Option to automatically avoid growth at happiness cap

[Flamer123]

it's rarely a good startegy to allow ur cities to go over the happiness cap, so why isn't there an option to automatically turn on "avoid growth" when happiness cap is reached?

i'm sick of going through all my towns at the end of each turn.

 

[GenocideBringer]

I don't see how it matters. A 9 pop city with no unhappiness is no better than a 10 pop city with 1 moron ungrateful to be living under your enlightened rule.

 

[overdose]

You can possibly work on more hammers/coins if you avoid growth, but on the other hand when you can always whip ungrateful bastards and they come available as soon as you get +1 happy cap. I'd say it depends on the situation.

 

[oyzar]

to put avoid growth in the city governour would indeed be nice.

 

[GenocideBringer]

You can possibly work on more hammers/coins if you avoid growth, but on the other hand when you can always whip ungrateful bastards and they come available as soon as you get +1 happy cap. I'd say it depends on the situation.

How so? How can you work more hammers/coins if you avoid growth?

 

[Ankh]

I don't see how it matters. A 9 pop city with no unhappiness is no better than a 10 pop city with 1 moron ungrateful to be living under your enlightened rule.

Actually it is, larger cities cost you more. Both in city maintenance and civic upkeep.

 

[LuckyAC]

And also you are wasting 2 extra food, which could be turned into a specialist or more hammers/commerce.

 

[Percy]

How so? How can you work more hammers/coins if you avoid growth?

Well, you have to feed a citizen who is contributing nothing. So instead of working tiles so that you get those needed 2 food, you could work another tile, yielding less food but more production/commerce.
Instead of working 2 farms, you could work one farm and one mined grassland hill.

 

[triacontahedron]

There are many occasions when growing population above happiness lvl is ok. For example i always work flood plains cottages even if it leads to 2-3 unhappy people, growth of cottages is more important. Or suppose you have 2 food resources of +5 and some mines in a fat cross, in this case under certain population limits it is better to let city grow beyond maximum limit. The other positive thing about having one extra unhappy person is that when you are able to pop limit you will instantly get worker and you dont have to wait.

There is no reason to be afraid of red faces as long as they don't slow down hammer/gold production. As for going through all cities to check happines, use F1 city manager and just look for cities with 0 and surplus food, you need to compare 2 columns. In addition considering how slow population grows you need to do this once in >5 turns.

 

[Percy]

There are many occasions when growing population above happiness lvl is ok.

That's why the OP is asking for an option, not for a systematic behaviour

There is no reason to be afraid of red faces as long as they don't slow down hammer/gold production.

I strongly disagree here. You're essentially wasting production (as in food/hammers/commerce). I agree it's acceptable when the alternative is bringing you even less (for example, it'd be pretty silly to not stop working an irrigated Corn tile to work an unmined desert hill...), but it should be avoided whenever there is a decent alternative.

 

[mice]

The other option is to use civ alerts which can be found in the BUG mod and other unaltered gameplay mods. It alerts you to when a city will become unhappy on the next turn.

 

[Mutineer]

There was avoide grow option in guvernor. Caused a lot of complains as people forget to cancel it when it stop benessesary.
Still, I am surprised, did they remove it from BTS?

 

[Mutineer]

It is still here in Warlords.

 

[popejubal]

I strongly disagree here. You're essentially wasting production (as in food/hammers/commerce). I agree it's acceptable when the alternative is bringing you even less (for example, it'd be pretty silly to not stop working an irrigated Corn tile to work an unmined desert hill...), but it should be avoided whenever there is a decent alternative.

If you want to keep your populace from starving, you would be wasting production with the addition of an unhappy person.

If you don't mind seeing the little red mark on your city, then -2 food is no big deal. If you were at +1 food per turn before the extra citizen and you are now at -1 food, then the only thing that you are losing is time toward your next growth. Which is no big deal since you're already at your happy cap.

Example:
City working 3 grassland cottages, 2 grassland hills and 1 farmed grassland is at +1 food per turn with 6 population and is currently standing at the happy cap.

The city grows by 1 and now has a 1/2 full bank of food from the Granary. It is at population 7 with 1 unhappy and can still work each and every single tile it was working before, but now is at -1 food per turn. If I had clicked the Avoid Growth button, it would have been stuck at size 6 with a completely full food bank and not actually grown to size 7 even with the +1 food per turn.


...also, in BTS, the city governor does appear to significantly drop the number of food tiles worked when you approach the happy cap for a city. I have seen it ignore irrigated, farmed wheat in favor of a grassland forest when I was at the happy cap. That seems like an option to automatically avoid growth at happiness cap to me. I just had the automate citizens button clicked and no other buttons. No emphasize , or

 

[Flamer123]

I'm only asking for an option to automatically avoid growth in the option menu. The current govener's algorithm will stay as default. win-win situation.

Personally, I won't turn it on till 1AD or so - before 1AD I sometime allow my cities to grow knowing that i'll unlock a happy source in the next turn/build a temple etc, or knowing i want to whip something costly. However, as the number of cities become more unmanagable, for me, it will reduce my micromanagement considerably knowing that automatic avoid growth is ON.

again, only as an option in the option menu.
another option is to add alert when city is about to lose its happiness that mice suggested.

 

[tmarcl]

to put avoid growth in the city governour would indeed be nice.

There was avoide grow option in guvernor. Caused a lot of complains as people forget to cancel it when it stop benessesary.
Still, I am surprised, did they remove it from BTS?

You're right, there is an Avoid Growth option in the governor. Unfortunately, it then becomes necessary to micromanage your cities every turn to double check for near unhappiness, and then again to turn it off when it's no longer necessary. On one or two cities, that's not so bad. As you get bigger, however, it becomes a hassle.

Marc

 

[Mutineer]

Changing it to avoide grow at happiness level would not help.
Your happiness level is not constant, WW, HR and other factors could effect it turn by turn base. You will have absolutly same micromanagment problem only less controll.

 

[Flamer123]

popejubal said it best: "in BTS, the city governor does appear to significantly drop the number of food tiles worked when you approach the happy cap for a city".
That means that the second that the happy cap is elevated, the city govener will start working more food tiles, till a new happy cap is reached.
it's not avoid growth at all in all cities.

when u have WW unhappiness pressing "avoid growth" now doesn't/barely change the govener's tile usage. It will behave the same with autumatic avoid growth would be intoduced.

on HR, automatic avoid growth will only mean that u first need to produce/station ur unit in a city, and only then does the city begins to grow fast till the new happiness cap is reached. the current situation is horrible - when u have a 15 pop city, and u forgot to press the avoid growth and have happiness -1, that's a total waste - so if u're in HR u can easily build a unit, if u're not and no new happiness buildings are availble, u're stuck with that -1. The other option is to force ur city into starvation - but make sure it's only for 1 turn, so watch that city constantly - that's quite a bit of micromanagment that i think could and should have been avoided.

Again, i only want it to be as an option - some would use it as a default, I would use it some of the time, and some would use the current condition as a default.
No harm done.

 

[Tennyson]

I would like an option not only to avoid growing into unhappiness, but to avoid growing into unhealth as well. Unhappy cities are worse though, as you can lose improvements if it gets bad enough.

As it is, I just 'examine city' after each major build and adjust specialists/tiles as appropriate at that time.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

As said above it is already there

The City Governor will 'Devalue' growth when the city is near/at the happiness cap (in Slavery it will go a little bit higher)
So if you turn the city governor on (in terms of people placement), and Don't put on either 'emphasize food' or 'avoid city growth' then you will tend to stagnate at the happiness cap.

The growth won't necessarily stop (if you have 1 extra food that isn't easily switched away from) but that is rare enough.