Overcrowdedness

[MSTK]

Hello...I'm new to CivFan and I ahve been looking around for a while to say that you have a nice place here. Anyways, I am trying to bring up a topic that I always had trouble on.

I'm not sure if this is true, but is the only way to fix overcrowdedness is to starve out your city? Then what happens when it happens again?

 

[Yeti]

I'm not sure exactly what problem you mean by overcrowdedness.

Are you just trying to keep your city size down for some reason? There are some micromanagement (worker / settler factory) reasons to do this, but in general larger is better except for the next thing I'm about to mention.

Or is the problem that your citizens become unhappy when your city gets larger?

To keep city size down:

- Build settlers or workers.

- Use workers to adjust the terrain around the city (change irrigation to mines).

- A city not on fresh water needs an aquaduct to grow over size 6, and all cities need a hospital to grow past size 12, so not building those structures is a way you can cap the city's size.

- Workers can be manually assigned on the city screen, and either made not to work at all or set to work terrain that produces less food (which will reduce, stop, or even reverse your city growth).

To make citizens happy:

- Acquire luxuries.

- Set the luxury rate on the F1 screen (below the science slider).

- Assign workers on the city screen to be entertainers.

- Build city improvements like temples, colosseums, and cathedrals.

- Build wonders that increase happiness throughout your empire.

- In some government types, having military units in the city will create (force...) happiness.

 

[JustBen]

When you click on an unhappy citizen, you're usually given a report including "It's just way too crowded" as an unhappiness cause. This is just the basic unhappiness of the game, and you have to deal with it as Yeti describes. It's just the price of a big city; don't let it bother you. Your difficulty level determines how many content people you can have before each new one is born unhappy; at Deity, I believe it's "1".

 

[PRIMEMOVER]

If you're refering to overcrowdedness as a possible cause for unhappiness and therefore causing civil disorder, you can try all the aforementioned and/or, to save considerable work on your part, set the governor(s) to manage citizens moods. This will free you up from a considerable amount of micromanaging.

Just click on 'G' when a city screen is opened.

 

[MSTK]

I'm talking about overcrowdedness after it becomes a problem -- a Civil Disorder. Is the only way to stop overcrowded CD by starving them out?

 

[Rik Meleet]

Overcrowdness isn't the problem as more citizens mean more production and commerce. The problem is 'how to keep them productive'. If you citizens are unhappy; make them happy. You can do this by luxuries (your own or imported) and cityimprovements, temple, marketplace (often forgotten), cathedrals, collesseums etc and hapyness giving Wonders (Oracle, Hanging Gardens.

Don't be afraid of big cities, make them happy so you can use their full potential.

 

[The Last Conformist]

To get out of Civil Disorder, the easiest way is simply to add a few Entertainers to that city. Once it's in control again, you can build happiness-causing improvments in it, hopefully before it starves.

 

[MSTK]

the problem is that you can't put in marketplaces, etc. while it is in civil disorder

 

[Krayzeenbk]

But you can create a temporary entertainer and make him go back to work once you've built a marketplace and don't need him anymore.

 

[Yeti]

MSTK:

On the city screen for a city in disorder, click on any of the squares around your city center where it shows production (shields, gold, food - indicating that a citizen is working that tile) to stop that citizen from working.

The non-working citizen shows up at the end of the line of happy, content, unhappy citizens. Clicking that citizen icon cycles him / her between being a scientist, a tax collector, and an entertainer. Making him an entertainer will make other citizens happy.

An easy way to do this is to double click on the representation of your city center on the city screen. The computer will automatically distribute your workers, including making enough of them entertainers to keep your city from going into disorder.

 

[AngryGerbil]

A better player might correct me here but I believe, depending on what level you are playing on, a certain number of citizens are born content in every city, after that, everyone is born unhappy. The default cause of their unhappiness is "It's just way too overcrowded!"

And definately don't forget marketplaces. If you find yourself wealthy in luxuries, building marketplaces takes full advantage of this since every luxury you get after the second gives more than just one happy face, but only if you have a marketplace.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

That is correct AngryGerbil.
In fact, here are the numbers for each level:

Difficulty  # born content
----------  --------------
Chieftain   4
Warlord     3
Regent      2
Monarch     2
Emperor     1
Demi-god    1
Deity       1
Sid         1

 

[MSTK]

so...what you're saying is that when they are upset at overcrowdedness, they might not really be truly upset at that, but just upset at that because they have nothing else to be upset about?

any analogies about women and this message will probably get deleted.

 

[TheBB]

I'm not quite sure you get this...

As the city grows, citizens will become unhappy.

Thus, as the city grows, you need to combat the unhappyness using the aforementioned means, in order to keep the city out of civil disorder.

If you fail to do this, and the city does fall into civil disorder, it's not a permanent problem. What you do is to take a citizen off working like Yeti mentioned, and make him an entertainer. The city will then be in ... uhh ... civil order by the next turn, which will allow you to combat the unhappiness in a more appropriate and permanent way, such as building improvements. Then, you can put the entertainer back to work, and you can allow your city to keep growing.

There will always be something for them to be upset about, but the trick is to balance those reasons with reasons for them not to worry about it. Right?

 

[Krayzeenbk]

Overcrowdedness is just Firaxis' way of explaining why every citizen after the first X is born unhappy.

 

[MSTK]

So...they're unhappy because Firaxis says so, but the "Overcrowdedness" thing is just a cover-up?