Overcrowding

[Arbitrator]

Hi,
What is your best strategy to control population? I tried stagnating the growth but that seems to hurt economy.
The little b'stards just keep moaning about how crowded it is, even early on.

Any tips?

It's probably documented somewhere but I havn't found it yet.

 

[warpstorm]

Build happiness rather than trying to control population.

 

[weimingshi]

click on avoid growth, if you dont want your pop to grow. this way when u want it to grow again, it will instantly gain a pop next turn.

 

[Ranos]

Clicking the "Avoid Growth" button just tells the city governor to not work the high producing food tiles. If you have farms on all of the tiles next to rivers, it will hurt your economy because the citizens are moved to tiles that produce less food. Try building some farms next to rivers and then building cottages on the rest.

You also need to gain access to resources that make your people happy as well as building happiness buildings in your city. These include religious buildings, theaters and marketplace. You have to maintain a balance of allowing your city to grow and continue producing units to expand and defend your empire while also keeping the people in your existing cities happy.

 

[weimingshi]

if you click on avoid growth, it will actually stop the city from growing, you can manually change citizens to the tile you want it to work.

 

[quail]

Why would you want to avoid growth? If they get unhappy then one of them will just stop working, and it'll be exactly the same as if you had less population - except that as soon as you get some more happiness in you'll have an extra worker.

 

[Arkanin]

Why would you want to avoid growth? If they get unhappy then one of them will just stop working, and it'll be exactly the same as if you had less population - except that as soon as you get some more happiness in you'll have an extra worker.

That extra angry person does nothing but consume units of food that could be used to support a specialist or use as production for a settler/worker.

 

[weimingshi]

That extra angry person does nothing but consume units of food that could be used to support a specialist or use as production for a settler/worker.

But if you choose to limite your city growth, you wont have that extra specialist neither, do the math. 2 identical cities, both is limited by happiness 15 happy face each, one city grows pass that got 17 pop, so 2 becomes unhappy and produce nothing. but I still have 15 pop that produces stuff, another city i managed to keep it at limite which is 15 pop without any unhappy citizen, 15 productive citizen again, whats the diff between my 2 cities? both have 15 productive citizen.

 

[damxam]

Why would you want to avoid growth? If they get unhappy then one of them will just stop working, and it'll be exactly the same as if you had less population - except that as soon as you get some more happiness in you'll have an extra worker.

The angry guy still eats food. If your city grows further, the new population will again be angry so you're losing even more production from having to feed the extra angry person. Hence, you avoid growth so you don't end up feeding several angry people when there is no end in sight. Once you get access to techs/civics to control your happiness, allow growth.

 

[Arbitrator]

Thanks for the very usefull info, it seems the answer lies in manually controlling the surrounding tiles to adapt to the cities needs, I have left my workers on autopilot while I get on with the expanding/fighting etc.

 

[huang di]

Also, work on trading for some luxury items, like silk, dyes or incense, that you don't have in your own territory. And I find specialists a good way of limiting growth as well--if you have a scientist and an artist, you're producing that much less food.

 

[Shillen]

But if you choose to limite your city growth, you wont have that extra specialist neither, do the math. 2 identical cities, both is limited by happiness 15 happy face each, one city grows pass that got 17 pop, so 2 becomes unhappy and produce nothing. but I still have 15 pop that produces stuff, another city i managed to keep it at limite which is 15 pop without any unhappy citizen, 15 productive citizen again, whats the diff between my 2 cities? both have 15 productive citizen.

The point is if you set the avoid growth button then you can work either more productive tiles or create a specialist that will give you more benefit than working a tile does. For instance the governor would move a worker off of a 3 food, 0 production, 0 commerce tile and put it on a 1 food, 4 production tile. You didn't lose anything because those 2 food would have been wasted anyway, but you picked up 4 production. Or if one of your citizens is working the ocean and getting 2 food, 2 commerce. You can take that off to stop growth and make a scientist specialist that gives you +3 beakers and +3 GP birth rate. So by avoiding growth you are improving your city output.

 

[remconius]

I think the question is about the term "overcrowding"

This is the term to describe unhappiness caused by population. Every pop caused one unhappiness, there is nothing you can do about except compensating by happiness factors.

Apart from overcrowding you also get unhappiness from things like war, which is temporary and can be solved by ending the war.

 

[WuphonsReach]

Question on the Marketplace building. It says it adds +1 happy if you have certain resources.

Does that mean only near the city that you're trying to improve? So only a few cities are worth building a marketplace in.

Or, if you have those resources anywhere in the empire, should you build a marketplace in every city in the empire to boost happiness?

 

[Good Omens]

I'm trying to get in the habit of checking the Domestic Advisor frequently to see cities that are close to unhappiness. If I see one, and I can't add happiness easily, I will generally just make a specalist. Pretty much every city has at least one or two squares that aren't very productive for whatever reason, and it won't hurt too much to take a worker away and make a specialist instead. If you're careful, you can leave yourself at even food (meaning no growth) but still having high productivity/commerce.

 

[remconius]

Question on the Marketplace building. It says it adds +1 happy if you have certain resources.

Does that mean only near the city that you're trying to improve? So only a few cities are worth building a marketplace in.

Or, if you have those resources anywhere in the empire, should you build a marketplace in every city in the empire to boost happiness?

Marketplaces and other such buildings increase happiness/health to every resource of the specific kind the city has access to. As long as it is in the trade network, from a developed tile within cultural borders or traded with another civ.

The effects of the marketplace are in the city it is built only. So a city with high happiness due to wonders, military units, etc will not need a marketplace for the happiness until it gets close to its limits. Of course the increased commerce is beneficial for any city.