Hey,
I looked around for a bit, but coudln't find a place to put this!

Well, here's my problem, whenever I make a city no matter what the population is, I get citizen's becoming unhappy/unhealthy due to the population!! I always build hospitals, aqeducts, etc yet still people are quite unhappy! Further more, although there are two or three squares' around the city which are empty, the city, when growing, still grows in a very compact way! Can I someow change this?

So in summary, does anyone know how to prevent your citizens from becoming unhappy and unhealthy due to the city's population?

Every population point after a certain limit gives +1 unhealthyness and +1 unhappiness. You get a few free population points (the number depends of the difficulty level) but after that every time the city grows, its gets more unhealthyness.

I'm not sure what you mean by the cities growing in a compact way.

Cities will only ever occupy one tile. Once they get over size 20 or so with lots of improvments, the graphics will spread a bit to the surrounding tiles, but they won't ever grow bigger than 1 tile.

The happiness and healthiness of cities are unrelated.

Making your citizens healthier does not make them happier, nor vice versa. So a health building like an aqueduct is needed to resolve health problems, but a different building like a temple or theatre is required to make the citizens happier.

The alternative is to whip them away, for which you need to be running the slavery civic.

F12 in game lets you access the civilopedia. Health is under the concepts menu.

Health - build all the healthy buildings, and get a recycling center before you start building tons of modern unhealthy buildings (like coal plants and airports). Other than that, there's not much you can do.

Happiness - build all the buildings that provide happiness, use religion and civics, as well as wonders that grant happiness. Don't engage in any long wars.

Health - build all the healthy buildings, and get a recycling center before you start building tons of modern unhealthy buildings (like coal plants and airports). Other than that, there's not much you can do.

Happiness - build all the buildings that provide happiness, use religion and civics, as well as wonders that grant happiness. Don't engage in any long wars.


Or go with genetics/future tech, but that's after you really care about happyness/health.

like sisiutil said, happiness and helath are 2 different things

A hospital will give you some health, but won't give you happiness.
There are many ways to get healthiness and happiness points, and there are many ways to get unhappiness and unhealthiness points.
It's a core subject of the game!

That's why you can read so many posts about high level difficulty : the "free" happiness and health points are very low, and you can be unhappy at size 4!

Sometimes putting the culture slider up will reduce unhappiness somewhat but that can put a damper on science.

and don't forget the bonuses. Pastures, farms, fishing bosts, winery, mines, plantations, oves some resources give you + health or happiness. Having spare resources? Find someone that needs it and trade it to him in excange for a resource that you need.

Thanks all for taking time to reply! :)

A lot of buildings give health bonuses for resources. If you have at least 2 grains (rice, corn, wheat), build a granary. If you have sugar, wine, spices, etc... build a grocer (or is it a market? :) )

Thanks all for taking time to reply! :)

you're welcome
and welcome to the forums!

Resource trading is one of the best things you can do because it counts for all your cities once you have the trade. Also remember that everything in your cultural borders can be used. So even if a fish is like 2 or 3 squares outside your cities fat cross but within you cultural borders you can send a work boat to it and get the health bonus. Some resources even provide you with double bonusses with the right buildings as grocers, temples, market places (corn for example will give you 2 health instead of 1).

A lot of buildings give health bonuses for resources. If you have at least 2 grains (rice, corn, wheat), build a granary. If you have sugar, wine, spices, etc... build a grocer (or is it a market? :) )

the grocer gives you a health bonus for bananas, spices, sugar, & wine
the market gives you a happiness bonus for furs, ivory, silk, & whales

about granary, you should built it everywhere! great increase to the growth
+ health bonuses as you said

the forge give happines bonus for gold, silver and diamonds.

hey, a lot of you are talking about trading resources....I have a few questions on that!

Sometimes, I have just one source of a resource, say one spice garden. I know that I shouldn't trade this if I want to get the happiness bonus.
However, when you have say two spice gardens, does it mean that I will get two happiness points, or just one? And if it is two point that I get, then if I trade, will I lose one of those points?

I'm pretty sure you only get the bonus once, regardless of how many sources you have. So trade 'em all away for other resources or gpt, except for one.

Also if you want to reduce your unhealthiness, build your city on a fresh water tile when possible (mouse over and check first, it shows on the little pop-up). Next to a river, or fresh water lake, etc.

And leaving some forests inside your fat cross also helps with health. So think twice before chopping them all down :) If you keep them around long enough, plop some lumbermills on them (after Replaceable Parts). If you need to chop, chop the forests next to your rivers, since rivers don't give you a commerce bonus if a forest is on them...and leave the other forests alone.

I'm pretty sure you only get the bonus once, regardless of how many sources you have. So trade 'em all away for other resources or gpt, except for one.

'Yes' ... your empire only benefits from the one resource in terms of happiness, health, or 'resoucing' (e.g. Iron for Swordsmen).

Be mindful that by trading with the A.I., you will inevitably end up offending some other tribe, as well as assisting your trading partner to grow. Think strategically about trades.

Albeit not directly to do with happiness or healthiness, review any 'gold per turn for resource' trades to see if you can renegotiate for a better deal.

And leaving some forests inside your fat cross also helps with health.

Two forests will provide one :health: (patched), so if you have an odd number of forests, you can assess whether you may benefit from chopping one (you may in some instances prefer to keep it as a lumbermill anyway). As Dagoril suggests, those along rivers should be the first to go.

one more point : unhealthiness also comes from jungles and flood plains.
Flood plains still are good because of the food, but jungles need to be chopped down asap.

Some strategies let you trade happines resources away, even if you have only one, without afecting your growth.
One City Chalenge, after you build the globe theater, is na example.
If you go for cultural victory and you put your culture slider to 100% ore some procent and you have coloseum and/or theatre in every city. This will make your city have like over 30 happy faces around, so you don't need to worry about happines anymore.
Ofcourse, in this case you need to focus on health, so trade happines resources for health resources.

OCC is very specific

so are specific maps (high plains, ice age, ...)

but the fact remains : you can trade some ressources, even when you only have one of it, if you can benefit from the trade.

Usually, health bonus are less valuable than happiness bonus for the AI.
Military ressources are very much valued.
So is stone or marble.

Sometimes, you can trade a horse for ivory (which is both military and happiness!). Even if it's your only horse, it can be very useful : elephants eat horses for dinner, in this game.

Double click on your cities to see how close they are to unhealthiness or unhappiness. Unhealthiness will merely reduce the food by one, which will slow or stop your growth (each additional population point requires 2 additional food, and you get your city tile for free). Each additional population will also add an unhappiness point for being too crowded. Therefore, you will want to manually manage your cities so that if your city is at 6 happy and 6 unhappy, you will want to prevent the city from growing too fast until you can get 7 happy by getting another happiness resource, or getting more happiness from a civic/wonder/religion/building. You might as well increase your production or employ a specialist rather than add a completely useless additional population that refuses to work and consumes more food.

elephants eat horses for dinner, in this game.

In real life, horses really don't like to be near elephants unless they are raised to be tolerant of them. In ancient warfare, that meant that the typical horse who was not accustomed to elephants panicked and it became very difficult to effectively fight against war elephants without special horses. Adjustments were also made for food soldiers. Elephants charging towards enemy lines will cause panic and chaos unless the troops adopt a proper formation to allow the elephants to pass rather than cause the elephants to trample them. This way you can deal with the elephant rider as they pass rather than get stepped on by their elephant.

Adjustments were also made for food soldiers. Elephants charging towards enemy lines will cause panic and chaos unless the troops adopt a proper formation to allow the elephants to pass rather than cause the elephants to trample them. This way you can deal with the elephant rider as they pass rather than get stepped on by their elephant.

nice one:D
i assume you meant foot soldiers