Please Help With Over Population In Civ 4

[GameQueen1975]

I keep getting as message that from my cities that they are unhappy about over population. For example "Memphis has a pop of 9000!!!! Does anyone have any idea how to deal with this issue.

Thank you!!!

 

[Refar]

Turn off the "Advisors Advice" (or however it's called - you will know when you see it ) and "Sid's Tips" from game options to get rid of the annoying (and often misguiding) pop-ups.

If you have a real problem with overpopulation - which would become apparent by your city havin more than - try:
Caberts Ways to Happines to get more or
VoU's The Whip to get rid of some -whiners using the power of slavery.

 

[GameQueen1975]

ok will do thanx

 

[Wacky]

Start a Nuke-war

Wipe them away with slavery.

 

[shieldfire]

I had that message in one game (which I had to abandon) and the were small black clouds over the cities. I suppose that is because the unhappiness?

 

[Refar]

Yes, you had a real Unhappines problem.

You need either to increase your (Ressources, Buildings, Monrachy+Troops) or to reduce your pop whipped: ) - best a bit of both.

 

[ICNP]

Yeah Slavery and HR are the best way to happiness. Whip the people into creating units. Less whiners and more military Win-win!!

 

[Hammurbabble]

Yeah Slavery and HR are the best way to happiness. Whip the people into creating units. Less whiners and more military Win-win!!

The best way to happiness is to have plenty of happy resources and plenty of happy buildings.

Hereditary Rule isn't quite as good because it requires keeping a lot of garrison troops in your towns that could be doing something better if they didn't need to keep order. But it's a good solution when it's all you have.

The problem with Slavery is that it cuts down your population, which cuts down everything the city produces. But it works when you don't even have Monarchy yet.

These civics have their place, but they lose their utility as you gain better solutions. I very rarely use the whip after I have HR, and I switch to Representation as soon as I can do it and get away with it.

 

[mystyfly]

HR is very good for happy. You can spam some cheap unit which has the nice side-effect that your power rating usually is not in the cellar and you don't get backstabbed (and no more 'why did civ XY declared and captured all of my undefended cities?'-threads).

If you have too many farms, whip your cities. If you have lots of cottages/production in the city and it only grows slowly, you don't have that much unhappiness-issues. Aquiring more ressources often is no option, only per war which creates more unhappy faces.

Ever played as the aztects? Their UB rocks like hell! No unhappiness while whipping every other turn.

 

[shieldfire]

Yes, you had a real Unhappines problem.

You need either to increase your (Ressources, Buildings, Monrachy+Troops) or to reduce your pop whipped: ) - best a bit of both.

Sorry for late reply. I guessed as much though. How do I reduce the population? The other part I know

 

[JujuLautre]

well, I see two easy ways:
- starving the city (sometimes really useful, but usually not to the point of dropping the population)
- using the slavery civic

otherwise, rearrange tiles and specialists to avoir growth

 

[Jazzmail]

I usually avoid using the whip. There is another way.

If you cannot produce many hammers in a particular food rich city, you can also plan for that city to become your primary breeding house for workers (and settlers).
Workers are very useful especially in the early game when you get those happiness caps. Bronze tech + alot of trees + workers is alot of extra chop hammers.
Having improved tiles is also a good idea.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Hereditary rule, happy resources, whip people to death, blah blah.

Also, just switch your city to work tiles at a "stagnant" growth rate, if you're not in slavery. Swap out food for hammers or commerce. Most cities can do this easily. If not, run specialists. They don't produce any food at all.

 

[IronicBuddha]

starve it down or whip, whip is more productive - but starving dosen't cause unhappiness, caste system is very good at starving cities to the ground.

 

[JustinianVII]

The people will complain about overpopulation all the time, unless the city has the Globe Theatre. Unless the unhappy outnumber the happy, though, there's nothing to worry about.

 

[Gumbolt]

I like to whip temples in my larger cities if unhappy. You can always spread a 2nd/3rd religion to add more temples. If city is growing too fast you can always add specialists. Great people farms are good for the heart and soul. I tend to find once you reach monarchy 5-6 units soon quell any unhappy people.

Food for thought. hehe

 

[gopher666]

Sorry for late reply. I guessed as much though. How do I reduce the population? The other part I know

I think what he meant by the smiley is that rushing build through Slavery reduces your population to an acceptable level while giving you faster units/buildings. Make sure to use some of the extra production to either rush buildings that'll give you happiness, or, running under HR (Hereditary Rule), whip out military units to take care of your happiness problem.