Am I strategizing right?

[grapedog]

I am correct that in this photo, as it stands right now, either a courthouse(-50% maintenance penalty) or a grocer(+25% income) is going to produce the same 2 gold profit?

What about in the long run, i was originally thinking the grocer, because the economy of that city will continue to grow, but I guess the maintinance will also continue to grow, but not by much. That city is only about 5 or 6 blocks west, and I think 1 block north of my capitol. I guess a grocer would be a better long term investement.
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Also, I'm now using slavery and whipping to reduce unhappiness to some degree, but i've done a bunch of looking on the forums and I hear talk about a happiness cap for a city. How does on calculate a happiness cap.

What are the best steps to cure unhealthiness. If I have an off shore resource that I haven't tapped yet, would the bonus from that affect all my cities, or just my closest city? I don't understand how those resources work since they don't always fall within a cities boundaries, or do they have to in order for a work boat to build something on top of them?

 

[GeorgeOP]

As you can see here, this city is a size 9. The happiness cap is also 9, so any additional population will cause an unhappy citizen to appear. The Military Presence happiness is due to a civic option. Luxurius Resources are shared throughout your empire. As long as the cities are hooked up via roads, rivers, or ocean trade routes, they will be able to use all resources. The same will go for Health resources.

 

[carl corey]

I think you're right about the profit. As for what to build, I'd say a grocer too.* But it would be easier if you posted a view of all the city squares. I can see a few cottages around there and also 3 commerce water tiles**, so I think your income will increase more than the maintenance.

The happiness cap is just the maximum happiness a city can have at a given moment. (number near to the yellow faces next to your food bar) If you hover over the happy face you'll see a breakdown of the reasons why your people are happy/unhappy. Look at that and at any happiness modifiers (resources, buildings, religion, civics, etc) that could be added in the near future and then decide if you want to whip or not.

By the way, someone pointed in another thread that you can whip at most half of the current population of the city.

Do you have unhealthiness problems? Then the grocer is clearly the way to go. Off shore resources need to be within a city's cultural boundaries for you to be able to take advantage of them. One you hook them up (using a fishing boat) all the cities that are connected with this one will benefit from the additional health.

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* Are you playing Gandhi? Anyway, if you play an organized leader you might consider building the courthouse due to the leader's bonus. You might also want to build a courthouse if you need the Forbidden Palace, but in that case there are probably other cities farther from your capital that also need courthouses.

** Did you build the Colossus?

 

[grapedog]

i already won the game, but I was just curious about some of those issues. I just started playing on Noble recently, i've gotten a domination victory and a really messy cultural victory. The first victory was sloppy as I took over my entire continent, but i was into the 1900's by the time it was finished. So I went back to try it again from the 4000BC save point, I put down 6 cities, and captured two more early when Isabella got angry with me, and left it at that. Thinking it might have an easier time doing it with a smaller amount of cities. But that didn't really change anything it would seem except if I hadn't won on culture, i would have lost on Diplomatic, Time and Space. In about 30 turns, someone other than I did would have won that way...

I avoided war the rest of the game, but still ended up with a Warren G Harding rating...which I don't get. Apparently it was another bad game, though it seemed pretty smooth to me. Do you get a worse and worse score for allowing other Civ's to get close to completing the victory conditions.
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Ahh ok, i got you now on the happiness cap, that should be easy enough to keep track of and look for in the future.

I do have unhealthiness problems, and I think it's just because of over-crowding. How does a city increase in size, but avoid over-crowding at the same time. I don't understand who a city can grow, but not be ready for that growth. Whats the correlation between a city growing and city, and being happy about. Or do you just have to provide enough happy stuff for people to do after any city gets to a certain point?
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yes, i built the colossus and played as Ghandi, but all my cities were pretty close to my capitol.

 

[dalessi12]

Both unhappiness and unhealthiness increase constantly as cities grow.

You just have to keep up with adding happiness and health, with buildings, religion, culture rate, resources, etc. If you cannot keep up, then it is time to slow the growth (add specialists, work different tiles) or whip or draft the excess population. Unhappiness is much worse than unhealthiness, as unhealthiness just removes food and slows growth, while unhappiness (net total, more red faces) removes citizens from working tiles.

These things really become hard on the higher levels, because you get less standard happiness and health bonuses at the beginning of the game (you will hit "caps" much sooner and at smaller city sizes)

 

[Oeyrsenal]

u have to micromanage...
once u see the health/happiness cap is closing, slow down ur growth and focus more on hammers or wealth

beside it does not really make any difference as long as they don't revolt
with unhealthiness the city just grow more slowly or even decay to the previous population (eg. from 9 pop. to 8 pop.)
even if u try to maintain healthiness u have to stay on 8 pop. anyway
and with happiness is the same....if u slow down ur growth to accomodate a happy city ur city will remain at that pop. (6 for example) hence 6 working citizens
and if u let it grow to an unhappy 7-population city u still have 6 working citizens and 1 non-working unhappy...
however if u have no military unit at ur city...when ur pop. grows to 6 they have -2 for happiness when it's only -1 at 5 pop. ...thus the city has 2 non-working unhappy citizens and only 4 working ones when u can have 5 working citizens if u had promote birth control and maintain 5 population city

this is probably the only exception at this case

i'm probably not making much sense...so it might be easier to understand if u're drunk, or intoxicated in anyway

 

[grapedog]

on my latest game, im taking great pains to whip unhappy citizens off the map. I had originally intended for this game for a conquest victory, but i had such a great start, i ended up switching to cultural. I'm about 4k points in the lead, with 4 religions, and teching a head. I popped 5 of my cities(this is my first time using workers to chop settlers), i kicked barbarians out of another two cities that just happened to be placed in spots where i would have put cities on my own or very close, and i flipped another civ's city. Because i had such a lead, and so many religions, the two other civs on my continent grabbed my same main religion, and I'm about to flip another city. In a cultural games I aim for 9 cities. Thats enough i guess to get the third tier religous building for the cultural bonus, for 3 legendary culture cities for however many religions i can dig up. So far it's clear sailing...

But I'm now using the unhappy people to keep my military up to date and all my cities well defended. I was a chronic under-defender beforehand in peace time. I would usually garrison two units in each city. With the unhappiness now, i use it occasionally on a building, but more often then not to beef up defenses in cities when i have the chance to. i may restart the beginning after i win this round to try a conquest victory, but i want to see if I can improve from my last game on this new map.

 

[Gumbolt]

I find happiness is resolved by lots of resources rather than grocers. That why early wars are so useful for resource grabbing. You can always trade resources to get silver gold etc that provide happiness. Another reason to grab early resources.

I think your probably ready to go up a level above noble. its better to learn on a level where the AI is more of a threat once you have learned the basics about religions, tech trading, whipping/chopping forests, cottages and cost of expanding. The AI never really build huge hoards of military units on noble in my experience.

Getting the start right is the key to a good win. If you let the enemy get strong your left in a weaker position.

 

[carl corey]

Gumbolt, just one thing: grocers don't give happiness, they can add extra health. You were probably thinking about markets.