Population and Happiness

Which way

Where happiness comes from

The happiness box in the city view itemises every term. The main sources are the city’s own flat base, the Tavern’s table, the fish the Tavern serves, the monument standing on the Monument’s plinth, the objects in the Mouseion that cultural treaties in force have brought and the finds from the sea (each counts for the city it hangs in and can be moved to another whenever you like), the form of government, and the unrest a city goes through after replacing its patron god.

Buildings and research can grant happiness too; when they do, they appear as their own lines in the same box.

One line can also be negative: the part of the comfort the people expect that the Tavern does not meet comes off satisfaction as a Needs line (Needs and Revolt). The other lines do not close this gap; only grapes and fish do.

Housing

Happiness sets how fast the population moves; housing sets its ceiling. A city stops where the Town Hall can house it: a city at its ceiling does not grow. If the Town Hall is lowered and the ceiling drops, nobody leaves; the city simply stops growing until it fits again.

The population moves in regular steps rather than smoothly; that is why the figure on screen jumps now and then.

Grapes

The Tavern spends as many grapes an hour as you choose, and gives happiness in return. The richer the table, the more happiness — and the faster the grapes run out. The higher you raise the Tavern, the richer the table it can lay; it has no last level, and every level brings more happiness than the one before.

Shortly before your grapes run out the game warns you, and it tells you the moment they have: both land in Activity under the bell, and if you are a Pro member they also come as a notification. The warning says when the grapes will run out, how many grapes an hour the Tavern will then fall to and what satisfaction will drop to. Each comes once for one emptying; once the storeroom has been refilled enough to last a while, the next emptying is told again.

You can see what a service would bring before you choose it: move the slider in the Tavern's window and it shows when the storeroom would run out at that amount, and the happiness and growth it would give.

If the population shrinks

In a city that is not content, citizens can also emigrate: a share of the idle citizens leaves the city from time to time, and most settle in other cities on the island. When hungry people stop working, this share leaves from everyone except soldiers.

Your citizens are not deleted — they leave their jobs. If the city can no longer support the workers, scholars and priests you assigned, some are released as the crowd thins: scholars first, then priests, workers last. Soldiers are no part of the population, so this never touches them.

What you lose is output, not investment: your buildings, research and units are all still there.

The Life screen

The Life screen in the menu gathers the chosen city's people on one page: how many citizens it has, where each of them is counted, how much room is left in its housing and how content it is. The large figure at the top is the city's growth per hour; under it, how much room is left.

The groups of people

Soldiers are not population

Soldiers, ships' crews and spies are no part of the population. The moment you order a unit, the citizens it needs leave the city; if you cancel the order, those not yet trained come back as free citizens. A soldier you disband, or one who deserts because his pay stopped, also comes home as a free citizen. A soldier killed in battle or a captured spy brings nobody back.

Each group in its own building

The groups add up to the city's population, and no citizen is counted in two of them. The link beside each line takes you to whatever runs that group: the deposits, the Academy or the Temple. The Life screen moves nobody from one job to another; you do that in those buildings.

Housing, happiness and protection

The Housing line shows how many more will fit; once housing is full, growth stops, and the link beside it opens the Town Hall. Happiness and growth shows how many grapes an hour the Tavern serves, the happiness and the growth per hour; when the city is unhappy, growth turns negative and is written in red. If your beginner's protection is still running, or has ended, that is written at the foot of the screen too. The Gold section shows what the city earns or costs the treasury per hour: tax, wages and military upkeep, and below it the treasury's net per hour with all your cities together. A figure going negative is red.

Pro: all cities in one table

If you are a Pro member the Life screen opens on All cities: every city of yours stands in one table, one under another. The top shows the totals: citizens, free citizens, growth an hour and Gold. Each row shows a city's people split by role in one bar, its housing in a second bar, then its happiness, its growth an hour and its Gold. A city whose growth has stopped because its housing is full says stopped in place of a rate. The colours of the bar are explained once, under the table.

Cities that need your eye go to the top of the table, and the Needs your eye box above it names the reason: a revolt, people about to leave, a city that is unhappy and shrinking, or one with no room left. Apart from those, the city you are in comes first. Pressing a city's row selects that city and the Life screen turns to This city, as described above; you can go back to All cities whenever you like, and your browser remembers the view you chose last. Without Pro the Life screen is always the page of the city you are in; the switch is there for you too, but All cities takes you to the Pro page. Every figure in the table is the one on that city's own page; Pro only shows them together and gives you no edge in play.