, I place all my cities in forests. With the way my changes puts out barbarians, i need to crank out units as fast as possible. You can also make so buildings adjust your overcrowding factor so that huge cities are possible.

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History is written by the victor.