It's really not going to feel that different from now. The biggest difference is that runaway civs don't get quite the advantage they do now for being ahead of the curve, and vice-versa.
G
Happiness Balance Discussion
- Thread starter Gazebo
- Start date
It's really not going to feel that different from now. The biggest difference is that runaway civs don't get quite the advantage they do now for being ahead of the curve, and vice-versa.
G
dylansan
Warlord
The concern I have is that you could have abysmal culture (for example) yields in all cities and not face any consequences, then improve the culture in one city and lose happiness as a result.
I still think it's possible to use global averages to determine the target without penalizing Civs that are behind, and while still discouraging egregious specialization.
Arabia's yields total 1,986. That puts their targets at:
Thoughts?
I still think it's possible to use global averages to determine the target without penalizing Civs that are behind, and while still discouraging egregious specialization.
In this example, the global medians work out to:
- 32% food/prod
- 30% gold
- 16% science
- 22% culture
Code:
Arabia, Turn: 282, Food/Production: 345, Gold: 291, Science: 513, Culture: 837- 635 food/prod
- 596 gold
- 318 science
- 437 culture
Thoughts?
Last edited:
civplayer33
King
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2017
- Messages
- 965
It seems people are still confused about what a median is...either that or I'm misunderstanding the algorithm and it actually takes the arithmetic mean instead of median (or percentile).
If the function actually uses a median or fixed percentile, then outliers won't matter, because only the ordering of the data points is important as well as the value at a specific point, not the values of all data points.
If the function actually uses a median or fixed percentile, then outliers won't matter, because only the ordering of the data points is important as well as the value at a specific point, not the values of all data points.
tu_79
Deity
Fixed percentile, most likely.
What @civplayer33 said - specialization in a city or two won't affect your median, as the true median (50%) is what is taken.
Also, note that you're reading that chart wrong - it's in the hundreds because yields are calc'd that way. The function is actually:
Arabia, Turn: 282,
Food/Production: 3.45 per citizen
Gold: 2.91 per citizen
Science: 5.13 per citizen
Culture: 8.37 per citizen
If a city can't achieve these numbers, it'll have unhappiness as a result (1 unhappy for every 1.00 difference between the per citizen yield and the empire median). Make sense?
G
dylansan
Warlord
Right, The numbers I used for Arabia came from their median, but I assumed their yields were generally similar: high culture/science, modest everywhere else.
I understand that one specialized city wouldn't affect things, but I think even if 70% of your cities have high science and the rest are more typical, those cities shouldn't get unhappiness if they're above the global trends. I don't really care if median or mean is used, though median seems to make sense. I'm more interested in the fact that neglecting a particular yield in every city has no impact on unhappiness (though obviously it will affect your progress).
It just seems counterintuitive for your citizens to only care about their city relative to the rest of your civ, but ignore other civs entirely. You can have widespead poverty and they won't care unless a decent number of your cities improve, at which point your happiness goes down... Global-based targets mean improvement almost always reduces unhappiness, and it can be done without penalizing poor performing civs.
I appreciate your AI testing, and the results are obviously valuable, but stability is only one aspect of the balance. I want to make sure we don't unintentionally make certain strategies/choices viable that shouldn't be or vice/versa. This change means foreign civ's yields don't affect happiness, and your own cities affect it much more strongly, which will not have a minor affect on strategy. It might not make things harder or easier overall, but it could have unintended consequences.
I understand that one specialized city wouldn't affect things, but I think even if 70% of your cities have high science and the rest are more typical, those cities shouldn't get unhappiness if they're above the global trends. I don't really care if median or mean is used, though median seems to make sense. I'm more interested in the fact that neglecting a particular yield in every city has no impact on unhappiness (though obviously it will affect your progress).
It just seems counterintuitive for your citizens to only care about their city relative to the rest of your civ, but ignore other civs entirely. You can have widespead poverty and they won't care unless a decent number of your cities improve, at which point your happiness goes down... Global-based targets mean improvement almost always reduces unhappiness, and it can be done without penalizing poor performing civs.
I appreciate your AI testing, and the results are obviously valuable, but stability is only one aspect of the balance. I want to make sure we don't unintentionally make certain strategies/choices viable that shouldn't be or vice/versa. This change means foreign civ's yields don't affect happiness, and your own cities affect it much more strongly, which will not have a minor affect on strategy. It might not make things harder or easier overall, but it could have unintended consequences.
civplayer33
King
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Yields are still yields so you will still want to get as much as possible, which means you definitely won't want to completely neglect any of of them, as you don't win by having more happiness but by getting more yields (very simplified way of looking at it, of course).
There is an issue of keeping about 60% of your cities at a slightly lower yield level to help happiness but that only makes sense to do if you actually have happiness problems and if you're willing to deal with the necessary micromanagement.
Not to mention that such a strategy means you are letting go of a major subset of yields for... what? Happiness?
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dylansan
Warlord
It's not that people would avoid building up the yields of their cities for the sake of happiness, but that it's weird to have a situation where improving the yields of one city might lower the happiness of others which haven't changed. Even if it's still worth improving anyway, it strikes me as unfun to punish a player for improving a city, no matter how minor the effect.
I think I've seen it brought up before, but I'll ask for the heck of it: what is the goal of the happiness system, specifically? If it's just to discourage players from specializing too much and leaving some cities unimproved, that's fine, if a little too simple IMO. But the measure of "leaving some cities unimproved" should not be "more than 50% of your other cities are better", but instead, "these cities are lacking compared to the standards of the world." If my civ is a cultural powerhouse and all my cities are making more culture than the global average (mean or median), but more than half of my cities are like, super cultural, why should it be that the rest have unhappiness from culture? I have to fight unhappiness by adding culture to the rest, even when I'm overpowering with culture anyway? Meanwhile, my gold output in every city could be the minimum possible, and all my citizens are totally fine with that, despite being dead broke? And if I build markets in half my cities, my happiness goes...down?
I just can't see how cutting out global factors altogether is an improvement. I like that it eliminates the feedback loops and snowballing, and it's great that the player has more control, but if that control includes making weird, counter-intuitive decisions, or sometimes being (mildly) punished for good decisions, or civ-wide weaknesses having no effect--I don't see it as an improvement to gameplay.
Rather than talk only about the pros/cons of your method, I'd like to hear more about why keeping some reference to global yields is a bad thing.
I really hope I don't come across as antagonistic. I honestly don't think this is a bad change or that it's going in the wrong direction, but I want to make sure it's considered fully, and I'm not convinced there aren't better solutions, some "in-between". So I'll just take the opportunity to thank you for all the work you put into this and for responding to my critique when you're certainly not obligated to.
I think I've seen it brought up before, but I'll ask for the heck of it: what is the goal of the happiness system, specifically? If it's just to discourage players from specializing too much and leaving some cities unimproved, that's fine, if a little too simple IMO. But the measure of "leaving some cities unimproved" should not be "more than 50% of your other cities are better", but instead, "these cities are lacking compared to the standards of the world." If my civ is a cultural powerhouse and all my cities are making more culture than the global average (mean or median), but more than half of my cities are like, super cultural, why should it be that the rest have unhappiness from culture? I have to fight unhappiness by adding culture to the rest, even when I'm overpowering with culture anyway? Meanwhile, my gold output in every city could be the minimum possible, and all my citizens are totally fine with that, despite being dead broke? And if I build markets in half my cities, my happiness goes...down?
I just can't see how cutting out global factors altogether is an improvement. I like that it eliminates the feedback loops and snowballing, and it's great that the player has more control, but if that control includes making weird, counter-intuitive decisions, or sometimes being (mildly) punished for good decisions, or civ-wide weaknesses having no effect--I don't see it as an improvement to gameplay.
Rather than talk only about the pros/cons of your method, I'd like to hear more about why keeping some reference to global yields is a bad thing.
I really hope I don't come across as antagonistic. I honestly don't think this is a bad change or that it's going in the wrong direction, but I want to make sure it's considered fully, and I'm not convinced there aren't better solutions, some "in-between". So I'll just take the opportunity to thank you for all the work you put into this and for responding to my critique when you're certainly not obligated to.
It's not that people would avoid building up the yields of their cities for the sake of happiness, but that it's weird to have a situation where improving the yields of one city might lower the happiness of others which haven't changed. Even if it's still worth improving anyway, it strikes me as unfun to punish a player for improving a city, no matter how minor the effect.
I think I've seen it brought up before, but I'll ask for the heck of it: what is the goal of the happiness system, specifically? If it's just to discourage players from specializing too much and leaving some cities unimproved, that's fine, if a little too simple IMO. But the measure of "leaving some cities unimproved" should not be "more than 50% of your other cities are better", but instead, "these cities are lacking compared to the standards of the world." If my civ is a cultural powerhouse and all my cities are making more culture than the global average (mean or median), but more than half of my cities are like, super cultural, why should it be that the rest have unhappiness from culture? I have to fight unhappiness by adding culture to the rest, even when I'm overpowering with culture anyway? Meanwhile, my gold output in every city could be the minimum possible, and all my citizens are totally fine with that, despite being dead broke? And if I build markets in half my cities, my happiness goes...down?
I just can't see how cutting out global factors altogether is an improvement. I like that it eliminates the feedback loops and snowballing, and it's great that the player has more control, but if that control includes making weird, counter-intuitive decisions, or sometimes being (mildly) punished for good decisions, or civ-wide weaknesses having no effect--I don't see it as an improvement to gameplay.
Rather than talk only about the pros/cons of your method, I'd like to hear more about why keeping some reference to global yields is a bad thing.
I really hope I don't come across as antagonistic. I honestly don't think this is a bad change or that it's going in the wrong direction, but I want to make sure it's considered fully, and I'm not convinced there aren't better solutions, some "in-between". So I'll just take the opportunity to thank you for all the work you put into this and for responding to my critique when you're certainly not obligated to.
Set aside real world logic for a moment and note my points above: it changes the mechanical elements very slightly, but primarily helps to prevent snowball/underdog extremes. It's the best of both worlds.
G
It also means your own happiness will swing less from entering/exiting golden ages, since your entire empire does it at once.
dylansan
Warlord
I disagree that it changes the mechanics very slightly. In an 8 civ game, yield changes will be 8 times as volatile as a system based on global-yields.
Unless you mean the mechanics of the code, in which case I don't think that's a good basis for a change.
As I've said, the underdog/snowball effect can be completely mitigated without limiting to civ-wide yields, by just accounting for the civ's relative performance when determining the target values. I don't understand how that isn't also the "best of both worlds", if not moreso since it encourages being competitive in every yield.
I don't think I delved to much into "real world logic". I think this example:
Is there anything in particular that's bad about a system based on global yields that adjusts against snowballs? I asked in my last post for specifics but I haven't gotten a single comment about whether that mechanic would work, only about the specifics of mean/median (which was helpful), and why I should accept that civ-wide yields are fine because they're an improvement over what was there before.
Unless you mean the mechanics of the code, in which case I don't think that's a good basis for a change.
As I've said, the underdog/snowball effect can be completely mitigated without limiting to civ-wide yields, by just accounting for the civ's relative performance when determining the target values. I don't understand how that isn't also the "best of both worlds", if not moreso since it encourages being competitive in every yield.
I don't think I delved to much into "real world logic". I think this example:
is purely a gameplay issue, and I'm curious how it would be addressed. If you don't see it as an issue, we'll have to agree to disagree. I think punishing a player for addressing their weaknesses is bad gameplay. Not intuitive, not fun. Even if it's rare or not a big effect, I don't see why it has to be that way at all.
Is there anything in particular that's bad about a system based on global yields that adjusts against snowballs? I asked in my last post for specifics but I haven't gotten a single comment about whether that mechanic would work, only about the specifics of mean/median (which was helpful), and why I should accept that civ-wide yields are fine because they're an improvement over what was there before.
I'm not sure I follow. Do you mean happiness goes up currently during golden ages because all yields increase relative to global averages? Because my proposal also solves that problem. Your targets would be normalized based on your civ's total output, so during a golden age your targets would increase the same amount that your actual yields do, and happiness would be the same. But the specific targets for each yield would be based on the globe, so if everyone else were focused on science and you weren't, you'd have unhappiness. Gazebo's new system doesn't do that even though the current implementation does. And I think that's a valuable mechanic that shouldn't be cut if it doesn't need to be.
I appreciate your concerns, I do, but I think this is a situation where player experience is going to be improved.
G
Its not just your own golden ages, its foreign golden ages that can cause big changes in global median culture output. Foreign golden ages and your own golden ages have totally unrelated timing, you can easily have 20 spare happiness during a golden age and 0 when it ends. Because your cities will experience golden ages and social policies in the same way, its going to be less volatile.
The only factor that could make it more volatile is that the sample is smaller, but I don't think that will matter, especially because its median and not mean.
Omen of Peace
Prince
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2018
- Messages
- 404
A minor knock-on effect will happen for CV victories: before, by having high culture output you could force Boredom on other civ and thus increase your post-modifiers Tourism output. So this likely makes CV slightly harder.
Note that I actually think this is a positive side effect, but it's possible Tourism will need a slight boost elsewhere to compensate.
I do second dylansan in that I'm not sure what the goal of Happiness is, anymore.
But the changes seem worth testing.
Note that I actually think this is a positive side effect, but it's possible Tourism will need a slight boost elsewhere to compensate.
I do second dylansan in that I'm not sure what the goal of Happiness is, anymore.
But the changes seem worth testing.
The goal ultimately is the same as before - antagonize players who try to develop their empire on the extremes or avoid infrastructural balance. It forces players to make tough choices between what they want to do and what they need to do.
G
tu_79
Deity
I understand that this is going to be more stable, but I share dylansan concerns about something that reads 'poverty' is actually never going to hit, even if all your cities are poor as hell, as long as all of them are equally empoverished. It's the reference for the player I was talking in my first comments on this change.
I think relative yield production (before bonuses) should be accounted too. If I am making 5 food per citizen and just 1 gold per citizen, these people should be crying for some more gold.
I think relative yield production (before bonuses) should be accounted too. If I am making 5 food per citizen and just 1 gold per citizen, these people should be crying for some more gold.
But is that example realistic? You need gold for building maintenance, unit maintenance, trading, etc - you want that yield, so you need to get it. Some cities will make more because of trade, resources, and wonders. You want those. So you'll create imbalances naturally as a result of gameplay.
I seriously challenge anyone to win a game by selectively suppressing a yield type to inflate their happiness.
I don't think it is a realistic complaint, but I'd love to be proven wrong.G
tu_79
Deity
What I mean is that your unhappiness sources are now, in fact, about inequalities.But is that example realistic? You need gold for building maintenance, unit maintenance, trading, etc - you want that yield, so you need to get it. Some cities will make more because of trade, resources, and wonders. You want those. So you'll create imbalances naturally as a result of gameplay.
I seriously challenge anyone to win a game by selectively suppressing a yield type to inflate their happiness.
G
And, while inequality is a source of unhappiness (especially after equality is a social value), the real source of unhappiness is the lack of yields.
Let's see food. I might be unhappy if, even when I'm not starving, I know that some people in my county have three meals a day, when I can only eat once a day. It's unfair, but at least I'm not hungry. But I could be hungry. If I'm not getting this one meal a day, even if all the people in my country are in my same situation, I won't feel pleased. Well, there's a specific unhappiness for a starving city, so let's see other yields.
Let's see gold. I can be unhappy knowing that 10% people in my country owns 90% of the GDP, that's especially true for I'm one of the other 90% that shares the rest. But I'd be much more unhappy if I could not pay for my roof, my clothes and a doctor when I need it.
Your current notation says that a citizen is 'suffering poverty' when he's comparing his wage against the median wage in the country. He might be angry about the inequality of wages, but this is not the same as 'suffering from poverty'. Not even close.
People can be unhappy about being objectively poor, and unhappy about being relativelly poor.
Knowing when a citizen is objectively poor is looking for a fixed minimum value for gold production per citizen that represents the basic needs, scaling with technology. You said this approach is too difficult, and I see why. But taking just inequalities in your country as the main source of unhappiness is misleading. I may have cities producing more gold than I'd ever need, crying about poverty, just because they happen to produce less than the median in the country. I may have perfectly content cities that are critically lacking gold, just because the values are well distributed among all my cities.
Another thing to consider is that adding unhappiness maluses to a disadvantageous situation, usually makes bad things worse. If my cities are objectively impoverished, without enough gold to make a steady development, and in top of that, I get a penalty to my economy, I'm being doubly punished for falling behind.
Maybe it's the concept of happiness what should change...
Happiness is a resource. Beyond a golden age or two, extra happiness does nothing, but unhappiness limits how much and how fast an empire can grow and expand. Growing and expanding makes victory more likely, so it makes a whole sense to limit those things. What feeling is this that makes people willing to grow and expand? It's not called happiness. Optimism? Willingness?
With such concept, we could say that people are willing to expand aggressively when there are little differences among the people in the country, and when there're not too many people already living in the country (which makes no sense in real life).
No, no. This ain't working.
What represents best what happiness is currently doing might be 'administrative capacity'. This is, what the empire is able to rule before everything crumbles down. This task is harder the more citizens, the more cities and the more complex the society. Yes. Administrative capacity fully represents what we want happiness to do.
If
in the empire is the administrative capacity of the empire, what would 'distress', 'poverty', 'illiteracy' and 'boredom' represent? Those penalties appear when per citizen production of a yield does not meet the empire median, in other words, when some cities are too specialized or underdeveloped, depending on how tall the empire is. When we have lots of culture in one city and very little in another one, it becomes more difficult to make a single agenda, so a local administration is required for the 'boring' city.So let's read 'distress', 'poverty', 'illiteracy' and 'boredom' as the local administrative effort required in the city due to the differences with the general (federal?) administration.
Fine. Now that I'm conceptually more relaxed, I'd like to suggest that, instead of targetting the raw empire median value, it'll be nicer if it targets from 80% to 120% of the median value. So, if the median value for science is 5.00 per citizen, no administrative effort is required for cities that have 4.00 to 6.00 science per citizen. Cities with bigger or lower values will require some
for their administration, increased by tech level. It may be a bit counter-intuitive that well developed cities gain 'unhappiness' for being over the average, but it is not unhappiness, it's administrative capacity, and big cities require more clerks.
What I mean is that your unhappiness sources are now, in fact, about inequalities.
And, while inequality is a source of unhappiness (especially after equality is a social value), the real source of unhappiness is the lack of yields.
Let's see food. I might be unhappy if, even when I'm not starving, I know that some people in my county have three meals a day, when I can only eat once a day. It's unfair, but at least I'm not hungry. But I could be hungry. If I'm not getting this one meal a day, even if all the people in my country are in my same situation, I won't feel pleased. Well, there's a specific unhappiness for a starving city, so let's see other yields.
Let's see gold. I can be unhappy knowing that 10% people in my country owns 90% of the GDP, that's especially true for I'm one of the other 90% that shares the rest. But I'd be much more unhappy if I could not pay for my roof, my clothes and a doctor when I need it.
Your current notation says that a citizen is 'suffering poverty' when he's comparing his wage against the median wage in the country. He might be angry about the inequality of wages, but this is not the same as 'suffering from poverty'. Not even close.
People can be unhappy about being objectively poor, and unhappy about being relativelly poor.
Knowing when a citizen is objectively poor is looking for a fixed minimum value for gold production per citizen that represents the basic needs, scaling with technology. You said this approach is too difficult, and I see why. But taking just inequalities in your country as the main source of unhappiness is misleading. I may have cities producing more gold than I'd ever need, crying about poverty, just because they happen to produce less than the median in the country. I may have perfectly content cities that are critically lacking gold, just because the values are well distributed among all my cities.
Another thing to consider is that adding unhappiness maluses to a disadvantageous situation, usually makes bad things worse. If my cities are objectively impoverished, without enough gold to make a steady development, and in top of that, I get a penalty to my economy, I'm being doubly punished for falling behind.
Maybe it's the concept of happiness what should change...
Happiness is a resource. Beyond a golden age or two, extra happiness does nothing, but unhappiness limits how much and how fast an empire can grow and expand. Growing and expanding makes victory more likely, so it makes a whole sense to limit those things. What feeling is this that makes people willing to grow and expand? It's not called happiness. Optimism? Willingness?
With such concept, we could say that people are willing to expand aggressively when there are little differences among the people in the country, and when there're not too many people already living in the country (which makes no sense in real life).
No, no. This ain't working.
What represents best what happiness is currently doing might be 'administrative capacity'. This is, what the empire is able to rule before everything crumbles down. This task is harder the more citizens, the more cities and the more complex the society. Yes. Administrative capacity fully represents what we want happiness to do.
If
So let's read 'distress', 'poverty', 'illiteracy' and 'boredom' as the local administrative effort required in the city due to the differences with the general (federal?) administration.
Fine. Now that I'm conceptually more relaxed, I'd like to suggest that, instead of targetting the raw empire median value, it'll be nicer if it targets from 80% to 120% of the median value. So, if the median value for science is 5.00 per citizen, no administrative effort is required for cities that have 4.00 to 6.00 science per citizen. Cities with bigger or lower values will require some
>If my cities are objectively impoverished, without enough gold to make a steady development, and in top of that, I get a penalty to my economy, I'm being doubly punished for falling behind.
You're punished more, now, for falling behind because of how the global median is affected for substandard civs, than if an individual city falls behind. Right now, the extremes of high/low civs either get punished or rewarded empire wide for being behind/ahead, respectively. In the new system, individual cities are punished. There's much more player control here.
Semantics aside, I really think this is a better way to do things.
G
