Drowning in filth - its too crowded

[johncross21]

My capital city has a population of 8. It produces 21 bread and 18 is eaten. It as 8 health points and 10 unhealth points. It has four flood plains

Its getting unhappiness from the flood plains and population

What do I do - to keep them happy.

Not much I can do about the flood plains.

[Rancid Sushi]

Do you have Slavery? Whipping citizens is a great way to remove unhappiness from a city and quickly create new units/buildings. Just remember to always whip so that the cost is 1 more than the current total of unhappy citizens, otherwise you'll just dig yourself further into the hole.

[svv]

Here are the long answers:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=189559
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=190583

Short answers are, 1: as Rancid says, whipping away some population are good ways to get you below the health/happiness caps. Whipping also causes unhappiness, so try to make sure you're whipping a happiness improvement and/or whipping away more than one citizen.

Second, control population growth with your terrain improvements. Instead of farming everything, put down some cottages instead. If you're still growing too fast, have citizens work low food squares that provide something else (eg mined hill squares providing hammers).

Finally, in the long term, the most important thing for improving health and happiness is getting resources that improve health or happiness, and getting the buildings that double the effect of those (forges double the happiness bonus for gold, silver and gems, harbors double the health bonus for seafood, etc).

[johncross21]

Good tips, thanks

I have started building an aqueduct - I'll whip that - and I'll replace one of the farms with a cottage.

[DutchJob]

Granary? Grocer?

Or War for healthresources maybe...

[Yeekim]

What beginners often misunderstand, is that unhappiness and unhealthiness from population is inevitable. You can not keep that down - without killing off your population, that is. What you must do, is rising your happiness and health caps, to keep pace.

I believe that cabert wrote some really good guides (1 for increasing happiness, another for increasing health), which should be found in War Academy.
EDIT: Heh, the same ones which svv already linked.