Health in Cap City

[RedRalph]

For almost all of the game (particularly towards the end) my capital city is unhealthy, regardless of what health resources I have, all the other cities tend to be fine but the capital is always sick. Any ideas?

 

[r_rolo1]

It's normal that your capitol is most of the time:
- Normally is one of your bigger cities ( +1 per citizen )
- Normally you'll build forges in there ( to add + 25% to the Beauro bonus ) which means +1
-Idem to factories, coal plants, etc

Cabert's need health? article gives you a more detailed look on the and origins and how to deal with them

 

[volfan37132]

For almost all of the game (particularly towards the end) my capital city is unhealthy, regardless of what health resources I have, all the other cities tend to be fine but the capital is always sick. Any ideas?

One idea is not to chop so many forests. Each tile of forest provides +0.5
toward the health cap. Does your capital have access to fresh water?
I would think you would already have an aqueduct, granary, grocer and
harbor if your city is coastal. The supermarket and hospital are late
game buildings that help the health cap. The environmentalism civic can
also give you a health boost.

 

[RedRalph]

On this, I always found it odd that you dont have a doctors surgery building early-ish on in the game. Seems to me a very very obvious building.

Cheers lads

 

[cabert]

On this, I always found it odd that you dont have a doctors surgery building early-ish on in the game. Seems to me a very very obvious building.

Cheers lads

that's because you don't research medicine early enough
I'm sure your citizens don't care much for physics and would like you to research medicine as top priority .

On the topic, how big is your capital?
It's rather hard to keep a size 30 city happy and healthy.
Some players switch to environnementalism for this, because they run really large cities with hordes of scientists.

Personnaly I just let the late cities be unhealthy until I have refrigeration, then I $rush supermarkets where needed.

 

[KMadCandy]

i've noticed that the initial settler location tends to have fresh water nearby. one AI in my current game has no rivers or lakes in his close territory, but he does have a one-tile-long strip of river right next to his capital, which i assume he settled directly on the spot that he started at.

but, you starting location also tends to have multiple food bonuses. so yes, it tends to get bigger than a lot of other cities. and many of us like to run some specialists there, and not whip folks away as often as in other cities. most people chop at the capital for early wonders or early troops to go rush somebody. i hyper-micro-manage the forests i forests i chop there so that the ones i leave give the highest chance for forests to grow back. but i'm insane.

sometimes i obsess about health, sometimes i don't. if they're losing food because they have too many people, it's because they had too much food in the first place after all. but that green cloud sure is ugly.

definitely check out cabert's article.

 

[obsolete]

I always found it odd the city menu doesn't tell you the heath you gain from each forest. I even forgot myself how much health each forest contributes.

 

[KMadCandy]

+1 health for each 2 forests. 1 forest by itself gives you nothing. forests that are shared in the crosses of 2 cities benefit both cities (if both end up with an even number of forests, that is). even if the other city is a foreign city! of course usually the AI will farm over it at some point or another tho.

when you hover over health it tells you +2 from forest and then you can count the forests and see 4 if you want to spend the time, but yeah it doesn't specifically tell you.

 

[Arnesson]

+1 health for each 2 forests. 1 forest by itself gives you nothing. forests that are shared in the crosses of 2 cities benefit both cities (if both end up with an even number of forests, that is). even if the other city is a foreign city! of course usually the AI will farm over it at some point or another tho.

when you hover over health it tells you +2 from forest and then you can count the forests and see 4 if you want to spend the time, but yeah it doesn't specifically tell you.

Maybe we should have a new Specialist, Johnny Appleseed, who goes around re-planting the forests that were chopped early in the game

 

[obsolete]

In civ III we used to have that plant-forest button.

I am not sure how forest regrowth works in civ IV, but it can't be equally likely to respawn on all tiles. A forest overgrowing a cottage or farm wouldn't make sense.

 

[Jastrow]

Forrest cannot regrow on any tiles with an improovement (even roads), and tend to regrow only adjacent to existing forrest.

 

[Preacherman]

Not true. While improvement make it impossible to regrow forest, roads do not. A forest can still regrow in a square with a road, although someone here said it reduces the chance of it happening.

 

[vale]

I believe roads decrease the chance of a forest(or jungle) growing by 1/2. Still for the most part, forest growth is a rare enough event that it is hard to plan around it and it is better to just try to plan to save an even number of forests in the city tiles to begin with. Plains forests are perfect targets for non chopping since the underlying tile is pretty lame for most of the game.

 

[obsolete]

I usually have my autoworks set on Leave-Forests, and I'll keep them around until the end-game. Then I have sawmills & Railroads through them. The exception is I'll convert forests on hills into Mines SOMETIMES.

Though sometime's I'll just have to chop them early to rush for some early wonders if I don't have stone/marble handy...