Growth management and distress

[jaycaf]

Hello all,

first of all thank you for the great work on this project to everyone who contributed. It makes civ 5 so much more facetious (i hope this is an english word).

As I am new I learn the mechanics playing against Chieftain on huge communitas playing epic speed with tech advancement speed of 225.
As of now I fear I grew too fast as my unhappiness from distress rises and I simply dont know where I can get 5 resources per citizen as not too many tiles around my cities are even good enough to do that. Does this mean I grew too wide (6 cities) around turn 180. I try to research every tech instead of beelining and I focused quite a bit on growth. I think all of those as well as the 225 speed on tech may have contributed to my demise so next time I will just outright play marathon for balance.

How do you experienced players manage your growth, though? Are there rules of thumb you go by when to stop/slow growing your cities and how do you go on about it?
Any tips you can give me are much appreciated since the happiness system is something I have problems to wap my head arround.

(I ply on 11-21-3-1 by the way)

 

[Owlbebach]

Take a look at your "Needs". There are buildings that reduce Needs, for Distress those are Constabularies, Barracks, Amrories and some other building

 

[Stalker0]

Fundamentally, here are the ways to address unhappiness.

1) Get more Yields: Each need corresponds to certain yields. Distress for example uses food and production. Acquiring more of yields can help reduce your unhappiness.
2) Get more Happiness: Luxuries are the easiest way to do this. They give 2 happy per default, plus a bit more as your average population increases. Social Policies also provide ways to get happiness.
3) Reduce your Needs through certain buildings. As Owl pointed it, there are building that directly reduce your needs. Make sure you have built all of the correct buildings to reduce your needs.
4) Stop growth. If your civ is really started to struggle with unhappiness, you can click the avoid growth button for a time. A city that doesn't grow will not generate greater needs and will not become more unhappy. That gives you time to do steps 1-3 above and get your civ back in shape.
5) Accept it. Keep in mind that some unhappiness is not the end of the world. Many players have conquering warstyles for example where they can be at -15 unhappiness and still do very well. The trick is to stay out of the -20 or below, that is when the penalty becomes truly grave and it demands correction.

Hope that helps!

 

[Minh Le]

^ we can win even with permanent -100 happiness though

 

[Enginseer]

Fundamentally, here are the ways to address unhappiness.

1) Get more Yields: Each need corresponds to certain yields. Distress for example uses food and production. Acquiring more of yields can help reduce your unhappiness.
2) Get more Happiness: Luxuries are the easiest way to do this. They give 2 happy per default, plus a bit more as your average population increases. Social Policies also provide ways to get happiness.
3) Reduce your Needs through certain buildings. As Owl pointed it, there are building that directly reduce your needs. Make sure you have built all of the correct buildings to reduce your needs.
4) Stop growth. If your civ is really started to struggle with unhappiness, you can click the avoid growth button for a time. A city that doesn't grow will not generate greater needs and will not become more unhappy. That gives you time to do steps 1-3 above and get your civ back in shape.
5) Accept it. Keep in mind that some unhappiness is not the end of the world. Many players have conquering warstyles for example where they can be at -15 unhappiness and still do very well. The trick is to stay out of the -20 or below, that is when the penalty becomes truly grave and it demands correction.

Hope that helps!

Fundamentally, unhappiness without any modmods is easy to address.

Unhappiness with modsmods is not.

 

[jaycaf]

Fundamentally, unhappiness without any modmods is easy to address.

Unhappiness with modsmods is not.

Do you mean with modmods that I changed my tech speed from 150 to 225?

Take a look at your "Needs". There are buildings that reduce Needs, for Distress those are Constabularies, Barracks, Amrories and some other building

Thank you, I must have missed that in the building description. I sometimes built those but not with distress in mind. There were two particular cities where I had ALL the buildings but that would mean my tech research was too slow for important buildings.

Fundamentally, here are the ways to address unhappiness.

1) Get more Yields: Each need corresponds to certain yields. Distress for example uses food and production. Acquiring more of yields can help reduce your unhappiness.
2) Get more Happiness: Luxuries are the easiest way to do this. They give 2 happy per default, plus a bit more as your average population increases. Social Policies also provide ways to get happiness.
3) Reduce your Needs through certain buildings. As Owl pointed it, there are building that directly reduce your needs. Make sure you have built all of the correct buildings to reduce your needs.
4) Stop growth. If your civ is really started to struggle with unhappiness, you can click the avoid growth button for a time. A city that doesn't grow will not generate greater needs and will not become more unhappy. That gives you time to do steps 1-3 above and get your civ back in shape.
5) Accept it. Keep in mind that some unhappiness is not the end of the world. Many players have conquering warstyles for example where they can be at -15 unhappiness and still do very well. The trick is to stay out of the -20 or below, that is when the penalty becomes truly grave and it demands correction.

Hope that helps!

Thank you!

1) I pretty much was out of options in my file which probably means I grew too fast or my city placement was bad or I failed to research techs to improve yields enough.
2) I read somewhere luxuries were not that important compared to civ 5 bnw but that probably doesn't mean I should neglect them if their yields are bad =)
4) I realized I should have done that when it was too late so I will remember to keep an eye on that next time.
5) That is some neat info, too. Is there a max distress unhappiness per city? Or do I have to do at least something to prevent my people from revolting?



Again, thank you all for your answers and from what I have learned I will play on marathon next time to not mess up my growth/tech balance, and I will try to think more ahead in the regard of growth and growth restriction as well as buildings and wonders to give me some yields.
Is growth in buildings and wonders counterproductive then if you have mainly food tiles to work in a specific city?

 

[Enginseer]

Do you mean with modmods that I changed my tech speed from 150 to 225?

I'm referring to modmods that add yields.

The dilemma with happiness is that the intention was to punish tech leaders and less punish tech stagnates. However, tech leaders stay tech leaders because they have everything ahead which allows them to be green with happiness instead of unhappy when they neglect infrastructure because they happen to be building infrastructure with the tech lead.

Now, this is made worse with modmod that adds buildings with more yields making the deficit even worse and harder to catch up. Big yikes.

My suggestion was that Processes should reduce unhappiness to help compensate, but no one seems to like the idea (because these processes are supposed to help, but if you're tech-deficit, then noo you're very lacking in production and won't produce enough)
Having a City produce Wealth reduces their local Poverty by -25%.
Having a City produce Research reduces their local Illiteracy by -25%.
Having a City produce Culture reduce their local Boredom by -25%.
Having a City produce Defense reduce their local Distress by -25%.

That way if you can't build banks because you're behind, you can still build Wealth and have a poverty reduction. Tech leaders will rarely use these processes since every building will benefit their city no matter what, but civilizations who are really behind could use reduction to catch up to build their building to reduce later.