I use We Love the (King) days often in Civilization 1 to further my economy. Here is how I deal with the stability:
1. When I regularily tour my cities, I often make judgements about "happy" improvements (temples, cathedrals, colosseums). These decisions sometimes mean that I will immediately build an improvement there (whichever is appropriate for the city in question), but sometimes the current improvement (a library, perhaps) is more important, and so I will make a strategic decision to delay building the "happy" improvement till a later time.
However, when preparing for a We Love the (King) period, I always favour the "happy" improvements. Doing so gives each of my cities a buffer of at least 3 content citizens where it can grow without exceeding the morale supplements of the existing structures.
Now, I know you are all thinking that this is silly, since happiness is hardly a concern during a "We love ____" day, but it actually is. If your cities do not have proper structures BEFORE, you can often forget DURING, and be left with a serious luxuries-addiction afterwards. It can also sometimes cause some of your cities to NOT go into "We love ____" mode when you up the luxuries, which can really throw things off-balance.
2. I make sure I am at peace. I suppose this is obvious.
3. Build settlers with "eager" cities. If a city seems to be outgrowing its ability to produce the resources required to maintain the city, then I always build settlers with these cities. They not only actively decrease the population, they also create a continual drain on the food production which causes it to level off earlier. In addition to these to advantages, this handful of settlers (or engineers, for you civ2 people) can be used to create more sources for resources around the city by building mines, forests, and railroads on existing mines. After the We Love ______ day period is over, you can use these settlers to colonize vast new areas, build railroads throughout your contintent, build military roads, increase the size of cities that were short-changed by the We Love ____ day, or any other use. Having a load of settlers around is remarkably useful, especially in developing countries.
4. I always have cash on hand ahead of time. How much? That's the answer Blitz will attempt to answer, but I would like to propose an answer, the one which I personally hold to. First, after allocating the necessary funds to luxuries (to cause the We Love ____ day) deplete everything frmo the science budget and put it into taxes. Second, view the economic (or "trade") advisor's report. Look at the cost of maintaining all of your improvements. Take this total, multiply it by the number of years you intend to spend in "we love..." days, then divide by two. Perhaps 3 times the annual improvement cost is a good amount. That gives you 6 years. However, don't let that estimate govern how long you ACTUALLY stay in "we love..." mode. Stay in that mode until one of several conditions is met: you go to war, the treasury falls below the total annual maintenance for your improvements (regardless of whether income can balance the expenses, if you do not have this cushion, it is not safe to stay in "we love..." mode), or you decide that your cities are large enough.
These 4 important considerations make going into We Love _____ days a safe and effective strategy for increasing the population and prosperity of your nation.
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