Dealing with unhappiness

I've got 3 cities right now and I'm at 1 happiness with the help of a city state. I'm playing the ironman mod which doubles the turns of marathon... So it will take a long time to get happiness buildings. How can I deal with this?

Also... Do luxury resources stack and give you extra happiness?

Each luxury is 4 happiness.

Religions can help with happiness, depending on civ and what choices you make for beliefs.

find a city with porcelean/jewelry + some other luxury and ally it.

Unhappiness is # cities, # population and any puppet/annex cities (without courts).

oPunchDrunko said:

Also... Do luxury resources stack and give you extra happiness?

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The same resource can't count twice.

I'm having problems expanding. In my current game there is lots of room to settle new cities but I just don't have the happiness to do it. If I go into the negative my production starts to suffer... And that's what I'm trying to avoid.

oPunchDrunko said:

I'm having problems expanding. In my current game there is lots of room to settle new cities but I just don't have the happiness to do it. If I go into the negative my production starts to suffer... And that's what I'm trying to avoid.

Click to expand...

Main ways to deal with unhappiness (happiness boosts)

Buildings
Luxury Resources (+4 Each, +2 more with Protectionism)
Mercantile City States (+3 per friendship, +4 from each unique luxury)
Monarchy (Tradition path) (+1 per 2 citizens in capital)
Meritocracy (Liberty Path) (+1 per city connected to the capital, including the capital itself)
Order (+1 per city)
Military Tradition (? on honor tree) (+1 per wall, castle, arsenal and military base)
Military Caste (+1 per garrisoned ground military unit)
something on the Rationalism Tree (+1 for some science buildings)
Religion (choose beliefs that give happiness per city or from buildings)

If you want to reduce unhappiness, puppet rather than annex captured cities, limit city growth if needed and in general build less cities. Make sure you have at least 4-6 happiness before you build each new city.

oPunchDrunko said:

I'm having problems expanding. In my current game there is lots of room to settle new cities but I just don't have the happiness to do it. If I go into the negative my production starts to suffer... And that's what I'm trying to avoid.

Click to expand...

This is normal for Civ V; happiness is the intended break on founding new cities. The game mechanics of Civ V are such that just because you can settle an open city spot doesn't mean you should. (Is the new city site bringing in some really good tiles? Such as a luxury or resource you can use or sell? A Natural wonder?)

Over expansion is in fact the easiest way to get into happiness problems, and is why the AI plays on Chieftain. (If nothing else changed, it can't handle Prince level happiness.)

This is similar to the Civ IV one too many cities too fast for the economy and wham! major cash hit.

It sounds like you have researched those basic techs, but either did not making building those happiness buildings a high enough priority.

The easiest social policy path to happiness is Tradition; this implies pure tall or semi tall. Pure Tall is 4 self built cities (or less). Semi Tall is having a 5th self built city (because you saw an extremely good site)

Religion is also a easy path to happiness; and is very important for a wide empire. Those going for Domination (or playing Austria and marrying city states) will often stack a happiness belief on top of happiness belief. (Such as the +1 happiness founder on top of either the +2 Temple or +1 Shrine.)

Conquering: Much more important is razing the AIs junk cities. If planning on keeping the city, initally puppet until it comes out of resistance, but happiness actually isn't the reason to stay as puppet, if you annex it, you can have it build happiness buildings which a puppet avoids doing. Its actually avoiding having to build yet another copy of every building for the not yet completed national wonders that result in them being left as puppets.

What about you warmongering players? I generally am a warmongerer and only play Science and Domination. How would an aggressive player deal with unhappiness?

oPunchDrunko said:

What about you warmongering players? I generally am a warmongerer and only play Science and Domination. How would an aggressive player deal with unhappiness?

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Raze cities instead of puppeting or annexing them.

What about you warmongering players? I generally am a warmongerer and only play Science and Domination. How would an aggressive player deal with unhappiness?

Click to expand...

There is no unhappiness in my warmongering games normally. If i can't keep above 0, i just stop and wait for more happiness inflow to continue the spree. (Unless it's very late in the game)

Some happiness sources to consider:

- Early army. Kill some barbs for free influence with city states.
- Happiness buildings: Coliseums, Theatres, Stadiums, Courthouses, UB's of all sorts.
- Wonders: Chichen Itza, Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace (the strongest wonder for warmongering), Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Neuschwanstein castle (works good with honor SP).
- Social policies: Monarchy, Meritocracy, Humanism, Democracy, Protectionism, Military Caste, Police State.
- Religion. (Pagodas/Mosques/Cathedrals)
- Spies. (Learn to promote them quickly and then stage several coups in mercantile and cultural city states (preferably). Don't try to coup CS with more than 100 foreign influence. It's dangerous.

My favourite is tradition path. I finish tradition with 3 settled cities (very rarely 4) and saturate until discovering Dynamite. Meanwhile, an army of 7-8 CB's tries to capture few early cities from nearby neighbours. (3-4, maybe more, if there are 'unique' unique luxes underneath them, or if i have strong happiness from any of the sources). It also depends on how advanced your opponent is, of course. Since i play deity, most of the time i have to stop warring for a while, sometime between Xbows and Artilleries. (or fight a defensive war)

After dynamite, happiness is usually less of a problem and most cities I capture will cost only marginal unhappiness, because by that time they usually have happiness buildings. Annexing big cities during that time is highly beneficial, if there is cash to rush courthouses.

After tradition i detour to 3 in left side of Rationalism, Order Opener, Humanism, etc...

A good warmongering SP path can also involve Monarchy, right side of Honor, and then switch to Rationalism. That way is actually very good if you can get a LOT of early culture. (like a couple of 'surprise' cultural CS alliances on turn 40) and/or playing as Napoleon. It is good in a situation, where you spawn on Pangaea and can afford to keep warmongering ad infinitum.

So, basically, i expand slowly (by warring), while prioritising right Social/Religious policies and techs along the way, with a goal of not falling into negative happiness for more than 1-2 turn once in a while. I don't like razing cities if that action breaks a chain of roads to my future acquisitions. The empty spot may get settled, causing trouble.

Some cities you can get in peace deals. And if these cities are big enough (like size 10+) and are on the border, you can sell it to a civilisation, close to that city for astronomical sums of money. Yesterday i sold a size 10 german city to Nebuchadnezzar (15 hexes away from Babylonian capital) for 3.5k gold.

oPunchDrunko said:

What about you warmongering players? I generally am a warmongerer and only play Science and Domination. How would an aggressive player deal with unhappiness?

Click to expand...

When in an offensive war with someone, take a moment to look at the map and determine which cities can be removed that would still have all natural wonders, and luxuaries & resources you can use or sell within three tiles. In case of a tie, break it towards keeping the more beneficial of the choices.
Raze the junk cities, and initially puppet the ones you keep. After the city comes out of resistance if its a really good city site (such as a former capital), consider annexing so that you can move happiness buildings up on its priority list, but consider both # of turns remaining until the next social policy and which national wonders your planning on building within the next 20 turns to determine timing. (You probably don't want to annex a city 2 turns before the next social policy nor to annex a city missing a building for a national wonder you want to start building soon.)

If the intent is domination, concentrate more on happiness beliefs from religion; such as getting both a founder and a follower belief that can be built in every city you have control over.