Unhappiness

I've recently come back to Civ 3 and am thoroughly enjoying it.

I've always managed unhappiness by contacting the governor and having it manage citizen's moods. I understand that this isn't the most efficient way.

I was recently playing, had access to wine, access to insense, had a temple and two units in my capitol city and still had civil disorder at population 6. I'm wondering how the good players out there manage unhappiness in Civ3?

In my last thread people alluded to mods that could help. I haven't tried any of them yet. Do they change the rules of the game?

Divaythsarumour said:

I'm wondering how the good players out there manage unhappiness in Civ3?

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A program like Civ Assist 2 or MapStat can help. So can using the luxury slider.

If you click on an unhappy citizen you can see why they're unhappy; that can help you see what measures you need to take.

Divaythsarmour said:

. . . . In my last thread people alluded to mods that could help. I haven't tried any of them yet. Do they change the rules of the game?

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In addition to the programs that Spoonwood mentioned (which are a huge help, btw), you can download "smiley badges." Look in the downloads section. They'll be called "popheads" or something like that & they put a little badge on each citizen. The ones I use have a green smiley face on each happy citizen, a white face on each content citizen, and a blue "frowny face" on each unhappy citizen. They do not change the rules of the game at all, but it makes counting them much easier, and keeps me from overlooking unhappy citizens.

I'll dig around and see if I can find one of the downloads.

Edit: This isn't the one I use, but it should work: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=979

What government do you have? Milatary police, ie happiness from units in the city, are limited or not effective in some governments.
Population, war weariness, foreign population from a civ you are/were at war with, population rushing cause unhappiness.
Entertainer specialists, the luxury slider, connected luxuries (compounded by the marketplace improvement), war happiness, certain improvements and wonders cause happiness.
Making a citizen a specialist removes him from the population count for happiness.

What works best to manage happiness varies. Keping your pop down by starvation or building settlers or workers, coaxing an AI into declaring war on you, connecting or buying luxuries (maybe with a marketplace), increasing the lux slider, using specialists or building improvements all ahve up and downsides. Temples require an investment in shields and require gold per turn to maintain. Specialists don't produce food so may arrest growth.

Generally republic and democracy do not allow for milatary police but do have better economies so the efficiency of the lux slider offsets the loss of milatary police.

Sorry this is long and rambling, hope it's useful.

Wow, great answers from all. I can see that I'm going to have to dive into this and play with it. I'm currently struggling at Monarch difficulty. I feel like this unhappiness issue is now my greatest challenge. Thanks for the answers.

Divaythsarmour, is your picture from either Morrowind or Oblivion?

splunge said:

Divaythsarmour, is your picture from either Morrowind or Oblivion?

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It's Morrowind, looks like the dunnmer who wakes you up when you're still on the ship.