Managing growth - what is it good for?

[siggboy]

Hi,

I'm increasingly puzzled by the value of inhibiting growth in your city for health and unhappiness reasons. People keep mentioning that it is important to do so if you are facing limits.

The more I think about it, the more I think that it doesn't really matter. For example, if one of your cities has the potential to grow to size 17 before it stagnates, why not simply let it do so? If some (or many) of its citizens will be unhappy (and unproductive), why should you care? If those citizens weren't there in the first place, they would not generate any profit either. So in my eyes you are trading no additional profit for no additional profit.

The same goes for unhealthiness: You city might become unhealthy and finally starvant, but what's the problem? It will starve back to the point where it's not unhealthy anymore. Everything else will be unaffected.

However, having excessively large cities brings some obvious advantages:
1. You can whip away a large amounts of people if needed.
2. If you collect bonuses (resources, techs, civics, wonders), some of the red citizens will instantly be put to work, and you don't have to wait for the city to grow.

You can also look at it from another angle: If, for example during war, your city becomes unhappy, is your first reaction "well, I'll starve/whip it down to happiness"? Probably not -- you rather try to end the war or find ways to increase your limits.

So, what aspect am I missing here? What's the point in limiting growth (apart from scoring better in the life/approval categories on the demo screen)?

Edit: I can think of one aspect now: "We love the King" days. So of course if those start to become valuable, you want to keep your cities healthy and happy. But before that?

--Sigi

 

[Galileo44]

The reason is that normally if you have a food surplus you could be changing worked tiles and improvements to reduce food output to the upper limit and gain more production and commerce. For example, you have three farmed grasslands that allow you to have one more specialist over the health cap. If you instead cottaged all of those, you would be at max healthy population with a whole lot more commerce.

 

[siggboy]

The reason is that normally if you have a food surplus you could be changing worked tiles and improvements to reduce food output to the upper limit and gain more production and commerce.

OK, that's an obvious matter of efficiency -- if I can pick between generating an unhappy citizen and working a productive tile while stagnating, of course I'm picking the profitable option. But what if there is no such decision to be made?

I'm talking about the case where having more growth doesn't hurt. For example, your city is at cap and you have the choice between a grass cottage and a floodplain cottage. Or you could choose between an unimproved grassland (stagnation) and a farmed wheat tile (growing into unhappiness). I would not be detrimental to go for the growth options here, would it?

It boils down to the following: Everything else being (more or less) equal, why not always pick growth over stagnation (or more growth over less growth)? I'm getting the impression that many people tend to stick to a rule of "growth at the limit is BAD(TM)", without actually understanding that it isn't.

--Sigi

 

[Galileo44]

It is true that growing over the limit is not always bad. It is the error of many players not to understand that tiles should be rearranged. However, I agree that having some extra population is good even if it is angry as you can whip it. The only downside is that more population=higher upkeep.

 

[Sisiutil]

It is true that growing over the limit is not always bad. It is the error of many players not to understand that tiles should be rearranged. However, I agree that having some extra population is good even if it is angry as you can whip it. The only downside is that more population=higher upkeep.

That's a very good point. In some ways the early game happy/healthy limits benefit you, by ensuring you don't have a monster city on your hands before you can afford it.

I don't think letting a city grow to its stagnation point early in the game is a good idea; I haven't tried it (obviously), but as has already been discussed, I think the city would be a millstone around your civ's neck for a long time rather than an asset.

However, I am starting to get used to the idea of allowing a city to go slightly over its happy/healthy limits for a few turns--sometimes several--if the city is still able to be productive in the meantime. The game graphics seem designed to evoke a response (that sickly green fog, that ticked-off guy in red... I... MUST... FIX... THAT!!), so it takes a conscious decision and discipline to not react.

 

[Chipacabra]

Going over the health cap isn't a big deal. It'll slow growth, but so what?

Going over the happiness cap isn't that big a deal, either. If your happiness cap is, say, 4, you can have 4 productive workers, or go over the cap and have 4 productive workers and an angry worker. You'll still have to feed that angry worker, so going over the happiness cap is costing you 2 food. (As opposed to unhealthiness costing you 1 food, which is an interesting balance question.) But all that food shortage can do is starve you back down to the cap. Darn.

That being said, the food that you're spending on unhappy citizens or on health shortage is wasted labor. It's better to spend that time getting hammers or commerce, instead. Angry citizens are only good for one thing, really.

 

[Nials]

Going beyond the health cap just means that each subsequent citizen you add eats three food. They each contribute just as much as those below the health cap.

Happiness is an entirely other issue. Unhappy citizens do nothing but eat two food. That means you should never grow beyond the happy cap if you can help it. There are a few exceptions of course, for instance if you want to crack the whip , but generally try to avoid unhappy citizens, they only eat food and contribute nothing

A size 5 city that is is better than a size 6 city that has one citizen

 

[Alsark]

I'd also like to mention that, as your city grows in size, its maintenance cost increases. This increase might not be a whole lot, but when you can run a city at a population of ten that is just as productive as an unhappy / unhealthy city at a population of twelve, then why not? You'd ultimately just be throwing away some extra coins that could be going towards increasing your research or cultural slider.

 

[Bushface]

Provided that your civ, as a whole, is running profitably and productively, what does it matter if a city or two is unhealthy or has angry citizens ? Both can be remedied in time, with the construction of suitable buildings. Because population is a major factor in getting a good score, and big cities take a long while to grow a step, I like to let my cities grow as large as possible as soon as possible, so that their production and research lead to a win as early as possible. Shades of Henry Ford !

 

[MrWhereItsAt]

Happiness is an entirely other issue. Unhappy citizens do nothing but eat two food. That means you should never grow beyond the happy cap if you can help it. There are a few exceptions of course, for instance if you want to crack the whip , but generally try to avoid unhappy citizens, they only eat food and contribute nothing

True, but sometimes it's better to grow to get that unhappy citizen (especially if there's no better tile with less food) as planning ahead for when you get the happiness for him to be useful. Like if you're about to hook up another happiness resource, conquer one, trade for one, get a wonder that gives you some, build something in the city that gives you one etc etc. Because of this, I often get to one or two unhappy citizens whilst I'm building a Temple or something, so that when I get it, that citizen is instantly productive, rather than me rearranging to avoid growth and then taking many turns to grow that citizen after the happiness cap is lifted.

Sure if you've got some other productive lower food tile to use instead, I will do that, but especially in the early goings the tiles I work are usually all decent food, so extra growth into the unemployment slums whilst planning on making those people productive is my way of things most of the time.

 

[bardolph]

I'm increasingly puzzled by the value of inhibiting growth in your city for health and unhappiness reasons. People keep mentioning that it is important to do so if you are facing limits.

First of all, population raises civics maintenance, so you will be paying for the maintenance of unproductive people. This is a minor point, though.

The biggest reason to whip/starve unhappy citizens is because it is almost always profitable to do so. Whipping generates an instant 30 , and if the lost citizen was unhappy to begin with, it's like getting something for nothing.

If your city is in starvation, it often means you've allocated extra specialists or are working more hammer-rich tiles. And losing that point of population only means that your city will exit starvation. Again, quite a profitable situation.

Another solution is to twiddle the culture bar. In effect, you are putting unhappy citizens to work producing culture (which is better than producing nothing), though the overall commercial cost to your empire is hard to quantify.

 

[JujuLautre]

I'd also like to mention that, as your city grows in size, its maintenance cost increases.

The size of the population is also linked to another factor: the bigger the population of the city, the higher the war wariness (if applicable).

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Also, early on when you are still building workers & settlers any unhappy people will slow down their production because that extra food cannot go to building.
Maintenance/upkeep is the other issue, though I don't know the exact amount another citizen takes away.

I tend not to worry if my cities grow too much, but I will rearrange the citizens to produce less food if they'll get more hammers or coins out of it, even at the expense of starving the lazy people.

I see no reason not to grow past health caps, it is just not easy to do so. So it might be less efficient to try if it costs 3 food to maintain the extra people--i.e., if you have to move from a town to a farm to grow another person due to unhealth, it might not be worth it.

 

[Unionfield]

I find managing the growth of my cities to be pretty effective in keeping costs low. Especially when I want to accelerate research (because I am falling behind the AI).