A review of the Happiness System

[Apostremo]

I

Are most people sitting at extremely positive happiness in the late game? The current system values are tuned for the AI, but if players are getting huge happiness values from the industrial era on I can increase the tech scaling value a bit.


G

You could additionally introduce an early expensive national wonder, for example the (Great) Agora, which boosts happiness from ressources (or in other ways). It would promote trading ressources, which is nice, but the main idea is too give a situational option.

Many ressources? Or want to invest heavy in happiness? Build the Great Agora!

You could increase the tech scaling making it mandatory late game, when it got cheap. Give people more of a happiness challenge late game together with a solution (maybe also a second NW later to complement)

 

[Tubbilicious]

Deity Player here: I won't be downloading the latest CBP if you've made the happiness system harsher (less happiness).

As you may remember I largely play YnAEMP with the max number of civs. Broadly speaking I love mass expansion (colonisation) and domination, and I play to that strategy more or less regardless. I'm on version 8-10, now in the industrial era and cannot run a single specialist due to unhappiness.

I haven't played for a couple of months, so either I'm rusty or alternatively the happiness system is already quite punishing for my style of play. I'm actually not taking enemy cities (despite having a clear military capacity to do so) when people declare war on me just because I want neither the unhappiness nor indeed the city removed from the game.

 

[Gazebo]

Luxuries are way better than you all seem to think. The luxury population bonus is solid and scales with the number of luxuries you own and trade for. Not sure where the 'luxuries are useless' logic is coming from.

G

 

[Strigvir]

I haven't played for a couple of months, so either I'm rusty or alternatively the happiness system is already quite punishing for my style of play. I'm actually not taking enemy cities (despite having a clear military capacity to do so) when people declare war on me just because I want neither the unhappiness nor indeed the city removed from the game.

I don't play YnAEMP, but agree with you. The system is skewed towards tall empires even more than vanilla game.

 

[Stalker0]

Luxuries are way better than you all seem to think. The luxury population bonus is solid and scales with the number of luxuries you own and trade for. Not sure where the 'luxuries are useless' logic is coming from.

G

It may be because the bonus is obscure, so its hard to know how much bang for the buck you get.

 

[DrNooooo]

That is exactly why - the bonus is based on a formula I don't understand and I can't honestly be bothered to do the math to figure it out every time. There's no way of clearly seeing how much Luxuries are currently worth, including in the trade screen.

This is another reason the old Happiness system is preferable - that it's simple allows it to be intuitive and easily understood, yet it still solves all of the same problems as the new system. Even if the new system solves a problem, it's at the cost of needless complexity and obfuscation that I think are worse.

I'd suggest working on the UI to make it more clear what Luxuries are worth - the Happiness tooltip, the Deal screen, and the Luxury tooltip should all give exact per-Luxury values so you know what you're getting and what you're selling. When Luxury values increase, there should also be a notification to make you aware.

 

[Gazebo]

This is another reason the old Happiness system is preferable - that it's simple allows it to be intuitive and easily understood, yet it still solves all of the same problems as the new system. Even if the new system solves a problem, it's at the cost of needless complexity and obfuscation that I think are worse.

That's not a terribly effective argument, though - if the end goal of 'solving the same problem' negates the value of complexity, then the CBP is intrinsically without value, as all changes made in some way make the game more complex.

G

 

[Stalker0]

if the end goal of 'solving the same problem' negates the value of complexity, then the CBP is intrinsically without value, as all changes made in some way make the game more complex.

Absolutely not true! Many of the changes that may been made are clearly documented.

The changes to most buildings....in the tooltips, easy to understand.
The policies....in the tooltips, easy to understand.
Investment....explained in the tooltips, tells me how it works.

While the espionage system is more complex in certain ways, the fact that the city potentials are now always visible I think has made the system more interesting AND easier to understand. Put spies in cities with big potential = benefits. Simple to understand, yet because those values change more often it makes the system more dynamic.

The CSD system is very different from the core game...but still easy to understand. Build units....and the units tell me exactly how much influence I will gain. I know what units I need, and how many I need. I know that to get more units I need more paper. I know exactly how much paper will get me more units. Very simple.

The happiness system...is not simple. The fact that luxuries scale is mentioned...how they scale is a bit mysterious. The fact that building a building will sometimes fix happiness, but sometimes not....adds to the mystery. The fact that happiness thresholds change from game to game because of how other players are doing...makes it mysterious. Now....if that complexity gives us great benefits than so be it, but the argument being made is the payoff isn't worth the cost like it was in other subsystems you have adjusted.

The only parts of the new system that are pretty simple (and probably why they are my favorite parts about the new system) are the isolation and the burning lands penalties. As far as why I am getting 2 unhappy or 5 unhappy for isolation....I have no idea. However, I know exactly what I need to do to address it, and it works every time. That makes it simple.


Edit: I realize that there are two notions of complexity, and I want to ensure I am capturing what I mean.

Complexity = More to learn. In this way, yes the mod is more complex. There are things people have to learn compared to the base game. I think this complexity is generally ok...although changes should always have to "earn their place".

Complexity: Action doesn't translate into a Direct Reaction. This is the area that I think the happiness system struggles with. The Investment System is very direct. Spend X Gold, Get Y hammers. CSD. Get X diplomatic units, Get Y Influence.

If I get 5 luxuries I will have....um, 6~7 happiness? Maybe?
I have 5 cities I will have....I have no idea how many unhappiness.
If I build a building to reduce illiteracy it will.....maybe reduce unhappiness, maybe.

 

[void_genesis]

I personally prefer the new system but greater transparency in the effect of luxuries via tool tips would be nice if possible. If wide play styles need more happiness then I'm sure we could find a way. One thought would be to make WLTKD give a bigger and permanent happiness boost when the resource is owned through settling or conquest, rather than just by trade or CS alliance.

 

[Stalker0]

Just so I am not being wholly negative here, let me give some suggestions on how to make the system more direct.

1) If the happiness tooltip told me how much happiness a new luxury would get me, then I could weigh their value.

2) If the city happiness threshold told me (right now adding 5 science = 1 reduce in illiteracy), that would make it a bit easier to understand.

 

[Gazebo]

Just so I am not being wholly negative here, let me give some suggestions on how to make the system more direct.

1) If the happiness tooltip told me how much happiness a new luxury would get me, then I could weigh their value.

2) If the city happiness threshold told me (right now adding 5 science = 1 reduce in illiteracy), that would make it a bit easier to understand.

The first I can do. The second isn't quite as easy. I am going to bump up the % reductions on buildings for unhappiness sources (so that, most of the time, the associated source of unhappiness goes down), and increase tech scaling some more.

The fact that unhappiness is dynamic and based on the global average makes problems and solutions built around it a moving target. It is hard to write tooltips for a constantly-shifting target. While I understand that it can be confusing, I also feel that the slight complexity of the model makes passive management of cities a lot more rewarding. For non-warfare players, happiness was (in BNW) so straightforward and mindless that it didn't take any planning. Now, the model requires a balance of prioritization (i.e. 'do I want to focus on yields to make this city happier, or do I want to focus on yields that I want or need?').

In short, I understand your frustrations, but being told to 'make it more transparent' is not terribly helpful, as there are a million ways to approach this, none of which are intrinsically easy to code.

 

[Growth]

Now, the model requires a balance of prioritization (i.e. 'do I want to focus on yields to make this city happier, or do I want to focus on yields that I want or need?').

I really like that you need to plan around and sometimes even fine grain manage it. Whenever I expand a "Voyage of Discovery", I clearly see my score go a few points up. My main concern really is how the AI works with it, I am seeing Byzantine with -50+ and none of it is because of ideological tensions... Yet she's too stubborn to give me open border for 4 luxuries... She should care more about her people being less than pissing my empire off...

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I've noticed that getting more Happiness from Luxuries is easier in these later versions.


A Luxury Bonus of 3 grants about 150% more Happiness from Luxuries

Spoiler :

http://images.akamai.steamuserconte...249/43875FA7EAF7EE044F880827FD215FA683A6C513/

 

[Wodhann]

Someone mentioned that the system is unintuitive to beginners, perhaps it would be interesting to add "tutorial" lines to advisors explaining what the new features if the player has set the advice level to "advanced" or less.

I assume it's possible to do so?

 

[Tubbilicious]

In short, I understand your frustrations, but being told to 'make it more transparent' is not terribly helpful, as there are a million ways to approach this, none of which are intrinsically easy to code.

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.

 

[Apostremo]

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.

Sure Specialists wouldn't help? Otherwise you could settle a Great Scientiest. See it like that, you exhausted your normal buildings options gave them a school and even a University, but the citizen look at other cities and see national colleges and maybe in far away lands even research labs and get a little jealous, but only a little. Maybe there is even a famed korean land, where thoughts are free and people are more evolved! They think "It's nice here I suppose, but living in korea! that's something to dream of" To quench such thought you have go out of your way, and maybe even then, there could be some lone querulant.

 

[Tubbilicious]

Sure Specialists wouldn't help? Otherwise you could settle a Great Scientiest. See it like that, you exhausted your normal buildings options gave them a school and even a University, but the citizen look at other cities and see national colleges and maybe in far away lands even research labs and get a little jealous, but only a little. Maybe there is even a famed korean land, where thoughts are free and people are more evolved! They think "It's nice here I suppose, but living in korea! that's something to dream of" To quench such thought you have go out of your way, and maybe even then, there could be some lone querulant.

I wouldn't dispute for a moment that this sort of thing is either relevant, justified or important. However, if these are the causes of unhappiness then they need to be more clearly presented, and, it needs to be clear that there really is not all that much I can do about it.

 

[Apostremo]

I wouldn't dispute for a moment that this sort of thing is either relevant, justified or important. However, if these are the causes of unhappiness then they need to be more clearly presented, and, it needs to be clear that there really is not all that much I can do about it.

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"?

 

[Strigvir]

There is always something to increase your output.

There is nothing to increase output in the information era.

 

[Apostremo]

There is nothing to increase output in the information era.

Yes there is! Finishing all ship parts and starting it reduces all unhappiness