City keeps going to population 1 and production slows.

[MarkJohnson]

I'm trying to play with the Specialist Economy (SE) and read the tutorial here a couple times and I keep ending up with population 1 all the time and my progess just gets too slow. I took a screenshot of my town in hopes someone can give me advice on what I'm doing wrong. I tried to search the "Abridged Manual" that came with my Civ IV Gold, but couldn't find much there. On the manual's cover it says the full manual is on disc three, but there is only a compressed file on there and I don't know how to open it or get to it from the game.

here's my screenshot:





it is turn 151 and it has been on 1 population since around turn 120 or so. I upgraded around the city with no luck.

-=Mark=-
p.s. does anyone have a link on how to manage everything on this screen. I'm totally lost and what to do with all these options and what they all mean.

 

[Fjordson]

you have to make sure there is enough food before you start assigning specialists

 

[r_rolo1]

You probably worked the wrong tiles.... you have 3 Floodplains farms in that city, each of them capable of sustaining the citizen that is working it ( click on the tile with the left button to assign a citizen to it ) and a specialist ( every citizen eats 2 per turn regardsless of what he is doing ), so the only ways of the city got to that sorry state is overwhipping or wrong tile usage. Even now, with the city reduced to 1 citizen, you are still hiring a scientist...... What you should be doing now would be unhiring that scientist, put him to work on the FP farms and let the city grow to 4 pop ( working the 3 FP farms and the cow pasture ) and then start hiring specialists....

 

[KMadCandy]

you have the bottom left button pushed on the city governor, "emphasize research". i've never used it, but looking at your screenshot i guess the silly governor interprets that as "emphasize research above everything else including maintaining any semblance of a population or a productive society"!

i don't know a really good guide to the screen itself, sorry. i don't think it'll help much for the screen, but for stuff i can't remember i'm always (and i do mean always) hitting F12 to go check the civilopedia.

 

[Kalyse]

Yeha have added a scientist to the specialist bar. see the [+] [-]. Hit minus and the game will auto asign your citezin to the tile which you have selected in the 'emphasis panel'. At the moment you have emphasis science, but you should hit emphasize population growth. It will most likely select the til bottom right with 3/3/1

 

[MarkJohnson]

ok, I tuned off everything and clicked the "Turn On Citizen Automation" like it was before and it is recovering nicely.

What I want to do is turn on as many scientists as possible and "Turn on Emphasize Great Person" Production(I had "Turn on Emphasize Research" by mistake).

is there an easy way to balance these things out or a formula like if population is say 8 then I can have x number of scientist? or the reverse, like if I have say 6 scientist and population of 12, how many can I whip?

and yes, it got to one from overwhipping. although it was at pop 2 and went to 1 quickly, but seemed fine until I whipped.

 

[Willem]

it is turn 151 and it has been on 1 population since around turn 120 or so. I upgraded around the city with no luck.

Of course it's not growing, look at your food usage. You're only producing 2 food and using those for your specialist, leaving you with no surplus for future growth. It even tells you that your population growth is Stagnant. You need to have a decent food production happening before you start assigning specialists. There should be a surplus of at least 2 food per turn in order to get any half decent growth in a city.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Basically if you want to auto run scientists, turn on citizen automation and click emphasize GP and Emphasize Science, don't force it to run a scientist if you intend on whipping it, that may take it too low for the scientist.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Basically if you want to auto run scientists, turn on citizen automation and click emphasize GP and Emphasize Science, don't force it to run a scientist if you intend on whipping it, that may take it too low for the scientist.

ok, that makes sense to me. I just need to figure out this city management. If I leave everything on auto I do ok, I just figure the higher level I choose the more micromanagement that will need to be done. It seems like every time I open this page everything falls apart for me. I started figuring that I can change things if I have a good population already and it seems to do well, but if the city is in chaos then I just hit auto-everything and it soon recovers. I just wish there was a good tutorial on city management, but it is probably too conditional to have an effective one made.

Thanks everyone for all the help
-=Mark=-

btw.. I just finished playing this last game, I am at 2005AD and did pretty good even though I didn't manage my cities well. My big problems I think were that I was selling too many tech and not buying enough. cash flow was low from trying to figure out city management. I also was over-whipping and mis-managing my city scientists and I didn't have my scietists up in any of my other cities. By the time I figured that part out I was supposed to have 3 scientist in every city, but I went ahead and finished it out to see how it went and I learned a whole lot more

I did however conquer my one smaller opponent(Hammurabi), but it took way too long. I started around 1900 and finally won his 5 cities in 1990. It was a long battle with the Gilgamesh and Pacal II and making me declare peace 2 or 3 times from the stupid United Nations. then after I defeated Hammurabi I started after those 2 and seen they had at least twice the army I did and twice the territory, when I reached thier border, Gilgamesh had a stack of about 30 units or more sitting there waiting for me - hehe. I was lucky if I had 30 units in my whole empire - lol I decide to just surrender and maybe start again with my new found information.

I'm sure I can WHIP them this time. hehe

 

[Kesshi]

btw.. I just finished playing this last game, I am at 2005AD and did pretty good even though I didn't manage my cities well. My big problems I think were that I was selling too many tech and not buying enough. cash flow was low from trying to figure out city management. I also was over-whipping and mis-managing my city scientists and I didn't have my scietists up in any of my other cities. By the time I figured that part out I was supposed to have 3 scientist in every city, but I went ahead and finished it out to see how it went and I learned a whole lot more

MarkJohnson,

I think part of the problem is that you might be trying to manage two different types of play styles that don't work with each other very well. Specialists can be extremely powerful, but only if you have larger cities. Where as whipping is most powerful with smaller sized cities.

To help answer your question about your city:

Each population point consumes 2 food per turn.

At size one, your city consumes 2 food per turn.
At size two, your city consumes 4 food per turn.
At size three, your city consumes 6 food per turn.

For each point unhealthiness greater than your healthiness, your city will consume one more piece of food.

At size 6, with 6 unhealthy and 6healthy, your city will consume 12 + 0 = 12 food.
At size 7, with 7 unhealthy and 6 healthy, your city will consume 14 + 1 = 15 food.
At size 8, with 8 unhealthy and 6 healthy, your city will consume 16 + 2 = 18 food.

Lets look at your example city. Ignoring all other attributes, lets focus on food and commerce, because running specialists, it's all about food. You have 4 floodplains, 2 irrigated grasslands, and 1 non-irrigated grasslands. Each floodplain can generate 4 food and 1 commerce each. The 2 irrigated grasslands generate you 3 food and 1 commerce each. The 1 non-irrigated grassland generates you 2 food pre-civil service, and 3 food after civil-service. And the 1 horses (?) that produces 3 food and 1 commerce.

Lets explore what happens if you have no health problems, and no happiness problems:

1 floodplain = 4 food. Each population point takes 2 food, thus each floodplain nets you 2 extra food, or 1 specialist each. So for working on just the 4 floodplains nets you 4 scientists. Not to mention the 4 extra commerce, which helps out your science output of the city as well!

1 grassland = 3 food. Each grassland nets you 1 extra food. Or for every 2 grasslands, you get 1 extra specialist. So with 3 grasslands, you get 1.5 extra specialists. (I'll explain the half in a moment.) The commerce from the 2 irrigated tiles also net you 1 commerce each, which is nice.

1 horse (?) = 3 food. Some with grasslands, you get 1 specialists per two tiles worked. This finishes off your final "half" specialist.

While working all 4 floodplains, all 3 grasslands, and the 1 horse, you'll have 8 citizens working in the field, and 6 specialists working.* Your city's production will be low, but you can always unhire the specialists and hire miners to work on the hills, for when you need to build an important building.

I hope this helps.

*note, these numbers are pre-Biology, but post Civil Service.

 

[Willem]

By the time I figured that part out I was supposed to have 3 scientist in every city, but I went ahead and finished it out to see how it went and I learned a whole lot more

You can't think like that, not every city can support specialists. You have to look at each one and figure out whether you're going to have enough food in it to actually support 3 Scientists. You're much better off having people work the land, but if you happen to have a bunch of extra food, then you assign some specialists. But not until then. Only assign specialists in cities where you have a large enough surplus of food to support them, like one that has two or more food resources or a bunch of Floodplains.

And you don't want just Scientists either. Specialize one or two cities as financial centers with merchants, and have the same for an engineer in your production cities. A Great Artist is also useful to have later in the game in order to create a corporation, and artist specialists can really help in your border cities to expand your culture. It's a mistake to have only one type of specialist, you need to diversify.

 

[MarkJohnson]

You can't think like that, not every city can support specialists. You have to look at each one and figure out whether you're going to have enough food in it to actually support 3 Scientists. You're much better off having people work the land, but if you happen to have a bunch of extra food, then you assign some specialists. But not until then. Only assign specialists in cities where you have a large enough surplus of food to support them, like one that has two or more food resources or a bunch of Floodplains.

And you don't want just Scientists either. Specialize one or two cities as financial centers with merchants, and have the same for an engineer in your production cities. A Great Artist is also useful to have later in the game in order to create a corporation, and artist specialists can really help in your border cities to expand your culture. It's a mistake to have only one type of specialist, you need to diversify.

Yes, I found out quickly you can build very anything you want. I built a city in the desert by the ocean to get access to copper, and copper was the only resource except the ocean which had no visible resources there. I mistakenly built a theatre to keep the city happy in the desert and realized I should of built a light house or something that took advantage of the ocean. it took like 100+ turns to get a population of 2, but i got my copper! - lol

I too quickly found out about my needing more than just a great person city with the scientist cities. I discovered I had made(by mistake) a gold producing city, a war production city, and a cultural city. I had a spy city also, but it was the same as my great person city, but it still helped with my research. I definitely see your point in diversification.

@Kesshi;

Thanks so much for the info, it is making it much easier to manage my city. right now I'm still having the AI run the city management and watching to see what it does and what numbers are changing and which numbers are being affected by what I build. not making much sense yet, but it is producing faster.

I did noticed when I researched the wheel after founding my second city, that the road I built to connect the two cities had inadvertently passed through the corn field and said I discover my first food crop, but it had been built by my worker several turns ago. now I have a worker on automated Build Trade Network and see how that helps with connecting all these farms/mines I've built.

Thanks a ton you guys, I really do appreciate all this help
-=Mark=-

 

[Kesshi]

@Kesshi;

Thanks so much for the info, it is making it much easier to manage my city. right now I'm still having the AI run the city management and watching to see what it does and what numbers are changing and which numbers are being affected by what I build. not making much sense yet, but it is producing faster.

MarkJohnson,

I'm glad to help! I get so much help here, and I pass it along to others. You be sure to do the same, ya hear?

I did noticed when I researched the wheel after founding my second city, that the road I built to connect the two cities had inadvertently passed through the corn field and said I discover my first food crop, but it had been built by my worker several turns ago. now I have a worker on automated Build Trade Network and see how that helps with connecting all these farms/mines I've built.

Thanks a ton you guys, I really do appreciate all this help
-=Mark=-

No no no, you didn't discover the food, you connected the food to your city. Corn has the usefulness of providing +1 health for the irrigation and +1 health for a granary. Regardless, your corn resource was giving you nothing (except maybe a bonus food if the tile was worked) until you both built the proper improvement (a farm in this example) and connected it to your city with A ROAD!*

Remember, cities have unhealthiness that equals their population size + some buildings buildings + some tiles**. As you grow in size, so will your unhealthiness. You will need to keep up with buildings, like the aqueduct, or resources that work in conjunction with buildings, like harbors with fish and clams, or corn with granary, and bananas with a grocer.

Happiness works very much the same. Your cities have unhappy citizens that equals their population size + other*** You can get happiness directly from buildings, such as the colosseum, indirectly from buildings, such as the colosseum netting you +1 happiness per 20% you push the cultural slider, or from resources that work in conjunction with buildings, like ivory with markets and dye with theatres.

Regardless, even if you're just learning, I will encourage you to stop automating things. The AI does some very silly things with my cities that I find ridiculous. First off, a worker on automated build trade network will build forts over your un-improved resources. This is very wasteful in worker turns.

One of my favourites automation silliness was in a multiplayer game a few nights ago. With multiplayer on quick sped, I don't have time to micromanage everything, so I use as little automation as I can get away with. This game was an island map, and I had built a farm on a rivered plains for a grand total of 3 food, 1 production and 1 commerce. The city next to that tile had the lighthouse and moai statues (combined +1 production and +1 food from water tiles), so the fresh water lake in the city's BFC netted me 3 food, 1 production, and 2 commerce. Yet the AI kept working the rivered plains. I could have gained 1 commerce for FREE if I had simply moved that tile over. Who knows how many turns that was going on for. That example doesn't even begin to break the surface of what you can do in some cities with lots of micromanagement, a bit of forethought, and a lot ingenuity with working different properly improved tiles and maximizing specialists to the current occasion. I am a fan of the Food Economies if you couldn't tell. Specialist and/or Trade Route Economies make me giddy.

If micromanaging isn't your thing, that's an acceptable way to play. Just realize that if/when it comes time to make the leap up to noble+, you will find it more difficult than if you learned how to properly micromanage. Though don't fret yourself if you can't get up in levels. Most everyone I know who plays CivIV is at Noble or below, and they still enjoy the hell out of the game.

Whew, long post this time. I think it's time for bed. Good night, and happy daylights savings day!

*Rivers can also connect resources. If you have copper on a tile next to a river, and your city is also on that river, you don't need the road to use the copper. Though you'll want to be able to get back to your river resource tiles quickly if your improvement is destroyed (random event, sabotaged, or bombed) or if an enemy force is approaching. The increased mobility that a road generates can be critical to getting your workers and/or military force to repair and/or defend your key resources. Losing copper and/or iron during an early war can cripple your military production.

I miss the old days of Civ when rivers were in the middle of tiles (not in between them) and moving along rivers counted as roads. Roads in CivI were always 1/3rd of a movement, so you could move 3 spaces up or down rivers at a time!

**Those tiles are jungles, floodplains, and fallout.

***Too many to list here. Maybe if you ask nicely, we'll make you a huge list. And I do mean huge!

 

[MarkJohnson]

OK, I just played 100 or so turns with no automation. I was already manually managing my workers. I too noticed the automated workers will destroy an improvement in order to build something different.

In the City management screen I turned off the automation there also, but didn't know what to do from there. I tried to hit the plus sign to build a citizen and my food went to zero and my worker went from 11 turns to built up to 19 turns to build. I hit the minus sign to take it back and just let my city idle until my worker was built and then try assigning afterwards.

Here's a screenie of end of turn 1. no automation, no citizen, and population 1.


Here's a screenie of the same turn with 1 citizen turned on:


Here's a screenie of my map, my scout got a free map:


I see nowhere on the map on how to assign my population which tiles get worked. also, my population is growing even if I city management automation is turned off. Maybe I'm just trying to do more here than is allowed? If I hit the different "emphasize" buttons, it will change which tiles are worked, but I can't seem to specifically assign anybody to work them.

Here are a few screenies of a few turns later:

Here is Turn 14, I just noticed my city production went up. I had 1 worker creating a mine and my warrior is about half done. again, if I try to create my own citizen my warrior production slows greatly.




Here is turn 21 and my population went to 2. I just created my first warrior and started on my second worker. Now how did my population go to 2 without me creating anything? I thought with city management automation turned off It wouldn't grow. I still haven't figured out how to select my population so I can assign which tiles to work.




I guess I'll stop here and see what everyone thinks. I don't want to overload you with too much info.
-=Mark=-

and thanks again Kesshi for all the wonderful info. it sure does help a lot in figuring out all these details. I'd really like to learn the micromanagement options. I want to hopefully conquer all the levels and it seems micromanagement is the only way to do it, or at least understanding how it works so you know when to micromanage and when it's not necessary.

 

[KMadCandy]

if somebody's working on a tile you don't them working on, click on that tile in the city screen. that takes them off that tile into a citizen, then you click (in the city screen again) on the tile you DO want them to work. that's how you pick the tiles to get worked. sometimes it takes my computer a second to realize i clicked on a tile, and i'll click on it a second time since i'm impatient. that messes things up of course, since it obeys both clicks when there was supposed to be only one! so watch out for that just in case.

cities do grow without automation. you don't need to use the automation at all, it's just there for people who like it (and trust it). but cities don't grow while they're making workers or settlers, since the food turns into production for those two things. those are the only two things where food doesn't build up for more population. so while you built the warrior, the food bar at the top filled up, and when it got full, your population grew by 1. you might already know that, or it might be part of the confusion, so i just put it in there. sorry if you did know it.

you didn't actually include a picture of turn 21.

 

[MarkJohnson]

if somebody's working on a tile you don't them working on, click on that tile in the city screen. that takes them off that tile into a citizen, then you click (in the city screen again) on the tile you DO want them to work. that's how you pick the tiles to get worked. sometimes it takes my computer a second to realize i clicked on a tile, and i'll click on it a second time since i'm impatient. that messes things up of course, since it obeys both clicks when there was supposed to be only one! so watch out for that just in case.

cities do grow without automation. you don't need to use the automation at all, it's just there for people who like it (and trust it). but cities don't grow while they're making workers or settlers, since the food turns into production for those two things. those are the only two things where food doesn't build up for more population. so while you built the warrior, the food bar at the top filled up, and when it got full, your population grew by 1. you might already know that, or it might be part of the confusion, so i just put it in there. sorry if you did know it.

you didn't actually include a picture of turn 21.

ok, I put Turn 21 in and fixed turn 14 as it was pointing to turn 1.

I thought I was over analyzing the population part. so if I build a citizen or specialist then my population goes up? or are those separate from population? if they are the same then how do you convert 3 population into 1 specialist to lower the population lie some technologies give. I tried once and couldn't figure out how to do it. or is it smart enough and do it on it's own and may take a turn or two to accomplish.


I didn't know it cost food to make workers and settlers. I seen they cost hammers, but that was all.

also, how long does it take or what can raise the population by 1? I whip early in the game and the population seems to go back up faster than I can whip, at other times I can't seem to get my population to increase very fast.

and 1 last question - lol Why is it sometimes I get a population of say 14, be overcrowded, and then I look at my city management and only like 7 tiles are being worked?

I think I'll try to play a little and see what I can figure out.

Thanks again
-=Mark=-

 

[Bhruic]

I didn't know it cost food to make workers and settlers. I seen they cost hammers, but that was all.

They don't cost food, they only cost hammers. But for their production, any surplus food your city is producing will be converted into hammers to speed production. The downside of this is that your city won't grow while you are producing them.

also, how long does it take or what can raise the population by 1? I whip early in the game and the population seems to go back up faster than I can whip, at other times I can't seem to get my population to increase very fast.

It depends on the size of the city (as well as the game speed you are using). Growing from size 2 to size 3 takes a lot less food than growing from size 10 to size 11.

and 1 last question - lol Why is it sometimes I get a population of say 14, be overcrowded, and then I look at my city management and only like 7 tiles are being worked?

There are other things your citizens can be doing. They can either be angry (and thus not producing anything), or they can be turned into specialists. Check the bottom right side of your city screen(s).

Bh

 

[KMadCandy]

the tile that the city is on always gets worked but isn't part of the population. maybe that part was confusing. you just get it free for making the city. that's why cities never starve away no matter what you do, because that free 2 food feeds the one person living there. even if you kinda wish they would starve and disappear sometimes! that's another of those "maybe you already knew, maybe you didn't" things i throw in free sometimes .

"also, how long does it take or what can raise the population by 1?"
that depends on how much food you have in the city. the food bar (orange on top of the city screen) has to fill up and then overflow. when it overflows is when someone else is born in the city. only the extra food that your population isn't eating goes into the food bar. if you look at your turn 14 picture, where you're creating a warrior, the city is making 5 food per turn (2 from city square, 3 from the oasis the 1 population is working on). the one population living there eats 2 food per turn, so 5 food is 3 more than they're eating, and the city's growing fast.

so how fast a city grows varies by how much food is on the tiles that the city can work, and also by the size of the city. the amount of food needed to fill up the food bar increases for each population. if you have a size 1 city and a size 5 city that are both making 4 extra food per turn, the size 1 city has a much smaller food bar to fill so it'll grow to 2 a lot faster than the size 5 will grow to 6.

"so if I build a citizen or specialist then my population goes up? or are those separate from population?"
i'm sorry but there i'm really not sure what you mean. if you have someone who lives in your city working as a citizen or a specialist, then that means they're not working on a tile, they're assigned to another job. but they're still part of the population. like your 2nd picture of turn 1, with the citizen. that citizen is the "1 population" of the city.

all of your population feels overcrowded because the game just makes it that way. even your very first person starts out because "it's too crowded". he has a whole empire to himself, what more can he ask for? that unhappiness stays forever, all you can about it is counteract it with things to make them happy (buildings, luxuries, culture slider). but you can't ever make it go away. edit: Bhruic also answered while i was typing slowly. he's probably answering what you were really asking

 

[MarkJohnson]

"so if I build a citizen or specialist then my population goes up? or are those separate from population?"
i'm sorry but there i'm really not sure what you mean. if you have someone who lives in your city working as a citizen or a specialist, then that means they're not working on a tile, they're assigned to another job. but they're still part of the population. like your 2nd picture of turn 1, with the citizen. that citizen is the "1 population" of the city.

ok, what I was really trying to get at was when I click on the plus sign to make a specialist, it doesn't show up and slows down my production. I assume because it is both making the specialist and whatever is in my production queue. I also assume that the specialist cost more to produce than a citizen.

now, there are certain technologies that let you train like 3 citizens for an engineer. does that just mean I need 3 free citizens to do it, or does it reduce my population and give me 1 specialist and thereby reducing my population by 1?

for example:

after getting the Construction tech and I build the Odeon it has the ability to "Turn 2 citizens into an Artist" so do I need to specifically build 2 citizens with the hitting the plus sign, or does each population count as a citizen, and when I create the Artist it lowers the population by one (losing 2 citizens and gaining an Artist?) If so, how do I accomplish such a feat? I see no option to do this.


I assumed at first if I hit the plus sign it would create the Artist and reduce the population by 2 instantly, kind of like a quick conversion. Now, I assume I need to create the 1 Artist first and then it will automatically reduce the population by 2?

it seems it should be a separate ability because you may want to create an artist without reducing your population.

well, I think I'll play some more and experiment a little.

Thanks again all. I think I have a pretty basic grasp of this city management now.
-=Mark=-

 

[KMadCandy]

oh! okay...

the wording is kind of weird. you "turn a citizen into an artist" just temporarily, while you tell him to work as an artist specialist. it doesn't turn them into a Great Artist, if that's what you thought? but it does help you earn great artists faster. if you hire artist specialists for long enough, then a great artist will be born, and you don't lose any population. if you hire a mix of types of specialists, then some kind of great person will be born after a while, but you won't know for sure which kind ahead of time.

the specialist still lives in the city, he doesn't really "turn into" anything, and you can put him back to work on a tile any time you want to. he still eats 2 food every turn, even tho he's not making any food while he's a specialist. it doesn't lower the city size, but it does lower the number of people working on the tiles. it only reduces your population if you have so many specialists that the city ends up eating more food than it makes, so they start to starve. it usually slows down your production because most specialists give no hammers. they all do give something, if you hold your mouse over the picture it tells you what they give.

anyway, right now, in your city the only specialist you can assign is a citizen (it's confusing that the game calls your population citizens but it also calls that bottom-specialist a "citizen specialist"). that's because you don't have any buildings that let you assign specialists. once you build an Odeon, then you can assign 2 of your population to work as artist specialists if you want to. to do that, you need to hit the + by the artist (the + that isn't there right now, haha). it works the same way with libraries for scientists, forges for 1 engineer, and the other buildings that let you have specialists.