A review of the Happiness System

[Strigvir]

You just said there is

always something to increase your output

But apparently always = up until sciences victory.
I guess domination victory doesn't matter at all.

 

[Tubbilicious]

There is always something to increase your output. It's not like there is a hardcoded limit that you reached or something. What should the game tell you more then "To Decrease Illiteracy increase Science output in the city"?

There really is nothing to be done in the situation I described, except increase the number of specialists, which itself leads to unhappiness. That's not necessarily problematic, what's problematic is the fact that there is nothing to be done (there is no tool I can use) and that there are still illiteracy issues.

Alternatively, if there is something that can be done, offer me substantive advice as to what. For example, if I have exhausted all science building and specialist slots and still have illiteracy in a city, either say: (A) nothing can be done, (B) Steal Science from other Civs, (C) some other relevant option here.

If A, then there really, imo, shouldn't be illiteracy at all.

 

[Gamewizard]

There really is nothing to be done in the situation I described, except increase the number of specialists, which itself leads to unhappiness. That's not necessarily problematic, what's problematic is the fact that there is nothing to be done (there is no tool I can use) and that there are still illiteracy issues.

Alternatively, if there is something that can be done, offer me substantive advice as to what. For example, if I have exhausted all science building and specialist slots and still have illiteracy in a city, either say: (A) nothing can be done, (B) Steal Science from other Civs, (C) some other relevant option here.

If A, then there really, imo, shouldn't be illiteracy at all.

You need to spread your GS academies around, and not let your growth outpace your tech.

 

[Gazebo]

There really is nothing to be done in the situation I described, except increase the number of specialists, which itself leads to unhappiness. That's not necessarily problematic, what's problematic is the fact that there is nothing to be done (there is no tool I can use) and that there are still illiteracy issues.

Alternatively, if there is something that can be done, offer me substantive advice as to what. For example, if I have exhausted all science building and specialist slots and still have illiteracy in a city, either say: (A) nothing can be done, (B) Steal Science from other Civs, (C) some other relevant option here.

If A, then there really, imo, shouldn't be illiteracy at all.

Unhappiness like that exists because no city is perfect, and illiteracy (or poverty, or crime, etc.) occur even in the best of circumstances.

G

 

[Aristos]

If anything, the happiness struggle has become much easier after latest patch. I am playing Indonesia in CBPs Emperor (super diety?) right now, and was NEVER in negative happiness at all, and most of the time swimming in 50+ happs, even after the entire world became communist while I am Freedom.

I think the latest complaining (whining?) about the "hardness" of the new system is just one more case of "let's go back to normal" syndrome that affects some people once in a while... if I wanted to play "normal", I would go back to vanilla wouldn't I? Gaz's CBP is not normal, and is not meant to be, and it should stay that way. He has managed to make civ5 more interesting than 1000 Jon Shafers could ever dream of... for free.

Keep it up, G. Sure there are balancing issues here and there, but please don't go back to the "old system" just because some people want to be able to win on Deity easily, again.

 

[Strigvir]

This is a breakdown of unhappiness in my current game:

So AI cannot into happiness management even after going Liberty+Aesthetics (Maya) or Liberty+Piety+Rationalism (Russia).

EDIT:Ofc you won't go negative as Indonesia, because you get +9 happiness bonus very early, which translates in ~9% yields.

 

[Gazebo]

This is a breakdown of unhappiness in my current game:

So AI cannot into happiness management even after going Liberty+Aesthetics (Maya) or Liberty+Piety+Rationalism (Russia).

EDIT:Ofc you won't go negative as Indonesia, because you get +9 happiness bonus very early, which translates in ~9% yields.

This (large map types) is why, in the next version, I'm removing the scaling from # of cities. I'll instead punish larger cities a bit more. Should balance things out, and tilt the overall mod's balance a little further from 'tall.'

G

 

[Strigvir]

What does exactly constitute to "larger cities"?
Does it mean TwoKay Foods+Order+ICS China will be an intentionally gimped choice?

 

[Gazebo]

What does exactly constitute to "larger cities"?
Does it mean TwoKay Foods+Order+ICS China will be an intentionally gimped choice?

The same way it already does – averages per pop in a city.

G

 

[Herex]

I hope this is the correct place for my question.

I've only just started playing with Community Patch, and there's so much to learn.
I came across something odd regarding happiness that I hope someone here can explain to me.
In my current game I got access to 5 different luxuries. 3 of them gives me +1 and 2 of them gives me +4
Why is this?

Screenshot added.
http://images.akamai.steamuserconte...553/C02A90BEFE311EC2B74A7A56CFEB8B88FC8A920B/

 

[Strigvir]

Obsidian and Saffron aren't the part of CBP+More luxuries.

 

[Herex]

Ah, they're from JFD's Exploration Continued Expanded then. What a shame, I like that mod - but it seems I'll need to turn it off, to get rid of those crazy high luxuries.
Unless there's a way to disable those, or lower their yield to what the rest of them gives.

Edit: It seems Obsidian is from the CBP. I thought CP and CBP was supposed to work just fine together. Any way I can fix this?

 

[Gazebo]

Ah, they're from JFD's Exploration Continued Expanded then. What a shame, I like that mod - but it seems I'll need to turn it off, to get rid of those crazy high luxuries.
Unless there's a way to disable those, or lower their yield to what the rest of them gives.

Edit: It seems Obsidian is from the CBP. I thought CP and CBP was supposed to work just fine together. Any way I can fix this?

Obsidian is not from the CBP. You can edit those luxuries by changing the <Happiness> value in the XML. I'd ask in the ExCE thread, not here.

G

 

[Herex]

Thanks Gazebo.
Damn, it's rough pinpointing which mods are the cause of various issues.
I only got CP, CBP, that Exploration mod and Piety and Prestige, and even so it's confusing.
For example, I still don't know how I can get my embarked units to finally be able to cross oceantiles.
Which tech should it be, if I only had the CBP mod? None of the techs in the tree seems to allow ocean embarktion, not even Astronomy.

Anyway, I'll see if I can fix the happiness issue.

 

[Edaka]

Thanks Gazebo.

For example, I still don't know how I can get my embarked units to finally be able to cross oceantiles.
Which tech should it be, if I only had the CBP mod? None of the techs in the tree seems to allow ocean embarktion, not even Astronomy.

It's astronomy, just like in the vanilla game. The issue is that the tech overview in the tech tree can only fit as much as 5 (I think) features per tech, so some are left out. To see all you have to access civilopedia.

 

[Stalker0]

If anything, the happiness struggle has become much easier after latest patch. I am playing Indonesia in CBPs Emperor (super diety?) right now, and was NEVER in negative happiness at all, and most of the time swimming in 50+ happs, even after the entire world became communist while I am Freedom.

One of the things we may need to start doing with test results is providing our scores comparable to the other AIs...as that seriously affects happiness. You can have game where happiness is a factor, and the next its a nonentity because of your overall performance.

In my latest game for example (not on the latest version)....all of my cities have poverty even though I am going markets and banks and I'm first in tech. Apparently some AIs out there are going gold like crazy!

 

[Apostremo]

Question is, are these extreme happiness values caused by randomness or snowballing? Or just choosing the wrong difficulty...
I love the system at the core, but if such extreme distributions of happiness keep appearing, maybe some equalizing mechanism would be in order.

For example if the problem is positive snowballing, there could be a ahead unhappiness. Like first world citizen are sad about starving children in Africa.

But the tech scaling itself is already a strong equalizing mechanism, since it is independent of performance of other civs and was increased only recently.

 

[giggsidan]

Obsidian is not from the CBP. You can edit those luxuries by changing the <Happiness> value in the XML. I'd ask in the ExCE thread, not here.

G

Is this right then? Some luxuries from ExCE give higher happiness values than the CBP does? I thought the exploration mod was meant to be balanced with it?

 

[Growth]

Probably not a bug, but I did have something similar to a snowballing effect for happiness in my last game.

Settings:

• CP, The Whole Experience, 8-15
• Rolled Sweden
• Emperor
• Standard Map Size, 8 Civ, 16 CS
• Marathon

Here, due to ideological pressure, Brazil's people rose up and I was given a city willfully (this happened a couple times in succession actually). Now, note the following SS how my already abysmal happiness, gets even more aggravated... . If anything, the people who just joined my ideology should be elated, they sure wouldn't fight any oppressor.

Spoiler :

Even more curious is that the few cities that were given to me this way by Brazil had no buildings in them whatsoever, exacerbating indirectly happiness once the city gets out of "Occupation".

Spoiler :

Resources and Happiness Tab, Brazilia 48 Unhappiness listed, 24 on tooltip.

Spoiler :

Nobody should get a diplomatic/warmonger positive boost from liberating a city in which public opinion swung ownership. Conceptually, there is nothing to be liberated from.

Spoiler :

Finally just a joke... What do you mean exactly this city is dangerous?

Spoiler :

Also, someone please explain if you would what the mechanics behind "A revolution against their ally is occuring!" in CS, i.e. it isn't tied in any way to ideology and/or public opinion as far as I can tell.

Spoiler :

Thank you.

 

[Finarvi]

One issue I have encountered is this: A large city of mine @ size 22-24 ish has some unhappiness due to illiteracy. Okay fine. I check the city to see what I can do right now to fix that issue. It has a library, university, religious building that provides science, and public school. I can't yet build a research lab, though I'm not far off. I could increase the number of science specialists, but specialists usually cause unhappiness, and do not solve it; unless this has changed recently.

One way to make the system more transparent is to tell me what I'm missing; what change could I make right now to fix the illiteracy issue in this city?

Given the information I have read, I suspect I'm not supposed to be able to fix every issue in every city. Fine, but then I'm frustrated because ultimately I'm left feeling powerless.

Edit: Btw I wouldn't mind a just a touch more early game culture for civs without a religion.

As someone mentioned: build academies if you can. One more thing that comes to my mind is that you could produce research (25% of ). But is that 1 really worth panic?