General Happiness Issues

[CppMaster]

For me, a big city starts at around 40. Enough worker for feeding the specialists and working good tiles in city range.

Again, "big" is relative. It would be at 40 if you have happiness buffer. If you struggle with happiness, then even 20 pop city might be too big.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Again, "big" is relative. It would be at 40 if you have happiness buffer. If you struggle with happiness, then even 20 pop city might be too big.

OK, imagine the following:
You have 6 nice cities (capitol 45, secondary cities 35), all your tiles are improved, a lot of GPTI, you work specialists, spread your caravans to all cities, a lot of GW, no war in sight. All is fine and your empire happiness is at 70.
1. Would you think all is fine?
2. Would you think your cities are too big?

One turn later you happiness drop to 10. Nothing in your empire has changed (pop, tech, buildings, policies, war) . You checked the medians in your cities, the culture global median decreased by 0.5%, but your unhappiness by boredom raised by 12.

3. Wouldnt you want to know what was happening?
4. Would you think a freeze of the global medians would help in this case?

 

[Gazebo]

Playing on 10-10, I overexpanded in the early game and got some minor unhappiness for the rest of the classical/medieval era. HOWEVER, THIS IS A GOOD THING! I rightfully felt punished for settling too quickly and not paying attention to limiting my growth, but it didn't spiral out of control due to each city now getting incrementally more unhappy. Probably even bigger, there was no psychological kick in the balls from a sudden massive drop, which is frustrating to try to correct all at once. Even if the behind the scenes numbers for needs remain exactly the same, unhappiness FEELS like a pit you can climb out of now.

I suggest to play a game with 10-10. You are discussing about the last war. I have done it twice and wether had any big swings nor big problems with happiness. I have to mange my happiness and I have to use the stop growth butten sometimes. Maybe a game with India and excessive big cities will show more about the topic. Unless we have a savegame with real happiness issues, the discussion is pointless.

Thank you for being the first two people in this thread to actually offer a report on 10-10. You are on Gazebo's List of Very Important People today!

G

 

[CrazyG]

OK, imagine the following:
You have 6 nice cities (capitol 45, secondary cities 35), all your tiles are improved, a lot of GPTI, you work specialists, spread your caravans to all cities, a lot of GW, no war in sight. All is fine and your empire happiness is at 70.
1. Would you think all is fine?
2. Would you think your cities are too big?

I think the only way this can happen on 10-10 is if all of my cities grow on the same turn AND the median values had a big change which sounds really unlikely to me, and even then my happiness won't drop anymore until my cities grow again. I really think its hard to get happiness problems unless you deserve happiness problems.

Unless we are still complaining about past versions? In which case you should really just play the most recent version

 

[Gazebo]

I think the only way this can happen on 10-10 is if all of my cities grow on the same turn AND the median values had a big change which sounds really unlikely to me, and even then my happiness won't drop anymore until my cities grow again. I really think its hard to get happiness problems unless you deserve happiness problems.

Unless we are still complaining about past versions? In which case you should really just play the most recent version

I don’t understand. Play the. Newest? Version? New...est....does that mean I shouldn’t play the not newest version?

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I think the only way this can happen on 10-10 is if all of my cities grow on the same turn AND the median values had a big change which sounds really unlikely to me, and even then my happiness won't drop anymore until my cities grow again.

3 global medians didn't have changed, the median of culture decreased. Everything happens in one turn.
Any other explanations?

. I really think its hard to get happiness problems unless you deserve happiness problems.

You have deserved happiness problems if you stay in first place at 70 happiness with 6 cities?

 

[Minh Le]

Seriously just try the newest version. I had some games already and non of them have happiness problems, neither tall or wide, peaceful or warring nonstop. The only game where I have problem is when I annex too many bad cities which is bad play by me.

 

[Aristos]

At this point, Herr Bite, you have spent more time here denouncing issues with the previous version than what it would take for you to play 2 entire games with the new version. Why don't you just do it? If you see the issues again, with the new version, report them and EVERYONE will take your word...

 

[Gazebo]

At this point, Herr Bite, you have spent more time here denouncing issues with the previous version than what it would take for you to play 2 entire games with the new version. Why don't you just do it? If you see the issues again, with the new version, report them and EVERYONE will take your word...

Note: You are NOT at War.

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

At this point, Herr Bite, you have spent more time here denouncing issues with the previous version than what it would take for you to play 2 entire games with the new version. Why don't you just do it? If you see the issues again, with the new version, report them and EVERYONE will take your word...

Cause those happiness jumps happens always relative lately in game (industry era +) making a test run time intensive, and my laptop isn't that great. I saw 2 times a miscalculation of the tech median cause of the elimination of an AI. Which lead to happiness jumps of over 60. And this happens not that often. (conquering by itself may disturb a clear collection of data)
This makes it even more difficult.
I will try to replicate it in this version, but my power supply is broken an a new one will come at Monday. :/

 

[BiteInTheMark]

OK, I stop talking about the topic till I can proof it in this version. (but I think we can still talk about India in the balance thread)
I have one general question, and I can only ask someone with code insight.

What happens if there are 4 nations with 4 + 4 + 5 + 5 techs? Whats the median in this case? Is the result rounded (direction?) or able to deal with numbers between 2 integers?

 

[tu_79]

We could dig a little into the code. @Gazebo, could you point us to the relevant part?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Probably I misunderstood something, I thought that Unhappiness can only increase if a new Citizen is born (with the newest version). The only difference between the two pics is that I picked Banking as a tech that I have stolen from Greece. That's it. Yet my Happiness drops by 2, from 11 to 9. Distress and Illiteracy increased by 1 each. Is there something I missed? Logs are attached.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Probably I misunderstood something, I thought that Unhappiness can only increase if a new Citizen is born (with the newest version). The only difference between the two pics is that I picked Banking as a tech that I have stolen from Greece. That's it. Yet my Happiness drops by 2, from 11 to 9. Distress and Illiteracy increased by 1 each. Is there something I missed? Logs are attached.

Only the global medians are saved in a city, when a citizen is born. Need-Modifiers are still able to change. The median of researched techs by all nations is set as the global tech median. If you have less techs researched than the median, the need-modifiers decrease and less unhappiness is generated. If you have researched more techs, the need-modifiers increase, and cities generate more unhappiness.
This was integrated to penalize tech leading civs.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Probably I misunderstood something, I thought that Unhappiness can only increase if a new Citizen is born (with the newest version). The only difference between the two pics is that I picked Banking as a tech that I have stolen from Greece. That's it. Yet my Happiness drops by 2, from 11 to 9. Distress and Illiteracy increased by 1 each. Is there something I missed? Logs are attached.

No. Before, there was three reasons why unhapinness could rise:
1) New technology
2) The other civs have better cities than you
3) Your popultation growth.

Now, the reason "2" is only checked when the population grow. But you can still have malus due to technology.

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Ah, okay. Thank you guys for the infos, much appreciated!