City growth bug

[Gontzal]

I have a city (Barcelona) that doesn't grow regardless of the number of food, health or having an aqueduct. It allways says that the next turn is going to grow
This problem started after killing 2 citizens for getting a job done. The city shrank from 8 to 6.
And since, the city never grew again except when I built the haging gardens, that gave a 1 extra population.

So in the saved game attached the population of Barcelona is 7 and there is no way of getting it bigger.
I can starve then, thought. But then it would be imposible to grow back too 7.

I have gone through the manual several times and I'm pretty sure it is a bug.
If anyones manages to do it, please let me know.

 

[KniteFlux]

I can confirm your findings. I loaded your save. The info on the city screen said that it had 51/51 required food to grow to the next size (I think it was 51, but it deffinately was 100% of 100%).

This strikes me as odd, cause if it is at 100% already, it should have already grown. I believe the game should only say 1 more turn before growing if you were at 50/51 (or within the amount of food growth per turn of the next growth level).

The city was not building a settler, worker, or any other unit that should prevent growth. Indeed, I tried switching to a worker. The growth of the city paused as it should and then once the worker was produce, the same situation continuted.

Good bug find. Probably has something do do with your population sacrfice leaving your food stock at the growth requirement. If I could guess, I'd say the game code probably initiates the city growth when the food stock changes state to or above the requirement. Since a city couldn't grow when losing population, and the state of being at the requirement doesn't change, your city doesn't grow.

 

[ZombieEater]

Really stupid Q (not at my game PC, so can't check the savegame): the "avoid growth" button isn't turned on, right?

 

[The_Lackey]

Yes it is because the avoid city growth button is enabled. I had a similar problem in my game and figured that manually overriding the food production in a city even though the city growth button is enabled, your city would still grow.

I would consider this an "annoying feature".

 

[TwoFaced]

It's not a bug. You have the no city growth button enabled. Nice feature if you don't want your city to grow but easy to forget about.

In the first game I played I forgot I had enabled it and couldn't figure out why my city wouldn't grow past 7. In fact I almost reported it as a bug myself, but it was just my error. Turn it off and your city will flourish again.

 

[rjjb]

Why would anybody care whether or not a city keeps growing? Sure, when it grows past the happyness limit you get an angry citizen that doesn't work but that makes the city behave as if it didn't grow - with one exception. When you later make folk in the city happy, you have a pregrown city. If you restrict the growth because of unhappy citizens, you then have to wait around for it to grow later (once you've built temples or whatever).

Compare this to earlier civs. If your city grows too big, it goes into unrest and shuts down - no production, no growth. You had to take care of the problem and/or limit the city size.

In otherwords, let your cities grow and threaten your angry citizens with nerve staples.. they'll come around.

Regards,
Jeremy.

 

[TwoFaced]

Why would anybody care whether or not a city keeps growing? Sure, when it grows past the happyness limit you get an angry citizen that doesn't work but that makes the city behave as if it didn't grow - with one exception. When you later make folk in the city happy, you have a pregrown city. If you restrict the growth because of unhappy citizens, you then have to wait around for it to grow later (once you've built temples or whatever).

Compare this to earlier civs. If your city grows too big, it goes into unrest and shuts down - no production, no growth. You had to take care of the problem and/or limit the city size.

In otherwords, let your cities grow and threaten your angry citizens with nerve staples.. they'll come around.

Regards,
Jeremy.

I think I completely agree. In prior civs I always wanted the option to stop my city from growing because of the problem of unrest. However, in civ4 it seems like it's not a big deal to have an unhappy citizen. Sure eventually your city will starve and you'll lose that citizen but if you can fix it before that happens you have the citizen already.

Although without a granary you would lose that citizen right away...right? Perhaps by stopping growth you would have enough time to produce whatever you need to support that citizen and once you've completed your project you can turn growth back on thus giving you a citizen right away because you already have the surplus. Hmmm...well if I am thinking about that correctly I guess I see how it is useful. Plus even if you had a granary you might not be able to support the citizen before starvation occurs. By turning off growth you get the needed time to build whatever is necessary to support your next citizen. The more I think about it the more useful it seems.

 

[rjjb]

...Sure eventually your city will starve and you'll lose that citizen but if you can fix it before that happens you have the citizen already.

Although without a granary you would lose that citizen right away...right? ...

The granary would give you a small buffer in the final case, but a city that has a large food surplus (say it has access to 3-4 flood plains and/or resources) can support multiple angry citizens without going into starvation (and in some cases keep growing). The final case is when your city runs out of the surplus food and can't support all the angry citizens; the granary buffer will run out and you'll lose an angry citizen - big loss.

This is kinda like the noncommittal research/unit promotion exploit.

Jeremy.

 

[Gontzal]

Thanks for your help. Anyway, I think that it shouldn't display (grow in 1 turn) but instead say something like (growing disabled).

 

[TwoFaced]

Thanks for your help. Anyway, I think that it shouldn't display (grow in 1 turn) but instead say something like (growing disabled).

I agree completly. It would be nice to have some indication on the main screen that shows a citys growth has been disabled.