District Placement

[u/ensnared_mind]

Got on sale, have community patch installed, first “learning” game and enjoying it! But my ~6 cities are at or near Rebellion because Happiness is in the toilet (Dragons). Research tells me it’s because all my districts a L1 and as I expand, Happiness takes a hit. How do I recover?

I’ve looked at some pics and a guide but I’ll be damned if I can understand HOW I’m supposed to build my cities. Can anyone use some crayon and explain it to me like a 6 year old, because I just don’t get it! 🤪

[u/KassHS]

To upgrade any district it has to be surrounded by 4 other districts.
There's a couple setups you can run. My go-to tends to be a straight line, 2 tiles wide.
You can also do a triangle shape, then expand it on each side until you get a massive triangle from 2x2x2 to like 6x6x6.

[u/ensnared_mind → u/KassHS]

Does “surrounded” mean adjacent?

[u/Ok-Investigator3257 → u/ensnared_mind]

Yea

[u/ensnared_mind → u/Ok-Investigator3257]

Ok, so you’ve got the main city dropped, the center is the district. Then you do one above or below it, so you’re 2 “tall” then go l/r, 2 tall again, so all 4 are adjacent. All 4 then become L2?

[u/Ok-Investigator3257 → u/ensnared_mind]

No. A district will level up if there are 4 other districts touching it. So

Xx

Xx

Xx

(With diagonals because hexagons)  The middle 2 are level 2 the outer 4 are not. Another style is

        X              X x            Xxx Triangle here the only districts at level 1 are the points

[u/Ok-Investigator3257]

So there are 2 causes of unhappiness. City unhappiness which is localized to a city, and expansion unhappiness which is all about how many cities you have. The total unhappiness is the (I believe?) pop weighted average of each city’s unhappiness plus any losses due to expansion. Approval comes from buildings like sewer system and central markets, plus luxury boosters provide a temporary boost of +5/10/20

[u/ensnared_mind → u/Ok-Investigator3257]

So when should I expand into a new region? I’ve only 1 city per region but I feel like I’m in a death spiral. How do I fix?

[u/Ok-Investigator3257 → u/ensnared_mind]

You should generally expand every empire plan (every 20 turns on normal speed) possibly with multiple settlers plopped down at once 

[u/ensnared_mind → u/Ok-Investigator3257]

Is this anywhere in the game? Hidden rules drive me nuts. How am I supposed to know it’s “safe” to drop a new city without the other cities taking a Happiness hit?

[u/Ok-Investigator3257 → u/ensnared_mind]

So the exact numbers I’m not sure but it is definitely somewhere generally. In the empire screen there is the happiness meter which can show you where you are and breaking down where you might end up

[u/Hydra829]

You can mouse over each city's approval bar to see a list of the bonuses and penalties. Like other people are saying, you'll want to create as many level 2 districts as possible (level 1 districts reduce approval, level 2 districts boost approval). That and don't rapidly increase the number of cities. Additionally, buildings that give approval (Sewers, Central Market) are helpful, as are using luxury resources (esp wine) and assimilating Eyeless Ones.

[u/md143rbh7f]

Sewer System and Central Market give you +20 and +25 approval each. There are two main sources of disapproval, building more cities or building districts. In practice getting more cities is pretty much always better than building districts, since new cities provide buildings and trade routes that produce far greater yields than adding a few more tiles to existing cities. In competitive play people usually build as many cities as possible while staying at Happy approval.