Alternate Happiness ModMod Brainstorm

[Stalker0]

Your point stands if PW is available from the very start of the game.

I will note that if I go forward with PW as a "primary" mechanic, I would definately have it available earlier in the game.

So a number of people are worried about having to build PWs more often and for them to be "boring", and there is some fair concern there. Obviously a simple solution would be to apply -1 unhappiness to more buildings, like your universities, custom houses, etc. Now the issue with that can be (which the current system tried to resolve) is the notion that a bunch of buildings could make happiness "too easy". With the current system, because of the way yields work... buildings tend to "obsolete" over time. That market that once removed an unhappiness for poverty effectively stops doing that as your needs rise.

There is a way to replicate that. We could do something like this: Library: -1 unhappiness in any City under 15 pop.

This effectively sets a self obsoleting mechanic. As cities start to grow up, those old buildings just don't do anything for the people anymore, and they lose their benefit. This allows some of the infrastructure race that the main system provides, but again in a much clearer, understandable way.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I will note that if I go forward with PW as a "primary" mechanic, I would definately have it available earlier in the game.

So a number of people are worried about having to build PWs more often and for them to be "boring", and there is some fair concern there. Obviously a simple solution would be to apply -1 unhappiness to more buildings, like your universities, custom houses, etc. Now the issue with that can be (which the current system tried to resolve) is the notion that a bunch of buildings could make happiness "too easy". With the current system, because of the way yields work... buildings tend to "obsolete" over time. That market that once removed an unhappiness for poverty effectively stops doing that as your needs rise.

There is a way to replicate that. We could do something like this: Library: -1 unhappiness in any City under 15 pop.

This effectively sets a self obsoleting mechanic. As cities start to grow up, those old buildings just don't do anything for the people anymore, and they lose their benefit. This allows some of the infrastructure race that the main system provides, but again in a much clearer, understandable way.

This is what I have in mind regarding how happiness can be changed without it becoming too easy until a certain point of the game. I don't think happiness should be relevant the entire game and merely something you worry about when expending.

From Ancient to Renaissance Era, we don't change a thing. The happiness is at a good spot here and there's no point adjusting values when we don't have to. Starting Industrial Era, we start giving more -1 unhappiness to buildings people build or at least provides some sort of value. Things like Military Academy, Agribusiness, etc... can all help make happiness much more manageable so players can focus on the end game as opposed to fighting unhappiness while AI seem unaffected by it. We don't want the buildings to come too late or they just aren't worth their production. We can also buff a couple of the ideologies so they can aid in happiness too.

While the obsolete mechanic sounds nice, it's also tougher to code. My suggestion above only requires sql files which are much easier to work with than lua or even the dll.

 

[Legen]

I've posted another topic about happiness balance: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/on-unhappiness-and-growth-in-wide-empires.664915/

The thing is that the happiness system revolves around population, and the current tuning of food/growth allows Wide empires to gain population faster than some players can advance their empire's productivity.

Moreover, many players don't see happiness as a limiter to population, but as an infrastructure check. The common complaint is "I have everything built, so my empire should be happy", they never say "My population grew too fast, it was my fault for not paying attention to it". In fact, they usually say "I shouldn't have to click 'Avoid Growth', it is wrong". This dissonance is what is causing frustration to those that get caught on an unhappiness spiral, and my suggestion there is to make grow something players have to consciously and actively pursue, instead of having cities grow so easily and without thought.

 

[Casworon]

I liked your post and think you might have accurately identified the problem.

I posted an idea of a city housing cap which limits the maximum population and you then have to build housing to expand this cap and allow cities to grow more. Having a similar effect of ticking and unlocking avoid growth but maybe not having that cognitive dissonance where you feel like you are limiting yourself. But by building the housing you are taking part in your own growth

 

[Legen]

Housing sounds as a good option, but requires some new code, I think, and AI training on how to use housing.

It could be a mod, though.

 

[usadefcon1]

I always liked Civ 4's system: Unhappy citizens eat 2 food and provide nothing, and sick citizens eat more food than healthy ones. Certain buildings such as factories create sickness and unhappiness.

 

[Casworon]

That's an idea. If the source of unhappiness is actually population and the problem is your population is growing beyond your yields. Then focusing all the negative effects of unhappiness on growth should make the system self-balancing right?

If your growth got so bad that your population growth effectively stopped when your empire became unhappy then this would mean people dont have to constantly tick and unpick avoid growth. While it would also stop you falling into a unhappiness black hole. Giving you the time to build up your yields and fix your unhappiness so your empire can grow more. Seems this would make the system effectively balance itself around 50% happiness.

I guess a way people could test this if they wanted was for somone to make a mod that changes the negative effects of unhappiness to something like -80% growth or something.

 

[Stalker0]

I guess a way people could test this if they wanted was for somone to make a mod that changes the negative effects of unhappiness to something like -80% growth or something.

This is exactly how vanilla works

 

[BiteInTheMark]

What you guys are discussing is nothing else than civ 5 vanilla happiness and civ 6 housing....

Stalker suggested and it's also my opinion, that we should get away from the need system which punishes people, for having a low per citizen productivity. Arguing now the new system have to punish growth cause its that what can cause unhappiness in the current system is stupid. We want a new system and creating a new system which punishes the same way but only with an other mechanic is stupid.

A focus to growth comes with a cost, and this cost is already well balanced. There is no need to extremely punish an already well balanced element.

 

[Gazebo]

I Iike that you are interested in a major rework of the happiness system, cause like you have mentioned in the patch thread, a happiness system which need every 3 or 4 versions great adjustments didn't look that good.

Let's be clear: the happiness system hasn't been adjusted or 'reworked' in over a year.

G

 

[Drakle]

In terms of what I personally would do with the happiness system.

Add an urbanisation public work that is -1 unhappiness from specialists, and potentially an extra effect like +5-10% Great Person generation. Rework most wonders that offer urbanisation reduction, since that kinda of just got stuck on a bunch of wonders as a random bonus.


Add a public disorder mechanic, which is counteracted by Military units and city defence from buildings. Each population equals a disorder value. While military units contribute their combat strength (or part of it), so it scales over time. And means you can't just keep an archer in a city forever and have it remove all this unhappiness.

If the city disorder is negative, barbarians can not spawn. If it is positive, they can spawn if unhappy. So for people who don't like the barbarian spawn, there is a way to deal with it, though higher population cities will require stronger CS units and beelining walls/castles to keep in control.

Naval units wouldn't count.


Newly settled cities have an unhappiness holiday, where there is a very large percentage decrease of yield unhappiness. It doesn't really make sense that the pioneering population, immediately demands the same fulfilment of needs as people in the core cities.


One sort of out there idea I have is Investment. Cities have an investment bar, which measures

-Gold investments
-Faith purchases of buildings
-Great People tiles in city workable radius (so not included if another city is working it)
-Great works in slots
-Targeted internal trade routes.

A city with high investment would have unhappiness reduction, while one with low investment would have more unhappiness. So pretty simple, you have to keep investing in your cities to keep them happy. I would have this largely replace the empire size modifier, since there are a limited amount of Great People, Great works and trade routes to spread around, and of course, more cities will generally add less marginal gold and faith.

This also further solidifies some of the trade-offs. You can move Great works to all be in the capital for max theming and tourism bonuses. Or spread them around for happiness management.

But generally, the population can see if you are making an effort (by dumping a ton of gold into buildings), and aren't just immediately mad because you haven't built literally everything yet.

 

[youngsteve]

The only thing I would say about the happiness system is in vanilla it is the worst part of the game, whilst in Vox Populi it is the best. Yes, sometimes you can struggle holding it together, but overall I think the developers of this mod have thought up an amazing alternative to what we had.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

to add something: one aspect I really like about the progress policy design, at least in theory, is that it should feel like a bicyle, you move forward by keeping a balance. I'm really fond of having traps or dark ages for an otherwise unconsted expansion. The current state of this system may be too painful, meaning a constant grind against unhappiness without pause in immortal, but as a general concept it is great to have these oscilations between phases where you take a pause to solve internal matters and phases where you blast through the game.

 

[tu_79]

The only thing I would say about the happiness system is in vanilla it is the worst part of the game, whilst in Vox Populi it is the best. Yes, sometimes you can struggle holding it together, but overall I think the developers of this mod have thought up an amazing alternative to what we had.

I don't have problems with it, either, but for newcomers it's rather hard, and it's not really a fun mechanic, just something needed for other good things to happen.

 

[Casworon]

I don't have problems with it, either, but for newcomers it's rather hard, and it's not really a fun mechanic, just something needed for other good things to happen.

Yeah I'm also now less certain on the need for a complete rework. But with the amount of frustration people seem to have with it maybe it needs something. But what to suggest I don`t really know. Maybe making it a bit more self balancing would remove lots of the busywork for new players while still allowing experienced players some room to show off their skills? Maybe the negative Spector of loosing a city is too harsh and cities should just go into a long period of anarchy?

I mean, we are dealing with one of the fundamental issues of 4x games here, it`s not really the easiest problem to solve

 

[pineappledan]

I like the idea of integrating public works better and making them come earlier.

to do that though, you will need FULL integration, with UAs, UCs, and policies that augment PWs to be better/cheaper/multi-potent.

My issue with the needs system right now is that it is laughably opaque, overly complex, and appears to work off moon logic. I can post screens where I have planted GPTs around my capital on King difficulty in the first 5 turns of a game, and I am still 50% happy. I should be 100% happy, I have more yield efficiency than any civ because I FORCED it, and I’m still under a median value which evidently isn’t tethered to anything in the actual game.

my last criticism of the current system is thathappiness from luxuries is flaccid. We toyed with changing luxury happiness in 2018 and I thought we came up with a better system. A rework for luxury happiness was even rolled out in a beta, but then it was inexplicably rolled back 2 version later without documentation or explanation.

 

[Legen]

Honestly, the happiness system does exactly what it is meant to, to provide a check to limitless growth and expansion. Just like you should stop settling and conquering new cities as your happiness surplus starts getting close to 50%, you should also divert your citizens toward yields other than food. It works, and it lets your secondary cities produce more useful yields immediately. If too many players don't want to, or can't, manage Wide food management and proceed to complain of the consequences, then it is probably better to adjust the food they get from their Wide-oriented sources.

I also think that the happiness system is actually kinda lenient, as you have an entire range between 100% and 50% to address unhappiness before it actually starts hurting the empire. In order to hit below 50%, you have to treat the growth of your secondary cities like they were Capital cities for way too long.

Last, the happiness system lets us play with a focus on making their population happy, if that's our playstyle. Some civs even support that, like Brazil and most Golden Age based civs.

 

[Stalker0]

my last criticism of the current system is thathappiness from luxuries is flaccid. We toyed with changing luxury happiness 2 years ago and I thought we came up with a better system AND IT WAS ROLLED OUT IN A BETA. And then it was inexplicably rolled back 2 version later without documentation or explanation.

I think luxuries are decent until around Industrial Era, then you make the point that it takes a lot of luxs to move the needle.

 

[Recursive]

I think luxuries are decent until around Industrial Era, then you make the point that it takes a lot of luxs to move the needle.

Maybe we should add an era scaler?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Honestly, the happiness system does exactly what it is meant to, to provide a check to limitless growth and expansion. Just like you should stop settling and conquering new cities as your happiness surplus starts getting close to 50%, you should also divert your citizens toward yields other than food.

99,9% of people will agree, that the happiness system should stop too rapid expansion, no matter if peaceful or through war.
But growth is a complete other thing. And I think a very large amount, likely the majority don't like permanent switching on and off the "stop growth" button.
I think too many people argue this way cause it worked now so long, but seeing people who think size 15-20 cities in industrial is a good size, even cities are able to work up to 56 citizen hurts me.
The fact that stopping growth helps in fighting unhappiness only works cause of the extremely irrational and artificial mechanism, that the median only actualize after the birth of a citizen. Using such mechanics shows for me more a surrender in trying to balance.