Cottages and happiness

[Ibian]

I have tried many different kinds of economies by now. The result i have arrived at is that cottages are not optional, as annoying as that is. However, i have run into a problem which doesnt really exist for something like SE. Happy faces.

How does everyone deal with WW when running a CE? I could just kill off the malcontents with slavery or starve them out, but other than that, whats some good ways to keep people happy?

The best i have found so far is to have a lot of religions and then run free religion when it becomes necessary. However this requires a tech lead to get more than a few of them. Any other ideas?

 

[oyzar]

Hereditary rule and military police is often the preferred method when running a CE in the early game as all the economy comes through the slider using that will take 10% out of your research every time... Sometimes you just have to use the slider though. Makes sure to have theaters and coliseums everywhere when you do. In the late game you have jails + mount rushmore + police state to nullify ww though...

 

[VirusMonster]

Shwedagon Paya + religion spam will allow you to run Free Religion early.

what I have found best, however, is to gain control of the Pyramids and switch to Representation or PoliceState. Once you have the largest empire, then you can trade for more happiness resources. Don't forget the Forges and Markets as well.

 

[Ibian]

Hereditary rule means giving up beakers from specialists. I should only be running those in my GP farm anyway and of course angkor wat priests in my wonder spammer pre-guilds, but... well it may be a good option. Each unit would in essence represent a colloseum.

On the other hand a SE can just skip religion hunting and focus on other techs.

On the other other hand a cottage is worth about 3 people in a specialist city.

Its an annoying dilemma.

 

[oyzar]

Size 20 cities in the BC era produce enough beakers...

 

[Ibian]

No such thing as enough beakers. Also its mostly about keeping people happy during war.

 

[oyzar]

Oh you were talking about representation... That is only available if you get the mids or very much later in the game... In a Ce you often run so few specialists and so large cities that hereditary rule can still be way better than representation when this is avaiable though...

 

[Verge]

Hereditary rule means giving up beakers from specialists. I should only be running those in my GP farm anyway and of course angkor wat priests in my wonder spammer pre-guilds, but... well it may be a good option. Each unit would in essence represent a colloseum.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall from another thread that you always build the Pyramids, no matter what. Something about it being a baseline for your strategy, and that missing it would be like some sort of fluke. If that's the case, that's a misguided outlook, since dependency on any wonder is going to trip you up when exploring different avenues of strategy.

Consider a game where you don't build the 'Mids.

This isn't an uncommon situation for a player building an economy that uses a significant amount of cottages. For me, this describes close to all of my games (sometimes I accidentally stumble across the things during an early conquest). For others, this will describe the majority to significant minority of their games. The reason is that there isn't a pressing need for the Pyramids if you aren't going to go all-out on specialists under Representation. For an economy using a substantial amount of worked cottages, the Pyramids is going to be a relatively inefficient use of hammers, given the relatively fewer specialists that would benefit.

With that in mind, Hereditary Rule makes sense for an economy running many cottages. Not only can one adopt it within a reasonable time frame without reliance on the 'Mids, it offers a useful, cost-effective way to affect broad national change based on very flexible localized solutions. That is, it can address happiness issues across your empire while allowing you to adjust resources on a city-by-city basis. Hereditary Rule allows you to direct happiness providers (units) freely between cities, making it easy to divert and portion out happiness providers as populations change.

 

[vicawoo]

So for mass happiness, you could either bring up the culture slider or run hereditary rule. no such thing as too much research? well one of them hurts more.

you could also not go to war for so long.

 

[futurehermit]

forges/theatres/markets/hereditary rule + expand your empire to claim many resources. trade for ones you don't have. don't delay astronomy to get more resources.

EDIT: Also, don't be afraid to run 20% culture slider. I've done this in some CE games, especially with Dutch (Cre/Fin). If you give up 20% science slider but end up working 4 more cottages in each commerce city, you can get more beakers overall.

 

[Iranon]

If heavy use of the culture slider is inevitable, I generally switch emphasis to production during that time, build up my infrastructure and catch up with gold and science once commerce becomes un-gimped.

 

[cabert]

Check my signature for all the ways to happiness.

I found the single best way to happiness with early cottages is Hereditary Rule. This also helps building up your army, if you plan to go to war.
The only thing is you really need to focus on getting more happiness resources and modifiers before switching out of it.

Typically, you'll stick to HR until you can run Free Religion and trade for happiness resources.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

monarchy is the key to any CE

also, if your diplomacy is right and everything goes fine, trade your bronze and iron around for a while; that's what I'm doing in my current game. Warriors give 1 happy face like any other unit and they're dirt cheap. Also, think twice before connecting your iron. Do it when you need it.

Police state is brainless... I remember having a long war against suleiman who had statue of zeus which resulted in some 2.5k war weariness and over 12 unhappy faces in the big cities. Needless to say that'd sting no matter how big and solid my econ. would've been so police state was needed.

However, most games I finish before fascism, or anyway, I'm close to finishing them before fascism and at that time I have a big enough lead to not really matter.

Also, I have big issues in making any wonder(heck, even my beloved GL or lighthouse) as a stapple of my strategy; on emperor is still doable, but on immortal already pyramids can be missed no matter how hard you try if you ain't industrious and some industrious leader happens to be on the map and decide he really wants them.

Obviously, you want to hog as many happiness resources as possible(afterall, that's the question you asked) by trading. Market/grocer is a duo that should never lack in your big cities. While whales and ivory can be iffy, silk and fur are easy to get and usually plenty for everyone; and the 4 health from grocer, all from handy resources also helps a ton. Leaving aside they both give a 25% bonus to cash.

Forges are also important unless you have some heavy flood plain location where health would be a very big issue. All 3 resources are easily to get too via trade and such...

 

[Ibian]

Good advice everyone, thanks. Maybe i have become too hung up on the pyramids so ill try a game where i specfically avoid it and see how it goes. Its gonna suck for my GP farm and all my settled specialists but oh well.

 

[cabert]

Good advice everyone, thanks. Maybe i have become too hung up on the pyramids so ill try a game where i specfically avoid it and see how it goes. Its gonna suck for my GP farm and all my settled specialists but oh well.

this way you can focus on scientists for academies

 

[Ibian]

Here is what im gonna do.

I dont like being at war more than i have to, too much micromanagement of armies and it screws over my economy. Thus, it is desirable to have a lot of political clout.

Religious dominance equals political dominance.

The more religions i have the more happy faces i will get with free religion.

Hence, hog religions, then play the diplomacy so i can be left i peace and spread religion as best befits my political agenda.

My GP farm will also be my gold city. It will run merchants and settle the GM until i have a surplus at 100% science, then work on getting some GS for academies. My capital is a wonder spammer as usual and any early prophets will be bulbed to grab religions faster (i normally settle all of them). If i found a religion in my GP farm, i will make it my state religion, build a shrine there, and make sure thats the one the other civs use. I will, naturally, be building the apostolic palace.

The leader is Ghandi and its 73 turns in. The chinese have been cockblocked and i have time to fill in the rest of my land before i open the borders. The above goals have led to some interesting tech choics. For example, i have CoL but not BW yet. I got buddhism, hinduism, confucionism but missed judaism (probably because i had no commerce tiles to work).

Incidentally, i have stone nearby so i may go for pyramids after all.

This should be an interesting game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've found wars drain the hell out of my economy (I also run CE typically).

While I'm relatively noob, I'll add that hereditary rule has helped me deal with it in the past. However, when it comes to war nothing has ever helped me as much as preparing heavily, and then just overwhelming cities with as much speed and unit #'s as possible, and then the second the offensive weakens at all, sue for peace (taking whatever techs, gold, gold/turn, etc the ai will give to me). If I feel the need I just repeat that later after building up again. CE needs to protect from pillaging too . I kind of want to learn the other econs, especially the food/trade econ.

 

[ICNP]

I have a game going where switching to Rep for Happiness is wholly unpractical.
Basically Im mali and my capital winds up with 4 food resources. My second city has 4 floodplains. Lets just say Im pushing happy cap REAL fast. I grab HR and everything falls into place as I whip my people happy with military. Since I have over 10 smileys coming from military alone 3 from rep is not enough to justify a switch to rep.

In conclusion the secret to happiness is:
-Mass unit building with HR (also good for keeping hungry AI out)
-Whipping away population
-Culture Slider once you have theaters and coliseums.