How to Pacify the People

So I played a game as Montezuma of the Aztecs, eliminated the Egyptians and started to conquer the Greeks (18th century AD). I was going for elimination, but then Alexander offered me a sweet deal giving me over half (4) of his remaining cities. The only problem was that even though I didn't conquer them, they acted like I did, and my happiness went from being like +3 to -14. My armies fought less effectively, which was okay since I wasn't at war, but my production went on at the speed of a snail, and I struggled to make the people happier. Finally I got it up to -8 (merely "unhappy" instead of "incensed"). But then something happened and it's back down to -14 again. I can't just keep building circuses and theaters forever! What can I do? Can I lower taxes or something? (none of the formerly Greek cities are "revolting" and I believe there is only one that is "occupied." I think I annexed one and puppeted the others.)

Well the happiness is based on population so one thing you can do if you really want a city offered to you is to razz it, but stop when the population gets down to one or two. But really--did you need all those cities, quite often what the AI is offering is useless cities that have few buildings and luxuries to counter unhappiness (i.e. luxuries you don't already have). Generally it's a good idea to keep an eye on your happiness while warring and if it gets down to the single digits make peace for a while and concentrate on building up your happiness. Another thing: if an AI has built Notra Dame go take it.

Another way to look at it is when the AI is offering you all those cities then it is hoping to sucker you into taking them so your happiness will be a problem. You can also trade/give away your cities but I don't do this, I'll just razz them down to nothing.

Alright, thanks. I think I'll just load the save from before the war and redo it. It's too late to raze them now.

darkskies said:

Another way to look at it is when the AI is offering you all those cities then it is hoping to sucker you into taking them so your happiness will be a problem.

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The AI is not that clever. The AI is offering up cities because it knows it is beat. You can negotiate the peace deal at that point, maybe just taking gold and luxes. But accepting a good city or two is not bad either -- but you do need to be wary of the happiness hit.

CedricTheAwesom said:

But then something happened and it's back down to -14 again.

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By saying "something happened", I assume you aren't really sure what specifically caused you to drop so far into unhappiness. Even though I'm not certain, some things that can cause sudden drops of unhappiness are a deal with another Civ in which you receive a luxury resource ending, or losing city state allies (especially mercantile ones).

I'd suggest not building too wide, making sure you settle your cities near at least one luxury you don't already have in your empire, and befriending some nearby city states, because even ones that aren't mercantile city states will still give you their resource if you become allies with them. Also, in the medieval era, study physics and build the Notre Dame for +10 happiness. Or, if it gets stolen by another Civ, put that Civ high on your hitlist. It feels satisfying to take a city and to have happiness go up because it has the Notre Dame in it.

In Civ V it is generally a bad idea to take every city they offer in such deals if you don't have a big buffer of happiness (+20 or more). As you realized the hit is huge with a global happiness system especially if you take a lot of cities at once. This is why you need to be careful when at war.

Now if you don't mind putting up with the happiness hit for a dozen turns you can raze the cities from the deal you don't like which hurts Alexander a lot more than leaving him with them--and if you didn't try it this time, next time try substituting a few of the crappier cities with his luxes instead which will keep your happier after the deal. Also keep in mind unhappiness naturally gets better as resistance ends. Resistance is an even bigger happiness hit on top of the annex or puppet penalties.

If you can't afford this process or don't want to be bothered, next time screen his cities and only take the ones you really want instead of all of them. This isn't civ III or IV anymore so it is no longer a good idea to get all the cities you can.

Getting happier over time: quickest way to offset a big happiness penalty is to check the CS's in the world. I'll bet some of them, especially mercantile ones have unique luxuries. Try to ally one with 2 you don't have and that'll help a lot while you make your new greek cities happy. Also, I know it's a chore but building happiness buildings is a must if you want to keep your cities growing big. A lot of huge happiness improvements come from ideologies as well so if you are close beeline them and that'll help.

EstrogenSyringe said:

Even though I'm not certain, some things that can cause sudden drops of unhappiness are a deal with another Civ in which you receive a luxury resource ending, or losing city state allies (especially mercantile ones).

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Those event at least are paired with pop-up-at-the-beginning of your turn messages. After ideologies, you can experience 10 point swings in happiness from turn-to-turn with no messages to correlate with! If that happens, check the Cultural Victory scree and I bet you can find that some AI just tipped into a new influence tier with you.

The other fun thing is to take the crap cities being offered for peace and sell them off to the highest bidder. If you select Raze first, you can get some extra gold by selling on building off first. If the money being offered is not great, then consider selling or gifting the city to whatever AI is the most over extended -- let them take the happiness hit!

My mistake was accidentally (because I'm still learning) trading away luxury resources that I didn't have surplus of.

Oooooh that sneaky AI. Never, ever renew lux trades when it's not your turn. A bug in the trade screen will show that you have multiple copies of a lux that you do not actually have. Always wait until your own turn to renew or make deals. You don't take any diplo hit by refusing the deal during the AI's turn.

The AI will also approach you to renew a lux deal that expired 400 turns ago, and the same bug will apply. This is just FYI, and apologies if you already knew these things.

ANd happiness is not the only downside of accepting those cities. For each city you have, technologies cost more to research and social policies cost more culture. So having cities can be bad. Only take those you really want.