Calabim and angry citizens

[Magnifficus]

How much should the Calabim care about angry citizens (the number of unhappy faces who exceed the number of happy faces)?
Since they can be used to feast Vampires, angry citizens are still useful. Even “Governors Manor” and “pillar of chains” are increasing their usefulness.

But, can angry citizens cause anything undesirable else?
I’m just thinking about revolting cities or anything comparable.

I’ve just found an old Threat about this question, which talks about a “rioting” event, does this event still appears to the Calabim? And what takes place if this event happens? Does its probability increase with the number of angry citizens?http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=260670&highlight=calabim+unhappy

So, what to do about angry citizens as Calabim?
Should I avoid them at all, keep their number low or should I let my cities grow up to the maximum?

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Sure they can be used to feed vampires, but also keep in mind that they reduce the growth rate by consuming food that would otherwise go to providing more population.

Personally I like to set up 'feed cities' that do nothing but produce ridiculous amounts of food, so I can manage +1 pop per turn and still stay happy.

If I'm preparing for a major war or something then I might allow my cities to go above the happy cap, but only just enough to feed my vampires. +2 isn't much by the time you get Vampires.

 

[Magnifficus]

You are right; a higher population causes a lower growth rate. (Assumption: All food domains are already getting worked)

But consider the following example.
Imagine we both got equal cities, the only difference is the population, your city got 16 citizens and gains 1 population point each turn, my city got 20 citizens and gains much less population per turn. Of course the initial unhappiness in my city will be higher.
Now we both start feeding a Vampire for the next 4 turns.
After this both cities got a population of 16 and would gain an additional citizen next turn.
Even the unhappiness is equal in both cities now. (16 unhappiness points from crowded and 3 points from feasting the Vampire (feasting unhappiness only takes the last 3 turns into account))
But there are still differences:
1.) The experience the Vampires gained (City population -3 = gained experience)
Your Vampire gained: 4*(16-3) = 52 XP
My Vampire gained: (20-3)+(19-3)+(18-3)+(17-3)= 62 XP
2.) All the turns ago the unhappiness in my city was higher then in yours.

This leads us to the question (much clearer now):
Can unhappiness cause happenings, which outdo the XP benefits of a higher population?

 

[Magnifficus]

O.K., one point I’ve noticed by my self.
To reach the higher population, it may be necessary to work an additional food destination until the vampire starts to feast.

Therefore it’s the question, what did this citizen do, until he started to work the food tile.
Did he work a tile, providing a high number of hammers, it may be more useful to keep the hammers and to abstain from the higher population.
If he was just a scientist, it could be more useful to gain the higher population.

But it’s a question of micromanagement and not if unhappiness commonly outdoes the XP benefits.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Actually, good point about the lower XP gained from feasting. I forgot to take that into account. Personally I don't think it's worth it to feed non-hero vampires more than maybe twice, at least not on your own cities. Just maybe 4-5 promotions is enough to allow the vampire to reliably gain XP the old-fashioned way. More fairly strong vampires is more useful than a few uber-vamps, at least against the AI. Casters though continue to benefit from feeding past the first few times.

And yes, the unhappiness can cause two events I believe. One is not a problem, just a nuisance, since Calabim can pick the '-2 population but no other effects' choice. The other is a pretty major problem, since it destroys an improvement and can recur. As mentioned, the worst is when you lose a resource improvement. Not 100% sure about this, and the chances of that event popping up are less now that there's more events total, but still.

Oh and also, feeder cities really ought to be kept at 20+ pop if possible. Being able to work the entire BFC helps keep the growth rate high.

 

[Magnifficus]

I think, I got your main point.
In the most situations (starting position, strategy and so on) it’s more useful to have one or two feeding cities and to keep the other cities high productive.
Taken all together, this is more beneficial then having lot’s of cites which are a bit productive and which got a bit lager population then average.

Bad events caused by unhappiness, currently seem to appear seldom. So they are not such a big factor.
I was just thinking of cities revolting if they got to much unhappiness. Maybe it’s just something I remember from CIV III. (Always kept my population low enough to prevent angry citizens until I started to play the Calabim)

Hence, thanks a lot for your suggestions

 

[kenneth]

Use ashen veil with sacrifice the weak to set up high pop cities that grow fast. 1 food per pop

 

[Zechnophobe]

Or FoL and get some forests, which will let you work more actual tiles with Guardian of Nature (As opposed to just having a whole lot of unhappy people giving a bit of XP for feasting, and producing 1 Hammer).

 

[kenneth]

FoL is not good for calabim. First, you need to cut down forests to build your cottages/farms because you are not elves.

No point running FoL just for the sake of using forests for the few cities that you are going to feast on. Ashen veil better because it benefits all of your cities.


Second when you consider that you are evil, hell terrain will spread to you and burn down all your forest late game.

 

[Darksaber1]

Yes, and Hell will also cause all your health resorces to becom less useful. Pigs and sheep turn into toads(so you go from getting two health/food to only one) cows become Shuet Stones (which provide no food or health) and rice, wheat and corn become Snake pillar (which provide NO resourse, and I think provide less food then farms on resources. Also, irrigation doesn't pread in Hell, so your farms MUST border rivers, oasis or lakes, and the Fire on Flameing Sand destroys FLood Planes (The FLames also provide -0.5 Health, in addition to needing fire resitance to enter them. And on FoL, I often leave forest's in my territory, because Aciant forest is as good as Farms I think, as well as providing Production.
Useing the Veil raises the Arrmagedon counter, and when it reaches 40, Blight will damage many of your units(I think), and it also cause Mega unhealthyness in Every city, offten as much as Twenty to Thirty. And every turn that the Counter is above 40, their is a chance that Pestilance will strike, causing more mega unhealthness. That it! the Unhealthness for both events were popotional to the size of the Cities. Blight often can cause players to loose most of their Pop, and NEVER regain it. Blight Scared me out of use the Veil as almost any one.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Marble becomes Sheut Stones, not cows... cows turn into Nightmares, same argument though. Snake Pillars provide production not food, and Floodplains get destroyed.

AV is great, but Hell terrain generally sucks. That's what a horde of Life I adepts are for. Blight, meh. The moment it hits, just feast until you're back to positive growth. Sure, you still lose the population, but you get a huge benefit from it too. As for irrigation, if you're running StW, you're gonna have enough food no matter what. Seriously.

Ancient forests are 1 1, farms are 1, +1 for agriculture, +1 for Sanitation I believe. Farms are far better than ancient forests by midgame, since 3 means 1 extra pop over 1, and even if that pop is unhappy you're still getting the from the Governor's Manor while having more pop to feast on.

 

[zantai]

I generally run my empire with the Calabim just as I normally would- I try to keep unhappiness as low as possible. If a city is unhappy and there is no happiness increase on the way, I will have a vampire take care of the excess. Rather than setting up specific feeding cities, I simply take cities that I would normally raize. I let my vampires feast on their population until it gets down to 7 or 8, then I run away before the enemy stack of doom can get close. The enemy takes the city, I don't have to pay for maintenance, my vampires get a ton of exp, the rival is greatly weakened, and there is no raizing diplomacy penalty should I decide to make peace. Good all around.

 

[kenneth]

if you look at blight from another point of view, if you are running ashen veil with StW, you will be least affected by blight. Sure, your pop might drop a few, but compared to a civ running FoL which will drop by 10-20, it turns what is a usually bad event to your advantage because everyone suffers much more. A civ running ashen veil with StW can have more pop because than a civ running FoL during blight.

They usually have to waste turns teching to medicine and building infirmary to negate the effects of blight PARTIALLY, while you can use that turns to research military techs to finish them off.

In addition, any civs that are not elves running FoL is going to have it benefits halved. Why? Simple Reason is because you need to chop down a decent amount of forests(30-50%) to build your cottages to get your research going. With less forests, the bonus you get from running guardian of nature is greatly reduced because of less forest. FoL is a powerful religion, in fact i think probably more powerful than Ashen veil if you are elves and can truly enjoy the incredible bonus from the Guardian of nature civic.

If you are not going to use ashen veil, you can be assured some other AI will. And one thing is sure as the game progresses.. the AC WILL increase, unless you kill of hyborem early and destroy prophecy of ragnarok. Running FoL as an evil civ requires a good deal of micro and life 1 adepts to sanctify as hell terrain starts to spread to you.
If you run ashen veil, you can ally with hyborem to take over the world, letting you concentrate of killing off the rest of the enemies easier. True hell terrain might not be great, but considering the benefits, it one of the cons you have to live with. it's not a game breaker for StW civs, maybe take of 10% of your pop and it tends to much come later than your benefits.

 

[cyther]

Try order, no unhappyness with unyeilding order, no hell terain and extra happy from military is very good.

 

[Vladesch]

You dont need ancient forests or sacrifice the weak. Just a bunch of farms with agriculture and suitable buildings will outstrip your ability to wear off unhapiness.
Unfortunately unyielding order comes a bit late in the game. If I can survive that long Ive got the game won anyway as Calabim. Vampire paladins are pretty unstoppable.

Perhaps I need to play on a higher difficulty.

 

[Grey Fox]

The one time I used angry citizens to the max was when I built the Tower of Complacency in a city with almost entirely floodplains. So I farmed the city to the max, made it grow as large as it could and pop rushed a Governors manor. Then I used the hammers from unhappy to build a large part of the Tower and used slaves to finish the rest of it.