Happiness Revealed! (?)

So, have you ever sat down and tried to figure out how exactly happiness/unhappiness works in Civ III?

I mean, I know that my temple makes unhappy people content. I know why people get unhappy - that click-on-unhappy-face feature is really nice! I know that Wonders do the same thing, as do military police. I know that Luxury resources make content people happy, and that Luxury tax has an effect.

What I don't necessarily understand is why some war weariness can make my size 12 city with 11 happy, 1 unhappy suddenly go to a couple unhappy and everyone else content? Nobody is happy, despite 12 smiley faces worth of Luxury resources!?

Here's a theory. Smiley faces must be calculated first, then content faces. So the aforementioned size-12 city must have no content faces to make happy (everyone is unhappy) when the luxuries are accounted for, so nobody becomes happy. Then the improvements and wonders are factored in, and a number of the unhappy people become content - but still nobody is happy.

That explains how the Luxuries could fail to make anyone happy in some situations, but it can't be the whole story! If it were, then no city would ever have more than 2 happy people at Monarchy difficulty, as that is the base number of content citizens before improvements are taken into account. So how is it that you can sometimes have 12 happy citizens?


Is there a really angry citizen factor, like there was in Civ II? (Double-unhappy "pirates" who were twice as hard to placate?) I thought there wasn't....

Maybe it's as simple as unhappiness factors like war weariness making happy people content?

Oh, and how to Luxury taxes work? Do they make content people happy, or unhappy people content, or both?

If anyone has the answers, I'd love to hear it!

Depending on the difficulty level a certain number of citizens are born unhappy. So, when things start to go wrong they're more easily pissed off than those born content.

Based on some experiments I did a while ago, I believe that you get 1 happy face for each gold the city spends on happiness 1 for each entertainer (in addition to the happy faces from luxuries). It also seems that if there are no content citizens, a happy face will make 1 unhappy citizen content.

I'm not sure exactly for the unhappiness caused by pop rushing and drafting works, and I have no idea for war weariness works.

Originally posted by Peteus

Here's a theory. Smiley faces must be calculated first, then content faces. So the aforementioned size-12 city must have no content faces to make happy (everyone is unhappy) when the luxuries are accounted for, so nobody becomes happy. Then the improvements and wonders are factored in, and a number of the unhappy people become content - but still nobody is happy.

That explains how the Luxuries could fail to make anyone happy in some situations, but it can't be the whole story! If it were, then no city would ever have more than 2 happy people at Monarchy difficulty, as that is the base number of content citizens before improvements are taken into account. So how is it that you can sometimes have 12 happy citizens?

Click to expand...

I don't think your theory accounts for cities, particularly in the ancient times, that have 3 happy and three unhappy people, with no content citizens. In this situation, the three unhappy people are that way because of the level, and possibly pop-rushing, while the three happy people were content, and made happy by luxuries. If there is a temple in the city, does it make an unhappy person content that is now happy because of luxuries, or does it make one of the remaining unhappy people content. From my example, it seems the former is true. However, I have seen many cities with all three types of citizens, or only happy and content. Damnit this is confusing. I think I just further undermined my 'understanding' of this facet of the game. Oh well. What does it matter? My people all love me.