well, all this happiness has made the Piety policy (50% of happ cpt bonus) actually worth it. It's helped me get multiple golden ages and make culture vics much easier. if it gets really nerfed then CV's get even more cumbersome.
2 - Treat the Social Policies bonuses regarding cities as local as well (liberty tree)
3 - Treat the religious hapiness bonuses as local too (X happiness for each 5 followers in your city...)
5- - Buff the Piety policy (50% of happ cpt bonus) to compensate for it, hell, bring back the whole "golden ages last 50% more" bonus too
if it gets really nerfed then CV's get even more cumbersome.
No.
Why is this overpowered again?
Did you bother to read the thread at all?
Religion = (ceremonial burial/ peace loving), Its true they create a vast amounts of happiness, but how sure is it that your religion will spread?, maybe it spreads but at the same time another guy comes in converting all the cities. The thing with these bonuses is that they arent set in stone. For example, you build a circus, you get 2 happiness for life. There is no way another player can come in and take the 2 happiness that you obtained from a circus, while there is a way to lose 2 happiness from religion if another player converts your city to another religion. Of course a descent player wouldnt just convert 1 city. They would save up the prophet until they have 2, and in a series of events convert 8 cities quickly, rebalancing the power of your religion. Having huge drawbacks on your happiness level.
Pagodas, etc. Yes they are also pretty nice, but if your religion is even spreading to enemy cities, I certainly wouldnt fight off your religion, I would be able to take advantage of the pagodas and I too would be able to get happiness, culture, and faith.
Mercantile City states: This is similar to Religion, but a bit worse in my opinion. They grant massive happiness, but its also not set on stone. If another player comes in and snatches your city state, you pay a big price for relying so much on the city state to help you out. Your happiness gets destroyed. Imagine a player relying on 2 mercantile city states. And suddenly another player snatches both?
Most players, feel these bonuses are for life, you have to keep a constant eye on it, because it can be easy to take that happiness away.
I dont think there is an issue for happiness, because everyone has the chance to all of this. Some players do get away with the massive prize, but thats because the other players arent doing anything about it. Why should some people be punished for playing right? While the people who play wrong, get to act like happiness is an issue?
Also you forgot to mention how beautiful it is to just make one city, i am literally almost positive happiness when I go for monarchy and have zero luxury items(with no religion). So Wide or Tall, the benefit of happiness is for everyone. Not just a few selected, and thats how I think you are looking at this that only players who play religion get the massive happiness bonus. When in fact even non-religious players like myself still get to have a chunk of good happiness throughout the entire game, even with zero luxuries at hand
Is this thread meant to be about ideas to nerf happiness, or a discussion as to whether that is necessary?
I definitely think it needs a nerf, at least when it comes to the AI. The happiness bonuses they receive are pretty needless, and kinda destroy the point of the system as it relates to them.
happiness is hard too maintain early, and a cakewalk to maintain mid-late game. At least in my personal experience.
I do agree that religion should have negative modifiers as well. Possibly a hard negative to beakers. It's a very powerful mid-game tool with no repercussions.
This is all nonsense.
First, you could lose the Circus if an enemy captures your city. Even retaking the city doesn't guarantee the survival of the Circus.
Second, religion and Circuses coexist. This isn't a situation of having one or the other. You can't make an equivalence between "less Happiness, less risk" and "more Happiness, more risk". In fact, you can have both sources of Happiness simultaneously. The end result is too much Happiness. Sure, bad players might not get the same benefit that better players do (because they don't spread their religion or defend against enemy spread), but so what? That's true of everything in Civ V.
Finally, you're ignoring the Happiness beliefs that are just as "set in stone" as the Circus. These include Asceticism (+1 Happiness for Shrines), Peace Gardens (+2 Happiness for Gardens), and Religious Center (+2 Happiness for Temples). Ceremonial Burial and (to a lesser extent) Peace Loving are a large part of the problem, but these other beliefs coexist with those two. You can stack them. That's a lot of Happiness, even if you never spread beyond your own cities.
I'd be more concerned with saving those Faith points for Missionaries and Inquisitors to rebuild my own religion. The founder beliefs are too powerful to give up if you've already devoted resources to founding a religion. If you don't have your own religion, then of course you might accept one from a neighbor, but so what? He's got Pagodas and Ceremonial Burial. He's still winning.
You raise another point, though. The Cathedrals, Mosques, and Pagodas all provide even more Happiness to stack with the other beliefs. And these buildings are just as "set in stone" as the Circus. Plus, you don't have to spend Production to get them!
Look, the game isn't going to be balanced exclusively around bad players. If you're relying on two Mercantile city-states and manage to lose both of them, then that's your own damn fault. The fact is that it's pretty easy (even on Immortal and Deity) to keep the Happiness flowing from Mercantile city-states.
By that logic, why not just put a Giant Death Robot squad somewhere on the map and let players hunt for it at the start of the game? Since everyone had equal access to it, it's not unfair if the player who gets there first uses his new army to annihilate everything on the map, right?
Games that aren't balanced aren't fun.
This entire paragraph doesn't make sense to me.
First, what do you mean by "how beautiful it is to just make one city"?
Second, that's my entire point. There's already enough Happiness in the game to support spreading or growing at a reasonable, competitive rate. If you want to spread or grow even faster than that, then you should need to make a tradeoff. You should consider building Colloseums, which provide Happiness at the expense of Gold. You should care about where the new cities are in relation to luxury resources because you rely on the Happiness that they provide.
With religion and Mercantile city-states in their current form, you can pretty much ignore these mechanics and spread or grow like crazy. Happiness is no longer a resource to manage in Civ V once you get past the initial 30-40 turns. Since Civ V is a strategy game, a loss of a strategic resource system weakens the gameplay.