ways into health

cabert

Big mouth
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Dec 14, 2005
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(This could be a medical thread, but no it's only a game )
Health, as we all know is the key to everything, much more important than happiness (don't flame me, there is another article on happiness here).

This article identifies the factors that will lead a population to be healthy, and also notes some of the unhealthiness-causing elements.

As the player selects more difficult levels, cities become quickly unhealthy even with small populations, so having a good knowledge of the health factors will help the player to create and manage a stronger empire.

Here are the health bonus you start with for every difficulty level:

  • SETTLER ______4
  • CHIEFTAIN____4
  • WARLORD_____3
  • NOBLE________3
  • PRINCE_______2
  • MONARCH ____2
  • EMPEROR_____1
  • IMMORTAL____1
  • DEITY________1
Generally speaking, you will try to have more healthiness than unhealthiness. It doesn't matter where the healthiness and unhealthiness comes from.
As long as you have more healthiness than unhealthiness, you have no :yuck: green faces.
If unhealthiness is higher than healthiness, you'll have
[unhealthiness - healthiness] food lost every turn.

Note that an unhealthy city can't have a "we love our leader" day. It's not game changing but it's still a loss, and it's avoidable.

So, how do you get the healthiness you need to grow?

In vanilla cIV, there are exactly 8 ways to get more health (and 3 to have unhealthiness).
  • trait : expansive gives +3 health (+2 only in warlords patched version and BtS)
  • Fresh water
    (a city built next to a river, a lake or an oasis will gain 2 points of health)
  • Terrain
    (each forest in a city’s fat cross gives 0,5 health)
  • resources (see chapter 1)
    (Banana; Clam; Corn; Cow; Crab; Deer; Fish; Pig; Rice; Wheat)
  • buildings (see chapter 2)
    (Aqueduct; Granary*;Grocer*;Harbour*;Hospital; Supermarket*, public transportation in BtS)
  • civics
    (environmentalism : +6 health in all cities)
  • wonders
    (Hanging Gardens : +1 health in all cities)
  • techs : Genetics gives you +3 health.
    I won't expand a lot on future techs. Every future tech gives you +1 health in every city. But who cares? The game is over at his point!
* : depends on a resource

where does unhealthiness come from :
• population itself = "too crowded" :
1 unhealthiness for each population point (yes the 1st pop thinks it's already too crowded )
• terrain :
Each flood plains account for 0,4 unhealthiness each. With 20 flood plains, that’s 8 unhealthiness.
Each jungle tile accounts for 0,25 unhealthiness.
Fallout accounts for 0,5 unhealthiness each.
• buildings :
(Airport; Coal Plant; Dry-dock; Factory; Forge; Laboratory, IronWorks, Industrial park in BtS)
• Resources in BtS:
(Oil and coal with factory and/or industrial park)


If I missed some unhealthiness factors, let me know.

Note that there are ways to reduce unhealthiness.
Cutting the jungle reduces terrain unhealthiness.
Building a recycling centre removes building unhealthiness.

Credits to kroym, friskymike, michelangelo for Civ IV reference chart
edit : corrected sheep and banana according to the info center (error in the ref chart?)
 
there are 14 health resources

For each resource, you need either to
- have it on a tile included in you cultural borders, have the right improvement built and have the tile connected to your cities
- trade for it


  • Corn : farm improvement, requires agriculture tech
  • Rice : farm improvement, requires agriculture tech
  • Wheat : farm improvement, requires agriculture tech
  • Clam : working boat, requires fishing tech
  • Crab : working boat, requires fishing tech
  • Fish : working boat, requires fishing tech
  • Banana : plantation improvement, requires calendar tech
  • Cow : pasture improvement, requires animal husbandry
  • Pig : pasture improvement, requires animal husbandry
  • Sheep : pasture improvement, requires animal husbandry
  • Deer : camp tech, requires hunting
  • Spice : plantation improvement, requires calendar tech
  • Sugar : plantation improvement, requires calendar tech
  • Wine : wineyard improvement, requires monarchy tech ,
    note that spice, sugar and wine (strangely enough! It should provide unhealthiness IMHO) provide happiness, they only provide health through a grocer

So there is a potential of +11 health, that can be increased to +25 health including building effects, from resources.

From those:
3 (rice, corn, wheat) require Agriculture, and can be doubled with a granary (requires Pottery)
1 (deer) requires Hunting and can be doubled with a supermarket (requires Refrigeration)
3 (clam, crab, fish), require Fishing and can be doubled with a harbour (requires Compass)
3 (cows, pigs, sheep) require Animal Husbandry , +3 more health with supermarket (requires Refrigeration)
3 (banana, sugar, spice) (only 1 giving health directly) require Calendar, + 3 more with grocer (requires Guild)
1 (wine) (not giving health directly) requires Monarchy, +1 health with grocer (requires Guild)
 
Aqueduct: +2 health, requires mathematics and masonry;
Granary : +1 from corn, wheat, rice, requires pottery;
Grocer : +1 health from bananas, spices, sugar, & wine, requires guilds;
Harbour : +1 health from clams, crabs, & fish, requires compass;
Hospital : +3 health, requires medicine;
Supermarket : +1 health from cows, deer, pigs, & sheep, requires refrigeration


You can have a total of +21 health from buildings, 16 of those being already accounted for in chapter 1: the resources.

And as I mentionned in the first post,
recycling centre removes unhealthiness from other buildings, as forge, drydock and factory. It requires Ecology which is so near to the end of the tech tree you just can't rely on this too much.
 
Xin Yu said:
Expansive leader trait gives +2 health.
will add

DaveMcW said:
You should re-read the encyclopedia entries for sheep and bananas.
will do

But I used the reference charts (downloadable on this forum: credits to the team will come as soon as I can find the thread again :mischief: ) without any change. Could you be more specific?
 
Consistent spelling of tech names is a win (hunting versus Refrigeration)

I found the grouping the resources by multiplier building first, spelling second made a lot more sense then ordering them alphabetically.

You need to decide if you are going to include warlords or not.

Assets/*.xml is more reliable than reference charts.

The amount of health provided by the expansive trait varies with which patch of which game you are playing.

Sentences like 3 require agriculture, and can be doubled with a granary (requires pottery) don't really tell anything useful.
 
VoiceOfUnreason said:
Consistent spelling of tech names is a win (hunting versus Refrigeration)

done (I hope so !)

I found the grouping the resources by multiplier building first, spelling second made a lot more sense then ordering them alphabetically.
done, "chronologically" ordered

You need to decide if you are going to include warlords or not.
both need to be adressed, and the differences shown.
As is, it's vanilla. Didn't notice any difference, care to help?


Assets/*.xml is more reliable than reference charts.
Sure, but right now, i don't have the xml files, but have the reference charts.
Care to help?

The amount of health provided by the expansive trait varies with which patch of which game you are playing.

I assumed Vanilla 1.61 and warlords where the same:confused: .

Sentences like 3 require agriculture, and can be doubled with a granary (requires pottery) don't really tell anything useful.
yes they do. They tell you researching agriculture can give you 3 more health, and pottery after that 3 others.

Maybe it's not clear?
 
cabert said:
Sure, but right now, i don't have the xml files, but have the reference charts.
Care to help?

Not while I'm at work. Not from home until the local ISP gets its act together.

cabert said:
I assumed Vanilla 1.61 and warlords where the same:confused: .

Nyet - especially with the Warlords patch coming.

cabert said:
yes they do. They tell you researching agriculture can give you 3 more health, and pottery after that 3 others.

Maybe it's not clear?

It's not clear, and it is basically redundant with your earlier chart.

cabert said:
Corn : +1 Health; + 1 more with Granary
Rice : +1 Health; + 1 more with Granary
Wheat : +1 Health; + 1 more with Granary
Clam : +1 Health; + 1 more with Harbour
Crab : +1 Health; + 1 more with Harbour
Fish : +1 Health; + 1 more with Harbour
Banana : +1 Health; + 1 more with Grocer
Spice : + 1 Health with Grocer
Sugar : + 1 Health with Grocer
Wine : + 1 Health with Grocer
Cow : +1 Health; + 1 more with Supermarket
Pig : +1 Health; + 1 more with Supermarket
Deer : +1 Health;+ 1 more with Supermarket
Sheep : +1 Health; + 1 with Supermarket

Please note that I'm quibbling about the presentation at this point, not the information.


It's an article about :health:, so you probably don't need to keep saying +1 health every time. On top of that, it's always going to be +1 (or nothing at all), so you don't need the +1's either. The columns that you really have are Resource, Improvement (Tech), Building (Tech). The resource groups you have are corn/rice/wheat, fish/crab/clams, cow/pig/deer, etc. Everything else is chart junk (str: 1 point).
 
VoiceOfUnreason said:
It's not clear, and it is basically redundant with your earlier chart.

I can see that it's unclear, but not redondant.
It explicits what you can expect by researching some given techs.
Grouping the resources by bonus building in the list makes it unclear, but you may very well start the game without agri, and be in a flood plain rich region.
I think it's good to know (i'm sure you do but same may not) you can solve all your early health problems by going for agri + pottery.
Then you see that you can solve all mid game health problems by going for compass or guilds (map dependant of course)...

That' the point of the article, although I didn't go all the way through.

Strangely, I have the exact same errors in the happiness article and noone noticed :lol:
 
@Cabert: The health benefit of Expansive is a little variable depending on the patch you're running. On vanilla Civ 4 versions 1.0 - 1.52 it gives +2. On vanilla civ 1.61 and Warlords 2.0 it gives +3. To further confuse matters the new Warlords patch will put it back to +2.
 
I seem to remember reading that an unhealthy city is not eligible for We Love The King Day. So probably worth mentioning that being :yuck: could cost moolah (though not a lot as WLTKD seems pretty rare).
 
Recycling center should be on the buildings list. And note that it doesn't get rid of the :yuck: from dirty power.
 
chapter 3 : knowing my health sources, what's the best strategy to be healthy?

1) If you focus on expansion, you won't have too many health problems until industrial era, since happiness will be harder to get.

This is the most common situation, since conquest, domination, diplomatic, space race and time win are easier when you're big.
Conquest is somewhat less in this situation, but you don't need to grow at all, so health isn't really a problem at all.

Early game:
In this situation, you need to place you first cities well.
What are the biggest contributors to health? early in the game, if you have access to fresh water or are expansive, don't even look for anything else, you just need agriculture and pottery and a few (2 is usually enough) health ressources, including wheat, rice, or corn.

What does this mean?
It just means that you will
- settle next to food bonuses, improve and connect them. Why? because food is the single most important thing to grow your cities anyway! Just be sure you have workers (in sufficient numbers) that improve food tiles and you'll be fine for 4000 years.
- build granaries soon (first or second build, most of the time) in every city. They give health bonus, but their main purpose is to allow fast growth. If you don't build a granary, you deserve to be unhealthy. With this, you should be fine for 500 more years except jungles and flood plains.
You will clear the jungle to make room for cottages anyway, so that leaves the flood plains. Those floodplains heavy cities are the only ones that need aqueducts soon.

In the middle game, depending on the map, you will have to focus on
some ressource types : sea food vs calendar ressources is a very common situation. With loads of coastal cities, compass will be priority and harbours will give you breathing air for 500 other years.
With good land and calendar ressources, guild will be a better choice, grocers will give you money, knights will give you land and ressources and grocers will give you more health. :goodjob:
Most of the time, if you're in an unhealthy situation, it's time to go conquering some health ressource. You need the land anyway. Just tech in the direction you need to conquer, and health will follow.

in the late game :
GO biology GO!
Medicine allows you to build hospitals. Hospitals allow you to build RC.
If you go for space race, you will have some really large cities, so hospitals will be good for health.
If you go for domination/conquest (not done yet? you're slow ;)), RC will allow you to build marching units right out of barracks. You wouldn't want to lose this awesome advantage, would you?

So don't forget to research medicine and build those hospitals where you need them most : biggest cities, or really unhealthy ones like non coastal, not on fresh water but flood plains rich.

Later recycling centers will allow you to make good for those nasty forges and factories. Do you really need those? it's 1 turn build in the Iron Works city. Sure go for it there. Anywhere else, it's really to late to matter.


2) If you go for cultural it's another game : 100% culture = no happiness problems, but health will be tough.

Very often, I'll try to expand, even when going for cultural. If you can't (because you're alone on this large unhealthy island), just accept the unhealthy status until you can trade happiness ressources for health ressources.
You won't need the happiness ressources when you'll be running 100% culture, so feel free to trade away.
And aqueducts in your 3 big ones is good. Hanging gardens is good too!
 
Cabert, I agree that the suger resource should grant a +1 unhealthy green face or at the very least no healthy red cross bonuses. What I think suger should grant is increased revenue (money) and perhaps increased happyness (smiley faces).

As for wine, in moderation its actually good for you (read: "The French Paradox") and should either grant a health bonus or at the very least no unhealthy green faces. Wine should also grant increased revenue (money) and happyness (smiley faces).
 
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