Happiness in larger Civs

I love building large Civilizations, but I can never keep my happiness up. I always do my best to get and trade for luxuries and build all the improvements that raise happiness, but the happiness always ends up sliding down. What am I doing wrong? Any advice will be a huge help.

... and that is the challenge in this game. To dream of a happy large empire in civ5 you need many more things than the basic: starting with religion (and capturing the happiness beliefs), some key wonders, key alliances to mercantile CS's, and careful management of expansion. All this is more true at Emperor+.

I usually take luxuries as a big consideration when founding cities. Does the link action have a luxury that I don't have? Does it have more than one so I can trade? Obviously you also have to get strategic resources too.
I also tend to ally a lot of city states which helps.
Finnally when I'm on conquest capitals obviously take priority and then cities with luxuries or epic production.

What can help is this.

Play large map at least (less science and culture penalty per city - normal size is 5% science and 10% culture, large size is 3% science and 7% culture)

Knowing when to go wide and when not too - you need some good dirt with a good variety of luxuries and some NWs to make some early cities decent powerhouses.

Open Liberty to the free Settler than put 2 points in Piety for Organized Religion. Make founding a religion a priority. If you don't have any decent faith pantheons to choose from consider Goddess of Love as a Pantheon. Use your multiple cities with Piety opening to prioritize shrines. Once you establish a religion you should consider Pagoda's and Religious Centre as Follower Beliefs. Tithe always for Founder. With Goddess of Love, Pagoda's & Religious Centre that can be 5 happiness per city from religion.

Try positioning your cities so you can take advantage of Stoneworks and Circus. Sometimes if there is a clump of stone or horses you can place cities around them so each city can get a stoneworks and circus.

Build the Pyramids - with a wide empire you need lots of workers and the free engineer point will guarantee you a mid game wonder. Oracle is another good wonder to snag as it is not sought after by AIs.

Use the commerce tree to get Protectionism

Social Policies tailored to your game are probably the most help. Early in the game you don't have much happiness available to you. As the game goes on and you acquire science and open policy tress you have much more happiness available. Its actually open ended but doesn't feel that way. One time I had +400 Happiness. Ideologies help, Exploration tree (if you are coastal), finish the Commerce tree. Ally Merc CS, several buildings, trade, religion, etc, etc.

Magma the Great said:

I usually take luxuries as a big consideration when founding cities. Does the link action have a luxury that I don't have? Does it have more than one so I can trade?

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For my last several games, I have been making it a priority to get a monopoly on the lux most prevalent near the cap. Four cities has been enough for that, but of course it has meant giving up one or two new luxes. This has worked out very well diplomatically, and also seems to help keep the AIs from forward settling on me. Bucking conventional wisdom, I would argue that lux monopoly > new luxes.

beetle said:

For my last several games, I have been making it a priority to get a monopoly on the lux most prevalent near the cap. Four cities has been enough for that, but of course it has meant giving up one or two new luxes. This has worked out very well diplomatically, and also seems to help keep the AIs from forward settling on me. Bucking conventional wisdom, I would argue that lux monopoly > new luxes.

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I agree. In a game that I'm currently paying as France I haven't prioritized luxuries as much and I'm doing fine. Albeit I'm not doing well enough for any conquest, but I'm doing good enough that I have a nice little buffer in case I have a sudden drop.

Play Liberty-Exploration as Carthage and spam coastal cities. +1 happiness from city connections through Liberty and +1 happiness from harbours through Exploration. With the free harbour in every coastal city, you can basically settle cities to your heart's content. Once you take Order for the +2 happiness from Monuments, you'll be rolling in happiness.

Obviously, for a start - build colosseums/theatres/stadiums. Have as many different luxuries you can have. Tip: build city on top of luxury to have access to it without the use of worker; also, city square cannot be pillaged.

Early game: I usually go with Liberty SP - basically everything in it asap. Connect cities to the capital. Liberty finished = Great Person of choice, which essentially means a world wonder of choice. Choose great engineer and hurry up/build Notre Dame. +10 hap. early game really helps. Chichen Itza's +4 is not bad either. If you have Theology, hurry Hagia Sophia and get another GE from it - then build ND.

Forbidden palace is decent, but somehow I usually fail to build it (and get it later on during conquer phase

I usually go with Piety/Organized Religion - you have to build as much Monuments/Temples/Monasteries as you can.

Late game, Order helps - +1 per city is good. Eiffel Tower is great.

What can really make a difference is Honor/Professional Army SP. Walls/Castle/Arsenal/Mil. base don't cost upkeep, so you can have up to +4 happiness per city - with no additional cost. So build (buy) Walls/Castle etc. everywhere, not just in border cities.

Mind also the "Military Caste" - have unit in each city for +1hap/+2culture. I usually use this to get out from "very unhappy" situation.

Yeah,

I am playing a game on Prince at the moment and Mother Theresa of Austria has like 15 cities I counted and she is starting to pull away but I still have here in my reach. I am thinking to myself...how is it possible to maintain all those cities with happiness and money per turn etc.

I have 4 cities and I am busting my hump to keep the smiley face in the yellow with all the buildings.

Brew God

brewgod said:

Yeah,

I am playing a game on Prince at the moment and Mother Theresa of Austria has like 15 cities I counted and she is starting to pull away but I still have here in my reach. I am thinking to myself...how is it possible to maintain all those cities with happiness and money per turn etc.

I have 4 cities and I am busting my hump to keep the smiley face in the yellow with all the buildings.

Brew God

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G&K: AI plays on Chieftain, which is 60% of the normal unhappiness plus an extra happiness per luxury plus a flat 3 extra happiness.

BNW: AI Default Handicap is 90% of normal unhappiness plus a flat 6 extra happiness but no extra happiness per luxury.

I still find how happiness works as the silliest part of the game (apart from Xcom units and GDR). I understand that people getting unhappy the bigger the population reflects the needs of more people, but it also makes no sense that the more cities you lose the happier people get, especially if losing them in a war.

I`ve had wars where the enemy have taken 5 of my cities leaving me wiith like 2 cities and my population is the happiest it`s ever been!

Anyway, happiness is always a prime concern, so you have to play to the game world`s unreality. I usually:

1. Plant any new city near as many good resources as possible or Natutral wonders (this wil help for trade and suppling the people what they want). If I see a really good natural wonder I`ll even sacrifice turns getting my first city to it for the happiness.
2. Immediately take any Social policies that encorage happiness, but not all of them as some I need to encourage cash.
3. Get good City state relations with the ones that have rare luxuries (might to have a good city state Social policy).
4. Produce Techs that help with this.
5. check what the people want and trade like mad for them with other Nations, even giving away more just for that luxury they have as it can make a huge difference in your Nation`s contentment.
6. Once you manage to stabilise with 5 or 6 or more happy faces, you can consider doing other things like taking the Order policy or even going to war.

Assuming continents, one happiness boost I tend to forget is exploration in general. Discovering astronomy and getting caravels and scouts out to reveal more of the map is something you shouldn't overlook. Once I start discovering national wonders and trading luxuries with the people overseas, I can usually get into positive happiness and never look back.

Diplomacy.. city states often have happiness luxuries that can be acquired only through the city state. For example, porcelain is a luxury that only city states have as well as jewelry.. Making money and paying city states to become your ally can also provide more happiness to your large civ.

Has been mentioned, but Pagodas (if you are fortunate enough to get an early religion) are useful. Ensure all your trade routes are maintained to establish gold- for instance don't have a capacity for six routes and only have three ships. If happiness is getting hard to maintain switch from providing food to your cities via trade routes to hammers to build extra happiness buildings.

And also, when you get to ideology, try and access ones that give you happiness. For example, in Freedom a second tier ideology halves the unhappiness from specialists.

Finally, don't neglect aesthetics.