Stability?

[Coral]

A little. The Greeks--when I build the third city, my stability starts going way, way down. I can usually hold my own in the wars, since I build Epidamnos on the hill near the copper and Byzantion naturally holds a chokepoint. I build a fort on the hill north of Byzantion to stop Barbarians, and that solves all my defense problems.

Would building cottages everywhere make my economy go up? Or is that a bad idea?

My Rome collapsed, even though I had courthouses in every city, and I had seven cities, which sounds good enough. Arabia and Russia declared war on me, but I started a world war and thus didn't do any fighting, but my stability kept going down.

 

[Virdrago]

Sometimes the stability (at least it seems) drops when there are a lot of wars between civs you know or trade with (because the economy is, well, unstable). Depending on how much trade you have, certain civics like Mercantilism may help insulate you; otherwise, make sure your citizens are happy and well-protected.

Cottages can help; insular buildings like libraries and markets to help your science and economy in general will help as well until things die down a bit.

Losing Rome wouldn't have helped your stability; with only seven cities, it is a major blow to your people (with more than 15, losing a city helps your stability). If you can take it back soon, it will help, otherwise, protect yourself from losing any more (damage control).

 

[Coral]

How do I keep my GNP always going up so that my economy rating doesn't go down?

 

[Panopticon]

In general, you need to keep producing more commerce and hammers per turn. Practically, that means either building cottages or founding new cities.

 

[SadoMacho]

It took us all a long time to get the hang of the stability system, most don't like it in the beginning, but now,...

Well, I for one can't miss it anymore

 

[Úmarth]

Funnily enough I never had a problem with it, I found it useful when my enemies collapsed and I've only ever had my civ collapse once, and that was just before I was going to end the game any way. I think I play too cautiously.