My cities are small, tipps needed, please help

[cumi]

Hi,

I need some useful tipps & tricks. I am playing mostly "Warlord" level and I am beating sh*t out of my opponents, but one thing is disturbing me: my cities are allways the smallest. If I let them grow, they are unhappy, because it's too crowded.

I am playing mostly with Germans.

When I am playing on more difficult level I can not catch-up with my opponents, and I am beginning to loose. They are attacking me (without any success, I can even capture/raze their cities), building all the wonders etc. They have cities with over 20, me about 6/7 (but militarly I am almost the strongest). But long-term, I can not hold them.

I have luxuries, temples (the very unhappy cities has cathedrals). I build all other imrovements (library, Uni., banks etc).

So what I am doing wrong.

Maybe some wonders will help? Should I build more workers (but I don't need them)?

Winning is not a big problem for me but, I WANT TO HAVE CITIES WITH OVER 40 POP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How should I do this? Any idea?

All tipss are warmly welcome.

[cumi]

addition:

I never build Granaries. sometimes I can finish the Piramid before my opponents, but mostly not...

[vondrack]

Well, I may be totally wrong, but... do you build Aqueducts and Hospitals? Cities built along rivers/lakes need no aqueducts, but others do. If you do not build an aqueduct in a non-river city, it can't grow over pop 6. Similarly, cities can't grow over pop 12 without hospitals. I believe people grow unhappy, if the city growth is hampered by the lack of these buildings... but I am not sure about this, it's just an impression I have from my games, so consider this an idea only, not a proven fact.

[cumi]

yes, I am building these things. But simply I don't need hospitals in 8pop city.

The aqueduct and hospital are allowing your cities to grow, but the one who is not allowing them to grow is ME. If I let the city grow it goes to disorder.

[vulture]

Well the most important thing for happy cities are a good supply of luxuries, and building marketplaces.

Temples make 1 unhappy person content.
Cathedrals make 3 unhappy people content, or 6 if you've got the Sistine Chapel. You need to have built a temple first.
Colosseums make 2 unhappy people content.
JS Bach's makes 2 unhappy people content in each city.

Each different type of luxury makes 1 unhappy person content, or 1 content person happy. If you have a marketplace, this is increased massively (for 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 luxuries, you get respectively 1,2,4,6,9,12,16,20 happy faces).

Civil disorder happens when there are more unhappy citizens than happy ones, regardless of how many content citizens you have. Most citizens are born unhappy (you get a few 'free' content ones in each city, the number depending on the difficulty level; I can't remember what it is for Warlord, but it's down to 1 for Emperor and Deity).

So, for big cities, temples don't really do anything. Cathedrals are good, colossuems are opkay (although I rarely need to build any), and the two important Happiness Wonders help quite a bit, since they work in every city. But the big bonus is getting as many different types of luxuries as you can, and building marketplaces in all your towns.

If you have done this, and are still having happiness problems in size 8 cities, then my best guess is that you've been at war for a long time in democracy or republic, and the war weariness (increasing number of unhappy people as the war goes on) is killing you, and you'll probably suffer a revolution soon. Switch to communism or monarchy and the war weariness will vanish, and don't switch back until you are at peace again.

[hr_oskar]

Seeing that you do build most improvements, and you do have some luxuries (how many? do you trade with the other civs for additional lux?), I'm surprised you have so much unhappiness - especially on Warlord, where the people are much happier.

I suspect your infrastructure is inadequate, as you possibly do not recognize the need for workers. Do you irrigate your tiles? Do you understand the need for food for your cities' growth? (don't intend to insult your intelligence, it's just best to start going through the basics )

When you get Steam Engine, secure Coal and build lots of workers. Then connect all your cities in a rail network, cut down your forests and rail all tiles used by your cities. Once that's done, you can send those workers back home (i.e. add them to your cities).

Build your cities where there's good opportunity for growth, i.e. grassland and flood plains are good. Also build next to rivers and lakes, that way you won't need an aqueduct to grow beyond size 6 (saving you a 100 shields and 1 gpt).

Granaries are good improvements, especially when your cities get large - they'll need more food then to fill the box (and thus grow one size), so cutting that food requirement in half will definitely get worth it. And if you can easily build the Pyramids, that's a good idea, because that's one of the best wonders in the game.

[cumi]

vulture,

I don't really understand the use of luxuries. I know only that it helps keeping the people happy if you connect them, and it is inside or buy them etc etc etc.

But, I have 2 two questions:

1. If I put a worker (or whatever in the city display) on a luxury is it stil available to other cities? Or I am converting the benefit of luxury to money with that?

2. Lets say there are 3 gems on my territory. I am making with that a happy citizen in 3 different city (1 each) and it has no effect on 20 other cities? How does it works????

maybe I am not doing well with the luxuries.....

[Panzer]

1. Yes, that luxury is still available to your cities. In fact, putting a worker on a luxury or resource tile even gives you extra shields, food or commerce, so working them should be a priority (most of the time).

2. You only need one of each luxury to supply your entire empire. The excess can be traded to the other civilizations if they don't have that luxury.

[cumi]

oskar,

going through the basics, I got all that, you wrote. The problem is in happiness.

I can let the city grow a bit a few 1000 s year, when the cool down a bit.

Usually, I pull out 1 worker from a newly founded city.

OK, I will describe, how am I doing it.

1. For a while, I am producing settlers only in my capital.
2. I build baracks in next 2-3 cities and beginn to build military units.
3. All the next cities founded will start with 1 or 2 workers, and beginn to build the infrastructure.
4. I like to play the early archer rush, so I get additional (half useless) workers
5. Build some wonders (Great Libr.. or so)
6. I have on the small map about 10 cities (I have an equal size empire with AI. And then it heappens: my cities are 5, maximum 6, and they are very unhappy. The AI's cities are growing to sky level, until my are small (but productive).
7. My renesanse is in modern era, when killing them all, or just simply building the spaceship.

This works on Warlord, but on emperor (I think this is the next), this doesn't works.

My scientifical invest is on 0 and only buying techs until my economy is strong (Wall street, and the trading company). Then I put to max and beiing the most advanced. This worked on emperor too.

But the AI is attacking always the weakest/smallest (or who seems to be). Then comes the next civ, and 3rd. Then peace with the 1st, comes the 4th. Peace with 2nd, war with 1st............ Terrible.

But, back to topic, my citisens are not worrying about wars, but because of the crowd.

FYI: I am mostly in Republic.

[Giovanni Wine]

1) Nope... you stille have your luxury

2) No. There are 8 different kinds of luxury, each kind makes one citizen happy in every city of your empire.
The more luxuries you have the better it is.

The best thing to keep your people happy with luxury is:
Try to have all luxuries (if you can trade them... good, if you can conquer them... better), connect them with a road to your empire, and BUILD MARKETPLACES in all bigger cities.
Marketplaces multiply the benefit of luxuries in the way Vulture explained.

Now I have a question for you: When you are at war do you use Democracy? if yes do you have very long wars?

The problem with war with Democracy is that gives you very high war wearness unhappiness, which on the long run it will be stronger than the happiness brought by luxuries

Saluti

[cumi]

Originally posted by Panzer
2. You only need one of each luxury to supply your entire empire. The excess can be traded to the other civilizations if they don't have that luxury.

So this means, if I have 1 tile of something new, I am making happy the whole empire with that??? The second tile of that lux. would be only for trading?

great, didn't knew that

thanks a lot

[DrFell]

Originally posted by vondrack
I believe people grow unhappy, if the city growth is hampered by the lack of these buildings...

Naah they don't... they'll only become more unhappy in this case if you start drafting/whipping them, if you are at war causing war weariness, or if another civ starts using propoganda against them.

Cumi, you do need to connect up luxuries. Build marketplaces in the cities too, so when you have lots of luxuries the market will multiply the number of happy faces in the city (up to 20 happies for 8 luxuries, without the market 8 luxuries would only get you 8 happies). You might also consider upping your luxury rate on the domestic advisor screen, especially if you're in republic or democracy. 10% or 20% luxury will get you plenty of happy people in big cities, at a low cost. It can be a lifesaver if you only have access to a couple luxury resources.

Don't forget if you want size 40 cities you'll need to pray for good terrain and irrigate a lot Probably not a good idea, size 20 is the best aim, mine some squares in the city radius to keep the population stable at 20 for the best production.

[hr_oskar]

Luxury resources work just like the Strategic resources, in that these are the conditions for you using them (the domestic ones, that is):

a) there must be a road on the tile

b) the resource must be within your cultural border, or have a colony (created by workers) on it

c) the road on the resource must be connected to one of your cities; that city, and all cities connected to it, can use the resource.

'Connection' is accomplished either with roads (on the same land-mass), or harbors or air-ports. Harbor cities connect to other harbor cities, but to begin with only if the sea-route is through Coast tiles all the way. Once you get the Astronomy tech, or the Great Lighthouse, the harbors can connect through Sea tiles also. With Magnetism or Navigation, they can connect across Ocean. Sounds complicated perhaps, but take a look at your Civ map and you'll understand - it's logical Two cities with Airports are basically connected wherever they are.

Another way to get resources (luxury or strategic) is to trade with the other civs; unless you control half the world, you will usually need to do so, and you definitely shouldn't hesitate. The trade deals always last 20 turns, after which the AI civ will ask you if you want to renew the deal (often with a higher price).

To be able to trade with an AI civ for its resources, the following conditions must be met:

a) Your capital must be connected to the capital of the target AI civ

b) You must obviously have contact (the trade is done through the diplomacy screen)

c) The AI civ must have the resource connected, and know about its existence - strategic resources all have tech requirements; so let's say you discovered Refining and see lots of Oil in Babylonian land... but the Babs can't trade it because they haven't got Refining themselves, so they don't even know what oil is! So make sure they have the tech

d) Both you and the AI can only trade surplus resources, whether luxury and strategic; that means they, or you, must have more than one


...Could tell you all about the business of selling your surplus resources intelligently, but hey, one lesson at a time!

[hr_oskar]

oops, this thread is going too fast...

[vondrack]

DrFell, thanks for correcting me... I said I was not sure... I just feel so strong about my people that I tend to understand their unhappiness as an urge to build SOMETHING in their city to make them 'appy... and obviously I connected two things that were not...

cumi, with all these long posts suggesting lots of things that may or may not be obvious for you... would you be able to post a savegame? I believe that the vets here would find out very quickly what your problem is.

[Arrian]

Cumi,

Luxuries are the key to the game. Seriously. When I fight wars, they are my objectives... all else is secondary.

There are two things you should try to do:

1) accumulate as many types of luxuries as possible (furs, wines, etc.). It is best to control them yourself, but you should also trade for them (if the price isn't outrageous).

2) try hard to get monopolies on luxuries. If you have all the wines in the world, any civ that wants wines has to get them from you. Gaining several luxury monopolies puts you in a powerful trading position.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Hear Hear!!

Early game: Get 3 luxuries for an 8-12 town empire, and you're off to the races.

Mid and late game: With Marketplaces, 7-8 luxuries, and at least one monopoly, any and every strategy is possible, and all the negative game functions that people complain about, whether warmonger vs. builder, unhappiness, corruption / waste, war weariness, lack of gold, lack of techs, lack of units, and yes, even culture flipping... just aren't much of an issue anymore.

As I've said about killer AI civ development, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As the human player, make sure you're in the first category... GET LUXURIES!!

[Catt]

hr_oskar - excellent, informative post Just wanted to chime in with one correction and some thoughts on how to take full advantage of the correction:

Originally posted by hr_oskar
d) Both you and the AI can only trade surplus resources, whether luxury and strategic; that means they, or you, must have more than one

Although I have never seen the AI willing to part with a sole source of any resource, I have done so willingly on many occasions. The sole source will show up in your trading screen as, for example, "Gems (0 extra)" but you can still click it to put it on the trading table. So how is it helpful?

Trading your sole source of a resource (especially a luxury) can be an excellent tactic to help you keep you in the game at the higher levels, or, for that matter, anytime you're the small fry among bigger AIs. Luxuries are particularly powerful because you can often trade your last luxury resource without suffering the happiness hit of losing a luxury.

Anytime you find yourself out-expanded by the AI, pay careful attention to empire sizes and empire needs. It is widely stated/believed that the AI values luxuries by determining how many happy faces a luxury will generate for a civ (and all my gameplay experience shows agreement with this assumed state of affairs). This luxury valuation model is the reason why, when you are the biggest civ, and already control 4 luxuries, and have marketplaces in many of your cities, a smallish, backward AI will demand from you 3 luxuries, a technology, your map and a lot of gold for his one excess gem -- that gem is going to generate a lot of happy faces for you, but your luxuries are not going to generate even 1/5th of the number of happy faces for the AI. But the luxury valuation model also works in your favor when you're the smaller, perhaps backward civ.

In most Deity and Emperor games, where I am pretty much always small and backward for a good chunk of the early game, I can trade away my luxuries for luxuries and techs, gold, etc. For example, say I control only 1 incense. I can trade my sole incense to the AI kingpin for a gem, a technology and some gold. The AI derives a lot more happy faces from my incense than I do from his gem and he is willing to pay extra for it. I have traded my sole luxury, but got a different luxury back (my people derive the exact same happiness from gems as from incense). And if the deal is broken for some reason, I get my incense back - so I have not lost any happiness but have gained a tech or other goodies. And I can continue this every 20 turns so long as another AI is larger than me. There's no reason this tactic can't work on any difficulty level - it just depends on you being smaller than another civ.

Certainly not a game-changing strategy, but a nice tactical arrow to keep in your quiver.

[Az]

Luxuries are the key to the game

'nuff said. Sprawling is important for the score , but nothing keeps your Democracy running after a 25 turn long war , like some gems and spices.

[cumi]

Thank you for your good advices. I started a new Warlord game (later will try Regent) and it is going much much better. My cities are over 20 and crazily happy, because I am buying all the luxuries.

Now it's clear the use of luxuries. Before I thought, that if I have 5 tiles of wines it is enough to make my people happy. This was a terrible mistake.

cheers

[Panag]

hi ,

Cumi , could you post a save ones in a while , this would be usefull (!)

try to get bonus grassland , if you have jungle , cut it down , save the bonus grassland , reforest the regular grassland , .....

if you have jungle that is next to a lake or sea , build there , with a harbor you have two food then , ....

build the marketplace , look in the FAQ at this site , ....

have a nice day