How to get rid of Global Unhappiness per City

The (Un)happiness game mechanic in Civ5 is quite confusing. The game distinguishes between
- local happiness (by city buildings, certain wonders, certain religious beliefs, certain social policies, ... -> local happiness cannot exceed number of pop in a city)
- global happiness (by game difficulty, finding Natural Wonders, luxuries, certain wonders, certain social policies ...)
- local unhappiness (by population, can be reduced by local happiness before being applied to global happiness)
- global unhappiness (by number of cities. The default global "UNHAPPINESS_PER_CITY" is 3. On worldsize huge, this value is reduced to 1,8 (60%).)

Very often the description to buildings, wonders, policies or religious beliefs just refers to (un)happiness, letting the player wonder if it affects local or global (un)happiness, which is an awful design.

While local unhappiness for smaller cities can be completely compensated by local happiness from buildings, etc., the global happiness from game difficulty, Natural Wonders, luxuries and certain wonders is limited and therefore limits the number of cities a player can support unless he can produce additional global happiness with each city. (If you place 1-4-10 cities, this is not a problem, but when thinking about 100-200 cities, the cumulated global unhappiness would outrun the limited global happiness.)

So far I identified 3 useful sources of global happiness per city/population which are available early in the game.
- Tradition - Aristocracy : +1 global happiness per 10 pop in a city.
- Liberty - Meritocracy : +1 global happiness per connected city. -5% Unhappiness per pop.
- Patronage : Forbidden Palace Wonder : -10% Unhappiness per pop.
(Note 1 : Aristocracy does not provide a bonus for 2 cities with 5 pop each, only if 10 pop are in a city, so it is NOT a simple 10% bonus)
(Note 2 : Meritocracy : The players capital cannot get the connection bonus.)
(Note 3 : Honor - Military Caste seems to give only local happiness and therefore is not an alternative to Aristocracy/Meritocracy)

For a connected size 10 city there are :
+ 1 global happiness for 10 pop
+ 1 global happiness by road connection
+ 1,5 global happiness by reduced global unhappiness from 10 pop (-15%)
= + 3,5 global happiness

For a connected size 15 city there are :
+ 1 global happiness for 10 pop
+ 1 global happiness by road connection
+ 2,25 global happiness by reduced global unhappiness from 15 pop (-15%)
= + 4,25 global happiness

For a connected size 20 city there are :
+ 2 global happiness for 2 x 10 pop
+ 1 global happiness by road connection
+ 3 global happiness by reduced global unhappiness from 20 pop (-15%)
= + 6 global happiness

So far those numbers are theory and I do have to test them.

Depending on possibilities to produce local happiness from buildings, wonders, beliefs and social policies, a group of tall core cities with an unlimited wide empire with size 10-20 cities seems possible. (On huge and giant maps, unhappiness per city is 1,8 and the science penalty is only 2% per city and culture penalty is 5%.)

In a Time game you can actually have unlimited size 30 cities. Here's a per-city calculation with Freedom ideology, perfect religion, all relevant policies and wonders:


+3 global
+30 local


+6 local from Colosseum/Zoo/Stadium

+2 local from Pagoda
+2 local from Religious Centers
+1 global from Goddess of Love
+0.5 global from Ceremonial Burial

+3 global from Aristocracy
+1 global from Meritocracy
+4.5 global from Forbidden Palace/Meritocracy
+2 local from Bank/Stock Exchange (Capitalism)
+5.5 global from 11 specialists (Universal Suffrage)
+2 local from Hospital/Medical lab (Urbanization)
+1 local from Castle (Neuschwanstein)
+1 local from garrison (Military Caste)
+1 global from CN Tower

That covers 32.5 unhappiness out of 33. The remaining 0.5 local gets covered by misc global happiness sources: luxuries, natural wonders, world wonders, mercantile CSs, Circus Maximus, Universal Healthcare, Monarchy. Many cities will have a Watermill, Windmill, Circus, Stoneworks, Mint, Lighthouse, Harbor or Seaport, so the population cap is even higher for those.

Thanks for your reply ...

That covers 32.5 unhappiness out of 33.

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When you play huge/giant, you only need 31.8, so Ceremonial Burial would be optional.

+1 global from Goddess of Love

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In my current game, Goddess of Love gives +1 local happiness

+2 local from Religious Centers

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Peaceful Gardens would do also when always settling near Fresh Water
(Or playing as egypt ... +2 local happiness per temple)

vadalaz said:

Here's a per-city calculation with Freedom ideology, perfect religion, all relevant policies and wonders:

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Thanks for that! Very encouraging really!

Many cities will have a Watermill, Windmill, Circus, Stoneworks, Mint, Lighthouse, Harbor or Seaport, so the population cap is even higher for those.

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How do you get a happy from Windmill?

From the extra engineer specialist and Universal Suffrage.

^^ Okay. In a similar vein are the six specialists from your three guilds.

I think you were wise to only include Neuschwanstein and CN Tower since they provide a buff per city.

But how does the happy from Notre Dame and Eiffel Tower effect this? Do they end up only buffing one city? I would swear I see them adding to global happiness, but does that mean I could have unlimited number of pop 40 cities?

Notre Dame (+10) and Eiffel Tower (+5) add a fixed value of global happiness like luxuries ... but they do not scale with number of cities or total population ... if you consider "unlimited" number of cities, only per-city/pop-boni stay relevant ...

Notre Dame and Eiffel Tower are usefull wonders but in a wide empire the effect will soon be less than the bonus happiness from Forbidden Palace which scales with your total population.

historix69 said:

Notre Dame (+10) and Eiffel Tower (+5) add a fixed value of global happiness like luxuries ... but they do not scale with number of cities or total population ... if you consider "unlimited" number of cities, only per-city/pop-boni stay relevant ...

Notre Dame and Eiffel Tower are usefull wonders but in a wide empire the effect will soon be less than the bonus happiness from Forbidden Palace which scales with your global population.

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You know I've gotten to the point where if I can't build Forbidden Palace or take it from someone else easily, I just end the game.

I do not enjoy domination games, I almost always try for diplomatic, cultural, or science. And this wonder seems to make everything so much easier. Sometimes I feel compelled to go for Order (if I have enough coal to make it worthwhile) or Autocracy simply because I can't afford to not have the early happiness.

With Forbidden Palace it is no problem to go with Freedom, which I find really useful for diplomatic and cultural victories (come to think of it scientific too, by the time you are buying spaceship parts the money usually isn't an issue).

Also as nearly as I can tell, the first vote to elect a new world congress chairman happens before city states are counted in the voting. So no matter if you founded the world congress or not, regardless of how many city states a civ is allied with, you are guaranteed to be chairman the first time that position is voted for.

Typically when I go for diplomatic, I get the chairmanship the first time it comes up, then never lose it the rest of the game.

It is interesting that freedom actually gives the most per-city happiness if you disregard buildings that are situational. In a normal game it is probably considered the lowest happiness provider.
Also in this infinite city scenario order actually gives the least amount of happiness (only monuments and workshops are reliable for every city).

claudiupb said:

It is interesting that freedom actually gives the most per-city happiness if you disregard buildings that are situational.

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Yes, but does that not follow mostly from assuming 11 specialists per city?

In a normal game it is probably considered the lowest happiness provider.

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I think the tally is more theoretical than possible in actual play.

Also in this infinite city scenario order actually gives the least amount of happiness (only monuments and workshops are reliable for every city).

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Wide from conquest as opposed to wide from self-founding would help Order and Autocracy. Puppets will not have Pagodas and Temples, even with Religious Center, tend to be low on the queue. Puppets like Banks and Stock Exchange, but they might not stuff specialist enough.

So I think this exercise implicitly is assuming self-founded cities -- so already Order and Autocracy are at a disadvantage.

claudiupb said:

It is interesting that freedom actually gives the most per-city happiness if you disregard buildings that are situational. In a normal game it is probably considered the lowest happiness provider.
Also in this infinite city scenario order actually gives the least amount of happiness (only monuments and workshops are reliable for every city).

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Personally I only really take Order because of the tenet that gives enhanced science for factories. And the low level happiness tenets of course.

Rest of it doesn't seem that useful, or is duplicated by other ideologies. Kremlin is worst ideological building too. The armor production bonus never seems to matter at all. Usually at that time I can build stuff quick or just outright buy it.

beetle said:

Yes, but does that not follow mostly from assuming 11 specialists per city?

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Now that I think of it, 11 specialists is not possible for every city since not all cities can get Wind Mills and Factories (due to the limited coal supply), so it is really just 9 specialists guaranteed for each city. Unless you deliberately settle only on flat land to get the Wind Mill in every city so then you get 10 specialists slots. And this makes Autocracy the best happiness supplier in this scenario with 9 per city.

beetle said:

Wide from conquest as opposed to wide from self-founding would help Order and Autocracy. Puppets will not have Pagodas and Temples, even with Religious Center, tend to be low on the queue. Puppets like Banks and Stock Exchange, but they might not stuff specialist enough.

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You can always annex to get full control to take advantage of those bonuses. From a happiness point of view only autocracy benefit form conquest since they get the happiness from courthouses.

beetle said:

So I think this exercise implicitly is assuming self-founded cities -- so already Order and Autocracy are at a disadvantage.

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Yes, if you want an "unlimited" number of cities (assuming infinite map size), you need not to rely on any special conditions like cities that have courthouses, or water mills, etc.

There is a big difference between ideologies if you consider infinite cities, if you intend to do this on a high difficulty with ICS AI, you plan to capture capture a lot of cities and keep them. It is impossible to self found the entire map anyways due to existence of AI. Autocracy is by far the best for this due to courthouse happiness and every other buildings are reliable for every cities and you will always get Prora either yourself or captured. Otherwise Freedom is best due to the growth you get that makes it easier to get to the happiness cap which is around 30. Never take order if you plan on ICS to max pop since it doesn't scale that well contrary to popular belief due to lower happiness, also the wonder is garbage.

Ceremonial Burial is probably the way to go.
+1 happiness per 2 cities is pretty decent if you're able to spread your religion. You need just some decent sources of faith

Peace Loving could be very powerful too under certain circumstances but it takes some time to get going.

Redaxe said:

Ceremonial Burial is probably the way to go. +1 happiness per 2 cities is pretty decent if you're able to spread your religion.

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It was decent before the fall patch when they cut the boost in half. Now it is meh. It only works if your religion is the majority, and generally trying to convert and keep cities is a losing proposition.

beetle said:

It was decent before the fall patch when they cut the boost in half. Now it is meh. It only works if your religion is the majority, and generally trying to convert and keep cities is a losing proposition.

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Thing is though - the OP was talking about very wide empires (lets say more then 10 cities)...
With a civ this wide you'll have enough religious pressure and faith generation to be able to compete with the AI spreading religion. You'll be able to at least tag some citystates and neutral cities around your borders.

The other thing is I'm quite certain this is related to the AI behavior but once the Industrial era hits the AI seems to lose interest in spreading their religions. They only really bother to convert new cities that they found.
Usually at this point in the game you can start pushing your religion much more aggressively. But yes I think the value of this belief only really can be fully realised later in the game. That isn't a complete loss though, it may allow you to get away with choosing less ideology happiness policies then otherwise.

The problem is that wide empire is prone to get converted by whichever AI picked up the 30% extra range to spreading religion. I had many games where over half of my empire followed a foreign religion for most of the game. It is literally impossible to convert them back without spending huge amount of faith that should be saved for buying great people, so it's pretty useless. The only way to prevent this happening is to rush to enhance which means you won't be spreading your religion even to core cities before enhancing. Pretty much that requires building Hagia Sophia or using liberty free GPr. Obviously liberty free great person should be spend on rushing NC, so pretty much rng whether you will build Hagio Sophia or not.