What unhappiness problem?

I've read many posts on this forum complaining about how hard it is to maintain a large empire and yet still keep it happy. Many people also whine about how the AI must obviously be cheating massively to stay happy even with their voracious expansionism.

IMO, these complaints are totally exaggerated. It is entirely possible to stay happy while having a large empire. On my current King game (my first post-patch game, so I dropped a difficulty level), I have 3 cities and 45 puppets. On top of that, 11 of those cities are in resistance since I am in the midst of a war right now.

My happiness level? +65!



As you can see on the mini-map, all the red areas are my territory - the result of conquering four civs (three of which expanded like mad). So if my empire can handle four civs' worth of cities and still have so much happiness, then it should not be impossible for the AI to do the same either.

Rohili said:

I've read many posts on this forum complaining about how hard it is to maintain a large empire and yet still keep it happy. Many people also whine about how the AI must obviously be cheating massively to stay happy even with their voracious expansionism.

IMO, these complaints are totally exaggerated. It is entirely possible to stay happy while having a large empire. On my current King game (my first post-patch game, so I dropped a difficulty level), I have 3 cities and 45 puppets. On top of that, 11 of those cities are in resistance since I am in the midst of a war right now.

My happiness level? +65!

Spoiler :

As you can see on the mini-map, all the red areas are my territory - the result of conquering four civs (three of which expanded like mad). So if my empire can handle four civs' worth of cities and still have so much happiness, then it should not be impossible for the AI to do the same either.

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LOL, yeah late game. There's tons of free happy late game.

EDIT: The complaint comes (from me) when the AI is +45 happy with 10 ICS cities (not "Luxury" cities) at 100-150 moves.

*facepalm*

joyous_gard said:

LOL, yeah late game. There's tons of free happy late game.

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It's not like I have theatres and stadiums in every city. Most of my cities are puppets building crap like castles and watermills (they don't prioritise happiness buildings since my empire is already so happy).

Also I've been having >15 happiness for nearly the entire game. There was a very brief period of time (less than 5 turns) in early Renaissance where I dropped to negative happiness, but that was because I was on a conquering spree and had many resisting cities at once.

The complaint is that the computer is clearly not playing by the same rules as the players. I've seen crazy computer happiness totals, especially at high difficulty levels. "ICS for me, not for thee" makes for a jarring game experience, at minimum. I think that's the particular issue that folks are raising.

Well, the formula does change a bit when you're on huge maps. I'm not sure what size map you're on there, but it looks *way* smaller than a huge one. The thing is, in the area you have, I'm betting you've grabbed every single happiness resource there is in the game, and you kept grabbing new ones fairly rapidly as you expanded. On a huge game, you may have to build two or three cities at a distance to get a single happiness resource. In fact, oftentimes, happiness resources are clustered around the globe, so in one or two areas you'll have most of the spices, and in another you'll have most of the wine - meaning you'll likely get a fraction of the resources on the massive landmass you're on, and the rest will be half of a very large globe away. Problem is, when you have *hugely* more ground to cover, you need more cities to get the same number of happiness resources - and that will stifle the type of picture you're showing us.

That changes things. Drastically. I can't comment on how it is on a smaller map type, but on huge maps, there's a lot of desperately trying to stretch great distances to get one or two new resources - probably a lot more than smaller map types. The need to have more cities to get the same number of happiness resources is problematic.

Oh, and, "just trade for them/ally city states" simply aren't always always options - in fact, they usually aren't - so please don't answer with that.

AfterShafter said:

Well, the formula does change a bit when you're on huge maps. I'm not sure what size map you're on there, but it looks *way* smaller than a huge one.

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That may be true, which I why I always play on the standard, "middle" settings. The game was clearly designed with the standard game speed and map size in mind, so why should I court frustration by insisting on playing the game in modes that it has not been optimised for?

I don't think it is fair to criticise the game when you choose to play on a huge map, where the game gets distorted. Sure, you can criticise the game designers for not balancing huge maps properly, but that's a very different thing from saying outright that happiness is broken. It works fine on the standard, default settings that the game was meant to be played on.

ohioastronomy said:

The complaint is that the computer is clearly not playing by the same rules as the players. I've seen crazy computer happiness totals, especially at high difficulty levels. "ICS for me, not for thee" makes for a jarring game experience, at minimum. I think that's the particular issue that folks are raising.

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But the AI is supposed to get hefty bonuses on high difficulty levels. If you won't want them to do so, you should be playing on Prince. Insisting on playing a high difficulty level and then complaining that the AI gets unfair bonuses is just silly.

Now, if there is evidence that the AI gets significant happiness bonuses on Prince as well, then I would agree that is a problem.

IDK, but for me 5 is too weak, 6 is just right, 7 is too tough. I haven't tried 8 since the patch. =/

Rohili said:

That may be true, which I why I always play on the standard, "middle" settings. The game was clearly designed with the standard game speed and map size in mind, so why should I court frustration by insisting on playing the game in modes that it has not been optimised for?

I don't think it is fair to criticise the game when you choose to play on a huge map, where the game gets distorted. Sure, you can criticise the game designers for not balancing huge maps properly, but that's a very different thing from saying outright that happiness is broken. It works fine on the standard, default settings that the game was meant to be played on.

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Happiness is broken on huge maps. As far as I'm concerned, until they either fix it or remove huge maps (in which case I'll have something else to complain about), I feel I have every right to complain. If they want to include options for people to use and they don't balance them, that's they've created a problem that's both mine and theirs, and it's their job to solve it.

Besides, this "meant to be played on" line really doesn't work when these are out of the box options that you don't even have to go to the advanced setup to access. You really think they stick a bunch of options in your face that they don't mean for you to use? I could *maybe* see such an argument for some advanced options, but these are basic options. When you go to that starting menu for the first time on the non-advanced game setup, you're presented with a series of menus. Their defaults are random leader/civ, continents map type, small map size, difficulty level chieftain, and standard game pace. Are you suggesting that any variation from that is going against how they meant for the game to be played? There's no way you can really believe that.

Options that aren't even hidden in the advanced setup screen are not in opposition to how they "meant" the game to be played. They meant for you to have a choice, but failed to make happiness work consistently across those choices. Sweeping that under the rug and saying "no problem, see?" is pretty lame.

AfterShafter said:

Happiness is broken on huge maps. As far as I'm concerned, until they either fix it or remove huge maps (in which case I'll have something else to complain about), I feel I have every right to complain.

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Then the game designers can never win can they? If they include an option that the game wasn't optimised for, you complain. If they remove that option, you complain.

In any case, even on huge maps, happiness isn't "broken" - the AI suffers from the same effects. The only reason why it feels broken is because you are playing on levels above Prince, on which the AI is supposed to get bonuses.

So, there are two easy ways to fix your happiness problem - either play on standard maps, or play on lower difficulties. If you insist on playing huge maps on higher difficulties, then you have no right to complain.

AfterShafter said:

Besides, this "meant to be played on" line really doesn't work when these are out of the box options that you don't even have to go to the advanced setup to access. You really think they stick a bunch of options in your face that they don't mean for you to use? I could *maybe* see such an argument for some advanced options, but these are basic options. When you go to that starting menu for the first time on the non-advanced game setup, you're presented with a series of menus. Their defaults are random leader/civ, continents map type, small map size, difficulty level chieftain, and standard game pace. Are you suggesting that any variation from that is going against how they meant for the game to be played? There's no way you can really believe that.

Options that aren't even hidden in the advanced setup screen are not in opposition to how they "meant" the game to be played. They meant for you to have a choice, but failed to make happiness work consistently across those choices. Sweeping that under the rug and saying "no problem, see?" is pretty lame.

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It's obvious that the game was optimised with standard maps and speed in mind. In that sense, it is absolutely true to say that the game was "meant" to be played on standard maps.

Part of the problem with the happy AI cheating is that its so easy to SEE that its cheating. In Civ4 the AI got plenty of 'cheats' but it was buried in the GPT calcs and spread out over a number of mechanics. in Civ5 its heavily concentrated in one area.

Not that I agree that its a problem really. I agree with the people that state that AI cheats have been a part of Civ since #1.

Rohili said:

It works fine on the standard, default settings that the game was meant to be played on.

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Yeah, but you see, the Civ-series hinges itself on customization. If you say that the default settings are perfect and it is the way it's meant to be played on, you're doing the Civ-series a huge disservice.

IMO, even if default settings are the way to go, it does not mean that the developers can skimp on balance and scaling issues on the other settings that are expressively made available to the player. I read on some other thread that luxuries are not scaled properly with map size, true or otherwise remains to be seen.

This almost parallels my experience over at the 2K Civilization V forums where some forum poster repeated promotes his scenario settings of:

Tiny Pangaea, Modern Era, No Barbarians, Diety, 1 AI, DoW, never make peace to achieve a "fun, playable bug-free experience of CiV".

Doesn't sound like the game I was advertised to.

Rohili said:

Then the game designers can never win can they? If they include an option that the game wasn't optimised for, you complain. If they remove that option, you complain.

In any case, even on huge maps, happiness isn't "broken" - the AI suffers from the same effects. The only reason why it feels broken is because you are playing on levels above Prince, on which the AI is supposed to get bonuses.

So, there are two easy ways to fix your happiness problem - either play on standard maps, or play on lower difficulties. If you insist on playing huge maps on higher difficulties, then you have no right to complain.


It's obvious that the game was optimised with standard maps and speed in mind. In that sense, it is absolutely true to say that the game was "meant" to be played on standard maps.

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Of course game designers can never please everyone about everything. But you saying "see, happiness is working just fine!" is basically a statement of "ok, it works as it should - no need to fix anything." Your problem is that you don't even acknowledge that there IS a problem beyond the very limited scope of how you like to play, and dismiss any other of perfectly accessible options others might use as being "wrong" and therefore not worth attention. And YES I complain if they include an option on the front bloody screen of the basic "start game" that they didn't optimize - I really don't get how you could possibly think I wouldn't or shouldn't! You can't start a game without a big menu slapping you in the face saying "hey, you can play this way too" - if the "too" isn't working properly, that's a problem. Why do you want to deny that?

The AI, on huge maps, is put in a position where the scarcity of resources essentially doesn't affect them. They next to never have a full spectrum of luxury resources on any map size and aren't expected to, and they are therefore designed to operate quite well without a spectrum of luxury resources. The player, on the other hand, is set up in a way where those resources are vital - and where you say happiness is Ok because on standard maps you can get enough per city built, on huge maps you can't without *tremendous* luck for resource placement. Again, and to be perfectly clear, the AI is given a get out of jail free card on this on both standard and huge - and they aren't designed to have access to tons of them anyways. So simply put, it IS a problem on huge, and as you pointed out, not on standard.

Oh come on... I don't pretend to have the pipeline into the head of Firaxis that pretend to have going on about "meant to play" and all that, but almost by definition the difficulty slider is supposed to affect difficulty and the size is supposed to affect size - not size affects size and difficulty. If the game is *far* harder on huge because a mechanic scales terribly, that's pretty obviously a design error - and I'm still trying to figure out why you insist on saying "no-one should complain - it works on MY settings, and that's all it's MEANT to work on!" Please...

Could you explain how obvious it's supposed to be to the designer who set up the main menu with map size options perfectly visible from the standard game setup? I'm not sure he had your knowledge of what the developers "meant" for us to do, since he obviously bungled up and went and gave us a bunch of options they never intended us to have! Oh, and, while you're at it, remember - random leader, chieftain difficulty, or you're not playing how the game was "meant" to be played. Wouldn't want to tamper with the sacred basic options

AfterShafter said:

Of course game designers can never please everyone about everything. But you saying "see, happiness is working just fine!" is basically a statement of "ok, it works as it should - no need to fix anything." Your problem is that you don't even acknowledge that there IS a problem beyond the very limited scope of how you like to play, and dismiss any other of perfectly accessible options others might use as being "wrong" and therefore not worth attention.

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I'm not saying there is no problem. I already agreed that happiness might be a problem on larger maps (but still think it is exaggerated - see below). My problem is with those who make it sound like happiness is completely broken, when really what they should be saying is that happiness is unbalanced if you play the game on a certain map type on the higher difficulty levels. It's like saying the diplomatic victory is "broken" simply because you play Civ with city states disabled.

Furthermore, I'm not so sure that all of those complaining about happiness play on huge maps. My thread was aimed mainly at those complainers playing standard maps.

AfterShafter said:

And YES I complain if they include an option on the front bloody screen of the basic "start game" that they didn't optimize - I really don't get how you could possibly think I wouldn't or shouldn't!

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What I don't get, though, is if huge maps are so broken, why do you still insist on playing them? What's so bad about standard maps?

AfterShafter said:

The AI, on huge maps, is put in a position where the scarcity of resources essentially doesn't affect them. They next to never have a full spectrum of luxury resources on any map size and aren't expected to, and they are therefore designed to operate quite well without a spectrum of luxury resources. The player, on the other hand, is set up in a way where those resources are vital - and where you say happiness is Ok because on standard maps you can get enough per city built, on huge maps you can't without *tremendous* luck for resource placement.

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I still think you are exaggerating the scale of the problem. There are only 15 luxury resources in the game, IIRC. 15*5 = 75 (or 15*6=90 if you have the correct policy). If you look at my screenshot, my empire has 65 happiness even with 48 cities and 11 of them in resistance. This means that I could have gotten by with far, far fewer resources.

AfterShafter said:

Oh come on... I don't pretend to have the pipeline into the head of Firaxis that pretend to have going on about "meant to play" and all that, but almost by definition the difficulty slider is supposed to affect difficulty and the size is supposed to affect size - not size affects size and difficulty. If the game is *far* harder on huge because a mechanic scales terribly, that's pretty obviously a design error - and I'm still trying to figure out why you insist on saying "no-one should complain - it works on MY settings, and that's all it's MEANT to work on!" Please...

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I don't get this. Where in the rulebook of "How to Design Games" does it state that the effect of difficulty levels can never be amplified by your game set-up options?

It is natural in a complex game like Civ that some variables will hit the human harder than the AI player (or vice-versa). Different variables would also interact with each other, either amplifying or reducing each other's effects. To demand that each of the game options exist in a vacuum and never affect each other is pretty unreasonable, IMO.

Can someone fill me in on what the calculation is for unhappiness/city?

Rohili said:

Furthermore, I'm not so sure that all of those complaining about happiness play on huge maps. My thread was aimed mainly at those complainers playing standard maps.


...if huge maps are so broken, why do you still insist on playing them? What's so bad about standard maps?

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Simply because it is an option that was advertised and present in the game for players to use. Saying that "don't play huge maps" is asking me to forgo a particular feature that was promised upon the purchase of the game.

Sure, you may say that other games do not offer this option but still charge $60 for it, but that is another transaction in which I agree to another set of features.

IMO, if you advertise a feature in the game, make sure it's functional and not simply tell users to ignore it.

I still think you are exaggerating the scale of the problem. There are only 15 luxury resources in the game, IIRC. 15*5 = 75 (or 15*6=90 if you have the correct policy). If you look at my screenshot, my empire has 65 happiness even with 48 cities and 11 of them in resistance. This means that I could have gotten by with far, far fewer resources.

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I'm having serious trouble wrapping my head around this, 48 x 2 = 96 . Luxuries would negate 75 as you said. Assuming having built all happy buildings (which cannot go past population), where is the balance of 21?

Maybe you got a Natural Wonder or something, or specific policies (which would mean your playstyle is actually limited). I'm not too sure of the exact calculations, so I may be wrong here.

I don't get this. Where in the rulebook of "How to Design Games" does it state that the effect of difficulty levels can never be amplified by your game set-up options?

It is natural in a complex game like Civ that some variables will hit the human harder than the AI player (or vice-versa). Different variables would also interact with each other, either amplifying or reducing each other's effects. To demand that each of the game options exist in a vacuum and never affect each other is pretty unreasonable, IMO.

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Except when scaling map size only (Terrain features are a separate option, IIRC), the extra difficulty would come from moving your army from East to West, not suddenly having to deal with extra . The present scaling results in additional when trying to scale your empire with map size. So if I want a positive . I'll end up with a Standard-size empire on a Huge map. Doesn't make sense.

Won't help you guys a lot but after the patch is before the patch.

Even when complaining (rightfully!) that CiV was distributed without being near finished and that unbalanced and stupid AI is far from what was promised:
You can certainly say that Firaxis constantly patches stuff and most of the time for the better - CivIV vanilla wasn't as good before patches and expansions as it is now...

Islet said:

Simply because it is an option that was advertised and present in the game for players to use. Saying that "don't play huge maps" is asking me to forgo a particular feature that was promised upon the purchase of the game.

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Nobody is saying that you have to forgo huge maps altogether. You just have to accept that you won't be able to play at such a high difficulty level as you could on standard maps.

Islet said:

I'm having serious trouble wrapping my head around this, 48 x 2 = 96 . Luxuries would negate 75 as you said. Assuming having built all happy buildings (which cannot go past population), where is the balance of 21?

Maybe you got a Natural Wonder or something, or specific policies (which would mean your playstyle is actually limited). I'm not too sure of the exact calculations, so I may be wrong here.

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No, I don't have the FoY, if that's what you are referring to. But I do have many (but not all) of the +happiness policies, like those in the Piety, Patronage, Order and Economics trees. I also have wonders like Eiffel Tower (built it myself) and the Forbidden Palace (AI beat me to it, so I took it from them).

And no, I don't think my playstyle is "limited". Firstly, given my huge surplus of happiness, I could have survived without some of those policies and wonders. And secondly, it would be absurd if I could maintain a 48 city empire and conquer 5 cities every turn with no trade-off whatsoever. Of course you would need to aim for +happiness policies and wonders if you want to pursue an expansionist strategy.

What I don't get is this mentality that you ought to be able to have your cake and eat it too. Civ V is not a sandbox, Simcity kind of game. It is a strategy game, and that means making choices and trade-offs. If you want many cities, there will be some policies you would have to pursue, some wonders you have to aim for (either build them or take them by force). And that's what makes the game fun. This isn't my playstyle being "limited"; it's the game working the way it should!

There are plenty of players who wish to play on huge maps (me included), so arguing whether the game should be balanced at that map size is a moot point.

It must be balanced.

But hell, I guess I couldn't care that much. The moment a total conversion mod is made, I'll permanently drop vanilla CiV and play that instead. Vanilla CiV (just like cIV) is just a concrete foundation whereupon the skyscrapers (the mods) will be built.

And I know that they'll be better.