Unhappy with Unhappiness

[JeffNebraska]

It's frustrating when you're militarily superior to an opponent and can take over their entire civilization, but need to resist the urge because of the unhappiness that the increased population will inflict on you.

I'm on my first real Civ V game (Mac user) on Warlord (which is far too easy, but seemed like a good place to have my first game). At about turn 190, I have every luxury resource on my continent and just eliminated the second to last civ that shares the land with me (the Arabians). However, despite making puppet states of his four cities, taking him out brought me from +3 happiness to -10.

I now think I need to reload before I annexed my last puppet state, which appears to be causing 7 unhappiness points. I also think I need to choose the social policy that gives one point of happiness for every garrisoned soldier, just to have greater control over my happiness.

I like the concept and do think it's far more streamlined than managing unhappiness on a city-by-city basis, but I think it goes too far with the new population problem. When I finish with the Arabians, I can't see how I'll get enough surplus happiness to feel comfortable overrunning the Ottomans (who also have four cities). In this particular game, happiness is the scarcest resource in the world.

 

[Kushluk]

This is simply a broken part of the game. Case closed.

 

[PawelS]

There should be some limitations to expansion. In Civ4 it's the financial factor - if you have too many cities, their upkeep costs will eat you, and in Civ5 it's happiness (but its implementation is somewhat lacking because it allows ICS). It shouldn't be possible to conquer the entire world early in the game, but it should be possible later, when you have sufficient technology and social policies to maintain a large empire.

 

[JeffNebraska]

in Civ5 it's happiness (but its implementation is somewhat lacking because it allows ICS)

What's ICS?

 

[JeffNebraska]

Personally, I liked the concept of war weariness and the fact that if you didn't entirely defeat another Civ, unhappiness would remain, but if you did, much of it would go away. That way, with a functional AI, you would often be motivated to sacrifice units to get those last couple of cities and finish the assimilation process.

As it is now, you have to refrain from taking over inferior opponents simply because they have too many people. I suppose razing their cities is always an option, but I don't like having to start with brand new (tiny) cities all the time.

By the way, I really miss having the options of despotism, democracy, monarchy, etc. That was a nice layer.

 

[Callonia]

What's ICS?

Infinite city sprawl.

Unhappiness can be tough part but becomes manageable when u expand and grab the luxs + picking certain social policies all the time.

I haven't picked honor tree in a long time now.

 

[Fariic]

Are you building happiness buildings?

It's not just managing happiness.
It's balancing happiness and maintenance through building and unit upkeep.

 

[JeffNebraska]

I haven't picked honor tree in a long time now.

The reason I am reloading 90 minutes back is because I was going for that Liberty policy that reduces unhappiness caused by the number of cities. However, I need the band-aid of the Honor policy that allows garrisoned units to give happiness. Then I can make the Liberty policy a long term goal.

Next time, I will probably get the Liberty policy right off the bat.

 

[JeffNebraska]

Are you building happiness buildings?

It's not just managing happiness.
It's balancing happiness and maintenance through building and unit upkeep.

Yes. And I'm often dropping the 680 for a Collesium or a Circus, just because I have no other choice.

 

[Callonia]

The reason I am reloading 90 minutes back is because I was going for that Liberty policy that reduces unhappiness caused by the number of cities. However, I need the band-aid of the Honor policy that allows garrisoned units to give happiness. Then I can make the Liberty policy a long term goal.

Next time, I will probably get the Liberty policy right off the bat.

Personally I just grab Tradition then Piety then autocracy and order.

Tradition's never completely filled out, I only get Legalism and Oligarchy and that +33% to build wonders.

 

[manu-fan]

1. Build Colleseums

2. Get Policy for Garrisoned Units (garrison Scouts)

3. Build Notre Dame

4. Build Forbidden Palace

5. Build Circus and other later game happiness buildings.

Yes, it's a constant struggle, but a manageable one.

Cheers.

 

[JeffNebraska]

1. Done in almost every major city

2. Going to rewind about 15 turns to make this choice

3. Done

4. In process, but infinitely delayed by having -10 happiness

5. Done in almost every city with horses

Probably, now that I see the problem, I'll be able to avoid it in future games. Just seems like it will take some counterintuitive and silly prioritizing.

1. Build Colleseums

2. Get Policy for Garrisoned Units (garrison Scouts)

3. Build Notre Dame

4. Build Forbidden Palace

5. Build Circus and other later game happiness buildings.

Yes, it's a constant struggle, but a manageable one.

Cheers.

 

[SuperJay]

Probably, now that I see the problem, I'll be able to avoid it in future games. Just seems like it will take some counterintuitive and silly prioritizing.

Agreed. There's a few mechanics in Civ 5 which feel like nothing more than punishment for being successful; war / happiness is one of them. It's tough to get that across to a new player, too - they think "But I'm winning the war, why am I losing happiness?" because yeah, intuitively it seems like your population should rally behind you - but in the game, the more successful you are in war, the greater the costs. Someone pointed out a while back that your citizens enjoy losing wars more than winning them, which makes absolutely no sense but is a little amusing just because it's so backwards.

 

[PawelS]

Maybe a different name should be used, like "stability" instead of happiness to make it more intuitive. It's obvious that it's harder to keep a larger empire stable.

 

[manu-fan]

One thing I've found.

If you're getting close to -10, make sure you have enough money to buy a Coliseum somewhere if you get to -10 or just below. -10 is really really bad.

Cheers.

 

[atteSmythe]

This sounds like what was happening the first game or two of mine, before I came here and read about ICS. Even if you don't choose to use it, there are some valuable insights in learning the strategy.

I think what happened to my first (low difficulty even) games was that unhappiness from city growth was completely unmanageable. Now, I restrict all but a handful of cities from growing until I expressly allow them to.

It seems like in Civ IV, you would not always want to found a city, but once you decided you should, you could pretty much always let it grow. Cities = bad(sometimes), population = good (always).

In Civ V, the decision seems to be reversed. Founding a city is always good, but allowing it to grow is rarely so.

As for annexing cities, don't do it except in very rare circumstances. Never before the revolt period is over, and then only when there's a wonder in it that you really want to save. Otherwise, razing it and replacing it with a settler of your own is preferable.

 

[kaibayashi]

There should be some limitations to expansion. In Civ4 it's the financial factor - if you have too many cities, their upkeep costs will eat you, and in Civ5 it's happiness (but its implementation is somewhat lacking because it allows ICS). It shouldn't be possible to conquer the entire world early in the game, but it should be possible later, when you have sufficient technology and social policies to maintain a large empire.

Why not? Plenty of civilisations (Romans, Greeks etc) conquered large parts of the known world? Or do you mean even earlier than that?

What I want to know is, other than the effect on growth, what are the penalties for unhappiness? In my game i was worrying about it, but then was at a point where I didnt want to grow anymore anyway, so stopped bothering trying too hard to rectify it...

 

[PawelS]

Why not? Plenty of civilisations (Romans, Greeks etc) conquered large parts of the known world? Or do you mean even earlier than that?

Well, as you noticed they didn't conquer very large parts of the entire world, but only of the world known to them.

Lack of an expansion limiter is bad for game balance, because if you get rewarded (or at least not penalized) for conquering other civs, there is nothing that prevents you from conquering even more of them (the same applies to the AI civs). The game is more interesting when there are several strong competing civs in the late game instead of just 1 or 2.

What I want to know is, other than the effect on growth, what are the penalties for unhappiness? In my game i was worrying about it, but then was at a point where I didnt want to grow anymore anyway, so stopped bothering trying too hard to rectify it...

Between 0 and -10 you only get a -75% growth penalty. Below -10 you get zero growth, penalties to production and combat strength, and you can't build settlers.

 

[Me_Myself_I]

Maybe a different name should be used, like "stability" instead of happiness to make it more intuitive. It's obvious that it's harder to keep a larger empire stable.

It is true that the larger anything becomes, the more upkeep it requires. That's basic thermodynamics, as far as I can tell.

I do think that this stability should be flexible, depending upon the circumstances, however. A very large empire that is well-fed and winning battles, for instance, is much less likely to have instability than a small starving empire that is being relentlessly persecuted. Of course, stability and economic health can be completely different. Some countries are "stable" when it comes to their government, because of authoritarian rule, while the economy is in collapse and the people starve.

Upkeep seems to be the correct way to implement this. A large well-fed empire that is winning battles may have no problem with unhappiness but requires more upkeep than a smaller one. And, aside from units, a lot of the upkeep can simply be part of the terrain.

Can anyone explain why they think this happiness system is superior to upkeep? To me, it's one of the aspects of the game that is broken and frustrating to deal with. Accumulating things (i.e. luxury resources) may pacify the masses in Western cultures, but not everyone has a consumerist mindset. I do think success in battle/conquest/expansion should make a big difference when it comes to unhappiness for some, and probably most, cultures.

Happiness should be aligned with the goals of the civilization. Upkeep should be related to how well those goals are being met. Each civilization should have clearly defined goals (like with Civ IV where a Civ may be aggressive and expansionist, for instance). How well players match those goals should influence happiness.

 

[Me_Myself_I]

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