How do I kill happiness?

[cammcken]

Hah, don't we all. I think it's actually a good thing that city development is somewhat unpredictable as it's more engaging and reflects the dynamic nature of empires. It's not just the happiness system, either, it's what social policies and ideologies you pick, what religion, what function the city has or will have to adopt in your empire etc.

+1 to mostly everything you said. I like it too. Maybe this is just my perfectionism speaking. Or, maybe I'm just really bad at estimating. I tend to trust the city governor, but sometimes it makes decisions I didn't anticipate. See below. I'm not having trouble, so I'm not turning down difficulty, but I am trying to get better / more optimal. As Stalker0 said above, informed decisions make the game fun.

Off-topic: Does anyone else notice the city governor sometimes working specialists when more yields can be had (with less food consumption) working a tile? Such as an engineer when a good mine is available. Why would the governor do this?

Also, not sure if I understood correctly, but you can estimate quite well, how the city will perform based on the terrain.

Maybe you're just better than me. In some games I make a capital city for GP production, stuff it with farms only to notice most of the farms are unworked. In other games I'll build a manufactury by a city with almost all grassland / ocean tiles, only to notice later that it's doing perfectly fine with production. Infrastructure all up to date.

Rather than food/production starved, I would be afraid of growing too fast too much and then getting hit by unhappiness from undeveloped infrastructure.

Well, isn't that just a case of too much food, not enough production?

 

[civplayer33]

Why would the governor do this?

Specialists often produce more than just their specialty yield (as well as Great Person Points).

 

[Stalker0]

In some games I make a capital city for GP production, stuff it with farms only to notice most of the farms are unworked.

I think this is something that can be easily forgotten for many people. In VP, honestly a city doesn't need a lot of tiles to work until very late in the game, as specialists tend to take a good amount of your slots. This is especially true with Tradition. Funny enough, a Tradition Capital has the least reliance on terrain overall imo. With the combination of specialists and GPTIs I'm normally working, its common to not work any "standard" tiles.

 

[tu_79]

I'm fine with happiness, but my personal pet peeve is city planning. How many tiles between each city, and how am I going to arrange improvements?

In Civ4, when each city got 20 tiles, I used to be able to count up how many mines/lumbermills I'd have and how many farms I'd have, and immediately know whether I'd have enough food to work all tiles plus specialists. If I don't, I know it's okay to chop a few forests to make farms.

Let's not talk about vanilla Civ5, but skip to Vox Populi. The dynamic happiness system is cool, and I appreciate all the effort put into balancing it and making it flow, but now there's no benchmark for my city's final population count. I could use 30, for the maximum 30 tiles each city can command, but that's not optimum in VP for a number of reasons. Even if I had a number, I still couldn't use it to predict how many farms I need, because I'll need more than that amount. With growth slower and more important, I need to keep a significant surplus if I ever want to reach that number.

TLDR: Before I build that city and before I cut that forest, I wish I could know whether my city will be food-starved or production-starved 2000 years down the line.

You can make a rough estimate. If you can plow a farm triangle, that gives support for at least one guild. If you can work 3-5 mines or 4-5 pastures, or 3-4 quarries (or a mix), that's an excellent production city. If it has some luxuries, that will make a good trading city.

I'd recommend to settle at least one city very close to your capital, so you can put that other city to work on great people tile improvements when the capital no longer wants them. As for the other cities, place them where they can work at least 4-5 resources, unless your civ has an unique improvement, then you can settle them closer if you need an early boost, or farther if you think you can survive the early game easily.

 

[cammcken]

You can make a rough estimate. If you can plow a farm triangle, that gives support for at least one guild. If you can work 3-5 mines or 4-5 pastures, or 3-4 quarries (or a mix), that's an excellent production city. If it has some luxuries, that will make a good trading city.

Thanks! These are exactly the specifics I need to ease my mind. You're the real MVP in this thread.