instead of individual citizens getting mad why don't we make it so that the entire city has a happiness bar. The bar would start out at a 100% happiness when you first settle it but then either would go down or stay the same or if its not a hundered percent than it can go up. this would reduce micromanagment but still keep the fun and strategy in it.

maybe we could also have a national happiness bar that would act like the city bar except in the entire civlization.

what do you guys think about the game?

I'm a sucker for simplicity. I like it. Especially the "National Happiness Bar". But I think it should be in addition to happy/unhappy citizens rather than a replacement of them.

I also think it should be renamed "Morale" instead of "Happiness".

By definition, adding something to represent the same thing as something that's already in the game would complicate it ;)

By definition, adding something to represent the same thing as something that's already in the game would complicate it ;)

Only for the programmers. ;)

For me, I can just look at the bar when I'm in a hurry. Which simplifies play because it's a faster way of getting a sense of how PO'd they are. But keeping the citizens is just fun.

Frekk is right, only for the programmers. If they replaced individual population heads with a percentage system, there could be a greater transparency for seeing happiness. (You could even display the happiness of a city on the main map so one can see a deteriorating situation! That city is at 70%, while that city is at 51%.) Plus you can do really quick calculations of your "national happiness".

Plus the system is more flexible to reflect slight deteriorations in happiness, instead of sudden shifts at the moment a new population head is born. This sudden shift is what makes micromanaging happiness so annoying -- the fact that you have no real warning that your city will fall into unrest. In real life, if you were a mayor, you'd be able to see it coming.

You see, the percentage system would be ideal for my model of city revolt and seccession, as you can have a gradual decline in productivity as a result of low happiness-right down to 0%-but also have certain threshold points on this scale where you run the risk of a rapid deterioration.

So, for instance, the first threshold would be the point at which you have a % chance, per turn, of the city going into revolt (lose all productivity). The next threshold would be the point at which you have a % chance, per turn, of an improvement or unit getting damaged. The next threshold would be the point at which you have a % chance, per turn, of the city spawning an 'insurgent' unit. The final and WORSE threshold is that at which you have a % chance, per turn, of the city breaking away from your nation altogether(though this would depend on other factors as well!)
The thing is that each 'threshold' could feed into the chance of the next-such that a city already in revolt will have a much higher chance of improvements and units getting damaged, and a higher chance of 'insurgents' being produced, when the respective thresholds are reached!

Last of all, I would prefer it if you COULDN'T see the actual % happiness of the population in a city, but instead merely got a 'descriptor' of their current mood. This 'descriptor', though, would be connected to the current % happiness level, but make managing your population a little bit more of a 'guessing game'. For instance, what if the aforementioned 'revolt threshold' was around the 35% mark? If this lay at the halfway point of the 'angry' descriptor, then you won't know for certain if that city has 'crossed the line'-and is currently close to revolt-you just know that they are angry and you had best do something to make them 'not-angry' ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Hehe... a lot of the things suggested sure sound a lot like CTP/2. :D I wonder how many people around here have actually played it...

i like your idea Aussie Lurker since it still kind of keeps the randomness factor into the game

@Trip

i for one haven't ever played CTP/2

A lot of the ideas presented here are very much along the lines of how CTP/2 works. No more pop heads, no more working tiles, happiness, crime, etc. based on a scale of 1 to 100, stacked army combat, trade routes, and on and on and on...

As it happens, Trip, I have played both CTP 1 AND 2, and there were MANY things which I liked about them-especially the PW system, the happiness system, stacked combat, citizen specialisation and the ability to set rations and wages in your empire screen. In fact, at the time, I considered CTP1 to be a far superior product to civ2 (the only thing I had to compare it to at the time!) There were also things I DISLIKED about the games though too-particularly the graphics, the space/undersea cities and the overall 'ultratech' feel of the late game and Activisions' poor support for their product :(. By the same token, though, there are things which I like and dislike about the civ series of games-particularly the pop-head and worker systems, which both seem to encourage Micromanagement over strategy.
IMHO, the most perfect civ game EVER would start with a fusion and harmonisation of all the best elements of CTP and civ-starting with the happiness and PW systems ;)!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I'd just like to pass on another vote of confidence to Aussie Lurker :)

The only thing that could make things better is if there was an actual demographics screen, where you could see how happy the working class is, how happy the merchants are, how happy the nobles are, how happy the men and women are, how happy the nationals and resident aliens and legal immigrats are, etc. etc. Of course, there would need to be significance to these factors. I'd be comfortable begging for these things in Civ 5 :) It does seem a little far fetched right now.