Quote Originally Posted by jhhowell
As a semi-related point, the -1% growth on the type I govt. appears to count as a building bonus, so (a) I'm not completely sure it takes full effect, depending on the city, and (b) I have noticed that building a granary afterwards does not increase population growth, though it does allow you to build higher level granaries which do take effect. This sounds sort of like that Ptolemy govt./farm interaction posted earlier. But this may well be working as designed - high end granaries increase trade nicely, so it's perfectly worthwhile (in the long run) to go ahead and pay for a precursor building which does nothing by itself.
Happiness negatives can only cancel out bonuses. So if you have no buildings giving bonuses, the negatives do nothing. Once you build a building, then the original negatives will simply cancel out the new bonuses. This is just the way the game engine works.

Also, high end granaries give negative trade bonuses. Any effect on trade will read as a possitive bonus in game, but it is and is supposed to be a negative bonuse. This is just the way the game engine works with these bonuses.