Happiness Balance Discussion

I think you don't have any idea what you're talking about. Puppets produce no Happiness whatsoever. Neither garrison from Authority, nor any building works, whether the happiness is innate (Circus), or policy-given (Imperialism's Constabulary, Fealty's Castle). No Happiness is given from either until you annex. Puppet only takes happy faces, never gives any, and it's been that way for more than a year. They can build as many Happiness buildings as they can, that doesn't give you anything. I really wonder why you clearly don't play wide warmongering to the point you don't know the basics, and yet try to tell me - who tends to warmonger - what amount of cities is enough for a domination victory. 20 cities aren't nearly enough.

Why are you theorycrafting and trying to change happiness to punish a playstyle you know nothing about and clearly don't use? You don't like micromanaging many cities, fine, but I do. You don't see me calling for a nerf of tall empires because half they do is click next turn with no thought or action needed. I've played enough tall over the years to know this is the case. I sometimes try, but I typically leave 100-150 turns in because it's boring or I change my plans.

Also what do you mean by "avoid food tiles"? You cannot micromanage which tile is worked by a puppet (not even for Venice, unless it got changed in 2 years, in which case I'm wrong) unless you use some mod. You can take away a puppet's food-heavy tile, but you need an annexed city in 3 tile radius from the tile - you click it once in the annexed one, and the puppet won't work it. If said city doesn't exist. In your imagined situation, you can't even annex a good nearby city with good infrastructure and tiles to take that Crab tile off a puppet without dying of unhappiness because señor Cortez the 79th on civfanatics who doesn't warmonger clearly knows better than a warmongerer how many cities are needed.

Sure, you can destroy some infrastructure with workers to reduce the amount of Food by going over every single Farm with a worker and choosing another improvement so it instantly disappears. There's also monopoly luxuries, but those will be very hard to remove unless you've pillaged just enough of their tiles to not get a monopoly before conquering a city - and you did it on purpose. The problem besides it being super-micro intensive, annoying is it's incredibly counterintuitive and overcomplicated, excluding the farms I guess. I can get it, but will someone new? What about Temple of Artemis?

-100 Happiness is -100% CS, and that + the maxed penalty from warmongering means a Spearman can probably beat your Rifleman and you will deal no real damage to anything the opponent rolls out. I am no mathematician like some here, but that's a fair assumption. Someone can disprove it, but whatever.
I was mistaken about puppets giving happiness, you were mistaken about unhappiness being so punishing to combat strength. Should I now say that you don't know a damn about what you are saying in the same tone you used with me? I dislike wide warmongering, true, but I've done it.
I'm not imposing my opinion, just giving it, just how Bite and the rest are doing. Even more, I was also open to modify it later if it ends up being too strict.

About not feeding city states, if you avoid farms, place villages in plains better than grassland, chopp forests on hills, the city state won't be able to produce too much food and it will not grow too fast.
 
I think I didnt noticed it cause in most cases I go progress, and population from puppets work for Equality too.
But one point is wrong. Puppets didnt only take happy faces. Specialists in puppets didnt cause unhappiness by urbanization. A puppet with 3 specialists for every 5 citizen would generate as much unhappiness as a normal city would, but without any additional unhappiness by needs.
Equality only cares about citizens in empire, so it's not localized by city and puppets can't affect it. On the other hand, Urbanization also isn't localized by city so ... :dunno:.
 
I do think ideological pressure should be its own thread. Rekk, would love for you to start it with your previous post...I think you make some great points to kick off the discussion
 
I was mistaken about puppets giving happiness, you were mistaken about unhappiness being so punishing to combat strength. Should I now say that you don't know a damn about what you are saying in the same tone you used with me? I dislike wide warmongering, true, but I've done it.
I'm not imposing my opinion, just giving it, just how Bite and the rest are doing. Even more, I was also open to modify it later if it ends up being too strict.

About not feeding city states, if you avoid farms, place villages in plains better than grassland, chopp forests on hills, the city state won't be able to produce too much food and it will not grow too fast.

The difference between those two things is one pretty much never happens without me quitting, not being at war or - if at war - instantly peacing out so the -20+ turns into 0~/+10 as war weariness is halved and the other is nearly every game, but I was admittedly too harsh. I apologise if you felt insulted, but I don't think you should've.

Your advice is things that are pretty obvious and not very efficient. Most cities will grow anyway - it'll just take slightly longer for a lot of micromanagement. All it takes is for the city to be on the coast and you can't do anything. What if a common situation happens and I conquer a city that has a lot of pop to begin with? You cannot reduce pop by razing a bit and then puppet, the only option at this point is annexation or complete razing. Most high pop cities of the AI have great infrastructure and good tiles, and while razing this city is a beacon of unhappiness, only fuelling further problems.
 
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The difference between those two things is one pretty much never happens without me quitting, not being at war or - if at war - instantly peacing out so the -20+ turns into 0~/+10 as war weariness is halved and the other is nearly every game, but I was admittedly too harsh. I apologise if you felt insulted, but I don't think you should've.

Your advice is things that are pretty obvious and not very efficient. Most cities will grow anyway - it'll just take slightly longer for a lot of micromanagement. All it takes is for the city to be on the coast and you can't do anything. What if a common situation happens and I conquer a city that has a lot of pop to begin with? You cannot reduce pop by razing a bit and then puppet, the only option at this point is annexation or complete razing. Most high pop cities of the AI have great infrastructure and good tiles, and while razing this city is a beacon of unhappiness, only fuelling further problems.
Ok, but whats now your opinion about the happiness system? Whats the goal of the happiness system? At which point should the happiness system work restrictive? If you are able to say Gazebo how he should balance the happiness system, what would you say?
 
All it takes is for the city to be on the coast and you can't do anything.
True. There's little you can do then. Landlocked puppets are easier to manage.

If you are able to say Gazebo how he should balance the happiness system, what would you say?
He can. This is the community, we all can. Then G decides how to please us all, in a way he is satisfied with his work too.
 
Ok, but whats now your opinion about the happiness system? Whats the goal of the happiness system? At which point should the happiness system work restrictive? If you are able to say Gazebo how he should balance the happiness system, what would you say?

Gazebo is a myth and he doesn't exist, he will never read what I say.

I'd say infrastructure is the key. If you have a yield's buildings up to date and improved, right terrain, the unhappiness should be minor or in some cases non-existent. The previous version, and a version several versions ago, had it close to being right, though there were some weird things where suddenly everything changed, like I remember conquering Morocco's capital which had most of the citizens unhappy, I barely built anything and the unhappiness suddenly went better (I assume my conquests lowered the then global median or something, but it still felt weird). To be honest I trust Gazebo will get it right in the end, but I want to get the next version. The current one I cannot even properly modify the sql of because Happiness system quite literally bugs out, and I'm doing exactly the same things I used to. I change a '100' to '50' thinking that'll mean less Distress, but it actually bugs the Happiness interface out and turns every single pop in every single city Distressed.

He can. This is the community, we all can. Then G decides how to please us all, in a way he is satisfied with his work too.

Oh, after all these arguments between them I bet BiteInTheMark does know a lot about Gazebo's decision-making when it comes to pleasing him
 
To be honest I trust Gazebo will get it right in the end, but I want to get the next version.
So far we have the opinion to completly delete unhappiness after turn 200, set the maximum of the owned cities which are controllable to 10-20, set the amount to 10-25 but also open for higher values and the possibility to controll infinite numbers of owned/annexed cities. Hard to tell which one is the "right".
I bet BiteInTheMark does know a lot about Gazebo's decision-making when it comes to pleasing him
I think hes an intelligent man with a wide knowledge, but lacks a bit the ability to follow a goal with technical and systematic precision. I would try to solve such elementary questions like "whats the goal of the happiness system" first, before I do several changes.
 
Another note of caution about the empire median: Don't grow your city while working processes to reduce unhappiness...you'll just make your unhappiness even worse when you eventually work something else.
 
How did the global median work again? The empire that's far ahead would have no happiness problems, while the ones that are behind have the most problems with happiness?
 
How did the global median work again? The empire that's far ahead would have no happiness problems, while the ones that are behind have the most problems with happiness?
Not quite, still a tech/pop modifier, constant sources of unhappiness, and civs can be ahead in different metrics.

I know that this has been said a million times, but the needs order thing adds even more complexity to an system that's increasingly becoming more and more complex. If we really must implement a limit to the amount of unhappiness a city can generate, I would prefer a 50/50/50/50 distribution.

I'm just waiting for the needs reduction from buildings to go up and the empire modifier to go down.
 
So far we have the opinion to completly delete unhappiness after turn 200, set the maximum of the owned cities which are controllable to 10-20, set the amount to 10-25 but also open for higher values and the possibility to controll infinite numbers of owned/annexed cities. Hard to tell which one is the "right".

I think hes an intelligent man with a wide knowledge, but lacks a bit the ability to follow a goal with technical and systematic precision. I would try to solve such elementary questions like "whats the goal of the happiness system" first, before I do several changes.

My Ph.D, publications, and the continued maintenance of this huge project are clearly not byproducts of technical and systematic precision.

Sure. Whatever. You must be fun at parties.

G
 
The difference between those two things is one pretty much never happens without me quitting, not being at war or - if at war - instantly peacing out so the -20+ turns into 0~/+10 as war weariness is halved and the other is nearly every game, but I was admittedly too harsh. I apologise if you felt insulted, but I don't think you should've.

Your advice is things that are pretty obvious and not very efficient. Most cities will grow anyway - it'll just take slightly longer for a lot of micromanagement. All it takes is for the city to be on the coast and you can't do anything. What if a common situation happens and I conquer a city that has a lot of pop to begin with? You cannot reduce pop by razing a bit and then puppet, the only option at this point is annexation or complete razing. Most high pop cities of the AI have great infrastructure and good tiles, and while razing this city is a beacon of unhappiness, only fuelling further problems.
If you want to keep a city to have a border to your enemies, but dont want to have unhappiness from it, raze it to pop 1 and stop growth this city. You can have only 1 unhappiness from it.
A standard warmonger only need 10 - 15 annexed cities (on standard map). I think 8 should be enough. Warmonger will probably go for Imperialism and this tree gives huge happiness. Autocracy gives a lot of happiness too. Controling unhappiness from 20 - 30 puppets is actually easier than 10 annexed one (and it makes sense).
You can alway use the liberate option, dont take every cities left and right.
Vassals contribute happiness too. Have a few of them can give you 60-100 happiness.
 
My Ph.D, publications, and the continued maintenance of this huge project are clearly not byproducts of technical and systematic precision.

Sure. Whatever. You must be fun at parties.

G
How long do you/we try to reach a gold status? 1 1/2 year? Looking alone at the permanent happiness changes in nearly every version gives me the impression.
While the opinions in this thread definitly differ from each other, what is the purpose of the happiness system in this game? What is necessary to let the happiness system reach the goal? Which numbers do you want to achieve, if there should be a maximum of cities you should be able to control? And how are you able to balance a happiness system for players which play vs AI with handicaps, if you test your games only with AIs without any handicap?
 
How long do you/we try to reach a gold status? 1 1/2 year? Looking alone at the permanent happiness changes in nearly every version gives me the impression.
While the opinions in this thread definitly differ from each other, what is the purpose of the happiness system in this game? What is necessary to let the happiness system reach the goal? Which numbers do you want to achieve, if there should be a maximum of cities you should be able to control? And how are you able to balance a happiness system for players which play vs AI with handicaps, if you test your games only with AIs without any handicap?

I don’t test exclusively handicap free. I test lots of different variations.

Bringing up ‘gold or not gold’ when it has taken this many years to fix VANILLA issues and bugs (which we’re still resolving) is an irrelevant point. The happiness system will continue to evolve until we find a happy medium and we resolve any AI issues that have caused negative interactions with balance. That, more than anything else, has been the biggest hurdle. If the AI can’t play the game correctly, we can’t very well balance around that right? So solving those issues has been the primary behind the scenes work of ‘going gold.’ Every version has AI improvements in it because that’s our biggest focus.

G
 
I don’t test exclusively handicap free. I test lots of different variations.

Bringing up ‘gold or not gold’ when it has taken this many years to fix VANILLA issues and bugs (which we’re still resolving) is an irrelevant point. The happiness system will continue to evolve until we find a happy medium and we resolve any AI issues that have caused negative interactions with balance. That, more than anything else, has been the biggest hurdle. If the AI can’t play the game correctly, we can’t very well balance around that right? So solving those issues has been the primary behind the scenes work of ‘going gold.’ Every version has AI improvements in it because that’s our biggest focus.

G
OK, but evolving in which direction? Do you want to balance it to allow infinite number of owned cities? Or limited? What will be the limit?
I didn't see any concept, any goal we want to reach. I would like to know if you are only always fixing happiness issues if enough people are complaining about or if you have optimum setting in mind.
 
OK, but evolving in which direction? Do you want to balance it to allow infinite number of owned cities? Or limited? What will be the limit?
I didn't see any concept, any goal we want to reach. I would like to know if you are only always fixing happiness issues if enough people are complaining about or if you have optimum setting in mind.
You don't know what you are dressing up for, but you try some clothes and go out to test if you are not making a fool of yourself. After a few years, you get the practice to know what works for most situations. This is what we are doing.
 
You don't know what you are dressing up for, but you try some clothes and go out to test if you are not making a fool of yourself. After a few years, you get the practice to know what works for most situations. This is what we are doing.

I can use that analogy against you though. While you are randomly trying on styles...fashion trends keep shifting, so after months of trying you never find the clothes that look right.

I agree with Bites point on this, I have made it many times myself. Part of the reason we keep going in circles on the mechanics of happiness is thst people have different opinions on what happiness should encourage, and what it should prevent.

The “number of annexed cities” is one example. When people say “I can’t hold 20 annexed cities because of crippling unhappiness”, we are getting mixed reactions:

1) perfect, the system is working exactly as intended. You should not be able to hold that many cities without puppetting...or maybe not even period.

2) this is bad, the system needs to be changed. If I’m building all the infrastructure and developing the cities properly, my happiness should be good, no matter the number of cities.

That’s a fundamental difference, and if we don’t decide which camp is correct (and they both cannot be correct), than we cannot update the system properly.
 
I'm sorry, was it explained how exactly the need number is determined?

My example was expecting ~25 culture per citizen in the early Atomic Era seems somehow not correct. That's 500 culture per city for a mere 20 citizen city. Even my probably overpowered +104:c5culture: nationalized Giorgio offices hardly dented my boredom number (but they did get me new policies more quickly).

Is there some unhappiness tied to the number of cities I control relative to the number others have?
 
I'm sorry, was it explained how exactly the need number is determined?

My example was expecting ~25 culture per citizen in the early Atomic Era seems somehow not correct. That's 500 culture per city for a mere 20 citizen city. Even my probably overpowered +104:c5culture: nationalized Giorgio offices hardly dented my boredom number (but they did get me new policies more quickly).

Is there some unhappiness tied to the number of cities I control relative to the number others have?
It sounds strange, but generating a huge amount of culture is the reason why you have a lot of unhappiness by boredom.
The median as reference was changed from global to nationwide. You didnt have to compete with other civs, you have to compete with your own civ. Generating a lot of culture in each city also generates a high culture median. Additionally the median is modified by different aspects (number of techs/city size/number of cities). With more (owned) cities your already high median gets increased even more. Till a point none of your cities, even the best, will not be able to reach the modified median. This is causing a lot of trouble, and cause of it, it will be changed back to global median in next version.
 
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