[GS] All my cities have negative amenities

[Milennin]

Honestly, I'm a total noob at this game, despite having sunk a few hundred hours into it. I started a new game recently, and noticed just about all my cities have negative amenities (in the -2 and -3 range), even though my civilization is doing pretty well and being ahead of all the CPU opponents on Prince difficulty (lol). What are some easy ways to get amenities in the plus?

 

[Old Victoria]

Improving luxury resources. You need builders to improve tiles that have luxury ressources - you don't need to work the tiles, just have them improved (plantation for cotton, mine for mercury, etc). Does that make sense, or do you need a bit more information?
Building entertainment complexes is also a good way to go, but the easiest way at the beginning is, hands down, improving luxury resource tiles.

 

[Milennin]

Improving luxury resources. You need builders to improve tiles that have luxury ressources - you don't need to work the tiles, just have them improved (plantation for cotton, mine for mercury, etc). Does that make sense, or do you need a bit more information?
Building entertainment complexes is also a good way to go, but the easiest way at the beginning is, hands down, improving luxury resource tiles.

Thanks. I do always improve the luxury tiles, but even in the cities that do have them, it doesn't seem to grant enough. I have built Entertainment complexes in some of my cities, but it doesn't seem to give much.

 

[Old Victoria]

Keep in mind that the larger the population in a city, the more amenities you need. So: either more buildings within the entertainment complex or trading copies of your luxury resources with the AI. Negative amenities will undermine your production, so it would be worth looking into that.

 

[Alaindor]

In some situations I also trade luxuries with other civs (as soon as you have 2 luxuries, the first feeds the 4 most needing cities and the second does nothing so you can trade it), sometimes I can get two luxuries from AI (and/or gpt) for one of mine. But it also helps competing civs, so only when I really need it (-2 amenities I definitely think you do)