Angry Citizen - It is too crowded! :-(

[Sir Charles]

Could anyone enlighten me?

1) Why do citizens say it is too crowded? Lack of cottages?
2) How do I make them happy again?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jdchambe]

Keeping people happy in Civilization IV is about making sure the number of "happy" faces is greater than the number of "unhappy" faces. The unhappy faces that come from being too crowded cannot be removed. They will always be there (one "too crowded" unhappy face per citizen).

The way to deal with those unhappy faces is to build buildings that add happy faces and/or to make sure the city is in your empire's trade network and then get access to luxury resources. Each luxury resource in your trade network adds one happy face to all cities in your trade network.

There are other things that can help. The hereditary rule and representation government civics give you other ways of adding happy faces, to help counter the unhappy ones. Hereditary rule lets you add military units to keep people happy. Each unit garisonned in the city will add a happy face under hereditary rule. The representation civic gives you 3 extra happy faces in your top five cities. That is something to keep in mind when evaluating a switch to universal sufferage.... Switching to universal sufferage at a time when you have large cities that are benefiting from your "heriditary rule" or "representation" civic can be crippling if you don't have another way of making the people happy....

The other thing to understand is that any city that is allowed to grow out of control will eventually reach a point where the unhappy faces are greater than happy faces. A good city management strategy is to watch the happy/unhappy ratio for each city as it grows and try to slow the cities growth rate down if you see it is going to soon reach the point where you cannot keep the people happy anymore.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

BTW, Wrong Forum (post in the Strategy+Tips section for questions)

 

[DaveMcW]

Krikkitone: Use the button to report off-topic threads.