How do I help with over crowding?

[Astaldo711]

I not a COMPLETE newb to the game. My wife bought it for me last Christmas. I AM new, however, to strategy games. I always enjoyed them, but I was terrible at them. Civ IV changed that. It's very friendly to new players. I have one reoccuring problem, though. I always seem to have people because of over crowding. How do Ialleviate this? More cottages? Wait for the borders to expand? Make a settler in the city in question? I can have a thriving empire, but it falls to heck with overcrowding.

 

[podraza]

You begin each game with a limited number of population points you can grow to before you reach the happiness limit. After you've passed that limit, each new person you grow becomes a worthless unhappy drain. But you can increase the happiness limit.

Luxury resources (wine, silk, etc) connected to the empire will increase the limit one per city. Within each city, certain buildings will increase the limit, such as temples and theaters.

Find any post by Cabert and look at his signature, he has a link to a very helpful post, everything you'll ever need to know about happiness.

Health works much the same way as happiness, by the way. You start with a limit and must work to increase that limit in various ways.

 

[Thedrin]

I assume you're refering to 'it's way too crowded'.

For every population point in a city, unhappiness (and unhealthiness) increases by one. 'It's way too crowded' represents this. Think of it as representing the problems associated with large populations. Short of deliberately reducing a city's size, there's no way of getting rid of it. If there are no other sources of unhappiness the only way to increase your city's happiness cap is to increase the number of happy faces.

 

[Zhahz]

Increase your happiness resources, use governors, micromanage, and/or leverage civics.

As stated, certain resources boost happiness when you control them - so control them and/or research the techs to let you tap them. Certain buildings or civics can also influence happiness.

You can use the city governor to hinder growth, or to emphasize something other than growth which will usually keep growth slow enough to minimize unhappiness episodes. A food rich city left alone will usually grow like crazy and quickly grow into unhappiness.

In the early game slavery/whipping can help control population growth. You gain unhappiness via whipping but it also culls your population and can help you comlete happiness providing structures quicker.

Manually control the tiles your citizens work, adjust them as needed to control the food surplus of the city (micromanagement - you have to keep an eye on the happy limits of cities and be ready to juggle citizens to control food surplus appropriately on-the-fly).

 

[OwenShadd2006]

one word

genocide

 

[FuRRie]

this smiley says it all

 

[Tristan daCunha]

Yes! Or you could assign a bunch of workers to be specialists, lowering the food per turn to below growth level. Heck, you can even starve your city to make it a lower population.

 

[Guagle]

Or alternatively, when a city has reached its happiness cap, just click on 'avoid growth' in the city screen.

Don't forget to click it again when you've raised tour happiness cap, with religion, new luxuries or buildings as others have said.

 

[Astaldo711]

Thanks for all the advice. I'll try it out. Well...except for the whole "genocide" thing.

 

[AfterShafter]

What ever happened to good 'ol nerve stapling?

 

[flamingzaroc121]

This is the link you were looking for it has everything a bout happiness and un happiness

Kudos to cabert for making it

 

[Bushface]

I not a COMPLETE newb to the game. My wife bought it for me last Christmas. I AM new, however, to strategy games. I always enjoyed them, but I was terrible at them. Civ IV changed that. It's very friendly to new players. I have one reoccuring problem, though. I always seem to have people because of over crowding. How do Ialleviate this? More cottages? Wait for the borders to expand? Make a settler in the city in question? I can have a thriving empire, but it falls to heck with overcrowding.

My thought is that there are two types of "red face" icons. One is always seen on the city screen (but I can't find it among the available smilies) and you get one per population point plus, possibly, one or more due to war weariness. There is nothing you can do about those from population: war weariness can be reduced by running Police State, building Mount Rushmore (these two take effect over all your civ), and building Jails in cities that need them. But to keep your city running smoothly all you have to do is ensure that the number of happy yellow faces is greater than, or at least equal to, the number of unhappy (red) faces,
When the number of unhappy faces exceeds that of yellow faces, then you get the
icon used in your post. This represents an angry citizen, not just an unhappy one, who refuses to work - and this is the type that the other posters have been discussing.