Why are unhappy citizens bad?

[Cymsdale]

From reading various strategies on this forum, I see advice to halt population growth before unhappy citizens appear.

This forum post in particular tells you to "slam on the breaks" when the happiness equals the unhappiness. It does not suggest the same for city health...
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=158482

What I want to know is, what is so bad about having an unhappy citizen in your city. If you have a slam the breaks at a population of 8 because you know the 9th citizen is not going to contribute, how is having that 9th citizen (who doesn't work) any different than not having it at all? The only thing they do is effect population growth by consuming food, but the strategy was to halt the growth of population anyway to prevent them from appearing. Now, why not just allow that unhappy citizen to be created, so when happiness is later increased, you have the citizen available. Why is the unhappy citizen considered to be a BAD thing instead of just a neutral thing?

 

[InvisibleStalke]

Its not necessarily too bad as long as you have a plan. For example you might be wanting to build up a few unhappy citizens to whip them away to build something expensive. Or you might be expecting happiness to grow soon and you want the citizen to be around as soon as it does.

Just letting the cities grow into unhappiness that you can't manage means you are paying more for maintenance for no gain.

Also you often get a suboptimal deployment of citizens. Eg happy cap = 5. You work 1 farm + 3 cottages + 1 mine and grow to 6 after which you can either starve or be forced to give up your mine or a cottage to work another farm to support the non productive citizen.

Or you could stop growing by no longer working the farm at size 5, but working an extra cottage or mine. Slowing your growth at this point and concentrating on tiles that produce more hammers or coins gives a better benefit that unrestrained growth.

 

[Cymsdale]

City population has an effect on its maintenance cost? I did not know this; thank you.

That's enough of an excuse for me!

 

[Xerol]

Yeah, the biggest factor is that these citizens are eating extra food, and rather than throwing that food away, you could instead be working a specialist or getting more hammers/commerce. This isn't the case with unhealthiness, as while they may be losing 1 food, they're also bringing in hammers, commerce, and possibly GPP.

 

[Arvedui]

City population has an effect on its maintenance cost? I did not know this; thank you.

That's enough of an excuse for me!

I don't think it does. But the angry citizen still has to eat...

 

[InvisibleStalke]

I'm pretty sure it does - the maintenance cost of a large city is much greater than a small city. And the civics maintenance cost definitely increases as your total empire population increases.

 

[UncleJJ]

City population has an effect on its maintenance cost? I did not know this; thank you.

That's enough of an excuse for me!

It is slightly worse than this actually . Not only does the extra population in a city affect the maintenace costs of that city it also affects the costs of your civics on an empire level. All the 5 civics you run have a component that scales in some way with the total population and total number of cities in your empire and these costs get a lot higher as the difficulty level rises.

The only compensation for a higher population is that you will get a bigger discounts on the various costs of your armies maintenance. This goes someway to offset the higher city upkeep and civic costs if you have a large army.

 

[cabert]

why they are bad :
- because they eat and don't work, so you need to put the working citizens to work food tiles instead of commerce and hammer tiles (well technically you don't "need" to, but the unhappies will die from starvation if you don't : you could have gained more commerce/production earlier by not growing that unhappy citizen)
- because they cost you maintenance (city level and empire level=civics)
- because they make culture flipping easier (bigger cities flip earlier, and i think unhappies are also counted, must check again)

Why they are not so bad?
- because bigger cities have better trade routes
- because you can whip them for a costly item (you need 2X pop to whip X)
- because you can get a happiness bonus and make them useful citizens
- because unhappy pop counts as pop for UN votes/domination

SO:
i try to keep everyone happy (with the whip) unless i can see some happiness coming in the next turns or need to whip for many pops (3 or more)

 

[Calavente]

with wipping you reduce the happiness limit by 1 for 10 turn.

so technically, if you whip less than 2 pop (maybe even 3 pop) it is not worth wipping "just" to ease the unhappiness.

-1pop = -1 unhappy + poprush =+1 unhappy : no gain, +1happy after 10turns.
-2pop = -2 unhappy + poprush =+1 unhappy : +1 happy face gained, +2 in 10turns.
if you have a normal pop-rushing city you wil grow 1 pop before the 10th turn..
so -2pop ==> +0happy after city growth, +1happy after 10turn

So (as cabret) I think it is not worth having extra unhappy people if you pop-rush less than (number of unhappy +2) pop. (or if you expect a coming hapiness variation : end of war, new ressource, new building)

 

[Elrohir]

They're bad because they eat and don't work. Don't you read the Bible? "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." You need two food to feed this moocher, but why do it? It increases city maintenence costs, and wouldn't you rather work a plains hill for four extra hammers, or have a nice specialist instead? You could have a scientist pumping out science, or a merchant gold, or whatever - or you could have a guy with a red face mooching off of you and costing you money and food.

It's a no-brainer - stop the growth when you hit you happiness cap, or whip 'em away!

 

[Conroe]

Not only does the extra population in a city affect the maintenace costs of that city it also affects the costs of your civics on an empire level.

Just to clarify this point, population does NOT effect city maintenance. It only effects civic upkeep.

City maintenance is based upon (1) your number of cities and (2) the distance from a capital.

Civic upkeep uses population in combination with a civic "cost" of high, low, etc.

 

[Eqqman]

Just to clarify this point, population does NOT effect city maintenance. It only effects civic upkeep.

And army maintenance.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Just to clarify this point, population does NOT effect city maintenance. It only effects civic upkeep.

City maintenance is based upon (1) your number of cities and (2) the distance from a capital.

Civic upkeep uses population in combination with a civic "cost" of high, low, etc.

Actually population Does Affect city Maintenance

# of Cities maintenance is multiplied by a (City Population + 17) factor

AND

City Distance Maintenance is multiplied by a (City Population+7) factor

Population is a much larger effect on Civic Upkeep [where 4-5 population can cost as much as one city] but it does affect city maintenance

Max civic upkeep cost for a popunit (all High, Deity Level, but No Inflation)=~0.8 gold

Max City Number cost of a pop unit=~0.5 gold

Max City Distance Cost of a pop unit=~2.5 gold

Max Army Savings from a pop unit=0.34 gold (Vassalage)

 

[Conroe]

I did not know that! (obviously) Thanks for the info!

Max civic upkeep cost for a popunit (all High, Deity Level, but No Inflation)=~0.8 gold

Max City Number cost of a pop unit=~0.5 gold

Max City Distance Cost of a pop unit=~2.5 gold

Handy rule of thumb chart. I'm not sure that I am reading it right, though. Each population point is going to cost me about 3.8 gold? That seems rather high. Or is it that it will never cost me MORE THAN 3.8 gold? Probably the latter. I assume this is pre-courthouse.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Never more [well it can be more once you add inflation in, if you play past 2050, Inflation will climbe with no limit so on the turn ~100000 AD, a pop unit might cost 100 Gold] any ways... the above stats are
1. At Deity difficulty (lower difficulty cuts all costs)
2. All Civics at High Upkeep (this is actually not even possible..no High labor civic)
3. No Courthouse (would cut the other two)
4. Just enough cities so that an additional pop would just reach the maximum... (since City Number maintenance is capped at a maximum)
5. A city at the Farthest possible point on the map from the Capital, on a Huge map

On a more Realistic Pop...
Monarch Difficulty level
all Medium civics
0.5 gold Civic upkeep

Assume a Courthouse
25 Cities on a Huge map
0.125 gold Number upkeep

20% of the distance of the map from a Palace/FP (still on Huge map)
0.225 gold distance upkeep

(This is still a fairly high upkeep empire, but it shows that if you add in some inflation, each pop can cost you about 1 Gold... if you are running a reasonably large empire) [you can save ~0.18 gold on military per pop.. more with Vassalage

For the Low Level (Noble)
all Low cost Civics
0.28 gold civic upkeep

Assume a Courthouse
10 Cities on a Huge map
0.04 city number maintenance

10% distance from Palace/FP(still on Huge map)
0.09 city distance maintenance

So you should expect a pop unit to cost you at least 0.3-0.4 gold (and you would save about 0.12 gold on military maintenance)