im into my 900something turn as the green elves civilization, i cant even begin to remember their proper name. The ability to stack improvements on top of forests has let me pretty much put farms everywhere other than hills and as a result i had a few massive population booms. after every tech that added food to farms and especially when the forests changed to ancient forests, although im sad they lost their shields :(, my population would go from 5 million to 15 million and then next thing i know i have 50 million people. i only have 6 cities....thats almost ten million people a city...i have built every building except a jeweler that adds to happiness and i just cant get any of my cities to be satisfied. my average city has a population of 25 with an unhappiness score of 50 due mainly to overcrowding and then a little war weariness. now my cities are rioting so much they are starving to death. is there any way to keep these ungrateful morons from being so pissy? mabey you should add a new happiness building to the game or make ancient forests add to production instead of food.

It's not impossible, but you have to micromanage. Build every happiness building you can in every city you have, convert as many specialists as possible, and max out your culture slider. Call a 10 turn peace treaty if possible. Adopt public healers and build health buildings. Then, just wait to ride it out.

After you get things straightened out, try to set your cities up where they don't grow.

Law 3 archmages get rid of unhappines. Order civic can get you as much happiness as you would ever want. The OO wonder get rid of unhappiness. That is basically the only way to get unlimited happiness short of racking up the culture slider(available from drama). It is almost never benificial to grow your cities into unhappiness. You can easily see how much happiness you have available from the city screen. Just stop growth before you ever get that far. Unhappy people doesn't produce anything and just cost you 2 food and money.. The important thing to remember is that food doesn't actually do anything in itself. Yes you can grow cities very large but large unhappy cities are way less productive than a bit smaller and happy cities. Use food to be able to work alot of mines(which can also be built on forests) or a lot of cottages(since you get so much food from ancient forests as elves anyways you might as well cottage them as you don't really need the extra food for the farms). The most obvious thing to do with large amount of food is to run specialists though. This require you to either have specific buildings or civics though. Basically when you reach happy cap run as many specialists(instead of working extra farms) as you can before starving. Population looks nice and all but it doesn't actually do anything whatsoever(unless you plan to win by religion(80% of the population in the world have to have your religion) though it is easier to just convert/kill everyone else..).

Unhappy people doesn't produce anything and just cost you 2 food and money. ... Population looks nice and all but it doesn't actually do anything whatsoever ...

That's not entirely right. The amount of units you can support for free is somehow connected to the size of your cities/population. I know, that's a small benefit, but it is one. Don't ask for exact formula, because I don't know it. Saw it somewhere in the forum, but can't find it anymore.

By the way there is a wonder called the Pillar of Chains which gives you one hammer per unhappy citizen in the city as one of its effects.

Perhaps you use Guardian of the nature. Be sure that each tile in your fat cross is under the forest. If it is not, pillage an improvement, then plant forest and build an impr. again. But you know that probably. Then there are gambling houses. With such population your science should go mainly from specialists, so 100% commerce = 10 happiness. That plus building-resources usually more then enough for overcrowding with 25 pop.

The problem of big pop is that any war or civic unhappiness is a percentage of pop. You can completely switch off war weariness with Despotism-nationhood-dungeons but then civic unhap is rising and it may be very big. So balance. Ljosalfar are not perfect for war.

The Guardian of the Nature civic is what you need, it gives cities happiness for each forest and ancient forest (jungles too?) in their radius.

That's not entirely right. The amount of units you can support for free is somehow connected to the size of your cities/population. I know, that's a small benefit, but it is one. Don't ask for exact formula, because I don't know it. Saw it somewhere in the forum, but can't find it anymore.

By the way there is a wonder called the Pillar of Chains which gives you one hammer per unhappy citizen in the city as one of its effects.

you get support for about 1/4 more unit per pop(.24) but it cost way more in maintenance and civic upkeep.

well most of my cities have starved down to 18 or less by now but they are still all pissy. i just got the social order civic and am trying to get public healers next. the problem is my war weariness is accounting for 49 of my unhappiness. i dont like to play peaceful games so if i cant just fight a war without having to worry about all my cities production being reduced to almost nothing is there a way i can edit the training yard building to provide 5 happiness? its one of the earliest buildings i add to all my cities and the next game im going to play is going to be a permanent war game and i dont even want to think how much war weariness there will be after 700 turns when 50 turns has already ruined me in this game.

Well, I am not completely clear on how war weariness works, but from what I have started to understand it is based on the number of your units that are killed. So you just have to be more picky about your battles, guard your units carefully, and focus on high withdraw units.

If it doesn't fade with time after each unit's death, then you are hosed no matter what, but I would imagine that it ought to wear down after a couple of turns without any losses. (Hrm, I wonder if summoned units give war weariness? If so, there is a major downside to over-using them in war! If not, a major incentive to do so!)

It is also how many units you have killed. You get pretty cripling WW after wiping out a civ. Fortunately there are some civics to minimize WW(despotism and nationhood are both available from the start). There are also some buildings that help against it i believe. WW is also dependant on what civ you are playing. Fortunatly after you compleetly kill someone or make peace all WW against that civ goes away so you only have to worry about it during that specific war. If you prepare enough all wars should be short enough for WW to not be very cripling...

It is also how many units you have killed. You get pretty cripling WW after wiping out a civ. Fortunately there are some civics to minimize WW(despotism and nationhood are both available from the start). There are also some buildings that help against it i believe. WW is also dependant on what civ you are playing. Fortunatly after you compleetly kill someone or make peace all WW against that civ goes away so you only have to worry about it during that specific war. If you prepare enough all wars should be short enough for WW to not be very cripling...

You only get war weariness for every unit of yours killed in enemy territory. The reason it racks up huge when you kill an enemy civ is because you usually sacrifice a lot of your units to do this.

To avoid war weariness:

Sign a peace treaty and declare war 10 turns after. The war weariness resets.

try not to sacrifice many units outside of your borders. Try to fight battles inside your borders.

build buildings/adopt civics that lower your war weariness, such as social order, military strategy, dungeon etc. Avoid civics that raise it, such as liberty and city states.

well what am i supposed to do for my permanent war game? ive also looked at the civics that reduce unrest and the guardian of nature is ok but it lowers your military production which is not what i want to be doing in a permanent war. right now i have been able to keep up to 36 people happy but this ridiculous war weariness makes 59 people pissy. i think thats a bit much as i have only lost about 7 units in the last 50 turns because all my troop are heavily experienced by now. There should be an additional way to increase happiness without sacrificing military production or forcing me to garrison my cities with 10-12 units.

Well, if it is based off action outside fo your borders, then play defensively until you KNOW you can crush a civilization completely. If the weariness from that specific Civ goes away when they are out of the game, you should be able to avoid having much any longterm weariness effects.

As far as i undearstand it, WW is based on any unit dying, (Except units with the "no WW when this dies tag"), but losing one of your units is slightly worse than killing theirs.This is then modified by wether it was in their territory or your territory, and by wether you declared the war or not

Drwhem

The Lsojalfar are not a good civ for protracted war, certainly not offensive. They make great raiders and are really hard to make any in-roads into, but under FOL their basic strategy is to out pop, then out tech any opponent.... with even 10 of those 20 people working ancient forrest/cottages your economy/science should be huge.... why waste that fighting wars?

I'd suggest for your next game with permanent war set go for a different civ...... Bannor, with Sabathiel are great for "crusading".... there's a good strategy for them on this forum.

Or if you prefer a more sinister approach....

The Calabim....they dont put up with such things as civil unrest and rioting. No....anyone daring to even mention that they might be, even, just slightly, less than merry gets........the feast button!

THAT KEEPS EM HAPPY :ar15: :wallbash:

You just have to be a bit diplomatic until feudalism that's all

Good luck

Just to note...Culture slider with Theaters is better for happiness than tax slider with gambling houses...You get +10 base happiness with 100% culture, plus (I think) 2 per 10% from the Theater itself.