Patch .332 & Happiness

[maltz]

Happiness used to be the bottleneck of the human player's progress, and it has become even more so in Patch 332.

I happen to have a game in progress (close to the end). When I load the save today under the new patch, my comfortable +7 happiness dipped all the way to -15. The AIs (in this custom modded game where AI enjoys no happiness cheats and still spreads like a plague - small secret: they actually don't need that cheat!) also gets seriously affected. The game is essentially broken for both me and my AI opponents at this point and I am trying to find some way to continue it back in 275.

The new +1 unhappiness from the number of cities combines with the +3 unhappiness from the nerfing of happiness buildings from each city = the game again skews to fewer, greater cities. Essentially, every extra cities now gives up to +4 red faces.

But in normal cases the AI has the happiness cheats, so the only subject affected is the human player. More difficult game? Yes. More varied gameplay? Nope. Everything is about staying above -10.

332 strategies (sorry not tested yet) to cope with the happiness issue:

(1) As usual rush down a neighbor or two at the beginning to have a good start. But burn down any city that is not going to help with happiness (luxurious resources, horse, ivory)
(2) Wait for neighbor AIs to declare war prematurely (as they love to in 275), defeat a small force, push out and occupy their new cities that gets too close, and then declare peace. And then sell these cities (or burn them). Remain small so the precious happiness points is reserved for the core cities.

That might be the norm to win a regular victory.

 

[LostInTime]

I've had less issues with happiness this patch than I had with the earlier ones. Since I don't like razing that much, I usually keep most big cities that occupies a big chunk of land. With autocracy now I can just annex and build courthouses and they do just fine. It was worse before patch, I had to take much longer breaks to wait on puppets to get a couple of coliseums etc. first, and the cultural hit from annexing isn't as painful either. Early game is the same thing as always. Raze crap cities and keep the good ones if you do hostile expand.

It's not as bad as you make it to be. There are tons of happiness spread around in wonders and policies to pick up from, and the AI always has a load of luxuries lying around, you'll just end up with less gold than before. (a good thing)

 

[Furycrab]

Well they did say loading old games would likely be an issue.

Puppet states are now rather terrible unless you get a mix of liberty/order/honor so older games are likely going to take a huge hit since a lot of us went for tradition/freedom with like 1-4 real cities and 10-15 puppets... So far I haven't really felt bottlenecked, or at least not more than I was before.

Well at least so far...

 

[Dizzy75]

I had a similar experience loading a turn-180 game on continents. Based on what I'm reading in other threads, I think we'll probably have more success starting a new game. Our cities and infrastructure and social policies will look very different.

 

[_hero_]

Loading games is naturally going to screw you up. You won't have any stoneworks, that's a handful of happiness right there. You'll like have gone theocracy, which was your biggest chunk of happiness and is now useless to you.

Now, I've started a new game and noticed that while happiness doesn't go up as fast, it is more fluid. There are a lot more ways to get a little happiness and a lot less ways to get a lot of happiness now. This makes it easier to have consistent expansion/war instead of it going in waves.

 

[maltz]

Actually I didn't have Theocracy. Each city receives 2-3 points of extra unhappiness plus 10+ points from resource hits, and the extra from Meritocracy can't keep up. Based on what I have read so far, happiness is indeed becoming a huge issue for human's expansion.

The game used to reward expansionist a lot more than non-violence. I guess this patch is an effort to shift the focus to the other side.

 

[magnus333]

I haven't read a single report here or on 2k where someone who actually started a new game with the patch has had any significant happiness issues.

The patch notes specifically state that happiness will be much lower in saved games, that doesn't mean that happiness is much lower in new games.

I've REX'd to 16 cities on a standard map in the new patch with no happiness issues.

At this point you're just theorizing on strategies to circumvent an issue that only exists in saved games from .275 imo.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

I haven't read a single report here or on 2k where someone who actually started a new game with the patch has had any significant happiness issues.

The patch notes specifically state that happiness will be much lower in saved games, that doesn't mean that happiness is much lower in new games.

I've REX'd to 16 cities on a standard map in the new patch with no happiness issues.

At this point you're just theorizing on strategies to circumvent an issue that only exists in saved games from .275 imo.

This. OP needs to start a new thread after completing his first brand new game, then discuss happiness issues (if there is indeed any).

 

[maltz]

This. OP needs to start a new thread after completing his first brand new game, then discuss happiness issues (if there is indeed any).

Indeed I haven't because I have this game to finish first.
And the Happiness issues is not made up - I did read people's new games from another forum. Let's leave the argument here and let the truth speaks later.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

This. OP needs to start a new thread after completing his first brand new game, then discuss happiness issues (if there is indeed any).

He said his game is modded also. So a old modded game on a new patch = fail.

 

[_hero_]

Indeed I haven't because I have this game to finish first.
And the Happiness issues is not made up - I did read people's new games from another forum. Let's leave the argument here and let the truth speaks later.

Played a new game on Emperor right after the patch came out. Didn't have many happiness issues. Sure I'd fall to -3 or so every now and then, but I quickly get back into the positive.

The people who are having issues simply need to adjust their play style to the changes. Know what the happiness benefits of the SP trees you're going to take are, and then go for those things. If you're going Piety, build temples a lot earlier then you used to. If you're going honor, get walls and castles and garrison troops. If you're going Liberty: well, you're gonna struggle with happiness as an expansionist. Make sure you get every circus/stoneworks/coliseum/luxury you can and that all your trade routes are connected.

Just because some people complain about something doesn't automatically mean there's some horrible issues.

P.S. If you really want to be able to expand a little more without such happiness issues, play on a huge map. Unless you're planning on doing a domination victory, you'll do much better with the 40% less unhappiness from cities that you get on that map size.

 

[uncarved block]

Just finished my first game post-patch. Was there something about scaling happiness to difficulty level that I missed? Played Inland Sea with Nebu (on Prince), because of familiarity, but got wildly different results than before the patch. Settled three cities, then decided to go after Genghis because he was just to the south and looking at me funny. After puppeting three of his cities, my happiness stood at . . . 35. Got Notre Dame just out of habit, but the crash never came; in the late game, I was running as high as 85 happiness, and the lowest it dipped was to 71 after I went to war and razed a city. All this with a minimum of resource trades, although all that extra gold was going straight into CS all over the map.
Seriously, I thought there might be a bug. Will see what happens in the second game.

 

[krc]

Well they did say loading old games would likely be an issue.

I realize that it's too late for the OP, but similar situations will almost certainly arise with every new patch, and so it's worth pointing out the solution: When the patch notes came out, I switched steam to off-line mode so it wouldn't automatically update. I've got a couple of ongoing saved games that I want to finish before starting under the new set of rules.

 

[Bibor]

New happiness system: go tall, wide or conqueror because you want to. Not because a huge puppet empire is the easiest way to win.

 

[chazzycat]

Yeah I have to agree with Bibor, so far it seems like a really good, balanced patch. In the game I went wide/liberty (because I wanted to) I found plenty of mechanisms to keep happiness in check. Meritocracy alone makes up for the +1 per city, and stoneworks/early circuses play a significant part. Stone & horses are both very common. Organized religion comes before theocracy, so you can reach that critical happiness policy sooner, should you go piety. All cities should have monuments and some should have temples by then anyway. Early production is also easier to come by, so those coloseums & circuses are built much faster. There were a couple times I traded for luxuries with the AI instead of selling them, but selling luxuries was pretty OP, so that's a good change IMO. I like it even more that AIs have positive diplo modifiers for trading partners.

 

[TPQ]

Personally, I've found myself swimming in happiness in 332. It seems much easier to keep happiness in the positive. I'm obviously in the minority and I only play emperor, but still, seems easier to me.

 

[binhthuy71]

Happiness issues? I just started playing V a couple of weeks ago so I'm playing on Prince right now. Post patch I've managed stratospheric (Above 70) levels of happiness by paying attention to how my choices of builds, trade, tile improvements, and relationships with City States work best with my Social Policies. I tend to be a Culture vulture and a gold hog. The synergy between SPs and happiness produces a lot of both. I usually build three to five cities. I've managed to keep most of them happy, often to the point of continuous "We love the king!" for numerous turns simply by making sure to fulfill their "City X demands..." requests.
A nice side effect of happiness + gold is that you can butter up militaristic City States to the point where they build your army for you.

 

[Hubb1e]

I've had no issues with happiness with 332 also. A few times early on a dipped below 0, but so far I haven't built a single colosseum and I'm at 25 happiness. Before, I would struggle to stay above 0. Happiness is so high I've decided to build an army and see if I can destroy it. The Hanging Gardens lets me mine all 4 of my luxury mines and all the horses and 3 sheep while still growing like a teenager. I can build a rifle in 3 turns on Epic speed. The game is already over. I'm walking all over England with Rifles against warriors and longbows. Gotta say I'm having no issues playing emperor level like I've always done.

 

[nokmirt]

In my current game, I am playing on Prince, huge earth map, 17 civs, 17 CS's. Right now, I am in the Medieval era cruising along with 24 gpt and +8 happiness (which actually is 6th in the world, Siam is first at +20), running 5 cities as Russia.

So far, my diplomatic relations with other civs have been easy going. Probably because I should be playing King, and I'm way ahead of everyone else, technologically, not militarily (I am just now looking into building a serious military).

I thought happiness was going to be a problem, but I adopted the Piety SP tree and get +1 for every monument and temple. This alone helped a great deal. Building culture is a great way to go to gain further happiness. However, next I plan to use Meritocracy through Liberty, and Monarchy through Tradition to help out as well.

I was not overly lucky with luxury resources at the outset, in fact my capital Moscow has 3 deer. The good thing was that I placed along a river and have plenty of food and hills for production. A little scouting and now I have a decent little empire. With Russia's production bonuses, I should be able to easily dominate this game. My next test will be on King, which may be a different story.
I did have to keep a close eye on my cities at first, and for awhile I ran my empire at -1, -2 happiness to prevent growth. Now though, things are rolling right along.

The game with the new patch does seem well balanced, and it has been fun to play.