Democracy easier with large empires

[funxus]

I'm playing a game right now, and was wondering why it was so much harder to celebrate my cities in this game, than in my last game. When I compared the games, it seemed to me that my empire was larger in the last game, and therefore started with very unhappy people. This should havethe opposite effect, right? But when I checked the Happiness in the city screen, I saw that two luxuries, which according to civilopedia should move one pop up a step in happiness, turned a black guy into a happy citizen. Improvements though, moved the pop up a step.

2 lux + black pop --> happy pop
2 lux + red pop --> content pop
2 lux + cont pop --> happy pop

This makes larger empires easy to manage with luxuries, and smaller empires with improvements.

Is this a bug, or another way to make sure democracy runs easier in large empires?

 

[Marlos]

I'm not sure why the black citizen became happy from 2 luxuries while the red citizen became only content. That is not logical. I can tell you, though, that if you're going to switch to democracy, a minimum of 40% of your economy should go to luxuries. Under that percentage, they do not have much of an effect.

I always am managing a large empire by the time I get to democracy, so I can't help you with what would work better in smaller empires.

 

[starlifter]

2 Lux will make a black dude happy . 2 Lux will make a Content Happy. 2 Lux will make a Red dude Content....

Post a screenshot of your City Status screen with the Happiness pulled up, and state if you have Theology, Communism, Electronics, Temple, Colosseum, Mich Chapel or Cathedral, JSB, CfC, Shakespeare (in your city), what form of Govt. There is a certain order to happiness computations (e.g., the Lux are applied first).

Is this a bug, or another way to make sure democracy runs easier in large empires?

I presume not a bug, as they could have corrected it. It would be an easy error to catch. The game turn and gov't type is not a discriminator. Here is very early Diety game in Monarchy:

So it applies to the Black Dudes, no matter what the origin. The penalty seems to be heavy on the Improvement side (takes one more step), but one less step compared to a Red Dude & 2 Goblets. So the best way to nail the Black Dudes is with Luxuries, not improvements, from that point of view. I think it was intentional, if viewed in game context mathematically.

 

[funxus]

I think it was intentional, if viewed in game context mathematically

It seems to be logical to you, but I didn't get that last part after SS. I still think it's illogical.
My screenshot looked just about the same as yours, so no need to post another one.

 

[starlifter]

It seems to be logical to you, but I didn't get that last part after SS. I still think it's illogical.

I think the intent of the game designers was to make a distinction between forms of gov't. The representative forms (Rep & Demo) have lots of trade, which can (and is) used for Luxuries. Rep. gov'ts don't govern by heavy-handed military, even with malcontents.

So they needed a way to make it a larger penalty as an empire grows large.... the Black Dudes do this by occurring in larger empires.... they have tow porperties:

1. They take 2 Lux to make happy (not 4 that Red Dudes do).
2. They take two steps of improvements (Temple, Coll, Cath) to mollify to content.

This makes #2 one step harder, and #1 one step easier compared to Red Dudes... the advantage should be obvious now.... the way to control Black Dudes (e.g., big populations in some forms of Gov't) is with luxury allocation. But the downside is that it will be hard to make the leftover Black Dudes (that remain after the Luxuries are applied) content.... and you cannot use WLT__ without controlling all Black and Red dudes.

Take a look at Communism. You rarely see a Black dude in it.... they did this on purpose. It is difficult to apply luxuries for 2 reasons:

1. Commie does not generate the base trade as easily as Rep/Dem. Gov'ts.2. Because of the Red Dudes, you have another step before the citizen is happy (e.g., 4 lux, not the 2 lux needed for black). But the advantage is that Martial Law and improvements millify the people much easier than in Govt's with lots of Black Dudes.

So you see, they did it deliberately.

 

[funxus]

Thanks, now I see the logic in it But this does make large empires with a lot of black "dudes" easier to control with representative governments, than smaller empires with only red "dudes".

I've also noticed that at some amount of luxury, they stop turning reds into happies. Why's that? And when the luxuries gets a lot higher, like up to 50 or more, the 2 lux to move a citizen up the happyscale doesn't seem to work. 40 luxuries gives 9 happy dudes + 1 cont, and 62 lux gives 7 happy dudes + 1 cont in different cities. Both starts out with all red.

 

[starlifter]

If you can post a city SS with the happiness (and state all content/happy wonders in effect, and type of gov't), or post he .sav, it would be much easier and accurate to comment.

 

[funxus]

If you look at Malmö and Uddevalla, they have the same size, 15. Add a courthouse to Malmö, and the happiness improvements are equal. Now they have the same happiness, but Malmö has 10 more luxuries.
If you compare Malmö and Halmstad, you see that Halmstad (18) has 10 happies, but only 40 luxuries. Same happy improvements if courthouse is added to Malmö.
I've tried to figure it out, but couldn't.

 

[starlifter]

If you look at Malmö and Uddevalla, they have the same size, 15. Add a courthouse to Malmö, and the happiness improvements are equal. Now they have the same happiness, but Malmö has 10 more luxuries.

There is not one error here, but two.


Malmo=63 trade, MK, BK, SE
Uddevalla=66 trade, MK, BK (No Stock Exch)

1. The base trade is not equal.
2. Uddevalla has no SE

Once the trade was adjucted to the same valu (I got them both to 67 trade arrows), and gave Udd. a SE, both cities produced exactly 67 luxuries.

About Malmo & Halmstad:

There is an SE difference, but it is not the factor here. The difference in happiness is city size. When these two cities are the same size, they have identical happiness at your 40% Lux rate. Civ 2 factors in city size and empire size, among other things, in determning how much Lux are applied in line 2 of the happiness box.
So at the same size, they do look the same.


BTW, I like the city names. I know where a lot of them are, and have been to quite a few myself! Got relatives in Uppsala .

 

[funxus]

Thank you
I thought there would be some explanation, but there are a lot of things to keep track on if you want to optimize the game.
The game got a little bit boring, so I thought I'd make a new civ. Sweden was the closest alternative. I like the way you can change the civ2 to make it look like you want to