Happiness Balance Discussion

[Stalker0]

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.

Actually modern psychology suggests the exact opposite of what you describe. I mean yes there are minimal thresholds, if you don't have certain basic needs, you are not going to be happy. But beyond that, Humans function on comparatives not absolutes. If I have more than my neighbors, even if its not a lot, I will feel more satisfaction than the rich man who is at the "bottom tier" of his rich friends.

And that comparison is mostly local. If I'm the "big fish in the small pond" I generally show more satisfaction, even if I know there's a larger pond out there.

Now the interesting shift that is very recent is the "Globalization of Desire". Kids growing up on the Internet now really see how the rest of the world lives, and are starting to compare themselves to that. But that is a very recent phenomena, for the vast majority of history, people only knew about their immediate neighbors. So an empire comparison does make more RL sense than a Global one. Heck, from a realism standpoint, its even unrealistic for people to compare themselves to other cities in your empire....as most of them would have very little connection to those other places. So the empire comparison is still unrealistic for a majority of history....but its still one step closer.

So I'm not worried about the rationale. What I do want to see is, does this system allow for infinite expansion? Can I just blast the world with my cities and suffer only minor unhappiness by keeping all of my cities at barebones standards? And if I can...is that actually a winning strategy? Ultimately both have to be yes in order for that to be a problem.

 

[tu_79]

Actually modern psychology suggests the exact opposite of what you describe. I mean yes there are minimal thresholds, if you don't have certain basic needs, you are not going to be happy. But beyond that, Humans function on comparatives not absolutes. If I have more than my neighbors, even if its not a lot, I will feel more satisfaction than the rich man who is at the "bottom tier" of his rich friends.

And that comparison is mostly local. If I'm the "big fish in the small pond" I generally show more satisfaction, even if I know there's a larger pond out there.

Now the interesting shift that is very recent is the "Globalization of Desire". Kids growing up on the Internet now really see how the rest of the world lives, and are starting to compare themselves to that. But that is a very recent phenomena, for the vast majority of history, people only knew about their immediate neighbors. So an empire comparison does make more RL sense than a Global one. Heck, from a realism standpoint, its even unrealistic for people to compare themselves to other cities in your empire....as most of them would have very little connection to those other places. So the empire comparison is still unrealistic for a majority of history....but its still one step closer.

So I'm not worried about the rationale. What I do want to see is, does this system allow for infinite expansion? Can I just blast the world with my cities and suffer only minor unhappiness by keeping all of my cities at barebones standards? And if I can...is that actually a winning strategy? Ultimately both have to be yes in order for that to be a problem.

I do care about the rationale, because I want the mechanics to make sense. And what makes more sense to me is that the resource that limits growth and expansion is administrative capacity, not happiness. If I see Gazebo's changes with this 'semantic', it makes sense to me. It explains things. It makes it easier for me to take decisions. Trying to explain that with happiness was not satisfactory for me.
G is right, it is easier to control. What I am going to miss is the feedback of how we are doing, but I guess we could look at other places for the info.

EDIT. I agree with the in-city comparison, but G says it's too computational intensive.

 

[civplayer33]

I absolutely agree with @Stalker0 on the (negative) impact of the increasing size of the "comparative pool", if you will, on the actual happiness of people; the internet is especially insidious in that sense as the extremely successful all over the globe will quickly find a much larger following and thus larger reach (a self-reinforcing mechanism) than the average person; this means that by preferring to follow those people, instead of the "average joe", we create our own misery (unless we deal with that the proper way, psychologically, by recognizing that building your own life, your own family carries more meaning than following people on the internet).

As far as the narrative is concerned, however, I would suggest looking at it this way @tu_79 : researching a tech is not something the people find out about, but is rather the unlocking of potential that can then be used by the administrator. So if you research the necessary tech for, say Opera Houses, the people won't know that you can actually build those, until you do. At that point they'll all want Opera Houses because of how great those are and because other parts of your empire have them.
When you expand the infrastructure of a city, you create more ways for the people in it to find meaning in their life and other parts of your empire will want the same opportunity; so it's a bit of a meld between what you describe as administrative capacity and happiness, but of course even a fairly complex game can't capture the intricate reality around us (and, realistically, neither can we).

 

[tu_79]

As far as the narrative is concerned, however, I would suggest looking at it this way @tu_79 : researching a tech is not something the people find out about, but is rather the unlocking of potential that can then be used by the administrator. So if you research the necessary tech for, say Opera Houses, the people won't know that you can actually build those, until you do. At that point they'll all want Opera Houses because of how great those are and because other parts of your empire have them.

I was aware of what it meant, but the problem is that I have all those people wanting new buildings, feeling bad about it and because of that, they don't want to grow or expand anymore (or if they do, they'll feel even sadder). Look at this the other way, once they are content with what they have, they have more potential for growing and expanding, and this is what does not make any sense. People that are content with what they have don't feel especially adventurous.
Usually, it's the other way.

 

[civplayer33]

I was aware of what it meant, but the problem is that I have all those people wanting new buildings, feeling bad about it and because of that, they don't want to grow or expand anymore (or if they do, they'll feel even sadder). Look at this the other way, once they are content with what they have, they have more potential for growing and expanding, and this is what does not make any sense. People that are content with what they have don't feel especially adventurous.
Usually, it's the other way.

I don't think people just "get content" in general; an individual may get content when they've achieved a series of extremely meaningful goals, which have started developing further on their own accord (those are usually called "children" ) but for more "simple" goals, like attaining a university degree, for example, it isn't uncommon for people to actually get depressed after attaining the goal if they didn't have the proper framework set up of what they want to achieve in the broader scope of things, of which that goal was a part of (this is called a "success crisis").
Our reward systems aren't tuned for achieving goals, neurologically speaking, anyway, but tracking progress toward the next goal, instead (the former is mediated by dopaminergic systems, the latter by serotonergic ones), so while getting access to more infrastructure may make some of your population contented, there will always be plenty of people who will want to progress further toward the next goal; one may argue that the latter group's dynamic is represented by the influence tech has.

 

[Txurce]

I was aware of what it meant, but the problem is that I have all those people wanting new buildings, feeling bad about it and because of that, they don't want to grow or expand anymore (or if they do, they'll feel even sadder). Look at this the other way, once they are content with what they have, they have more potential for growing and expanding, and this is what does not make any sense. People that are content with what they have don't feel especially adventurous.
Usually, it's the other way.

Discontent generates resentment, and whatever may come from that. It does not generate adventurousness. Genes do, from flies on up through humans.

To your point about contentment: take the person who inherits wealth, and triples it. According to you, they should have been content, and remained more or less level. But a certain percentage of them aren't, and keep pushing (Murdoch, Trump, etc). On a societal level, you need a threshold level of efficiency (arguably resulting in contentment) to allow for more growth and expansion. The number of impoverished civs who then went on a conquering spree or straight into a GA are few.

Finally: "administrative capacity" has way too many syllables. Happiness or stability work much better for me.

 

[tu_79]

Our reward systems aren't tuned for achieving goals

Right. And this is not SIMS 4. I just try to make sense out of a mechanic that is just slowing down victory for gameplaying reasons.

To your point about contentment: take the person who inherits wealth, and triples it. According to you, they should have been content, and remained more or less level. But a certain percentage of them aren't,

We are talking cities and countries. Individual behaviours matter little. The ambitious people (the wanna-have-more people) will always be ready to invest and make profit, but when central banks lower the interest rates, savings are discouraged, and consumption and investment are encouraged to the whole population.

Finally: "administrative capacity" has way too many syllables

Agree. Stability sounds much better.

I ask myself, what makes countries willing to invade another country? Even in Ancient times, I don't think a tribal leader could just tell their people to take on a neighboring tribe, just because he said so. Even today, in a dictatorship, I don't think it's that easy to force people into invading another country. What makes people want to risk their lifes founding a new colony? Not a few adventurous guys, but a whole colony.
The first thing that comes into mind is 'demographic pressure'. In other words, not having enough resources for the current population to make a life is a strong incentive for looking after these resources beyond our safe borders.
When demographic pressure is too high, it risks internal disorder. A good administration can mitigate internal disorder by caring for the less successful, or the discontent can be channeled into a foreign war or migrations that in the worst case will just reduce population. Failing to do any of those things may cause the country to crumble. The better the administration the more populated the country can be, before it has to rely on more drastic measures.
This social mechanic works for both medieval lords and democratic countries. A duke could start a war out of his personal ambition, but forcing his vassals into a war they didn't want is generating some instability that could backfire later.

So, let's say is stability. When it gets too low, the empire revolts, so that makes sense. Let's ignore the part of the needs that says that not meeting the basic needs makes people die. Let's say all that Sid Meier's Civilization 5 (R) citizens want is to have, at least, the same wealth than the common joe in the country. Failing to provide what they want, reduces stability and willingness for growing, but at the same time it should encourage expansion if it were to be logical. However, a low stability discourages expansion as well, since going to war or founding a new city will just make things worse.

EDIT. So far, the behaviour of happiness limits the total population in the empire. The limiting factor is lower when the empire is not too large, its cities not too big, the differences between cities are small and the infrastructure is better. This is administrative capacity to me. If the name is too long, what about 'governability'?
Any event that affects people happiness will, in turn, affect governability. Being at war makes ruling harder. Having different religions in your cities makes ruling harder. Having barracks, whose soldiers may control food distribution in case of scarcity, helps ruling the city.
When governability is low, the govern should not venture with founding new cities or capturing foreign cities, as it will make things worse. The bad administration causes families to reduce their brethen, for live conditions could be too hard for newborns, ailments not reaching everyone. If governability is too low for the current population, riots may occur.

 

[civplayer33]

a mechanic that is just slowing down victory for gameplaying reasons.

It isn't. Yields are what win the game, not excessive happiness; the only time it can make sense to keep yields down for happiness reasons is when you are low on happiness, which you should avoid by other means, of which there are plenty of.

As for the rest: none of the three major wars in Europe (30 years war, WWI, WWII) were caused directly by demographic pressure, so that's obviously not the primary reason why wars happen; it can be a contributing factor, for sure, but wars are usually the end result of a complex array of diplomatic failures, internal tensions, cultural aspects, ideological or religious doctrines etc.. When we're talking about why the individual man joins an army, the explanation can indeed be rather simple, however. He can be forced to participate, just do his job as a soldier or even be pressured socially (a lot of men joined the army voluntarily in WWI because they didn't want to be regarded as cowards, partly by their fellow men but most importantly by the women; this actually makes sense from a Darwinist perspective, even: joining has a chance to kill you, but not joining will brand you a coward and thus definitely prevent you from founding a family and propagating your genes).

Another misconception is that "a good administration can mitigate internal disorder by caring for the less successful"; if that were true, the socialist experiments in the last century would have produced very stable countries with content populations instead of piles of corpses and a climate of fear and terror (kinda like what is starting to develop these days in western countries where you can't even speak your mind anymore without having to fear for your job, all because of leftist central planners claiming to "fight for the oppressed"...notice a pattern, anyone?). A good administration makes sure that the people have the opportunity to succeed in the way they are able to; not everyone can be a genius scientist or a successful merchant but if we create the conditions for those people who can to do what they're good at, instead of taking away their resources out of some misguided sense of promoting equality by "caring for the less successful", the technology and industry will advance, more wealth will be created and eventually even the "less successful" will be able to lead far better lives, as is evident everywhere you look when the socialist planned economies are transformed into capitalist free market ones.
Furthermore, it is competent and hard working people, not central planners, that enable a society to sustain a larger population; this is even represented in Civ 5: your grassland increases its yield by workers (=hard working people) building a farm and that farm gets better over time by researching new technology (=competent, intelligent people), not by "better administration".

Ultimately I am opposed to changing "Happiness" to some abstract metric's name not primarily for semantic reasons but because I want the game to remind the player that ruling a civilization means governing over people, not fine tuning some machine, even if it may seem that way from time to time. Supply is tied to war weariness because it is people you're sending into war, not robots; luxuries increase the population's tolerance for bad events and increase growth (WLTKD) because people have free will and will choose to desire certain things, not because your are optimizing their needs; religion will increase your yields because people want to search for meaning and ways to deal with the fact that life is suffering and finite, not because it is the "opiate of the masses".
Of course "happiness" isn't a perfect semantic fit for what it represents, but lets not take away the humanity from what it means to rule.

 

[tu_79]

Well, I can't be more against everything you said here.

But let's keep it to the basic gameplay. Yields is what wins games. Not exactly, but close. But if you were to bypass the happiness system you would be able to expand and grow non stop, and that would earn you tons of those yields that win games. So I stand by happiness being a delaying factor.

The hyperinflation in Germany pre wwii accounts for demographic pressure. Can't say about the other wars, but if you dig it, I'd be hugely surprised to find the living conditions of the average people agreeable. There's almost always demographic pressure, with the exception of recently founded colonies and some after war periods. It's in our nature.

Finally, all modern governments care for the less fortunate. Some manage to not do it awfully, some fail to do anything right. Even in the old monarchies, where the rulers seemed to despise commoners, the church fulfilled this task, as part of the system.

 

[Txurce]

Well, I can't be more against everything you said here.

Ha ha! I was going to write something along those lines and provide some examples, then remembered I've been down the exact rabbit hole with civplayer33. I like the rabbit hole, like civplayer33's posts, but don't want to keep going back to it.

The hyperinflation in Germany pre wwii accounts for demographic pressure. Can't say about the other wars, but if you dig it, I'd be hugely surprised to find the living conditions of the average people agreeable. There's almost always demographic pressure, with the exception of recently founded colonies and some after war periods. It's in our nature.

Here's my view on Germany and demographic pressure:

The hyperinflation in Germany was well over by the time Hitler took over, although of course it left legendary scars. I think unemployment was more of a problem, which of course fits with demographic pressure anyway. And then after that, a state-directed capitalist economic system improved the situation in the mid-late 30s to the point where I'd bet people were content enough. What happened is that one individual — Hitler — sold the Germans first on the Jews (and Commies) being responsible for their economic problems... and then once those were largely resolved, they accepted his deeply held belief that Germany needed to expand in order to survive (lebensraum).

 

[civplayer33]

But let's keep it to the basic gameplay. Yields is what wins games. Not exactly, but close. But if you were to bypass the happiness system you would be able to expand and grow non stop, and that would earn you tons of those yields that win games. So I stand by happiness being a delaying factor.

What you said was "I just try to make sense out of a mechanic that is just slowing down victory for gameplaying reasons.", implying that it shouldn't slow the player down, which, when added to the quoted statement, means you'd be in favor of abolishing the happiness system, not renaming it. I don't think anyone is in favor of abolishing it, including you, which is why I interpreted that by "delaying factor" you meant the gamey way one can keep cities underdeveloped for happiness boosts and thus I argued against that by saying that you need yields to win games, which you then agreed with. I don't want to get caught in circular arguments.

The hyperinflation in Germany pre wwii accounts for demographic pressure. Can't say about the other wars, but if you dig it, I'd be hugely surprised to find the living conditions of the average people agreeable. There's almost always demographic pressure, with the exception of recently founded colonies and some after war periods. It's in our nature.

Hyperinflation in Germany happened in the 1920s; in the 1930s the economic system had largely stabilized and there was actually a period of deflation before the war and WWII, of course, started 1st September 1939, so the hyperinflation isn't directly causal to the war at all; one can say that it helped the Nazis seize power but the people didn't elect Hitler to start a war and even if they did this is hardly a direct effect.
It is pretty well known that the first World War was caused by diplomatic screw ups which essentially started in the 1890s (and triggered by the assassination of the archduke) and the 30 years war started because of the revocation of the "cuius regio, eius religio" principle by the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinant II, essentially revoking the (relative) freedom of religion that had been granted to people. It seems to me that maybe you should "dig it" more, for some better understanding of things.

Finally, all modern governments care for the less fortunate. Some manage to not do it awfully, some fail to do anything right. Even in the old monarchies, where the rulers seemed to despise commoners, the church fulfilled this task, as part of the system.

I wouldn't call stealing money from people caring for them, as the high taxes which are required to sustain the western European welfare states make it a lot harder to get a job and to earn enough money for founding a family with more than 1 child. Before there were welfare states, people helped each other; for example there was a vast network of so-called Friendly Societies in England, which was a sort of communal (non-governmental) social safety net, which "insured" the vast majority of people in the country. You don't need the government to take care of people, just healthy communities; the government, on the other hand, wants people to be dependent on it and thus dislikes healthy communities, which is why central planners are always out to destroy them, which really couldn't be more evident today all over western Europe.

The hyperinflation in Germany was well over by the time Hitler took over, although of course it left legendary scars. I think unemployment was more of a problem, which of course fits with demographic pressure anyway. And then after that, a state-directed capitalist economic system improved the situation in the mid-late 30s to the point where I'd bet people were content enough. What happened is that one individual — Hitler — sold the Germans first on the Jews (and Commies) being responsible for their economic problems... and then once those were largely resolved, they accepted his deeply held belief that Germany needed to expand in order to survive (lebensraum).

As you correctly, if maybe slightly misleadingly, point out, the hyperinflation was long over and so were the unemployment problems, when the war started. What you get wrong, however, is that the average citizen regarded the war as necessary for ideological reasons; there is ample documentation that the propaganda machinery told the citizens that Poland attacked Germany and that "since 5:45 o'clock, Germans are returning fire" (a pretty famous statement by Hitler); the Nazis hadn't been in power for long enough in 1939 to be able to tell the people that this war is needed in the context of the Lebensraum doctrine, that stuff was more for the cadre of "elite Nazis".

 

[dylansan]

One hangup in Civ is that the population of one city doesn't travel abroad to another in search of better standard of living. Settling a new city only serves to expand and grow, not to alleviate pressures on existing cities. Though you could stop growth with the knowledge that your newer cities will be able to continue growing, I guess.

Migration would actually be a neat mechanic, though not something I'd imagine being implemented for VP.

 

[Txurce]

What you get wrong, however, is that the average citizen regarded the war as necessary for ideological reasons; there is ample documentation that the propaganda machinery told the citizens that Poland attacked Germany and that "since 5:45 o'clock, Germans are returning fire" (a pretty famous statement by Hitler); the Nazis hadn't been in power for long enough in 1939 to be able to tell the people that this war is needed in the context of the Lebensraum doctrine, that stuff was more for the cadre of "elite Nazis".

1. I said the average German accepted Hitler's lebensraum argument.
2. The Nazis had been in power for six years by 1939, and spoke about lebensraum well before then. The concept itself was in common discussion in Germany before 1900.

 

[civplayer33]

@Txurce
We were talking about what caused the war; you said:

What happened is that one individual — Hitler — sold the Germans first on the Jews (and Commies) being responsible for their economic problems... and then once those were largely resolved, they accepted his deeply held belief that Germany needed to expand in order to survive (lebensraum).

This makes it sound as though the average citizen believed the war was started for those reasons, which isn't true, because in that case Hitler would have said so in his speech when he essentially made the declaration of war against Poland; instead the narrative was one of defense against Polish aggressions.
You can read the entire speech Hitler gave that day in the Reichstag here (in German), but the most relevant parts are:

Spoiler original :

Polen hat nun heute nacht zum erstenmal auf unserem eigenen Territorium auch durch reguläre Soldaten geschossen.

(Pfuirufe.)​

Seit 5 Uhr 45 wird jetzt zurückgeschossen!

(Lebhafter Beifall.)​

Und von jetzt ab wird Bombe mit Bombe vergolten!

(Beifall.)​

Wer mit Gift kämpft, wird mit Giftgas bekämpft.

(Erneuter Beifall.)​

Wer sich selbst von den Regeln einer humanen Kriegführung entfernt, kann von uns nichts anderes erwarten, als daß wir den gleichen Schritt tun.
Ich werde diesen Kampf, ganz gleich gegen wen, so lange führen, bis die Sicherheit des Reiches und bis seine Rechte gewährleistet sind!

Spoiler translation by me :

Poland has now, for the first time, deployed regular army troops on our own territory, conducting military actions.
(disapproving shouting)
Since 5:45 o'clock we are now returning fire!
(lively applause)
And now we will retaliate with a bomb for every bomb!
(applause)
He who fights with poison, will be fought with poison gas.
(more applause)
He who abandons the rules of humane conduct of war, cannot expect us not to reciprocate.
I will keep up this fight, no matter who against, as long as it takes to safeguard the security of the Reich and its sovereignty.

The entire speech was printed in all German newspapers and the news was, of course, also spread by radio. The fact that German academics talked about the Lebensraum concept beforehand doesn't mean that this is what the average guy in Germany at the time was sold on.

 

[Gazebo]

Let's stay OT, fulfillers of Godwin's Law.

G

 

[Txurce]

Never mind... thank you, Gazebo. The flesh is weak.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

One hangup in Civ is that the population of one city doesn't travel abroad to another in search of better standard of living. Settling a new city only serves to expand and grow, not to alleviate pressures on existing cities. Though you could stop growth with the knowledge that your newer cities will be able to continue growing, I guess.

Migration would actually be a neat mechanic, though not something I'd imagine being implemented for VP.

There's a migration mod I tried a while back, but it's incompatible with VP.

 

[tu_79]

So far, the best game for understanding migrations is Paradox's Victoria. The basic element of the game is a group of population, with the attributes of culture, class, income, class consciousness and happiness. Usually these pop will change their class when the requirements are met for a long time, but sometimes, instead of changing their attributes, they try to find another city where they can get a job and their culture is accepted, first within the country, then outside.

It feels like a society simulation more than a game.

 

[dylansan]

Question: with these changes, if you have only one city, is it even possible to have any unhappiness? You will always be exactly the median of your civ, right?

 

[Rekk]

Question: with these changes, if you have only one city, is it even possible to have any unhappiness? You will always be exactly the median of your civ, right?

Individual cities are not all at the median, and cities above the median do not produce happiness from being above the needs threshold to counteract the unhappiness of the cities below the threshold.