I found that I don't use avoid growth option anymore, since most times I run slavery. So if I see a city that is unhappy and I can't do anything to increase happiness (i.e. temple, garrison, civic), then I whip the populace to produce buildings or units. Then my question is, does the avoid growth option have its use? and if so, when do you use it?
Avoid Growth Option, is it useless?
- Thread starter mutax2003
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Still_Asleep
Warlord
At the start of the game, on emporer +, when you dont have any early happiness ressources, the maximal citysize of your capital is 4 and of other cities is 3. When you employ slavery now, it will go down to 2 for 15 turns (on epic). I find that problematic, so I try to place the citizens so they dont make a food surplus once the limit is reached. And sometimes that wont work, then I use avoid growth.
Lord Chambers
Emperor
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It is completely useless. Having unhappy citizens costs you nothing. They are not helping your empire, but they don't cost you anything.* Instead, think of them as instantly productive citizens as soon as you secure something that will make them happy.
If you're not making them disappear with slavery, then let them sit in your city. Using the button to prevent growth is the same as throwing food down the drain.
*Except if you have 10s of them across your empire, in which case they could rise your civic cost.
If you're not making them disappear with slavery, then let them sit in your city. Using the button to prevent growth is the same as throwing food down the drain.
*Except if you have 10s of them across your empire, in which case they could rise your civic cost.
Scizor2120
Chieftain
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Are you telling me that unhappy citizens do NOT eat two food ? That is why they are trash. Instead of letting your city get an unhappy (Which produces nothing and eats two food) you can use avoid growth to get your food box full , then you can add a specialist/work a higher hammer tile (until you can get happy resource)
Lord Chambers
Emperor
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They do eat the two food. By all means, avoid growing unhappy citizens by working tiles that trade food for production or commerce. Or use specialists by a last resort. But the thread is about using the avoid growth button, which is ridiculous.
There are four options here.
Whip > Run @ stagnant growth > Let them sit in your city > Avoid growth button.
There are four options here.
Whip > Run @ stagnant growth > Let them sit in your city > Avoid growth button.
Zombie69
Emperor
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It helps in micromanaging slavery for maximum effect. The best time to use slavery is not right after a pop increase, but right before it. Ideally, you want your food to be at 28/28, 30/30, or something like that when you pop rush, so that your food will drop to 28/24, 30/26, etc. after the the whip and from that high point, be able to regrow two levels quickly. So to use slavery at max efficiency, you wait until one turn before the increase which would lead you to unhappiness. Say you're then at 25/28. You then micromanage your tiles to give you exactly +3 food. Then you select avoid growth. Wait for one turn. You're now at 28/28. Deselect avoid growth and pop rush. That's it.
Oggums said:
Slavery is available early in the early. When you have caste system, monarchy should be right around the corner. Then you can always deal with unhappiness by extra garrison, or by buildings. This way, your city will keep growth until it is limited by unhealthiness. So then there won't be as much reason to limit your growth, since extra population providedes more production and commerce.
Hans Lemurson
Prince
What Avoid Growth is useful for is the fact that it influences the AI governor to re-arrange your citizens to the maximum effect while maintaining a zero or negligiable surplus. If you don't want growth, and don't want too much micro-maneagement, then Avoid Growth is the choice for you. Size 7 with 1 unhappy is worse than Size 6 with 0, due to the fact of food consumption.
If you are using slavery however, Population = Production, so you really have no incentive to limit your growth. If you have
it's just because you haven't 
them yet. Maybe you are saving up? Who knows? Who cares? Just whip it.
I personally treat "avoid growth" just like any other governor function. It is "Emphasize No-surplus", and has the additional effect of preventing potentially harmful growth. When conditions become favorable, just turn it off and grow immedietly. I think it's better to be wasting 1 Food/turn due to inalienable surplus than 2 food/turn on a. The only reason you would ever want is if population itself is your goal, and not standard productivity.
If you are using slavery however, Population = Production, so you really have no incentive to limit your growth. If you have
it's just because you haven't them yet. Maybe you are saving up? Who knows? Who cares? Just whip it.I personally treat "avoid growth" just like any other governor function. It is "Emphasize No-surplus", and has the additional effect of preventing potentially harmful growth. When conditions become favorable, just turn it off and grow immedietly. I think it's better to be wasting 1 Food/turn due to inalienable surplus than 2 food/turn on a
. The only reason you would ever want is if population itself is your goal, and not standard productivity.
Lord Chambers
Emperor
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Is this true? In my brief experience with the button, I recall it changing no tiles;it just didn't let the population increase.Hans Lemurson said:
Hans Lemurson
Prince
Sometimes the governor-change doesn't take effect until the governor recieves an external stimulus like population change or you clicking on the city-center. Clicking on the city-center makes the governor arrange the citizens in what it thinks is the optimal configuration based on your settings.
TyBoy said:
Yeah, I make use of that on occasion. When I want to quickly change a city over to no-growth mode, I simply click the governor button, then click the avoid growth button. My citizens will be arranged to avoid food surplus as much as possible. If the surplus was completely eliminated, I then uncheck the governor and then the avoid growth (order is important). If the surplus wasn't eliminated I may leave the avoid growth checked (but turn off the governor, most likely). And, I always give the governor's actions a quick review before moving on to the next city.
Lord Chambers said:
i completely agree with that!
if your unhappy citizen eats food, what does it hurt you? if he brings you to a starvation, you will lose 1 pop point.
So what? you're back to where the no growth button would have brought you anyway!
Of course, MM like zombie said can be better, but it's really tedious IMHO.
I often do whip just or just before after the pop increase, and i have yet to notice a difference. Can't make up my mind on what is best.
What i know is you need the granary for those things !
One more thing :
to pop rush you need to have a pop size of at least the double of the pop-cost of the rush. Unhappy citizens count in the size.
So if you need to whip away 3 people for your library, you need to be at size 6 (or to wait until the cost drops to 2, and you then need to be at size 4).
Keeping a few unhappies ready to get whipped can give you a real boost in some occasions ;-) (spiritual is very useful for those things
)cabert said:
Not quite true... When a city starves, the food box stays empty; it does not go back up to the top. So, if I'm at 5 population, 29/30, and +1 food, after 1 turn I grow to 6 population. If he's unhappy, I'm at -1 food and nothing in the box (no granary). The next turn my population shrinks. I'm at 5 population and +1 food again, but my food box is sitting at 0/30. If I'd just turned on avoid growth the first turn, I'd be sitting at 30/30 perpetually and could grow to 6 population as soon as I wanted.
