Does Civ 5 (Gods and Kings) need a Happiness nerf?

[The A.K.T]

I think its too easy to keep your people happy now in G n K. Here is some Ideas to nerf happiness on GnK:

Religous minority:

if u have adopted a Relegion every citizen with a different Relegion Makes
0,5

My Idea is that if u adopt a Relegion u have to choose a debuff. That would in my eyes make the game more balanced and not as easy to play.

ps. Any ideas for other debuffs?

Moderator Action: Moved to G&K.

 

[smallfish]

Allowed to choose only one happiness religion

No such thing as +2 happiness, at most +1 (I'm looking at you, Pagodas)

 

[cakes]

i think it's fine. i usually choose other bonuses over happiness ones so i do find myself with low or negative happiness at times. other times i can actually get golden ages from the happiness pool when it only used to happen maybe twice a game in vanilla. i don't think the occasional golden age is a good enough substitute for not having enough cities or pop so having them occur more frequently in these situations is welcome.

 

[Camikaze]

Is this thread meant to be about ideas to nerf happiness, or a discussion as to whether that is necessary?

I definitely think it needs a nerf, at least when it comes to the AI. The happiness bonuses they receive are pretty needless, and kinda destroy the point of the system as it relates to them.

 

[qemist]

I think its too easy to keep your people happy now in G n K. Here is some Ideas to nerf happiness on GnK:

Religous minority:

if u have adopted a Relegion every citizen with a different Relegion Makes
0,5

Yeah, diversity is baaad. m'kay?

My Idea is that if u adopt a Relegion u have to choose a debuff. That would in my eyes make the game more balanced and not as easy to play.

This I like. I don't like the way the game glorifies religion by making every religious belief a positive only. Religion is false. Believing false stuff must come at a price. For example, it might make some people work harder but at the cost of making them dumber.

Moderator Action: Please keep the discussion gameplay related, and take the controversial statements to OT please.

 

[SouljahAtWar]

I don't think the consumers like the idea of having their happiness taken away. I wouldn't. Buffing anything is a horrendously bad idea.

 

[pensivepeppers]

I don't know about you people, but I have to work to keep my people happy. Population, number of cities, and captured city unhappiness (which only lasts til' I buy them a courthouse) all make it rough for me.

 

[Tachii]

I don't think so. Back in vanilla we had that piety policy that came early on which gave +1 happiness for each monument/temple, equivalent of +2 happiness per city. Religion means you can get +4 happiness per city with ceremonial burial, ascesticism, and pagodas but you aren't ALWAYS guaranteed those. Nor can you guarantee it being spread if you have poor faith.

On higher difficulties it's not even a guarantee you will end up with a religion unless you actually try to get them as early as possible - often means you're compromising something else in your early production order. And if you don't have religion, those bonuses suddenly seem so inconsequential.

Well this issue have been discussed over and over again already. I do think Mercantile CS could use some modifications. Not sure what exactly.

 

[Zenstrive]

What? No!
I had a hard time with happiness on Vanila, so I love it when I can see 50+ happiness while I am on the atomic age and conquered 1.5 large continents!

 

[Terakahn]

happiness is hard too maintain early, and a cakewalk to maintain mid-late game. At least in my personal experience.

 

[Aldor]

happiness is hard too maintain early, and a cakewalk to maintain mid-late game. At least in my personal experience.

Its the same for me. Once you get the game rolling (especially with a religious belief like ceremonial burial etc) things get fairly easy, but the start can still be rough.

No change required IMO.

 

[loki75]

Yes, no changes needed. Hapiness is still hard to come by in the begining, when you don't have the techs, workers, money needed to improve the tiles and you are focusing on growth.
For a Tall empire, it will probably never be a problem after classical. For a wide empire, it will always be if you start conquering a lot until you hit some policies like order or meritocracy, as it should be. Going very wide, I almost always need to build ND to keep hapiness afloat.

 

[Smokeybear]

You talk as if a bit of extra happiness sometimes is a bad thing. I don't think so. No game law says happiness in CiV has to be a painful, negative, pain in the butt aspect at all times. And while it may be somewhat easier to get it on some difficulties, as others have mentioned, it is still a bit dicier at the top end. There is no need to change it for the player, but if the AI is also gaining these benefits on top of their already-ludicrous cheat benefits, then yes, nerf it for just them, right on.

 

[Greasy Dave]

If you're finding it too easy, step it up a bar.

True, there are more potential ways to increase your happiness than there were in vanilla. But the emphasis here is on potential. At higher difficulties you'll find those options either locked out already by the AI, or not possible because you need to concentrate on other aspects of the game to win. At Immortal and Deity happiness is not "easy to get". It's something you have to juggle with, just as you had to juggle it in VAnilla. No nerfs, please.

 

[DGDobrev]

The happiness is OK as it is. If you make a 4-city start on deity, you will find yourself out of happiness very soon. If that gets nerfed even a tad more, all games on Deity will be OCC's.

 

[Trik]

I think the problem is that the local and global happiness may not work as intended.

Correct me if i'm wrong but ceremonial burial works like church property with happiness instead right? If so that's pretty insane, probably the best founder belief for most situations.

 

[Gort]

I'm fine with happiness as is as far as a human is concerned. I'd like to see the AI bonus happiness removed and replaced with bonuses to production and the like to enable them to build happiness buildings.

 

[MadDjinn]

there's too much global happiness and not enough local happiness wrt religions.

I'm fine with the +happiness buildings/etc in religion, but not when they add global happiness -> allows mass spam without choosing social policies meant to help that (liberty/order).

So the happiness involved in religions does need a 'nerf', but only to convert the building specific stuff into local happiness-> allows higher pops, but not more cities than 'normal'.

 

[Kwami]

Converting the religious building happiness into local happiness is a good start, but it isn't enough.

First, Ceremonial Burial would become even more powerful relative to other options and it's probably already too powerful as is.

Second, mercantile city-states are just too damn good. If they only provided 3-4 Happiness, then that would be OK. But they also provide a unique luxury for another 4+ Happiness. An allied mercantile city-state is going to give you a minimum of 8 Happiness and potentially more if they have access to other luxury resources. (Assuming that the allied bonus is +4 Happiness. I don't remember the actual number!)

I'd like to see the bonuses for mercantile city-states changed. Perhaps +1 Happiness for a friend and +2 Happiness for an ally (plus the unique luxury). One potentially bad side effect is that allying more than one mercantile city-state with the same luxury resource might be too undesirable. I'm not so sure if this actually is a bad thing, but it's worth considering.

 

[MadDjinn]

Converting the religious building happiness into local happiness is a good start, but it isn't enough.

First, Ceremonial Burial would become even more powerful relative to other options and it's probably already too powerful as is.

Second, mercantile city-states are just too damn good. If they only provided 3-4 Happiness, then that would be OK. But they also provide a unique luxury for another 4+ Happiness. An allied mercantile city-state is going to give you a minimum of 8 Happiness and potentially more if they have access to other luxury resources. (Assuming that the allied bonus is +4 Happiness. I don't remember the actual number!)

I'd like to see the bonuses for mercantile city-states changed. Perhaps +1 Happiness for a friend and +2 Happiness for an ally (plus the unique luxury). One potentially bad side effect is that allying more than one mercantile city-state with the same luxury resource might be too undesirable. I'm not so sure if this actually is a bad thing, but it's worth considering.

yeah, the Mercantile CSs need a slight adjustment as well.