How do I keep my empire happy with 4 city massive growth?

fallout3dc

Warlord
Joined
Jun 29, 2014
Messages
289
I have trouble getting a religion going, mainly because I built temples/holy temple way too late (around public schools time on turn 180 or so), but I want to save gold for science building purchases and a little bit of research agreements here and there. But my normal way of staying happy was to simply ally with practically every single city-state in the game (especially mercantile)

So, how would I keep grow fast while keeping happiness up to allow me to grow quickly? I've know of trading lux for lux and getting luxs of my own and doing city state quests periodically, but I need a lot more happiness to be able to mass a huge population early. Would the answer need to be religion and pagodas? So, when should I build up on shrines and temples? Thanks for the help. I'm got good with the Mayans, but my issue is that the Mayans play much different than the Koreans.
 
If happiness is such a big problem, try playing with India. Their UA alongside a Padoga/Coliseum/Circus/etc. and the Tradition tree negates most excess unhappiness. It's possible to run 7+ size 30-60 cities with India and still have 100+ smiley faces.

A more generic method would be to build a shrine immediately after your first scout, most of the time ensuring a Pantheon. Choosing a faith based Pantheon such as Desert Fokelore will then guarantee you a Religion. Padoga's are fairly hard to get, but the beliefs which give you happiness from shrines and temples are a great replacement.

Finally, don't build that fourth city - not so early anyway. I know it used to be the optimum playing method to get all the freebee's, etc., but since BNW I've found it much more optimal to stick to 2-3 cities in the first 120 turns or so (unless I'm India, then I build as many as I can in good locations). If you're only building it for one extra lux, that lux only covers the base unhappiness you get for building the city. Any growth, therefore, only gives you more unwanted unhappiness.

Mid-late game, you want to be aiming for Notre Dame/Forbidden Palace/Neutschwanstein, etc. and any social policies which help with happiness. Filling the Mercantile or City State specific policies give major bonuses to happiness, as do many Freedom/Order/Autocracy policies.

And don't forget other CS's. Mercantile give extra happiness as the benefit, but allying other CS types will also give you access to the luxury resources in their reach.
 
The answer to happiness for a tall 4 city empire is:

"Tradition, Tradition, Tradition."

Specifically, the Monarchy part that eliminates half of population based unhappiness from the capital.
And circuses & stone works in all cities where possible, colosseums everywhere, and then build Circus Maximus.
A few luxury for a luxury trades after that and your all set. If you go religion, you might not even need Zoos.
 
In addition to the obvious buildings, there a couple ways to push happiness up.

A lot of players don't devote gold to city states, but it is often worth it to get luxuries and happiness. The left side of Patronage is very strong if you can manage 6-10 CS allies. The science and extra cs lux happiness is very strong.

If you're growing like crazy and short of happiness, explore the map and try to build some influence with CS and maybe use a lot of that science building gold on CS.

You can also push into an ideology as fast as possible. Bulbing or Oxfording up.
 
It sounds like Notre Dame might be right up your alley. Capping out Liberty for the Great Engineer can be helpful. I was obsessed with Notre Dame for a while. I've since learned to manage my Happiness better, so I don't build it much anymore, but the old lady still has a place in my heart. It's worth visiting in real life, too.
 
Thanks guys!

So some common themes seem to be:

Tradition
Keep at 4 Cities
Go Patronage and try to Ally a as Many City States as Possible
Use Freedom
Push Specialists
Possibly Go Down the Left Side of Aesthetics for the Happiness to Culture Policy
Go Down Commerce for the Luxury Resource Extra Happiness

I think Ill give this a try!

I may also start with Indonesia because you can net an extra 3 Luxury Resources
 
I'm rarely able to keep 4 cities happy. 3? No problem. But 4 becomes hit or miss, and I need to spend a lot of time building zoos and junk I'd rather not be building.

Unless I find a stellar location for the 4th city, or I'm all coastal, I generally try to just go with 3 until I take some other poor schmuck's capital and make that my 4th (admittedly, without the tradition freebies).
 
What huge early population are we talking about and what eras?

Tradition (then rationalism) allying 1 mercantile is a must and of course trading lux, circuses and colosseum, circus maximus. If you get more allies (cultured) which you should then better for you :)

Sometimes you get happiness benefits from AI religion but on higher difficulties forget about your own religion.

This has almost always worked fine for me.
 
Lately I've been preferring to use just 3 cities (deity)... faster SP and less baseline unhappiness (not to mention ideology pressure) allows you to spend gold/lux trades on something else; this is so much safer and easier that I usually don't go 4 anymore unless each new city has 2-3 unique luxuries.
 
Well, I deal with that issue by:

1. Trading for excess luxuries
2. Circus Maximus and later Zoos if needed
3. Timing social policies, most trees have one happiness boost policy
4. Keep an eye out for CS quests and their luxuries. Often you can make a chain reaction of influence
5. Build/buy religious buildings that get extra happiness, it can either be your own religion for which you pick such a bonus, or a foreign religion will come knocking on your door and more often than not, they will have picked a mosque or a pagoda


once you get to ideology, happiness generally stops being an issue and will spring you to positive 20s at least.
 
Nuts to allying, just use Great Generals to grab CS land with Luxuries. Last thing you want is to be treading water at 1 :) and then a needed Mercantile ally to get bought or conquered. You can even DoW on the victim and farm XP off them, if you like.

I'd rather semi-beeline Electricity and finish Oxford University on the same turn to shotgun a nice early Ideology than go off track for Notre Dame. Physics is a tech I prefer to steal or backfill.

Don't neglect your Guilds, developing your Social Policies is a handy source of some :) bonuses.
 
^ Notre Dame is almost always built by someone before I even get to physics, even if I go for it right after education. :(

If you can, CS allies are the best way. Then trade luxes, and buy happiness religious buildings in your cities if you have a good one. Monarchy is the key.
 
Slow down growth by changing default focus to maximise production or gold gathering which invariably reduces food gathering. And make a beeline for patronage social policy to increase the value of gifted resources and bribe, bribe, bribe.
 
Keeping 4 cities happy is practically the easiest, compared to 6 cities, or 8 cities, or 10 cities, right?
 
Keeping 4 cities happy is practically the easiest, compared to 6 cities, or 8 cities, or 10 cities, right?

Actually...no. The reason is the limited number of happiness buildings.

Imagine you're Autocracy, for example (I'm picking that because that's what I usually go in Deity games). Ignoring situational buildings like Circus, Stoneworks, and religious buildings, you can do the following:

Colosseum (2)
Zoo (4)
Stadium (6)
Castle (7)
Arsenal (8)
Military Base (9)
Barracks (11)
Armory (13)
Military Academy (15)

That means every city with population 15 or less only incurs the 3 unhappiness from founding a city. If you have a Circus, Stoneworks, and Pagoda that means every city can be size 20. If that city provides a unique luxury then it can be size 21 and incur no net happiness penalty overall.

But if you grow that city up to size 30 then suddenly you have -10 happiness from the city overall.

This is the general reason why more but smaller cities are easier to keep happy long term because you don't need world wonders/national wonders/extra luxuries/etc to make up for the larger population per city. A size 7 city provides no net unhappiness with just one luxury and colosseum/zoo/stadium.
 
4 cities aren't that difficult to keep happy. The only reason why someone wouldn't be able to keep 4 cities happy is by not having 4 different unique luxurious resources. Most maps don't always have 4 -6 different luxuries around so that could be the main reason why keeping 4 cities happy becomes difficult.
 
Try to get some gpt surplus and at least 4 unique luxes.
Use the gold per turn to ally With City states.
get the gold per turn from tithe/ mosoleum of halicalucus or colossus and machu piccu and maybe a cargo ship or 2 for gold.
basically Balance Your growth With Your need for more luxeries.
Trade alot of lux for lux deals With other players/AI. Consider paying GPt for luxes from other players to avoid negative Growth.
as in work one or 2 calendar lux tiles for the gold instead and trade for the lux.
Negative happiness means 75% of excess Food is lost so you can pay more for luxes the bigger you are.
After you get rationalism 1 you might be willing to pay as much as 10-25 gpt for a lux while you sort it out With buildings or get that turn you need for a happy policy.

Also get tradition With 1 in patronage.
 


Stop trying to ally with CSs. They will be drawn away by the Greeks, bought out by the Venetians, married by the Austrians, or bulldozed by the Mongols when they try to "help" you against Genghis's inevitable attack.

Send in me and my men and we'll grab their lands, steal workers, luxuries and resources, and train you a lethal army of gunners who'll slaughter any horde Shaka sends at you.

Just make sure you DoW on the CSs early on and don't capture them; you can assure the AI you'll pack it in and they'll be OK with it soon enough.
 
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