Firaxis: Inherited Unhappiness is Ridiculous

[BridgeBoy]

I "inherited" unhappiness from Zululand people when I took over their capitol of Zimbabwe. Apparently they were Whipped by the Zulu leader prior to my takeover. This happened in about 2500 BC, and I also have exterminated the entire Zulu race. Since the unhappiness would not go away for a very long time and I wanted production out of this town (It had four silk luxuries in it), I disbanded the town and resettled it with a settler. The unhappiness apparently transferred to the my nearest homeland town (I'm Persia) because the people won't do anything and say it's because of my Cruel Oppression. I have never whipped or pop rushed anything.

Well, I thought this would eventually go away, but now I'm in 1420 AD and still no production out of that town that Inherited the disbanded unhappiness that was originally Inherited from another conquered Civilization. It has ruined a prime piece of real estate on my private small cntinent. I don't want to disband the town for fear of the unhappiness just relocating again. The people now say (some hundred turns later or so?) that they are like "70% they can't forget my cruel oppression" (That never existed), and 30% "It is just way too crowded" (there is only three of them in a expanded full size city on Grasslands (they did manage to build a Temple over the centuries)). I did add workers to the population at one point and got some production for a few turns until the native residents convinced them too that I was just too cruel for having rescued their ancestors from the oppressive, whipping Zulu's.

Firaxis, Please fix this glitch!

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

There are so many frustrating things about Civ3 and this is just another example. I could actually feel the anger you have about this while I was reading your post.

I've experienced this sort of inherited unhappiness in a few of my games. It always happens at a point when I'm struggling furiously to build up my empire that is hopelessly behind the rest of the world. The inherited unhappiness is the straw that breaks the camels back and I usually end up starting a new game because of this.

 

[simwiz2]

I agree inherited unhappiness is very irritating, especially since it now tranfers if you disband the city. Hopefully, firaxis will listen to all the complaints and fix it next patch.

Well I wonder how long it will be before people come to this thread and tell us that its poor tactics, we should learn to play civ3, we are upset because our civ2 strats arent working, etc.

 

[Beard Rinker]

It is even more insidious than that. You can inherit unhappiness from cities destroyed by the AI.

In a recent game the Zulu's were attacking me with vastly superior forces. My desparate strategy was to abandon all cities I would lose anyway and make a last stand at the opposite end of my empire. Before abandoning each city, I would use every citizen for rushing and sell all improvements leaving them with a garbage city.

The Zulu's gladly took all of these cities and eventually reached my last 3 cities. My last stand was not holding them back and one of the last three cities was going to fall. I then used all citizens for rushing, sold all improvements and abandoned the city. The Zulu's took it the next turn and since the city had no culture it was razed. All of the unhappiness in that city was then transfered to my capital which then proceeded to starve itself down to 1 citizen.

Needless to say, I did lose this game. I think I could have held out in my last city but probably couldn't do much. It was around the 1700's, my best defensive unit was the pikeman, I was still in despotism and my only city couldn't grow beyond 1 citizen. I usually like to play it out to the bitter end, but this was just a little too bitter.

As for the transferring happiness, it might be because the city they took had no culture and was automatically razed. This might not apply when they choose to raze the city.

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by simwiz2
I agree inherited unhappiness is very irritating, especially since it now tranfers if you disband the city. Hopefully, firaxis will listen to all the complaints and fix it next patch.

Well I wonder how long it will be before people come to this thread and tell us that its poor tactics, we should learn to play civ3, we are upset because our civ2 strats arent working, etc.

That has often been my type of reply, but not in this case. First of all it is indeed strange that the liberator inherits the moods (in general) of a previously rival city. The other thing is that there is NO tactic where this inheritage can be avoided or compensated.

It does not make gameplay impossible but much less enjoyable and I see no real purpose for it.

So Firaxis, please get rid of it!

 

[BridgeBoy]

Beard Rinker-
Unhappiness from oppression is CAUSED by rushing projects with people's lives. The rest of the population resents you for it. So, in your case as explained above, you actually caused your own unhappiness because you said you used your citizens for rushing projects/units.
In my case, I never pop-rushed a single life (never cracked the whip). But Zulu must have behind the scenes while I was attacking them. Then, when I captured their city of Zimbabwe, the citizens were still pissed at me...even though I liberated them from their previous SOB leader that liked to whip them.
As for transferring unhappiness, it is apparently caused by a "fix" in one of the patches that was intended to stop a game exploit of pop-rushing tons of military units in a food-rich town, and then just disbanding it so you don't have to put up with their unhappiness whining. The intent of the fix makes that exploit impossible now because the unhappiness will just transfer to a nearby town.

Unfortuneatly, a side effect of this "fix" is the "inherited" unhappiness problem even if you don't Whip your citizens.

 

[rangers85]

If anything, I think it's more just poor wording than naything else. When you capture it, it should switch to 'Their cruel oppression' instead of 'Your cruel oppression'. The citizens would still be unhappy about the pop rushing, but it's not you. Think about it this way, what if a ruler caused one of your family members to die while rushing to build something due to carelessness. Then just a bit later, your city was captured. Would you immediately forget the loss of your family member because of your city being captured. I'd hope not. That's why I think it's more a case of poor wording than anything else.

I think though that maybe the 40 turn penalty or whatever remains of it maybe should be cut in half when the city is capture and is not re-captured by the former Civ during the remainder of that penalty.

 

[BridgeBoy]

rangers85-
I understand what you are saying, and I can accept that...but I'm saying that it is lasting the whole game...not 20-turns, not 40-turns...like over 100-turns so far with no end in sight (whatever 2500 BC to 1430 AD is).

 

[Beam]

Reply to rangers

The family could still be sad, but the old sacrificing ruler is gone and the new ruler should be given a chance. How do you think Alexander the Great was ever able to build the Hellenistic Empire?

Civ 3 knows resistors to mark transition from one ruler to another and that gives sufficient side effects IMHO and it can be controlled with units and culture. Why add another one that is uncontrollable?

 

[Beard Rinker]

Originally posted by BridgeBoy
Beard Rinker-
Unhappiness from oppression is CAUSED by rushing projects with people's lives. The rest of the population resents you for it. So, in your case as explained above, you actually caused your own unhappiness because you said you used your citizens for rushing projects/units.

Yes in a way I was the author of my own problems.

My point was that unhappiness was transfered from a garbage city of mine to the city next to it (my capital) when it was destroyed by an enemy. I did not disband the garbage city and my capital was not used for rushing yet my capital inherited the problems.

From my experiences and from posts I've read, unhappiness is transfered under the following conditions:
- You disband an unhappy city.
- An enemy captures a zero culture unhappy city automatically destroying it.

I'm not sure if unhappiness is transfered when a city is intentionally razed and I'm not sure if the source of the unhappiness is a factor.

It does seem like the owner of the city is the main factor when transferring unhappiness. One way of getting rid of a garbage city without transferring unhappiness is to give the city to an opponent then capture and raze it.

If unhappiness is transferred when a city is intentionally razed it could allow a potentially nasty strategy:

Unhappiness Bomb (not tried)
- Build city near enemy.
- Add workers and rush a bunch of units or improvements.
- Give city to enemy.
- Capture and raze city. All unhappiness is transfered to the closest enemy city.

 

[JamieE]

It seems like enemy citizens that are repressed by pop rushing should be happy when you liberate them. Think Italy in WWII or Afghanastan this year. Seems like you should get a happiness bonus rather than a penalty.

 

[Zouave]

Firaxis, Please fix this glitch!

That ought to be the actual name for Civ III.



Inherited Unhappiness is yet another crock in this underplaytested game. Example: the Ukrainians and Baltic States were very unhappy under Stalin, but in 1941 when the Germans moved in they initially looked upon them as liberators and were quite happy to see them.

 

[Beard Rinker]

Originally posted by JamieE
It seems like enemy citizens that are repressed by pop rushing should be happy when you liberate them. Think Italy in WWII or Afghanastan this year. Seems like you should get a happiness bonus rather than a penalty.

I'd guess that in civ 3 terms Afghanistan is still at the stage where there are allot of resistors and a large military is required 'to quell the stinking resistors'.

As for the unhappiness, I think Fireaxis did go a little overboard with it in the last patch. Its intention was to close the pop-rush exploit but the result was it caused a host of other problems and still didn't close the exploit.

I better and simpler solution might have been to only allow workers to join cities that have at least one working citizen and there are at least as many happy citizens as unhappy. You'd still be able to rush out a few units, but not exploit it to the extend of 1.16.

 

[ArtofWar]

Maybe Firaxis does not need to try to correct the pop rush problem. Since Civ III is not yet a multiplayer game, the simple solution is just don't use the pop rush strategy. Right now the solution is worst then the problem.

 

[simwiz2]

Originally posted by ArtofWar
Maybe Firaxis does not need to try to correct the pop rush problem. Since Civ III is not yet a multiplayer game, the simple solution is just don't use the pop rush strategy. Right now the solution is worst then the problem.

What? This doesnt just affect those who pop-rush, it affects everyone who captures an AI city once communism is discovered.

Or did you mean the 1.17 "fix" for the slave town exploit was unnecessary? Actually it is important because im sure there are people who would do anything to win GOTM, so its good that exploits are closed. Though it wouldnt have hurt if they had playtested their "solution" before throwing it in the patch.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by simwiz2
What? This doesnt just affect those who pop-rush, it affects everyone who captures an AI city once communism is discovered.

Sadly, you don`t have to wait that long. I once took a city that had been poprushed down from 6 to 1 by poping a Spearman every second turn. We were still researching Map Making at that time. It came out of unhappiness in 1910!

 

[ArtofWar]

Originally posted by simwiz2



Or did you mean the 1.17 "fix" for the slave town exploit was unnecessary? Actually it is important because im sure there are people who would do anything to win GOTM, so its good that exploits are closed. Though it wouldnt have hurt if they had playtested their "solution" before throwing it in the patch.

I did mean the 1.17 "fix" and I never have played the game with an earlier patch. I just bought the game a month ago because I was travelling when the game was originally released. I love the game but it still needs work. Hopefully the next fix will get it right.

 

[dunk]

I've never seen the "oppression" unhappiness last for more than the 40 turns or so which is editable. Maybe since in my only 1.17f game, I've had access to all 8 luxuries.

As long as the unhappiness fades away, I don't think it's that big of a problem. Some people don't really care which color your flag is, they're convinced that they'll be whipped.

I also never disband cities. I take them as they are and deal with them.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by JamieE
It seems like enemy citizens that are repressed by pop rushing should be happy when you liberate them. Think Italy in WWII or Afghanastan this year. Seems like you should get a happiness bonus rather than a penalty.

Good examples. Now change the word "unhappy" to the phrase "sick and tired." They may be relieved in Afghanistan, but their production is still virtually nil. Maybe with large investments and after a long period of time, things may improve. Production in Afghanistan will not suddenly increase due to their recent liberation.

Try not to let the semantics of the word "happy" throw you from what is really happening. Societies rent by war, murder and oppression take time to recover, even under the best of circumstances.

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Originally posted by BridgeBoy
As for transferring unhappiness, it is apparently caused by a "fix" in one of the patches that was intended to stop a game exploit of pop-rushing tons of military units in a food-rich town, and then just disbanding it so you don't have to put up with their unhappiness whining. The intent of the fix makes that exploit impossible now because the unhappiness will just transfer to a nearby town.

Unfortuneatly, a side effect of this "fix" is the "inherited" unhappiness problem even if you don't Whip your citizens.

Yet another unfortunate example of how patches are being botched up badly. They go and fix an exploit we all use only to have the "fix" damage something else. They obviously don't playtest patches extensively. I can't believe they overlooked something this irritating!