Happiness [IMPLEMENTED]

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

basically this is my old concept for a "Happiness" mechanic.

General

It uses existing game mechanics for Yields, Profession, Experts and Buildings.
(Thus visualization is pretty easy, AI is pretty easy.)

Most of it is coding and XML. Efforst are reasonable.
But we will need a few new graphics. (For Experts)

Main Goals of the Concept

• Add more City Management
• Balance "Mega Cities" (currently overpowered)
  
• Balance "Liberty Bells" (currently overpowered)
• Balance "Warmongering" a bit (currently overpowered)
  
• Add a few more game play events and effects (for flavour)
  
• Making Domestic Demand feature more interesting (currently just a small cash cow)
  
• Making Cash Yields more interesting (currently only cash cows)

Game Concept

A) New Profession "Entertainer", new Expert "Famous Entertainer"

The Tavern (and its Upgrades) will get Profession Slots for Profession "Entertainer".
Profession "Entertainer" will produce new Yield "Happiness".

Experts "Famous Entertainers" produce 100% more Happiness.
Those can be bought in Europe, be educated, be created by LbD, ... basically like all other European Experts as well.

B) Flat "Happiness" Bonus from Buildings

Some Buildings give a small flat "Happiness" Bonus when built. (Increasing Bonus for Upgrades)

• Tavern (+ Upgrades)
• Townhall (+Upgrade)
• Chapel (+Upgrade)
• School (+Upgrades)
• Medics House (+Upgrades)
  
• Corn Chamber (+ Upgrades)
• Well
• ...

This is due to the fact that good infrastructure makes citizens happy.

C) Happiness Bonus from "Domestic Market Sales / Supply"

All Sales (automatically) done by Domestic Market (by supplying Goods for Domestic Demand are supplied) will also create "Happiness".

Every Yield where "full local domestic demand" is supplied and consumed will contribute positively to Happiness.
However no negative effects on Happiness will happen for Yields where "full local domestic demand" is not achieved.

D) Negative Effects on Happiness from War

Ongoing War will add a flat Happiness Malus (e.g. -2)
(This is "Human Only" though.)

E) "Happiness Rate" being calculated from "Yield Happiness"

"Happiness Rate" calculation works very similar to "Revolutionary Rate" calculation.

"Happiness Rate" for your Cities will be calculated from citzens inside the City.
"Happiness Rate" of your Nation will be calculated from of your total Population (all citizens).

F) Effects of "Happiness Rate" (on City Level)

"Happiness Rate" would replace "Revolutionary Rate" considering "Productivity Bonusses" of Professions.
(So Productivity Bonusses of Professions would no longer depend on "Revolutionary Rate".)

Special negative events would be triggered if "Happiness Rate" drops below e.g. 30%. This could e.g. result in "Uprests".
(But could only be triggered if City has more than X citizens, a minimum population setting.)

Special positive events would be triggered if "Happiness Rate" rises above e.g. 80%. This could e.g. result in "Festivities".
(But could only be triggered if City has more than Y citizens, a minimum population setting.)

G) Effects of "Happiness Rate" (on National Level)

"Happiness Rate" on Nation Level would influence Prices of "Buying Units in Europe".

• High "Happiness Rate" --> Buying Units in Europe cheaper (except Military and Ships)
  
• Low "Happines Rate" --> Buying Units in Europe more expensive. (except Military and Ships)
  
• Average "Happiness Rate" (exactly 50%) --> Current Prices

Possible Formula:

Spoiler :

Example 1:
you have 80% Happiness Rate in your colonies.
50% is average and will be substraced.

• (80% -50%) / 2 = 15%

With 80% Happiness you will have a 15% Europe Buy Price reduction.

Example 2:
You have only 20% Happiness Rate in your colonies.
50% is average and will be substraced.

• (20% -50%) / 2 = -15%

With 20% Happiness you will have a 15% Europe Buy Price increase.

H) Visualization

Visualization in Screens is just the same as for Revolutionary Rate.
(We will display it at the same places as "Bars" as well.)

The concept will of course need to be explained in Colopedia Game Concepts.

I) AI concept

Basically it will use it as all other current Yields.
(For a start it will treat it just as important as YIELD_BELLS.)

Special negative events (e.g. Uprests) will be "Human only".
All other effects (Postitve events, Productivy and Prices) will be just the same for Human Players and AI.

J) Balancing

We would need to figure out.
It mainly comes down to "How much Yield Happiness can be produced by Professions and Buildings?" vs. "How much Yield Happiness will be needed for every single Citizen?"

In GameSpeedInfos.xml and HandicapInfos.xml we will have settings for this feature of course.
In GlobalDefinesAlt.xml we will of course have settings for the global stuff.

-------------

Summary:

Gameplay:

• For small cities --> "Happiness Bonus of Buildings" mostly sufficient (Early Game)
  
• For middle size cities --> "Building Bonus" + "Entertainers" needed (Mid-Game)
  
• For huge size cities --> "Building Bonus" + "Entertainers" needed + "Domestic Demand Satisfaction" needed (Late Game)

You will have a big incentive to produce Happiness in your colonies (Productivity, Europe Buy Prices, special Events).
The bigger your cities get, the more Happiness you will need to produce (by Buildings, Profession/Experts or Domestic Demand) to keepy your "Happines Rate" up.

It will also balance Liberty Bells a bit, which are currently too overpowered.

Effort should be reasonable to relatively low.
Considering graphics we would only need to adjust GameFonts and get graphics (2D+3D) for Expert "Famous Entertainer".

-------------

Feedback and suggestions?

 

[Schmiddie]

Hm, I'm not sure if the mod really needs that. I like the current system we have regarding loyalty and rebellion - do we really a further mechanic which the player needs to consider? We already have to take care of the health, loyalty and other stuff….

 

[raystuttgart]

Hm, I'm not sure if the mod really needs that. ... do we really a further mechanic which the player needs to consider?

I am a player that likes to have more "city management". Because it is fun for me.
I always liked "Happiness Mechanics" in Civ games.

Also, the effort to do this is reasonable and there is almost no risk (because the game mechanics it uses are known and proven in use).
I can do almost all of this on my own and would do it - the only thing I would need is graphics for an Expert.

But I fully understand if others don't like to play like that.
If the team does not want it, it will not be implemented of course.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

If the price of units depends on happyness in the colonies would then at the eve of the War of Independance a really happy colony be able to purchase a cheap load of army units from Europe despite being highly rebellious/lots of liberty bells?

Or would having a high rebellion/liberty bells grade rather have the King put a stop on giving an unruly colony access to more military?

 

[raystuttgart]

If the price of units depends on happyness in the colonies would then at the eve of the War of Independance a really happy colony be able to purchase a cheap load of army units from Europe despite being highly rebellious/lots of liberty bells?

You are right, the "Buying Price Effects of Happiness" should not affect Military Units/Experts (or Ships) at all.
(Only "Worker Experts" and normal Colonists.)

But that should be easily doable.
(Will adjust my concept.)

Also the Happiness effects on prices would be something like this:

Example 1:
you have 80% Happiness Rate in your colonies.
50% is average and will be substraced.

• (80% -50%) / 2 = 15%

With 80% Happiness you will have a 15% Europe Buy Price reduction.

Example 2:
You have only 20% Happiness Rate in your colonies.
50% is average and will be substraced.

(20% -50%) / 2 = -15%

With 20% Happiness you will have a 15% Europe Buy Price increase.

 

[Guynemer]

I'd rather see the "health" concept flushed out first, personally. This might make too many yields that essentially do the same thing (production bonuses).

 

[raystuttgart]

I'd rather see the "health" concept flushed out first, personally.

Currently we simply have no good concept yet to flesh out Health further.
But for discussions on Health we already have a thread.

Also, this has little to nothing to do for me considering "first" or "later".
We will need to build feature according to implementation dependencies, effort vs. benefit, team agreement and motivation of team members anyways.

But to do sowe need to figure out the big picture / vision together. Thus I just wanted to know "Do we want it at all or not?".
Otherwise we cannot really build the features concepts reasonably because we will not forsee all the dependencies to consider.

This might make too many yields that essentially do the same thing (production bonuses).

This concept will not add additional production bonusses.

It will replace "Production Bonusses from Revolutionary Rate" by "Production Bonusses from Happiness".
(Liberty Bells are a little too overpowered for me currently.)

All other effects of Liberty Bells / Revolutionary Rate would stay the same.
(Combat Bonus, Founding Fathers, being able to declare Independence, ...)

But "Happiness" will of course also have new effects on its own.
(Europe buy Prices, positve Events at high City Satisfaction, negative events at low City Satisfaction, ...

-------

Summary:

This concept will mainly do the following:

A) Add more City Management
B) Balance "Mega Cities"
C) Balance "Liberty Bells"
D) Add a few more game play events and effects

And the nice thing is that it can be done with reasonable effort and low risk.

 

[Guynemer]

This concept will not add additional production bonusses.

Technically yes, I misphrased what I meant.

Health already adds additional production bonus/malus; I'm not certain adding another non-good yield to take over that aspect from bells is necessarily engaging, when there is already a separate non-good yield (health) that doing the same thing and already isn't very engaging. Just my opinion.

 

[Guynemer]

I should say, I do like the general concept upon further reflection. Taking production bonuses away from Bells makes a certain amount of sense, so that Bells don't become the single end-all be-all yield; also, the tavern line and market line feel a little awkward, in that they are major building lines without designated workers. It makes a certain amount of sense for the market, since it can be looked at as the capital-t capital-m The Market, that ineffable engine of capitalism, etc. etc. But the tavern line sticks out like a sore thumb without a workforce.

My preference would still be to flesh out the health aspect first, but I concede that might be due to my particular background.

 

[devolution]

I see three primary reasons for introducing a happiness mechanic:
- Another nerf against overly-efficient super-cities
- Making yields more interesting. Alcoholic yields (rum, beer, wine) will be consumed by the tavern line and generate happiness thus making these yields more than "yet another cash yield". The same principle should be applied to health yields as well, but that is another discussion.
- Once we have the mechanic in place, it could be extended in future versions to, for example, also nerf the excessive gains from war-mongering a bit as well.

I don't want happiness to have any effect on prices though, I just don't see the "connection" here.
The Happiness of your nation should impact immigration and learning by doing\education, I suppose. This would also make happiness a non-local effect as well which is probably more interesting than a purely local effect. If a city produces "excess happiness" for its size, then there would still be a use for it elsewhere in the nation.

As for the AI, of course it would have to deal with happiness as well

 

[raystuttgart]

- Another nerf against overly-efficient super-cities

B) Balance "Mega Cities"

Exactly, that is what I already said as well.

- Once we have the mechanic in place, it could be extended in future versions to, for example, also nerf the excessive gains from war-mongering a bit as well.

I like that as well.
It would also be realtively easy to code.

- Making yields more interesting. Alcoholic yields (rum, beer, wine) will be consumed by the tavern line and generate happiness thus making these yields more than "yet another cash yield".

We could also use a Barkeeper of course that consumes rum / beer to produce Happiness.
But it is more difficult for AI.
It is even a 3 step production chain (e.g. Sugar -> Rum -> Happiness) and thus very cost intensive.

Entertainer is much more simple.
I do not want to make this too complicated or tedious either.

But we could have a "Domestic Market" impact of "rum, beer and wine being consumed by Domestic Demand" on Happiness.
Would be relatively easy to implement without adding more tediousness for Players.

I don't want happiness to have any effect on prices though, I just don't see the "connection" here.
The Happiness of your nation should impact immigration and learning by doing\education, I suppose.

"Buying Experts / Colonits in Europe" pretty much has the same idea as "More Immigrations".
Colonists would simply be more willing to be hired for money because Colonies are a nice place to live -> thus cheaper.
I did not want to mess with immigration itself, because "Crosses for Immigration" is not overpowered.

Positive effect on "Learning by Doing" / "Education is currently hard for me to understand / find a good reason.
Please explain why.

As for the AI, of course it would have to deal with happiness as well

Sure, it would consider it as important as YIELD_BELLS.
But maybe we need to do more for AI.

------------

Well, I am completely open to change the concept (e.g. effects, AI or whatever).

 

[Tugboatspotter]

We could also use a Barkeeper of course that consumes rum / beer to produce Happiness.
But it is more difficult for AI.
It is even a 3 step production chain (e.g. Sugar -> Rum -> Happiness) and thus very cost intensive.

Entertainer is much more simple.
I do not want to make this too complicated or tedious either.

I prefer entertainer to barkeeper.

I don't like the idea of taverns consuming rum/beer/wine since taverns can be build without these industries, and it is reasonable to assume taverns are capable of looking after their own needs.

In general I like the idea of happiness, but my preference would be for very simple and similar to the current health system (which I like - simple but it does the job)

 

[devolution]

It's about time that we at least attempt to make *some* of the (excessive cash) yields matter. If not we might as well get rid of them. I think that making them matter for happiness is a "golden-opportunity" that we should not pass up

"Buying Experts / Colonits in Europe" pretty much has the same idea as "More Immigrations".

I'm on board with your idea Reducing the price of immigrants\specialists is an interesting mechanic to add ( we already have a trait for that, but except for that there is no other mechanism)

 

[Tugboatspotter]

It's about time that we at least attempt to make *some* of the (excessive cash) yields matter. If not we might as well get rid of them. I think that making them matter for happiness is a "golden-opportunity" that we should not pass up

I'm not sure I understand why they should be got rid of, or why they don't already matter. The yields come from the terrain type eg Marsh = sugar > rum > profit, and grassland hill = grapes > wine > profit. If you start getting rid of these then some terrain types become useless.

 

[raystuttgart]

It's about time that we at least attempt to make *some* of the (excessive cash) yields matter.
...
I think that making them matter for happiness is a "golden-opportunity" that we should not pass up

I fully agree.

But let us do it by using "Domestic Market" (Sales / Demand Supply) having affects on Happiness as well.

Thus:
A) Profession Entertainer (Happiness Core Mechanic) will stay simply
B) Domestic Market feature will get more value added (addition to of creating cash as now)
C) All Cash Yields will get more value than producing just cash

Gameplay:

• For small cities --> "Happiness Bonus of Buildings" mostly sufficient (Early Game)
  
• For middle size cities --> "Building Bonus" + "Entertainers" needed (Mid-Game)
  
• For huge size cities --> "Building Bonus" + "Entertainers" needed + "Domestic Demand Satisfaction" needed (Late Game)

Thus you can / will need to adjust your strategy during the course of the game.

Will adjust my concept.
(see C) in starting post)

If not we might as well get rid of them.

Come on, the huge selection of different Cash Yields is one of the most beloved features we have.
So definite no to "getting rid of them" from my side.

I'm on board with your idea Reducing the price of immigrants\specialists is an interesting mechanic to add

Yeah, thought so as well.

----------

The result on Gameply is this:

1. More City Management
2. Balancing "Mega Cities"
3. Balancing "Liberty Bells"
4. More game play events and effects
5. Domestic Demand feature more valuable
6. Cash Yields more valuable

 

[Tugboatspotter]

Is reducing the price of immigrants/specialists really that interesting?

Considering your economy is already expanding and there isn't much else to spend excess funds on, it seems redundant.

 

[raystuttgart]

Is reducing the price of immigrants/specialists really that interesting?

It is not just "one sided" reducing. (For high "Happiness".)
If your "Happiness" is low, it will also be increasing those prices.

Please also check these formulas:

Spoiler :

Example 1:
you have 80% Happiness Rate in your colonies.
50% is average and will be substraced.

• (80% -50%) / 2 = 15%

With 80% Happiness you will have a 15% Europe Buy Price reduction.

Example 2:
You have only 20% Happiness Rate in your colonies.
50% is average and will be substraced.

(20% -50%) / 2 = -15%

With 20% Happiness you will have a 15% Europe Buy Price increase.

This feature will not make the game easier in general.
In fact it might make it even more challenging if you overexpand your population and do not keep up with "Happiness".

You will need high rates of "Happiness" to get a (small) benefit.
Low rates of "Happiness" will make it (a bit) harder.

Please do not expect me to create concepts that make the game just easier. (That is not my style of feature design.)
My features will most likely do the opposite and make the game more challenging. (Because you will need to take care of more aspects.)

Do not expect that it will be super easy to produce enough "Happiness" if you expand too wide or too tall either.
(That is just a matter of balancing.)

And as I wrote in my concept (see first post) as well:
Happiness will have more effectst than that. (Most importantly "Happiness Rate" will replace "Revolutionary Rate" for Production Bonus.)

 

[Tugboatspotter]

It is not just "one sided" reducing. (For high Happiness.)
If your happiness is low, it will also be increasing those prices.

Please also check these formulas:

Spoiler :

This feature will not make the game easier in general.
In fact it might make it even more challenging if you overexpand your population and do not keep up with "Happiness".

You will need high rates of Happiness to get a (small) benefit.
Low rates of happiness will make it (a bit) harder.

Please do not expect me to create concepts that make the game just easier. (That is not my style of feature design.)
My features will most likely do the opposite and make the game more challenging. (Because you will need to take care of more aspects.)

Do not expect that it will be super easy to produce "Happiness" if you expand too wide or too tall.
You will always need to keep up with your "Happiness" production considering your population.

Thanks for the clarification. That does indeed sound more interesting.

I think a formula which is slightly rewarding to high happiness and extremely punishing to low happiness sounds good, as long as the AI can cope with it.

 

[raystuttgart]

Just to avoid misunderstanding considering the "National Happiness Rate" on "Europe Prices of Colonists and Experts" (Hurrying or Buying).

• 50% "National Happiness" is considered the average rate for all the balancing "Europe Prices of Colonists and Experts"
  
• The max price reduction you can get (at 100% National Happiness): 25% (lower prices for Hurrying or Buying Colonists / Experts)
• The max price increase you can get (at 0% National Happiness): 25% (higher prices for Hurrying or Buying Colonists / Experts)

Having 50% "National Happiness", will be easy if your cities are all small (a few Buildings with Happiness Bonus will do it)
Having 50% "National Happiness", will be more effort if your cities are all medium size (a few Buildings + a few Entertainers in Taverns will do it)
Having 50% "National Happiness", will be difficult if your cities are all "gigantic" (a few Buildings + a few Entertainers in Taverns + Domestic Market will be needed)

The local "City Happiness Rate" will be the most important effect though.
It will directly infuence the "Production Bonus" just like (or actually instead of) "Revolutionary Rate" currently.

• 0% "City Happiness" --> 0% Production Bonus for Professions in City
  
• 100% "City Happiness" --> 50% Production Bonus for Professions in City
• All the rest ("Uprests", "Festivities" or other special Python events) are mainly included for atmosphere and flavour.

Same pattern as above should work (Buildings, Professions/Experts and Domestic Market) - in this case however locally for "City Happiness Rate".

 

[raystuttgart]

I added this to the concept:

D) Negative Effects on "Happiness" from War
Ongoing War will add a flat Happiness Malus (e.g. -2)

Could be removed though, if not liked.