Stopping or controlling growth

[Falconiano]

Is this in BNW?
Because in BNW you have shameful amounts of extra smiles, stopping growth is pure blasphemy there.

Let's just say, in the early turns you should not over-grow your non-capital cities because you still have to improve luxies (and you don't have SPs that generate ) but from the moment you start NC you should also be starting mass growing.

 

[Fish Man]

FYI, "avoid growth" doesn't stop growth like in Civ V. It merely assigns civilians to non food tiles if possible. You can still grow with that box checked.

Actually, it does. When a city that has "avoid growth" checked is about to hit the next pop level, it stops growing just one turn before that level. When you forget to uncheck that button after long periods of time, it stunts that city's output a lot.

In my first game as the Celts, I founded a city in an Earth map between the Tigris and Euphrates. My happiness took a hit, so I decided to hit the avoid growth button at pop 10. I forgot to uncheck that button for the rest of the game, and so what could've been my strongest city was left to obscurity as all my other settlements prospered. For most of the game I was trying to figure out what was wrong.

 

[Syailendra]

In BNW you lose production and combat strength for every point of unhappiness.

really? Well this is good info, needs to put more attention to those smilies.

 

[Zeigy]

I'm still trying to figure out how effectively to use avoid growth. All the posts here from 2010 are outdated advice in BNW.

If I want to have a sprawling empire with many cities I have to keep population down to keep citizens happy. I actually don't use avoid growth, instead I actually remove citizens from food until the city is stagnated and put them as specialists or I put the citizens on tiles with lower food output but higher hammer or gold output. It's like a little mini game you get to play on the city screen.

 

[Superwide]

This reminds me of starving cities just to get happiness back.

 

[Fluffball]

FYI, "avoid growth" doesn't stop growth like in Civ V. It merely assigns civilians to non food tiles if possible. You can still grow with that box checked.

It allows your city to accumulate food to the point of actual citizen growth then no more. So you can't actually grow a new citizen with it ticked.

When shutting down a city because of lack of happiness i often turn it on to ensure i don't accidentally grow while leaving my citizens in growth mode and only when the food bar is full.i.e. the city will grow next turn will i then adjust the tiles to produce less or zero food.

When you get some extra happiness rolling in you can then grow all the cities you did that with instantly in a single turn.

 

[dadam88]

In reply to "Oh its so hard to micromanage my cities".

Learn and love the "end" button. Its a hotkey to switch to next city, really easy to stop growth or turn to all science. I can halt growth or set to production in my 15 cities in....what....15 seconds?

 

[DrZ]

In BNW you lose production and combat strength for every point of unhappiness. I like it. I personally micro every citizen (except in puppets), at least until the game is already won.

Yes, this, so basically if you are unhappy you have more than just 1/4 growth:
1. Production penalty for 1% for each unhappy, so you loose hammers
2. -1 point towards golden ages for each unhappy point
3. penalty in combat, but i am not sure how much for each point of unhappy

I would also add that over 10 unhappy you can't build settlers and over 20 barbs start to pop up and you need a few units to deal with those instead of having them fighting on the front line. Also ideology pressure will add a lot of unhappy so if you know you will be pressured you should keep a 'pool' of happiness to deal with that pressure.

 

[Superwide]

Yes, this, so basically if you are unhappy you have more than just 1/4 growth:
1. Production penalty for 1% for each unhappy, so you loose hammers
2. -1 point towards golden ages for each unhappy point
3. penalty in combat, but i am not sure how much for each point of unhappy

I would also add that over 10 unhappy you can't build settlers and over 20 barbs start to pop up and you need a few units to deal with those instead of having them fighting on the front line. Also ideology pressure will add a lot of unhappy so if you know you will be pressured you should keep a 'pool' of happiness to deal with that pressure.

Actually i've had rebels spawn after a few turns of below -10 happiness.

 

[Kaigen]

Actually i've had rebels spawn after a few turns of below -10 happiness.

I once had rebels spawn because I started a single turn at -10 happiness due to an expiring trade deal. Tanks in point of fact. If you don't want to see rebels, maintain enough of a buffer that your trade deals can get cancelled and you're still above the -10 mark.

 

[DrZ]

Actually i've had rebels spawn after a few turns of below -10 happiness.

Hmm, this might be something that changed in BNW? I had no barbs spawn until 20 unhappy ever. Look at this thread for a really good understanding of unhappyness, although it's for vanilla, it's good: Complete Guide to Happiness.

 

[Chiatroll]

This reminds me of starving cities just to get happiness back.

Yeah. Slavery building things to slow down growth on a high food city was fun in civ 4.

The combat pen is 2% per frowny face.

 

[Calouste]

Buy a hill tile, mine it, and the situation will solve itself.

 

[drifter238]

With food caravans now in the mix - my general growth strategy is to make the capital (with NC) as big as possible/practical as quickly as I can. This usually involves capping growth in other cities once they start growing beyond 6. I'll let them grow bigger than that if they have tiles with meaningful improvements, but otherwise I prefer to max out pop where I have the most science multipliers/specialist buildings.

IMO - the 'avoid growth' box is pretty helpful for avoiding micromanagement, as it still lets you work decent tiles, but just doesn't ever build a new citizen.

 

[SicklyAlbatross]

With food caravans now in the mix - my general growth strategy is to make the capital (with NC) as big as possible/practical as quickly as I can. This usually involves capping growth in other cities once they start growing beyond 6. I'll let them grow bigger than that if they have tiles with meaningful improvements, but otherwise I prefer to max out pop where I have the most science multipliers/specialist buildings.

Is that without religion? If I'm stacking local happiness boosts then it can quite easily go beyond 6 with shrines, temples, coliseums, zoos, etc. Or do you think it's not worth the maintenance on the buildings?

 

[s0nny80y]

If one were solely intent on world dom from the get go, I like to stop growth as soon as I research a spammable melee unit plus typically four basic archers.

Try the Zulu for this all or nothing approach.

More importantly, raze non-CS non-capitals and annex capitals and city-states when possible simply in order to manually stop growth. Tech will fall behind but it doesn't matter as long as you keep up the blitz...

...Zulus and opening Honor for the melee production bonus is the best way to make up for the lack of worked tiles due to unavailable citizens (in hindsight, I wish I captured my first worker instead of building one oh well).

 

[Gulch]

If you reach a point where one more population is going to turn your civ unhappy....

How can I check for this? When I open a city I don't see any way to see how much happiness it's generating.
(I have vanilla version by the way)

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

It's bad if your largest city isn't as large as someone else's, because then you don't have turbo hammer availability. And thus, for a given quantity of unhappiness to spread around, you might prefer to concentrate height in one city just to keep pace, leaving other cities smaller.

Avoiding growth does cost you exactly what it says, though. You're giving up the rapid increase in pop which is increase in science and, of course, the productivity of the particular cities you are "forsaking".