No production or growth?

[Orlok]

Hi,

Freeciv is quite a difficult game to play, for the uninitiated. Anyway, I finally managed to get the game to 1928 AD, and production and city growth of several (almost all) cities has turned to zero. Cities I specifically placed above mines (which I opened by using a worker) has zero production and growth. In the mean time my main opponent is merrily producing new units. So what are my options?

Orlok

[cazfi]

Without seeing your game I can't say for sure what's the problem, but it sounds like you have tried to get high production in early game at the expense to growth. That strategy can backfire as cities remain small, and in the end lose even in production capacity to bigger cities which might produce less / worked tile but from much more tiles. I usually builds irrigation (later farmland) to almost all tiles leaving just a couple of tiles / city to high shield production, depending on terrains those are special resource tiles, mined hills, or forests.
Do you have all your citizens working on the tiles, or do you have some of them as specialists? If you don't keep people happy by other means (buildings like Temple and Cathedral, Wonders, Martial Law, some of income turned into luxuries), you need to have some of your citizens as entertainers, meaning less citizens working the tiles for food, production, and gold.

[Orlok]

I read what you write, but I can't make head or tails from it.

It seems my cities refuse to grow. I have enough tiles around cities ready to be farmed. No activity is taking place on these tiles. I'm building farmland at the moment, but that is not picked up by the cities.

My cities range from size 1 (one city), 2 (six) to two of size 5 and 6 and one recently conquered 7.

How do I get a tile with 'high shield production'? What is meant with that? Do you mean a tile with a mine on it? I only mine places with oil and/or coal and such. I seldom make a mine for no obvious reason. And two of my low production cities are situated on top of a high shield production tile.

I seldom build temples and cathedrals. In my view they cost money. I battle discontent in my cities by setting my city manager to 'Food'.

I do not know what my citizens do. Is that the 'Happiness' tab of the city window? I now see I can cycle through a happy face (happiness?), a test tube (science?), a coin (tax?). I see the raised arms of the man icon go down when it goes from happy to test tube, and back up when it goes from coin back to happy face.

[cazfi]

It seems my cities refuse to grow. I have enough tiles around cities ready to be farmed. No activity is taking place on these tiles.

Center tile is always worked, but otherwise you need to assign citizens to work the tiles. Size of the city is same as number of citizens = number of tiles you can work in addition to the central one, except that instead of working a tile citizen can be made specialist (entertainer, scientist, or tax collector). You can move citizens from tile to tile in city dialog map (click tile that currently has production numbers shown to remove citizen from it, and click another tile to put citizen there).

[HanduMan]

I suggest you start here: http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Manual

Seriously. You obviously don't know even the basics of the game (no judgment here, just stating a fact).
You'll get them more quickly from the manual than asking here about every detail and waiting for an answer.

[Orlok]

Seriously. You obviously don't know even the basics of the game (no judgment here, just stating a fact).

Actually, I have 6 tabs of Freeciv pages (How to beat the AI computer players, Buildings, Wonders, Units, this forum and Detailed strategy guide) open when I play. I cannot remember seeing something about managing your city.

[Orlok]

You can move citizens from tile to tile in city dialog map (click tile that currently has production numbers shown to remove citizen from it, and click another tile to put citizen there).

I found that too. But oft my citizens start to work on the extra fields while my city goes to the DISORDER state. So I go back to the "save" state by starting the 'Max food' Governor. When working on the fields my city stays in the same state, or grows a bit. Moving them back to city dwellers because of the disorder state promises future city decline due to food shortages.

Are there any other points I overlook?

[cazfi]

Moving them back to city dwellers because of the disorder state promises future city decline due to food shortages.

You mean making them specialists, entertainers to be exact. Anybody who is not in the fields is a specialist. You should keep people content by some other means, so you could free those entertainers to productive work. Build Temples, Colosseums (high upkeep / people made content), Cathedrals, happiness affecting wonders, under Despotism/Monarchy/Communism keep three military units defending the city and maintaining martial law. Avoid causing military unhappiness under Republic/Democracy. If necessary, set some of your income to luxuries. Once you have luxuries, build Marketplaces/Banks/Stock Exchanges to give them % bonus (Note that two entertainers producing lux + marketplace has same effect as three entertainers)

[Orlok]

Build Temples, Colosseums (high upkeep / people made content), Cathedrals, happiness affecting wonders, under Despotism/Monarchy/Communism keep three military units defending the city and maintaining martial law.

Thanks. That was lacking in my game.