Foment Unhapinness vs. Poison Water

[Hawaiian]

So what are the different strategic factors for using one vs. the other? Are there certain situations where you would use one instead of the other?

Anyone ever combine the two for good effect?

Just looking for a comparison of the two options.

 

[kniteowl]

It's easier to combat unhappiness then unhealthniness although I dunno if the AI is intelligent enough to do so lol.

For unhappiness you have the culture slider, Monarchy etc

For unhealthiness... well you don't really have much except for special health buildings, Enviromentalism and the Expansive trait.

but generally Forment unhappiness is the better choice because you citizens stop working your tiles immediately, while while poisoning water only starve citizens of food and take longer for the citizens to die from starvation.

If at all it's best to do both

 

[weasel77066]

I agree with Knightowl.. Happy loss seems to have an instant effect, especially on larger cities. Poison seems to only give them diarreah for a week and eventually maybe one Pop. will die off.
Unhappy will take away specialists at times and often ends with starving a Pop anyways.

Of course it goes by the city for the most part. If I can investigate city, I will choose whichever vile act does most damage.

Seems to me that blowing the lighthouse up on a good coastal city could do just as bad as poisoning the water, so I like to investigate first, but If Im unable to, then I usually go with foment unhappy later in the game, after Hereditary rule is not so popular, and poison water in the early eras to stop their growth as best I can.

Edit- also if they turn their culture slider up to enable happy buildings, then it still takes from their budget and may even make them downslide science.

 

[Gyprsn]

I usually do whichever one the targeted city is deficient in. If it's on borderline unhealthiness or unhappiness, or is already afflicted by one or the other, I'll do that one. If they are both hurting the city, I'll chose the most severe, if they're both effecting the city equally. I'll go unhealthiness.

It's true, unhappiness is easier to deal with because of the culture slider :/ So it's better to go unhealthiness, unless the city is on the brink, or is already suffering from unhappiness

 

[con]

I agree with Knightowl.. Happy loss seems to have an instant effect, especially on larger cities. Poison seems to only give them diarreah for a week and eventually maybe one Pop. will die off.
Unhappy will take away specialists at times and often ends with starving a Pop anyways.

Of course it goes by the city for the most part. If I can investigate city, I will choose whichever vile act does most damage.

Seems to me that blowing the lighthouse up on a good coastal city could do just as bad as poisoning the water, so I like to investigate first, but If Im unable to, then I usually go with foment unhappy later in the game, after Hereditary rule is not so popular, and poison water in the early eras to stop their growth as best I can.

Edit- also if they turn their culture slider up to enable happy buildings, then it still takes from their budget and may even make them downslide science.

poison water on marathon can destroy whole civs (at least until the patch),
24 poison for 24 turns, civ that had 7-8 cities with 15 pop can become civ that has 8 pop total (all cities on 1 pop) in just 50 turns (tiny on marathon), but on normal speed unhappines is better especialy if he is building spaceship parts or a wonder

 

[weasel77066]

Now thats some serious turns.. 24!!

Ive been playing the middle speed, epic I think. Normally from warlords I played marathon, but I just got BTS not long ago, and wanted to speed up things a little to get to the BTS stuff, so I hastened to epic. Normal speed is just too fast for me to enjoy.

Yea, 24 turns and 24- is killer. (that must be that potent North Korean poison. (heh) My next game will definitely be marathin speed.

 

[CivDude86]

Forment unhappiness is useless in a globe theater city (I did my first mission in such a city, what a letdown that was).

 

[ButSam]

It completely depends upon the city. If you can investigate the city, see which one will do the most damage.

In general, Unhappiness is more damaging, but this may not be true, as mentioned. Above and beyond what has been mentioned already, if you investigate the city and find out the city has the same amount of healthy as unhealthy but has 8 happy's to spare (as I found out), and that city has just recently grown, it is actually more damaging to Poison Water.

Sam

 

[marioflag]

Forment unhappiness is useless in a globe theater city (I did my first mission in such a city, what a letdown that was).

There is also National Park which makes useless Poison Water.



Foment Unhappiness is almost always more powerful than Poison Water, because potentially Foment Unhappiness can nerf your production,food,commerce while poison water can only nerf your food production.The only case when Poison Water is more poweful than Foment Unhappiness is in the case a city wouldn't have any hit from an increased unhappy population while has already some troubles with unhealthiness.
To make things balanced Foment Unhappiness should cost more than Poison Water or the latter should last more, otherwise it's a no brainer choice to use Foment Unhappiness except in the case i listed before.
Some sort of Poison Water related event could help a lot making it as powerful as Foment Unhappiness.
You should also try to use both espionage missions at the same time to give a bigger hit to a city, otherwise their effect can be easily countered.

 

[Bhruic]

The only case when Poison Water is more poweful than Foment Unhappiness is in the case a city wouldn't have any hit from an increased unhappy population while has already some troubles with unhealthiness.

Not really. The main case when Poison Water is more powerful is when the food surplus is very low. If you can starve the city, then it'll start losing population, which is a permanent effect (until it can regrow, obviously) compared to the purely temporary effect of Foment Unhappiness.

Still, with Granaries, it's very seldom that you'll see a city that you can successfully starve.

Bh

 

[Hawaiian]

It seems to me that poison water is most effective early game. Does it lose its power late game? Whereas fomenting unhappiness is (but for those few exceptions) useful all around.

 

[azzaman333]

I always have a lot more happy cities than healthy cities, plus happiness issues are easier to fix, wheras health issues don't have a bandaid solution.

 

[Enigma256]

poison water on marathon can destroy whole civs (at least until the patch),
24 poison for 24 turns, civ that had 7-8 cities with 15 pop can become civ that has 8 pop total (all cities on 1 pop) in just 50 turns (tiny on marathon), but on normal speed unhappines is better especialy if he is building spaceship parts or a wonder

the Solver Patch fixes this.

no point playing Marathon or Epic without it.

 

[MrTomothy]

I usually prefer unhappiness, as an unworked farm is just as bad as unhealthiness. Its great for GP farms with lots of food resource, it kills specialists left and right.

 

[AfterShafter]

I agree with Knightowl.. Happy loss seems to have an instant effect, especially on larger cities. Poison seems to only give them diarreah for a week and eventually maybe one Pop.

Most of the time it makes my cities go from size 11'ish to 3... Though, as I understand there is a bug related to game speed and poison water, and I play on marathon. All I know is, for what it costs, it strikes me as ridiculously overpowered.

 

[Enigma256]

yes, poison water (and forment unhappiness) are extremely bugged on marathon and to a lesser degree on epic.

but the Solver Patch and soon 3.13 fixes this.

 

[Spiceweasel]

Has anyone had any luck combining building sabotage with poisoning/formenting? I'd imagine that taking out the granery (and maybe harbor, aquaduct, etc) would make poisoning that much more viscious. I've only tried it once, personally, and forgot to watch the effects.

 

[Gre_Magus]

Has anyone had any luck combining building sabotage with poisoning/formenting? I'd imagine that taking out the granery (and maybe harbor, aquaduct, etc) would make poisoning that much more viscious. I've only tried it once, personally, and forgot to watch the effects.

I don't think taking out the granary would increase poison's effect - once the food bar is empty the city loses a pop every turn there's starvation! I guess it would make it hard for the to grow back afterwards, though.

Taking out the aqueduct or grocery would help.

The 24 unhealthy for 24 turns on marathon (actually it's like 24, 23, 22, 21 etc. all the way to 0) is brutal. I love playing marathon and while I would never use it on the AI (too cheap) I had the AI poison me a few times, and even though it didn't take the pop down to one it did knock off 5-8 pop. I was resisting using Solver's patch, holding out for the official Firaxian one, but when I got that "the well has been poisoned" one too many times I caved and installed Solver's patch.
Now it's 8 unhealthy for 8 turns as per the forthcoming patch (although 8 for 24 turns seems to make sense to me - maybe that's too hard to implement with the descending unhealthiness...?) and that's a lot more reasonable.

 

[Angst]

Poison shrinks city, Unhappy destroys

 

[weasel77066]

Oh yea.... Spiceyweasel is kinda like a regular weasel only more dangerous.

If you poison the water and blow the tar out of one of their health buildings.. bet your bottom dollar that folks are gonna die.

Oooh. Remind me to never play multiplayer. Some of you guys are pretty wicked.