Question regarding happiness

I have a question about happiness. Indeed, watching Marbozir's Let's Play entitled "Gandhi VS the White Walkers" (21th [EDIT : no, it was the 22th] video of this series if you want to precisely watch it), I saw him conquer the city of Hastings.

He puppeted it. It had 9 population points left. What I don't understand is why his happiness dropped only by -1 : the city has two happiness buildings (+4), but with Gandhi a city of 9 pop makes for -4,5 happiness, - the 6 from the city itself, for a total of -10,5, minus the +4 of the happiness buildings, makes for -6,5 happiness, not -1.

So, did I miss something (I don't think it has any happiness specific wonder), or what can you teach to me about it ?

I always felt that my games were lacky in happiness, strangely Marbozir's ones don't seem like them at all, could there be bug or a difference in happiness management from games to games, or from a version to the other ? (I play the version before the final patch of Civ5 BNW)

Please enlight me, <snip>. And I think the answers could be profitable for every Civ fanatic.

If you think that "this game might give a different experience according to the different players", fine, but I would like to go deeper in the explanation.

Thanks.

So 85 views so far and no answer ? Here is the link of the video, and Hastings conquest screen around 21:23 (you can pause to check more quietly what's in the city)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NTTJGEraMw&index=22&list=PLHQyGGzRHYIZK82K7UNgRDWz1b53EobYe

Did the city contain a Lux Resourse he didn't have before he took it? Did he have any policies that increase happiness like Meritocracy or Military Caste? If those two conditions were met, then he'd have +5 happiness which should bring your number down to -1.5.

sorry, I didn't view the video.

When he took Hastings, his happiness went from +1 to +11, so Hastings provided +10 happiness. The puppet tooltip says puppeting the city would generate 11 unhappiness, and, sure enough, when he chose puppet, his happiness went to 0. So where is that 10 happiness?

Hastings had a circus and a stadium (+2 happiness each, for a total of +4). He went Order. One tooltip shows he took Academy of Sciences (level 2 Order tenet) which provides +1 happy for every observatory, public school and research lab -- I see an observatory and a research lab, so that's another +2 happy.

He probably also took Young Pioneers (+1 happy for every workshop, factory and hydro/nuke plant) - I see a workshop and a factory, so another +2 happy, which gets us to +8 happy.

At that point, I stopped looking. There's undoubtedly another +2 happy lurking somewhere. End of conspiracy theory.

Browd saves the day. Unique luxes are also something to note when you're about to take a city. If it has a luxury improved that you don't have, you can usually pretty safely take the city (so long as it's not something like pop 20 when you take it.)

And the answer to your question about managing happiness is "yes". He is doing things to manage his happiness AHEAD of what he intends to do. Controlling happiness in CiV is something you learn to do proactively, as opposed to reactively. This means: don't wait to improve happiness when it's a problem (i.e. You are in negative happiness). Know what's around the corner and get extra happiness before you take a hit.

I mention this because, as Browd pointed out, the player you were watching has selected tenets in order that will help offset future happiness penalties as he takes cities. (There are other reasons of course.) As you take a few trips through your own civ games, you will definitely get a feel for what happiness policies really help you get where you want to be. For example, the tenet in order that ties happiness to science buildings lets you double-dip as you angle for your science victory.

Thx Browd for the input.

Browd said:

At that point, I stopped looking. There's undoubtedly another +2 happy lurking somewhere. End of conspiracy theory.

Click to expand...

Too bad, I wish I have a complete information on that part, not just incomplete and guessings.

I can help with that, I think. What Browd said is all correct, I did have both Academy of Sciences as well as Young Pioneers (also Socialist Realism, but that one didn't matter here). Gandhi's UA almost definitely accounts for the remaining +2. (unhappiness from number of cities doubled, but halved from number of citizens)

Also, like Primacide said, happiness is something that kinda has to be planned in advance, ESPECIALLY in domination games.