Fighting unhappiness

[Matutin]

So I just won a war against Idabella and puppeted most of her cities. War weariness is no issue anymore, but I'm still neck deep in unhappiness.
The tooltip shows:
- 22 from Poverty
- 22 from crime
- 22 from illiteracy
- 21 from boredom.

How am I supposed to built all relevant buildings at the same time? Was Imperialism the wrong choice after finishing Fealty (Progress was the opener)?

And what do puppets do to counter their unhappiness? Building windmills or chanceries doesn't help

I think I'm doing OK culture and science wise but with rebels spawning constantly, I can't focus on fighting much needed wars or improving infrastructure.

Thanks

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Can you post more details about your game (amount of puppet&non-puppet cities, do you have religion,...) and perhaps some pictures? How much unhappiness do you have in your puppet cities vs. your non-puppet cities (exact numbers)?

 

[Moochamoola]

I usually try to space out conquering cities that I don't intend to raze for this reason (unless I'm playing as Rome.) Those cities lost many buildings upon conquest, and it takes time to rebuild those cities so that unhappiness becomes less. If I took authority in the game, I don't mind rebels as I can get more culture/science from killing them while rebuilding said city. Also, keep in mind that if you choose to puppet instead of annex, you can't control build order (unless Venice), and thus you can't choose to build the buildings that will reduce unhappiness in those cities (barracks/walls for crime, market for poverty, etc.) Hope this helps you.

 

[Matutin]

Normal Cities: 7
Puppets: 6 (all former spanish settlements)

Religion: Not my own, but Haile has spread his to basically all my cities and I've used a couple of inquisitors to get rid of most of religious unrest.

Here are the correspondent screens. Hope they help!

 

[Moi Magnus]

First, it is probably too late to go back to a reasonable happiness.

By puppeting 6 cities, you have acquired 6 cities with almost no infrastructure, they have reduced yields so low production, but they still produce unhappiness (75%).
I see that your non-puppet cities also have a lot of unhappiness, meaning that you probably made a "total war" and you are now paying the cost of your underdevellopement.

With industry, you would probably be able to catch up by anexing most of the cities and investing A LOT of money to have a correct infrastructure. But with imperialism, shortening the game as much as possible is probably a good idea.

The main question is "how well is your economy?". Because if you can afford to annex the cities and invest in their infrastructure in order to catch up before ideological pressure destroy you, it is probably a good idea. If you don't have an economy strong enough, maybe you should raze cities, but I honestly don't know what is the correct move.

 

[Matutin]

So how am I supposed to go domination, when puppeting puppeting hurts myself so much? If I raze all those cities, I don't gain the monopolies (in this case +10% production in every city) and as soon as I as the cities are gone, some other pesky AI will settle the spots asap...

And what do you mean with "shortening the game as much as possible"? I can't continue with any war, with negative 50 unhappiness. In this case, Babylon is snowballing hard and I'd love to pay a visit to him, before he gets too advanced militarily.

How do you decide, which cities you annex, puppet or raze? And when you raze, do you not care about who fills the gap?

 

[Legen]

Puppets have a -25% need reduction, but that's all. They have a -25% // reduction and a -50% / reduction, meaning they are a drag in the long run.

Unhappiness after conquest grow exponentially, your mistake was not recognizing its tipping point way earlier; it will take a long time to fix your happiness issue now, no matter what. There are few civs that can still manage unhappiness after lots of conquests with their uniques, and England isn't one of them.

Imperialism itself isn't wrong when playing England, since it works to your UA and UU advantages. Progress + Fealty makes for a strong infrastructure path, and you have an unique Factory to help; you should be able to fix this situation eventually. Imperialism also has a +25% for puppets, which negates the puppet's penalty (they stack additively).

On a note, puppeting isn't much useful when going Fealty, since you can't buy monasteries in puppets. They would at least help you with the illiteracy problem, and you could focus on getting Castles and Armories in annexed cities, which are built faster and help dealing with unhappiness the most.

The only ways to immediately fix it would be Prora or Police State, which requires having the Autocracy Ideology. For now you'll need as many measures you can get:

- Select "avoid growth" in all unhappy cities; you can't have more unhappiness in a city than its population, it will at least prevent your cities from giving you more headache. Puppets may redirect some citizens away from food tiles to something more productive as well.
- Get a "We Love the King Day" immediately on all cities to make use of Fealty's 15% production bonus under WLTKD. You need infrastructure to counter this situation and you at least have picked two trees that are focused on that, make use of them.
- Redirect your spies to mercantile City-states and get some coups. Any extra Happiness you can get from a mercantile CS will help, and England has both an extra spy and the best spies out there. Mercantile CS also have an exclusive luxury under them that you can't find around, meaning extra happiness.
- Check for wonders that have a need reduction for your empire. Branderburg gate is an excellent one with its -30% Defense need in all the empire. Neuschwanstein is also powerful for your wide empire.
- If you have any Great Admirals, now's a good time to spend them for luxuries.
- Bulb any Great Writers/Artists/Musicians you get, their effects help a lot in this situation and you'll want to pick an Ideology ASAP for some of the most powerful happiness and need reduction policies of the game.

 

[Matutin]

Thanks for the excellent advice. You say, I missed the turning point. How could I have avoided this dilemma? Just take Isabellas capital and let it be?

Do you think this game is not lost yet? I almost think to resign, because I imagine even if I manage to recover, Babylon will be unstoppable.

 

[Txurce]

Thanks for the excellent advice. You say, I missed the turning point. How could I have avoided this dilemma? Just take Isabellas capital and let it be?

Do you think this game is not lost yet? I almost think to resign, because I imagine even if I manage to recover, Babylon will be unstoppable.

You could have avoided some of your dilemma by addressing happiness issues before continuing to expand, and making it worse. In other words, slow down with the conquests -- or build up a reserve of happiness on whcih you can feed for a while.

This game is probably lost, because you'll start to really lag in science. But learning how to tun around massive unhappiness is a useful (if unpleasant) exercise that will help you in future games.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Thanks for the excellent advice. You say, I missed the turning point. How could I have avoided this dilemma? Just take Isabellas capital and let it be?

Do you think this game is not lost yet? I almost think to resign, because I imagine even if I manage to recover, Babylon will be unstoppable.

The "best solution" would have been to capture their capital and force them into vassalage.

The game is not necessary lost, but with only the informations you gave to us, you are at disadvantage. If you have some allies that are not friends with Babylon, try denouncing Babylon. It will buy you some time since it may end up with a embargo or global war against him.

 

[Legen]

So how am I supposed to go domination, when puppeting puppeting hurts myself so much? If I raze all those cities, I don't gain the monopolies (in this case +10% production in every city) and as soon as I as the cities are gone, some other pesky AI will settle the spots asap...

How do you decide, which cities you annex, puppet or raze? And when you raze, do you not care about who fills the gap?

Puppets are better for non-domination victories, or for a last push situation, when you're just about to conquer that last Capital or deal a major blow to a runaway civ. The main benefits of a puppet are that it doesn't increase your Science and Culture costs (iirc, each non-puppet city increases them by an additive 7% on Standard size map), nor contribute to the Tourism reduction (each non-puppet adds a +4% Tourism reduction) from owning cities. That makes them attractive for Science and Cultural victories.

Cultural warmongers (e.g. France, Japan) will sometimes puppet if they decide to prioritize a Cultural Victory, using their might mainly to eliminate some cultural runaway that is slowing them. Non-cultural ones are likely better annexing and turning those cities into something productive for their empire instead. Diplomatic civs can consider annexing for an extra diplomat-spamming city; puppets are useless when it comes to diplomatic victories.

Thanks for the excellent advice. You say, I missed the turning point. How could I have avoided this dilemma? Just take Isabellas capital and let it be?

Do you think this game is not lost yet? I almost think to resign, because I imagine even if I manage to recover, Babylon will be unstoppable.

For domination, you space your conquests through time, so you don't get into the exponential part of the unhappiness curve. Remember that Happiness boosts your yields by up to +10% empire-wide, while unhappiness reduces by up to -30%: that's where the exponential unhappiness curve comes. It's way faster to turn your conquests into something productive while it has that +10% yield bonus than when it has a -30% reduction and rebels spawning everywhere.

Domination doesn't mean going for a Total War, a.k.a. eliminating a civ ASAP. My advice is to focus on capturing cities that fall in one of the following cases:

- it's a Capital
- it's a Holy City
- it's a very productive city, or you can make it productive with your uniques (e.g. France's UI Chateau)
- its position is of strategic importance (paves the way to the Capital, too close from a Capital you own, enables a canal, etc)

Most civs will become irrelevant if you conquer enough of such cities, and may even capitulate, saving you from having to invest in shambled cities that you'd have from a Total War.

The thing to understand about Domination is that it's a zero-sum game with cumulative advantages. Conquering two cities now can lead to a comfortable conquest on that civ later, when your happiness is back to a surplus. You don't need to hurry to eliminate a civ, you can do it slow and steady. Some players are able to ignore unhappiness and conquer everything in the way, but that usually assumes it's a small one-continent map with a dedicated warmonger (e.g. Mongols).

About Babylon, I wouldn't worry that much. From that World Map, they are a tall civ with few cities, you can steal their techs with your (enhanced) spies and they should struggle to get rid of them; England usually has an easy time dealing with Science runaways. You also have a lot of power projection (a.k.a. the ability to send your forces anywhere) with England's UA, Imperialism, plus the option to go for Autocracy, to assault their coastal cities. Just do your best to manage your unhappiness and proceed to storm them with a large navy. Given that you did well vs Isabela (which is a militaristic civ), you should be able to deal with Babylon.

EDIT: added focus to Holy cities as well, they are always valuable conquests.

 

[Matutin]

OK, I will try to turn the game around tomorrow.
Would razing the crapy cities help?

I also could reload to the save after conquering Madrid, try to get her to capitulate or at least vassal her and then continue.

 

[Legen]

Given that the cities are spawning rebels, razing probably won't hurt much. You even have cities that add as much unhappiness as they have population, like Salamanca. If the city doesn't fit those three criteria. I'd consider razing.

You do have good bonuses for infrastructure, though, from Progress + Fealty + UB. Don't be too liberal with razing.

 

[bigcat88]

Try to raze some cities with most unhappiness(probably 2 or 3 cities from top on screenshot), then choose avoid growth in all cities and build infrastructure. The problem is that u have too little gold income, to build buildings fast, so u need to find a way to get some money(disband some land units?).

 

[Infixo]

I finished a game yesterday, wanted to play peacefully, no bueno. Ended up conquering whole world. Somewhere in Modern/Atomic i was overflowing with hapiness, like 30+. Had ~10 controlled cities and 15+ puppets.
My receipt for hapiness is very easy: whenever you have a choice, always try to build a building that maximizes hapiness in a given city. Either directly (increase yields) or indirectly by reducing treshold. Works beautifully.
Puppeted cities eventually will build required buildings, and their unhapiness should be around -5. If I see a puppet with unhapinness bigger than -10 and potenrially good production, I annex it, this way I make the city happy much faster.

 

[Legen]

I finished a game yesterday, wanted to play peacefully, no bueno. Ended up conquering whole world. Somewhere in Modern/Atomic

You're Ghandi, aren't you?

 

[Infixo]

You're Ghandi, aren't you?

Actually I was Suleiman. I wanted to check how strong his UA is (getting yields from finished TRs).

 

[Legen]

xD

The Ottomans have a good warring UB, I don't blame you for warring when trying a peaceful play. Better than me wanting to get into wars as Brazil, I think just prefer warmongers.

 

[Infixo]

True, true.. also Janissaries were very helpful

 

[tu_79]

I finished a game yesterday, wanted to play peacefully, no bueno. Ended up conquering whole world. Somewhere in Modern/Atomic i was overflowing with hapiness, like 30+. Had ~10 controlled cities and 15+ puppets.
My receipt for hapiness is very easy: whenever you have a choice, always try to build a building that maximizes hapiness in a given city. Either directly (increase yields) or indirectly by reducing treshold. Works beautifully.
Puppeted cities eventually will build required buildings, and their unhapiness should be around -5. If I see a puppet with unhapinness bigger than -10 and potenrially good production, I annex it, this way I make the city happy much faster.

Do you guys realize that 'no bueno' means nothing in spanish? Literally it's 'no good', but we don't say 'no good' for anything.
If you don't care to give the impression that you tried at spanish and failed, then it's OK.

A similar expression is '¡qué va!'