Brand New Grandma to this type of game. Help, Please?

[scloopy]

Originally posted by la fayette


1) Building new cities too fast:
Yes, the game is designed to make it difficult to build 'too many' new cities (especially at upper difficulty levels).

Not only did I build too many to fast, I think I also have them too far apart and some do not have much of a good route to the capital.

2) Colours:
The simplest is to check with F4 key (attitude advisor).
Light blue = Happy
Deep blue = Content
Red = Unhappy
Black = Very unhappy

Oh goody up pops the color blind problem again. I think I have the light blue and red figured, but a deep blue and black may be guess work. The family once again gets to hear "Hey, come tell me what color these are."

3) Old head:
Don't be afraid: my head is almost certainly older than yours (65 years )

Not by much at this age three years ain't nothing.

 

[Archer 007]

Don't worry about your colour blindness. If you can make out the light blue and red, you'll be able to do it. The light blue comes first, the dark blue comes next, then red, and finally black. I've never even had black show up though. What causes black faces anyone?

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by scloopy
I have a city (a newer city) and it had 4 happy citizens when the next one was added he was unhappy and before I could build a temple or bring a military unit back the city revolted.

You seem to have mixed up content citizens and happy citizens. As la fayette said, there are light blue citizens (happy) that is the exact opposite of the red (unhappy citizens), and then there are the content citizens (dark blue) that are neutral. The only ways to get happy citizens are if you use luxuries (either from tax or from elvii), build a courthouse in democracy, or if you have a wonder (like hanging gardens and cure for cancer). It is possible to change the looks of the citizens of different moods if you are having problems seeing the difference between them (check the download section of CFC for civ2 graphics).

If you look at the happiness info in a city screen of cities, you might figure out how happiness works. If you go into cheat mode on a game and experiment with a city of size 10 or less by moving in and out martial units, building temples and destroying them, change luxury rates and governments, building wonders and destroying them. It's hard to understand it all maybe, but you might get an idea of when the city will go into disorder.
The topmost row is the original state of the city, then every row shows a step that is applied to the citizens (the second row first, the row on the bottom last).

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by archer_007
What causes black faces anyone?

Too many cities will result in black citizens, and it also depends on government (more likely under despotism). If you expand fast and don't have HG on deity, you might see that new cities start with a black citizen, or you might see it on the topmost row in the happiness info of some cities. They will become happy with two luxuries, or content with two martial units.

 

[Archer 007]

Ok. So now a question. If a city has two unhappy citizens and one "double-unhappy" will four units make them content? Do only three units work or does marital law effect up to three citizens.

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by funxus

You seem to have mixed up content citizens and happy citizens. As la fayette said, there are light blue citizens (happy) that is the exact opposite of the red (unhappy citizens), and then there are the content citizens (dark blue) that are neutral.

I started at king and I thought the happy people were the darker ones. I went back to the book after I got your message and I had totally missed the point.
building temples and destroying them, change luxury rates and governments, building wonders and destroying them.

How and why would one destroy your own temples and stuff?

 

[Archer 007]

He's saying do that to test the effects.

 

[funxus]

@Archer, still 3 units for martial law. So if you have 3 units or more in that city, and use no other means to make the city happy, they will have 2 content and 1 unhappy (red).

@Scloopy, as Archer said, I meant that it might give you an idea of how different methods of making citizens happy work, because you can immediately see the effects. Either you start a new game, or you use an old game you have finished playing. Then you Toggle to Cheat mode in the Cheat menu. From the Cheat menu, you then have the possiblity to change a city's size, destroy and create units... in the city screen you also have the possibility to quick-build units, wonders and improvements with the Cheat!-button.

 

[scloopy]

I will test that out. I have several games I gave up on and that should give me plenty to test it on. I do love destruction.
:die:

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by funxus
@Archer, still 3 units for martial law. So if you have 3 units or more in that city, and use no other means to make the city happy, they will have 2 content and 1 unhappy (red).

I knew it was only three. I just forgot three of what. Would one unit make a black face into a red face if all other faces are content?

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by archer_007
I knew it was only three. I just forgot three of what. Would one unit make a black face into a red face if all other faces are content?

First the martial units are applied on the black dudes to make them red, if the second or third martial units don't have black dudes to make red, they are applied to red dudes to make them content. So the martial units and the religious buildings move all the citizens up to the red level, before moving any citizens to the content level. This is part of the problem with the HG-bug.

 

[scloopy]

Originally posted by funxus

This is part of the problem with the HG-bug.

Another dumb question - what does HG stand for. I had a printed list of all that stuff but I think the "Dog ate it".

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

HG = Hanging Gardens (a wonder)

 

[scloopy]

I knew it would be something I should have already known.
I told you it would be a dumb question.

Is there a bug in the programing bug in the HG routine?

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by scloopy


Another dumb question - what does HG stand for. I had a printed list of all that stuff but I think the "Dog ate it".

Keep this around:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=324457

The "Hanging Gardens Bug" is that it's effect seems to "jump over" making Very Unhappy (black) citizens into just Unhappy (red) citizens, or Unhappy into Content. It seems to jump two "attitudes", rather than one, if you are using Luxuries rather than Martial Law for changing attitudes.

The color problem you have: do things seem "shades of grey", or just black and white? For things on the map, you can "right-click" them once and the right hand column should give you a description, including what civ they belong too. I don't know if there is another way to look at the happiness levels of citizens. Is the color bars under the Happy button useless too?

 

[funxus]

The Hanging Gardens give the exact same effect as 2 luxuries in the city would, but is applied at a different stage. Which is the other part of the problem.

2 luxuries on a black dude makes him happy.
2 luxuries on a red dude makes him content.

This means that if a martial unit walks into a size 1 city where a black dude is made happy by HG(=2 lux), the martial unit will first turn the black citizen red, and then HG (=2 lux) will make the red citizen content. This means that the city with 1 happy citizen, will only have 1 content citizen after the martial unit entered the city, which could be called reverse martial effect(?).

A size 2 city, with 1 red and 1 black citizens, would be kept happy with HG (=2 lux), because HG makes the black citizen happy -> So the city has 1 happy citizen and 1 red citizen-> no revolt. If a martial unit moves into this city though, the black citizen will turn red, and when the effect of HG is applied to 2 red citizens, one will become content, the other will remain red -> a city with one red and one content will revolt, making it a problem to keep only one martial unit in the city.

 

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by scloopy
Do the pictures of the citizens and the color hats they are wearing indicate weather they are becoming unhappy?

I gathered there is a pattern to the unhappiness, but I did not realize that it was quite so complicated. This old head is getting quite a workout.

Yes, they do. With your color difficulties, you may have to look hard; but the happiest people will always be to the left, the unhappiest to the right. Keep that equation in mind, and study the pictures frequently. (The easiest to tell by picture, as I recall right now, are in the ancient period; the happy ones wear crowns or pharoah's headdresses, like in my .sigblock below. The other periods don't come to mind right now.)

As for your head getting a workout, consider it exercise to keep your brain sharp.

 

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by scloopy
I will test that out. I have several games I gave up on and that should give me plenty to test it on. I do love destruction.

I can tell that from your emoticon choices. (grin)

 

[scloopy]

Ah Ha I got the different citizens figured out. I have lots more happy citizens and the unhappy ones are coming about less and less. I am going to switch to Democracy soon so wish me luck.

The biggest problem I seem to have with unhappy citizens is tied to sea units like cruisers. When I take them out to see I get an unhappy citizens and the representation of the ship in the city screen has a red shield on it and I have an unhappy citizens. If I am reading this right it makes no sense. Why would you have ships if you can't take them anywhere?

 

[funxus]

Originally posted by scloopy
Ah Ha I got the different citizens figured out. I have lots more happy citizens and the unhappy ones are coming about less and less. I am going to switch to Democracy soon so wish me luck.

The biggest problem I seem to have with unhappy citizens is tied to sea units like cruisers. When I take them out to see I get an unhappy citizens and the representation of the ship in the city screen has a red shield on it and I have an unhappy citizens. If I am reading this right it makes no sense. Why would you have ships if you can't take them anywhere?

This is Civ2's way of simulating war weariness for democracies and republics, where demo is much worse than republic. In civ3, your citizens get unhappy because of long wars instead.

The criteria for a unit to not cause unhappiness:
It's stationed in a city, and is not an air unit of type fighter. (missiles and bombers always cause unhappiness)
It's stationed in a fortress within 3 squares of a city.
It's attack value is 0. (spies, engineers, freights...=no unhappiness)
If it's the first unit to cause unhappiness in a city in republic. (seen as a grey mask instead of red)

Naval units aren't typically worse than other units, but it's harder to effectively use naval units and store them in cities, than land units.