Sabreman said:
First-time Civ player with a couple of things that are puzzling me, mainly to do with the city screen:
How come when I add a citizen on the city management screen I lose a circle of work? That seems backwards to me, or am I just reading it wrong? I apparently have available citizens... where do they come from and go to when I add or subtract them?
Thanks.
Welcome. If you mean the white shirted fellows, those aren't just citizens (as in a size 9 city has 9 citizens, which we usually call population (pop) points) but citizen 'specialists', the useless specialists you should never use. Adding any kind of specialist (engineer, priest, scientist, artist, merchant?) takes away a "circle of work" because the population point that would be working a tile is instead specializing in one of the above. Since a citizen specialist only gives you a hammer, that's a very bad deal since almost any tile should give you more, but other specialists, especially engineers, can be valuable and they are essential to the rapid production of Great People.
Sabreman said:
Also, my people are always getting unhappy with overcrowding. I thought that building cottages < Villages etc. would solve this, but it doesn't seem to. I take it they don't actually move into surrounding homes. Is adding culture basically the only way to stop people being unhappy (like going to the theatre helps them forget the fact that the city is crowded, even though they're probably sitting on each other's knees

)
Overcrowding unhappiness is 1/pop and cannot be prevented, only countered. Basically you have to create happiness equal to your population + any additional sources of unhappiness. Although you also get a few free happiness points depending on how easy a setting you're playing at.
Villages and cottages don't have anything to do with crowding (although many people have asked

) and don't directly address unhappiness, although they increase revenue which can be spent on culture which, once you have the theatre and I believe colluseum, creates happiness. Also temples, the presence of your state religion, luxary resources (silk, gems, dyes, etc), military units under the sweet sweet hereditary rule civic, etc.