New strategy: Ignore happiness

They do need to stick in a harsher penalty for being in the 'livid' happiness mode. Perhaps -50% gold income (thefts) or random citizens go on strike around you cities (forced into the 'unemployed citizens tab)
 
Alright, let's think it through on how it *should* scale then.

We need to set some goals first. What needs to be brought down if you get low on happiness?
- I will start by arguing food shouldn't be. Food going up causes unhappiness, therefore you don't need it diminishing when happiness goes down. Switching to no food is something the player should manage to stop happiness from going out of line. Really food diminishing is a way of Civ5 to hold your hand by telling you "you shouldn't grow right now, you're just going to make things worse". If a person wants to grow, they should be able to grow.
- Production should be, as we don't want people producing troops in mass numbers in negative happiness
- If production is on the list, then so should gold, as it is another means of production. I "gamed" gold to get by their little roadblock in my original post.
- Obviously the hit to golden ages should be present
- A hit to military power. This is to stop steamrolling, which isn't good for the game

Next, we need to know how we want to implement it. If it's a stepped system (ie how it is now), it is easily brought to the most efficient level by staying just above one of the steps. This is unrealistic, and doesn't feel right at all. Moreover, a system like this doesn't scale equally from large empires to small empires. Therefore, I think a more continuous system (alright, not continuous, but the most small steps we can get) is needed.

Finally, what we need is for this to work well for big empires and small empires. Note that I'm talking about 2 different things. First, it should work for empires with the same population, but different numbers of cities. Secondly, it should work for different numbers of population.

To tackle the first point is easy. A straight up percentage loss on production/gold would work for both. The problem is if you try this, then small population empires will barely suffer. I'll take 1 additional citizen (ie 2 production and 2 gold) for a 1% loss on production/gold if I only have 10 population in total. So we can't use straight percentages.

Instead, think of what 1 unhappiness causes you, and what it also benefits you. Obviously we want 1 more unhappiness to give a net loss: The goal is to punish the player for trying to play with a really unhappy empire. We want the player to want happiness.

Letting the city grow by 1 citizen nets:
- 1 unhappiness
- -2 food
- +production value of a citizen
- -1 golden age point

Therefore we need our "happiness detriment" to be worse than the production value of a citizen - a golden age point - 2 food.

Eyeballing it, I think what we want is probably -2 production and -2 gold per unhappy citizen. We then divide this by the total number of population, and apply it times the number of population of a particular city to that city, for all cities.

For example, say we have an empire of a size 20 city A, and size 10 city B, and the player has 5 unhappiness.
Then the player suffers -10*(20/30) production and gold in city A, and -10*(10/30) production and gold in city B.
 
hahaha, I love this strategy, and I can't wait to try it. Has anyone tried it with Songhai, yet? I think they'd be even more powerful than France. Use their massive pillage gold to rush buy a mud pyramid mosque (+5 culture, 0 maintenence) in all cities.

Also, why do you think the freedom line is so good for this? The first benefit, lower unhappiness from specialists, is totally useless to you. Lower food for specialists is kind of useful, but you can make up for it easily with city states. The only really good benefit is the extra great people, but I think you'd be better off going for autocracy (lower unit maintence and rush buy cost) or commerce (lower road maintence fee).
 
Alright, let's think it through on how it *should* scale then.

We need to set some goals first. What needs to be brought down if you get low on happiness?
- I will start by arguing food shouldn't be. Food going up causes unhappiness, therefore you don't need it diminishing when happiness goes down. Switching to no food is something the player should manage to stop happiness from going out of line. Really food diminishing is a way of Civ5 to hold your hand by telling you "you shouldn't grow right now, you're just going to make things worse". If a person wants to grow, they should be able to grow.
- Production should be, as we don't want people producing troops in mass numbers in negative happiness
- If production is on the list, then so should gold, as it is another means of production. I "gamed" gold to get by their little roadblock in my original post.
- Obviously the hit to golden ages should be present
- A hit to military power. This is to stop steamrolling, which isn't good for the game

Next, we need to know how we want to implement it. If it's a stepped system (ie how it is now), it is easily brought to the most efficient level by staying just above one of the steps. This is unrealistic, and doesn't feel right at all. Moreover, a system like this doesn't scale equally from large empires to small empires. Therefore, I think a more continuous system (alright, not continuous, but the most small steps we can get) is needed.

Finally, what we need is for this to work well for big empires and small empires. Note that I'm talking about 2 different things. First, it should work for empires with the same population, but different numbers of cities. Secondly, it should work for different numbers of population.

To tackle the first point is easy. A straight up percentage loss on production/gold would work for both. The problem is if you try this, then small population empires will barely suffer. I'll take 1 additional citizen (ie 2 production and 2 gold) for a 1% loss on production/gold if I only have 10 population in total. So we can't use straight percentages.

Instead, think of what 1 unhappiness causes you, and what it also benefits you. Obviously we want 1 more unhappiness to give a net loss: The goal is to punish the player for trying to play with a really unhappy empire. We want the player to want happiness.

Letting the city grow by 1 citizen nets:
- 1 unhappiness
- -2 food
- +production value of a citizen
- -1 golden age point

Therefore we need our "happiness detriment" to be worse than the production value of a citizen - a golden age point - 2 food.

Eyeballing it, I think what we want is probably -2 production and -2 gold per unhappy citizen. We then divide this by the total number of population, and apply it times the number of population of a particular city to that city, for all cities.

For example, say we have an empire of a size 20 city A, and size 10 city B, and the player has 5 unhappiness.
Then the player suffers -10*(20/30) production and gold in city A, and -10*(10/30) production and gold in city B.


The other side of the coin is, how do we want people to manage happiness? Currently, a size 20 city results in 21 unhappiness (1 city + 20 pop), while two size 10 cities result in 22 unhappiness (2 cities + 20 pop total). However, the two cities can build a colosseum each, resulting in 8 total happiness while the one city can only build one.

That means that late game, I can construct as many size 11 cities as I want (14 with a circus), as long as I can afford the maintenance on the happiness buildings. I get a penalty I need to offset with luxury resources and other stuff if I let any city go past this population.
 
That means that late game, I can construct as many size 11 cities as I want (14 with a circus), as long as I can afford the maintenance on the happiness buildings. I get a penalty I need to offset with luxury resources and other stuff if I let any city go past this population.

Two major drawbacks here. One, it's harder to build those happiness buildings in the smaller city. And two, your social policy costs go through the roof. Sounds balanced to me.
 
If this proves to be a problem, and it very well may, I would argue that the problem is that the cost of new technologies do not scale with #cities. Without a tech lead/advantage, that -33% combat penalty will become much more relevant.
 
If this proves to be a problem, and it very well may, I would argue that the problem is that the cost of new technologies do not scale with #cities. Without a tech lead/advantage, that -33% combat penalty will become much more relevant.

Why would you want the cost of new technologies to scale with # of cities? Not everybody enjoys playing using a 1 city challenge. Firaxis has been trying desperately since Civ 3 to weaken large empires and people keep finding ways around it.

Firaxis should just face the facts that most people play Civ to build large empires and start conquering things, not survive until end of game with their 3 cities with all the other AI factions still intact. Most people want to build lots of huge size cities to cover the map with and they should just stop trying to cater to the minority who want their small 3 city civ to break even with a 50 city juggernaut.

Every single game from Civ 3 - Civ 5 has the developers trying to reduce city spam and limiting population growth in cities. And in every single game, the dominant strategy quickly became the loophole that allowed players to do just exactly that. It's time for the devs to just quit that pointless endeavor and design a Civ around a mass land grab.
 
I'm not sure that additional cities should give -happiness.

Other thoughts:

- What if you get a happiness bonus for having other allied cities within 8 tiles? Say +3 per friendly allied city (annex, original). Plus another 3 for being near the capital. Plus 1 for every puppet state within 8 tiles? Minus 2 for every enemy city within reach? Minus 1 for every enemy unit within the inner ring? (some pie in the sky ideas there)

- Agree that the function needs to be smooth and not stepped. Especially not stepped to the degree that it is now.

- Linear impact probably won't be enough to curb abuse. The question will be do you go with y=x^a or y=a^x and what values do you use for a. Assuming that "x" is the percentage below optimal happiness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Exponential.svg

Personally, I lean towards y=a^x, where x is the number of points below optimal happiness. An "a" of about 2 works well to start. It ramps up quickly, but by changing the "a" term you can control how fast it ramps up. If that ramps up too fast, use y=x^a where "a" is something between 2 and 3.
 
Currently, a size 20 city results in 21 unhappiness (1 city + 20 pop), while two size 10 cities result in 22 unhappiness (2 cities + 20 pop total).

this must depend on some game setting (maybe time/mapsize ,but its not due to difficulty) for I saw both, but on some at least, i think default/normal ones , its 2 city 1 pop.

I get a penalty I need to offset with luxury resources and other stuff if I let any city go past this population.
good point, and moreover, given how progressively more difficult it becomes growing the population anyway, good luck getting it go much past anyway.
But this sounds familiar - didn't CivII have aqueducts, sewage systems and just gave a hard cap on how large a city can be w/o them?

Not everybody enjoys playing using a 1 city challenge. ... It's time for the devs to just quit that pointless endeavor and design a Civ around a mass land grab.

I think your argument is incoherent - are you saying that it would work, hence everybody would be forced to play 1cc, or that it cannot work, hence pointless?
 
I watched a live stream of this guy trying this strat today with Napoleon on a huge earth map, emperor difficulty. It seems to be working as he's taken over most of asia so far. But the big thing he's having issues with is that once you're that unhappy your cities don't grow at ALL. so all the cities he's conquering stay at like.. 1 or 2 or 3 pop permanently.

Still there isn't much of a penalty for taking them once your happiness is already -30 and slowly but surely those 1 and 2 pop cities are adding up. He already seems to have a bit of a tech lead too over his continent. Second place in the score (with someone having double his score probably in America).

You can watch the videos in his archives here - - -> www.justin.tv/gilded_gaming

He's been playing on there live like 12 hours a day since the game came out.
 
Courthouse takes a long time to build, even more with -50% production and costs 5 gold to maintain. And having extra fully controlled city as compared to puppet is not beneficial. Controlled cities contribute to social policy costs and effective costs of national wonders. -50% production is a bonus rather than penalty as your puppet cities take more time to build useless buildings.
 
But if you're making 500+ gold per turn how hard is it to rush-buy other money earning buildings in every city?

I had a game I was using a similar tactic and had about half the world (50+ cities?) on a huge map with max AI's in golden ages I was making around 1400 gold/turn I would simply rush-buy banks/markets in every city then rush-buy buildings that give happiness and you can easily get your happiness back in the + and because of the research advantage you already have you should have tanks when others still run around with spears/gunpowder units.

Especially once you have banks etc in every city money comes in so fast theres nothing that can stop you and soon EVERY city will have every building means happiness in the +, gold over 1000+ a turn (without GA), 600+ research...

Managed it on king.
 
I believe you guys are approaching this backwards. The problem is not that the penalty for happiness is too small. The problem is that the penalty is too much and there are too few things you can do about it. However, the human player knows how to work around it while the AI is afraid to grow their empire and create new cities.

The fix should be some combination of more happiness buildings, more happiness from those buildings, lower production cost and less maintenance for those buildings. The incentive is for both the human player and AI to solve their unhappiness problem by building their happiness buildings, not work around it.

The happiness penalties are also backwards. If Firaxis is trying to combat the ICS problem, this current method is the wrong way to do it. The problem with ICS is people building too many small cities rather than building cities they would grow. The current implementation penalizes population just as harshly as having more cities, so people are afraid to expand at all unless they want to ignore happiness.

Firaxis should increase the penalty of having too many cities while vastly decreasing the population penalty. Combined with making the happiness buildings give more bonuses and have less maintenance, people would be willing to improve their current cities first rather than spam them all over the map. At the same time, it wouldn't scare anybody from expanding or growing their empire at all.

The problem is that the penalty is sat at a maximum of 10 unhappy. This essentially means that 10 unhappy people has the same penalty value as a 100 unhappy people. Thus, what deterrent to not just go on a roll? What encouragement is there to keep people happy, especially as building's have a high maintenance cost.
 
For what it's worth, I'm not against people having large empires. The penelty I suggested would compound with annexed cities, to make it too difficult to go on a roll. Thus it would slow down the rate of conquest by forcing players to manage their empires effectively.

If you're getting +500 gold per turn, you wouldn't have that much of a problem. BUT, if you're getting that, you're obviously doing something right.

I'm not saying it should be impossible for people to gain massive territories through conquest. Just more difficult than it currently appears to be because an aspect of the game, designed to penalise poor management, actually encourages it. what the emergence of this tactic says is that if you get 30 unhappy, your better of ignoring it and going on a roll.
 
Edit: Out of curiosity, I checked a save-file I had; Standard Earth, Standard Speed ~ By turn 280, the largest city in the world is my capital at 16... every other city is floating around 10.

I am currently in a game where I got a Size 25 capital on turn 275 Large Earth, Standard Speed Immortal Difficulty.

The growth was possible by doing early maritime city states combined with early farms river tiles and Civil Service.

Be aware that the city creates only 20 Unhappiness though as specialists only generate half happiness and you are usually able to work 10 Specs at that size.

Playing Egypt helped me with happiness alot cause the burial tomb is +2 happy without maintenance. ATM I have 7 other cities all Size 10+ (mainly capitals).

But on the other hand I agree of course that the France early expansion technique maybe combined with later "Unhappy Warfare" is the best strategy and all games will be won way before even reaching that late a turn.
 
Why would you want the cost of new technologies to scale with # of cities? Not everybody enjoys playing using a 1 city challenge. Firaxis has been trying desperately since Civ 3 to weaken large empires and people keep finding ways around it.

Firaxis should just face the facts that most people play Civ to build large empires and start conquering things, not survive until end of game with their 3 cities with all the other AI factions still intact. Most people want to build lots of huge size cities to cover the map with and they should just stop trying to cater to the minority who want their small 3 city civ to break even with a 50 city juggernaut.

Every single game from Civ 3 - Civ 5 has the developers trying to reduce city spam and limiting population growth in cities. And in every single game, the dominant strategy quickly became the loophole that allowed players to do just exactly that. It's time for the devs to just quit that pointless endeavor and design a Civ around a mass land grab.

This is pretty much how I feel too. Eventually they will try to balance all of this and still players will end up figuring out that best way to win the game is massive land grab.

I personally never understood the 3-6 city plays until the end. They are more about pressing next turn dozens and dozens of time while nothing happens instead of fun, and fun is most important part of any gaming experience.
 
Perhaps it isn't ironic, since in the teens is when we begin to see it take a large amount of time for pop growth. Maybe it's the intent to have many cities floating around pop 10.

Edit: Out of curiosity, I checked a save-file I had; Standard Earth, Standard Speed ~ By turn 280, the largest city in the world is my capital at 16... every other city is floating around 10.

What is wrong with that ?

I think we all tend to compare to Civ IV which was unrealistic in some cases.

Do you know a lot of cities which had 10M + inhabitants in 100 AD or even 1800 AD ? Always made me feel strange to see some cities with 17+ pop in 100 AD in Civ IV

I think the growth rate of cities is finally adapted to what it really should be and I am glad of it. What isn't, is that unhappy people = people still produce at the same rate gold, while it should bring in a kind of "corruption factor" where under unhappiness, civilians tend to steal some gold out of the treasury (meaning unhappiness = reduced gold outup). Rest is fine !
 
Also, why do you think the freedom line is so good for this? The first benefit, lower unhappiness from specialists, is totally useless to you. Lower food for specialists is kind of useful, but you can make up for it easily with city states. The only really good benefit is the extra great people, but I think you'd be better off going for autocracy (lower unit maintence and rush buy cost) or commerce (lower road maintence fee).
Sorry, I meant Rationalism. Most of your cities will be on trade posts and specialists. Since they won't be that big, 1-2 maritime city states will give enough food to make this really easy to maintain.

You'll be getting much much more than 500 gpt with this strat. I was managing over 500 in Renaissance era on Epic. That means out of my best military academy + heroic epic city (yes, I still managed heroic) I was making a unit every second turn. In the late game this would turn into a tank every turn due to certain policies. I also easily had top science.

If I wanted to break this even more, I didn't need to conquer the world. I could have just sold all my cities, then spent all my culture, and built the Utopia pretty damn early.

The risk/reward system of a big empire is pretty damn broken.
 
Sounds very good, but let's try to make thing clear...

Step 1, start (3000BC):

Use your scout/warrior to explore surroundings.

Settle your first city near/on luxury goods tile.
(it seems that if you build a city on a luxury good tile, you still get goods without improvements as long as you have the tech, cf thread in the forum)

Step 2:

Explore and hunt ruins with your scout/warriors.

Build Scout -> Worker -> Warrior -> Settler -> Settler -> Monument
(use scout to hunt, you can skip warrior if you dont play with barbarians enable)

Worker will build improvement (dont use automated workers...) go for luxury first, and farm after.

Step 3:

Sell luxury goods for 300 in early turns, and ally with a City state (maritime if possible)
(Selling goods to ally with city state is useful as you ll gain food/ressource + luxury goods from it)

Build 2 more cities and build Worker -> Monument -> Archer in both cities.

Step 4:

Keep selling goods for money.

Build Farm/Trading posts on every tiles
(start with farms as we need to pump up the population and then max gold)

Kill you scouts/warrior
(since you discovered you whole continent there is no needs for scout and you got archer or better units so warriors arent needed anymore. If there are some barbarians left or ennemies near, keep them, otherwise sell them, it costs money...)

Step 5:

Once your cities got enough population (around 10) start the Phase II, rule the world.

Use workers to change un-needed farms to trading posts and keep pumping trading posts.

Build/Buy advanced units (swordman/horseman, catapults)
(your tech should be above every other players)

Start annexing every cities on your continent.
(Dont use puppet)

Build monument and pump trading posts in every cities you got.

[need to be edited but sounds to be a good start]

Note:
Dont let your units die, retreat and heal.
You can rush-buy a settler in step 2 (like in chineese strategy) but allying with a city state sounds more useful IMO.


Feel free to comment/edit to make this strat better.
 
Just to be clear, I made this post to point out the obvious flaw in the game and to try and fix it, not to make a strat out of it. After once I have never went back to playing like this. As King Jason said, "Celevin's posts are rife with sarcasm".


As a side note: I have a list in a word document of every thing that I think is broken and needs fixing in the game, and how to fix it. The more controversial items are the ones I make posts out of, trying to show exactly how to exploit it. I also list what I think the Civ tiers are, and am trying to think of ways to balance them. When I get more free time, and after we see how Firaxis approaches the current problems, I'm thinking of designing a mod to fix and rebalance these problems.
 
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