Starts without a 2 or 3 luxury arround you.

[Hakuoh]

Is it even possible i often find myself restarting over cause its impossible to keep your people happy. And setteling Citys without Luxrys is just mehh..
In my last new game i started with 3 Cirtrus and 1 Foxcamp so far so good.
Ater explorering a bit i dindt find any Luxury arround me and the ones i found where far away or near the AI. So i had no clue where to settle my 2 City and even after i did i had 0 happiness.

 

[EK834]

Is it even possible i often find myself restarting over cause its impossible to keep your people happy. And setteling Citys without Luxrys is just mehh..
In my last new game i started with 3 Cirtrus and 1 Foxcamp so far so good.
Ater explorering a bit i dindt find any Luxury arround me and the ones i found where far away or near the AI. So i had no clue where to settle my 2 City and even after i did i had 0 happiness.

This hasn't happened to me a lot lately (I play Venice too much) but I think a classic strategy to deal with that is :

1) Sell all you can to the AI for gold, incl. strat. resources, embassy (to pay for maintenance and bribes). Fulfill quests for CS if you can.
2) Animal husbandry early to reveal horses. They allow you to build circuses. That may help choose spots for cities. Sell them for gold, of course.
3) Construction early enough to build Colosseums
4) Befriend then ally Mercantile CS as early as possible, then other CS.

I have a start loosely like this playing Poland right now. The start itself wasn't so good, despite following the Tradition/Liberty strategy described on the other board. It did happen that I fell into unhappiness early (for short spells), but by mid-classical the problem was over and by Medieval I had four big cities and plenty of happiness from buildings and alliances. I founded a 3 more cities off continent then, as mine was already all settled. So far so good, I'm catching up well in science, my economy's good and my happiness can more than support my growth.

 

[Alziel]

Is it even possible i often find myself restarting over cause its impossible to keep your people happy. And setteling Citys without Luxrys is just mehh..
In my last new game i started with 3 Cirtrus and 1 Foxcamp so far so good.
Ater explorering a bit i dindt find any Luxury arround me and the ones i found where far away or near the AI. So i had no clue where to settle my 2 City and even after i did i had 0 happiness.

I think that people tend to rely too much on luxuries for happiness personally. Yes, happiness is VERY important and the quick-fix smileys (not to mention the trade/gold potential) that they can bring is very alluring; however, I see luxury dependence to be almost as crippling as Wonder dependence.

It can be dangerous to rely on luxuries for happiness and gold. They can be easily pillaged or trade deals can be lost. You may lose a luxury to a Great General's 'culture bomb' or the luxury may be embargoed by the World Congress/United Nations.

Look into other strategies for building up happiness and gold. There are more secure and permanent ways of gaining both than just relying on luxuries. EK834 just posted some solid, viable alternatives whilst I was writing this - thanks EK834!

If you 'reroll' every time you don't see that there are enough luxuries, you will never improve your game. Of course, if you don't want to improve your game or if you're not interested in moving up a difficulty level or moving to multiplayer, you can completely ignore this advice.

Basically - luxuries are just one set of tools among many that are available to you - if you are deficient in one area of the game you can be almost sure that you will be compensated in another. If your starting position doesn't suit your usual strategy, be brave and try something different. You might surprise yourself and become a better player at the same time.

Personally, I never re-start any of my games and always work with the hand I'm dealt. If I lose, I lose but most often I don't and I come away from the experience having learned something new (and there's always the CivFanatics Forums here if you get stuck and want some tips! )

 

[phillipwyllie]

Usually you'll start with 2 unique luxes in 3-hex range of your initial settlers starting location. My rule of thumb is you can settle as many cities as luxes you can have access to immediately(after improving). That way you should never have happiness problems. Couple with trading excess luxes you'll soon be in the happiness lead.
Bee-linining for Physics(Notre Dame) will give you +10 happiness, and/or getting in the Circus Maximums early should offset any early unhappiness.