Happiness Balance Discussion

[Gazebo]

Definitely every city gets a buff from every luxury on empire. Only getting a buff from the local ones would be strange; it would almost imply no intra-empire trade whatsoever. I'm saying each city would be No. Luxuries on empire, multiplied by some function of that city's size.

So larger cities get more happiness from luxuries than smaller cities. If you individuated the happiness from luxuries back down to each city, then cities below your empire's average size would get more happiness, and your large cities, like your capital, would get very little benefit.

That makes sense. The more I think about this the more I feel it's the best way forward. Global happiness was easily the least popular aspect of civ 5, and remains the single bane of VP - perhaps we kill it?

 

[Txurce]

It's such an issue that I've considered (for the CBO) making it such that happiness created by cities exists solely to eliminate unhappiness and actually just eliminating global happiness from the game - if a City is at or above 0 unhappiness, instead of that amount carrying over directly to global happiness, have it instead simply be a growth/GAP bonus. If more than, say, 50% of a city is unhappy, that's when it could start revolting. Would you guys kill me if I did this? I'm very close to doing it.

I recommended something like this in the past, for the same reason: the AI happiness totals late-game are so out of whack with the typical human score that it warps the game. This is most obviously true regarding any happiness-influenced yields. I don't even like looking at it aesthetically. I'd tilt your specific proposal more toward GAP than growth, but love the idea of eliminating positive happiness' pointlessly elastic band.

 

[Stalker0]

Here's the working happiness-related changelog for the upcoming version:

Happiness
    The global median is back, baby
    Empire Scaler
        Needs modifiers scale with the number of owned cities (6% for non-puppets, 3% for puppets)
        Empire needs modifiers can be reduced on a city-by-city basis:
            Walls, Castles, Arsenals reduce them by 5% in the City
            Military bases reduce them by 10%
            Chichen Itza reduces it by 10% globally
    Formula change - formula for calculating unhappiness from needs is now proportional, not a linear subtraction
        What this means: big discrepancies aren't punished as hard, growth management is less important, it's easier to recover via small changes in yields per pop
    Formula change - citizen unhappiness is now limited based on # citizens versus a static %
        What this means: the entire city can't be unhappy from distress or poverty, etc. - there's a proportion (20/30/40/50) for the hierarchy of needs
            What THIS means: solving a problem with one unhappiness source generally won't be a game of whack-a-mole anymore, as the needs are divided a bit more clearly
    Formula change - happiness/unhappiness growth modifiers are now localized, removed from global happiness metric
        What this means: if a city has a lot of local unhappiness (as shown in city view on left side), it will grow much more slowly. Cities will manage themselves and this will help keep them from growing out of control
        Cities that produce excess happiness will get a bigger growth bump than before, as it is more rare for this to happen
        Numbers: right now its 3% growth modifier per happy/unhappy, multiplied by 10 if the empire is very unhappy (more than -10) or 5 if the empire is unhappy (less than zero, more than -10)
    Functional change: all 'city based' happiness changes are now localized in cities
        This affects a few types of happiness:
            Happiness from buildings like Neuschwanstein (building class dependent happiness)
            'Unmodded' Happiness from buildings (things like Circus Maximus)
            Happiness from # of policies (Prora)
            Happiness from policies themselves
        Why?
            The bonuses from these buildings wasn't visible in the city screen, so it wasn't clear where they were going
            They also wouldn't have affected growth in the newest version, but now they do
            Functiona
    Pop Scaler now 200% (was 10%, changed formula slightly, so it's now 2% per 1 citizen)
    Puppet pop unhappiness scaler now 1:4 (has waffled a lot, but I've setttled on 1:4)
    Unhappiness per Specialist now 2:1 (2 specialist, 1 unhappy)
    Capital Modifier is 25% (was 15%)
    Tech base modifier is 125% (was 75%)

Projects
    New repeatable project- Public Works (base cost 300, era scaler cost 100, repeat cost 100)
        Unlocks at Machinery
        Reduces needs modifiers for distress, poverty, illiteracy, boredom, and religion by 10% in the city in which it is built

Serious question:
- Do we just scrap global happiness and have it all operate on local levels? If so, that leaves three big issues: luxury happiness and 'floating' religious happiness, and golden age points.
My solutions:
1.) Add up the total value these sources of happiness (luxury, monopoly, religion), and divide it by the number of non-puppet cities. We then apply that number to each city individually.
2.) Any positive happiness in each city becomes GAP and is applied to your GAP. There's no 'negative GAP' as is now.

Thoughts?

G

So fundamentally I agree with the logic of everything present here. Devils in the tweaking, but the direction makes sense to me.



EDIT: I changed my mind on my thoughts below. Originally I was saying lets downgrade but keep in Global Happiness. But I am a big supporter of keep it simple. I do a lot of game design for another project, and every great game designer says the same thing...."kill your babies". If a mechanic isn't really needed, kill it mercilessly. And if a game mechanic is necessary, kill it anyway and make sure it actually is.

I'm ready to kill this baby and see how it goes.

 

[pineappledan]

The caveat is that individuated luxury-per-city could cause the problem you described with many small cities farming positive happiness if you aren't careful.

Right now, you get +2 flat from each luxury on empire. If you set a flat benefit per luxury, per city, at 0.2 then you would need 10 cities to get the same total happiness from the individuated system. Right now, I'm thinking you will want some base amount of happiness per luxury, but such a value will be very sensitive to total number of cities on empire. Right now the luxury system benefits tall the most, but a per-city luxury calculation with a base happiness value will necessarily favor wide

If you scrap a base value, and just have CityLuxHappiness = * y, then I think the system will be more stable, but you will probably have to boost the value of y to ~0.25. To get parity with the current system = (2 + 0.1 * ), each city would need 12,

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I don't want to seem hotheaded, but when is this patch going to be made and released? Those changes are hard to fully comprehend the impact of - for all I know it might've made the system even less forgiving. That's how it appears to be at least. Looking at values like 1 unhappy for 2 specialists, +2% median for every pop, 6% for every city (was 5% and 2% before) I seriously think it might be the worst Happiness patch yet and the current one is already hell. Of course I cannot know for sure, but I don't enjoy how it looks. I don't like further localizing of happiness either.

EDIT: okay global happiness exists, I checked the notes again. Reducing growth for unhappiness makes sense I guess.

 

[pineappledan]

I don't want to seem hotheaded, but when is this patch going to be made and released? Those changes are hard to fully comprehend the impact of - for all I know it might've made the system even less forgiving. That's how it appears to be at least. Looking at values like 1 unhappy for 2 specialists, +2% median for every pop, 6% for every city (was 5% and 2% before) I seriously think it might be the worst Happiness patch yet and the current one is already hell. Of course I cannot know for sure, but I don't enjoy how it looks. I don't like further localizing of happiness either.

EDIT: okay global happiness exists, I checked the notes again.

Or as Enrico describes, having your wide empire farming per-city luxury bonuses might be the only thing that keeps you afloat from a rather harsh +2% per pop, and +3% per city on empire scalers I imagine those might accumulate to make a pretty major hammer on growth if you try to go wide unless luxuries can counteract them.

 

[Gazebo]

I don't want to seem hotheaded, but when is this patch going to be made and released? Those changes are hard to fully comprehend the impact of - for all I know it might've made the system even less forgiving. That's how it appears to be at least. Looking at values like 1 unhappy for 2 specialists, +2% median for every pop, 6% for every city (was 5% and 2% before) I seriously think it might be the worst Happiness patch yet and the current one is already hell. Of course I cannot know for sure, but I don't enjoy how it looks. I don't like further localizing of happiness either.

EDIT: okay global happiness exists, I checked the notes again. Reducing growth for unhappiness makes sense I guess.

The fact that it is proportional is key. The median modifiers need to be bigger to have any impact.

G

 

[Gazebo]

So fundamentally I agree with the logic of everything present here. Devils in the tweaking, but the direction makes sense to me.



EDIT: I changed my mind on my thoughts below. Originally I was saying lets downgrade but keep in Global Happiness. But I am a big supporter of keep it simple. I do a lot of game design for another project, and every great game designer says the same thing...."kill your babies". If a mechanic isn't really needed, kill it mercilessly. And if a game mechanic is necessary, kill it anyway and make sure it actually is.

I'm ready to kill this baby and see how it goes.

I guess the question becomes, what's the knock-on effect of killing global happiness and moving stuff to city localized happiness?

1 How will we deal with revolt?
2 How will we deal with combat penalty for unhappiness?
3 How will we deal with ideological pressure unhappiness?
4 How do we deal with 'other' sources of happiness (religion, world congress, etc.?)

1. & 2 My thought - we keep the 'unhappy/empire size' element in the top UI.

If +75% of citizens in empire are unhappy, then the cities with the most local unhappiness will attempt to revolt.
If +50% of citizens are unhappy, your empire will suffer a 10% combat penalty.

And that's it - no other 'global' happiness stuff​

We scrap the +10% global yield modifier for happiness. In the new version, unhappiness will only be a negative effect for cities.
​

3. Ideological pressure will be divided up amongst all cities.
4. Other sources will be applied to either the holy city or the capital.


G

 

[Enginseer]

The better question is how will modmods readjust to this?

 

[pineappledan]

Ideological pressure, imo, could be a knock-on per city:
Double the total potential unhappiness from ideological pressure.

Each city gets 10% of the total potential ideological pressure For every 1 unhappy in city from needs, Prior to unmodded happiness from policies/buildings etc. So if your cities are all unhappy, they are more vulnerable to pressure. If you have managed to keep your citizens content via their ACTUAL NEEDS (note: not just through policies and circuses), then you're in good shape. If your empire is held together with duct tape happiness fixes, you are going to have to bend to ideological pressure

Also, what about happiness from difficulty?

You will have to add a UI element in the top banner meter which indicates the % of total population that is unhappy

 

[doublex55]

This is the perfect chance to just scrap ideological unhappiness. As discussed in the other thread it is unnceccessary and has a negative homogenous effect on ideology choices.

 

[pineappledan]

This is the perfect chance to just scrap ideological unhappiness. As discussed in the other thread it is unnceccessary and has a negative homogenous effect on ideology choices.

I like ideological pressure... If it's hurting people so much that no one can ever take the happiness hit then maybe it needs to be softened a bit, but never done away with. What's the point of having an ideology system separate from policy trees if it doesn't affect gameplay uniquely?

The better question is how will modmods readjust to this?

I'm guessing this breaks the event system pretty hard, eh?

 

[Gazebo]

The better question is how will modmods readjust to this?

It shouldn't, not really - I'm not outright removing any mechanics, I'm just going to adjust how they flow into cities.

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I don't want to seem hotheaded, but when is this patch going to be made and released? Those changes are hard to fully comprehend the impact of - for all I know it might've made the system even less forgiving. That's how it appears to be at least. Looking at values like 1 unhappy for 2 specialists, +2% median for every pop, 6% for every city (was 5% and 2% before) I seriously think it might be the worst Happiness patch yet and the current one is already hell. Of course I cannot know for sure, but I don't enjoy how it looks. I don't like further localizing of happiness either.

EDIT: okay global happiness exists, I checked the notes again. Reducing growth for unhappiness makes sense I guess.

Iam with you. At the moment, we have an empire modificator of +4% per city, with the result of kinda uncontrollable unhappiness beyond 20 cities. In the next version, we will get +6% per city and 3% per puppet.
Unless I missed something, this isn't a "diminishing return for any further expansion", that's a hard cap. I dunno why we should stay with that empire modificator, as it has proven to be broken cause of an exponential behavior. Why is this modifier is even necessary, if every city is fighting it's own fight against the median?

 

[tu_79]

Global happiness is not a bad thing in itself. I'd leave global happiness where it makes sense and when it is easier to understand and apply, and let it be local otherwise.

If luxuries make more sense for a global effect, leave it global.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I like ideological pressure... If it's hurting people so much that no one can ever take the happiness hit then maybe it needs to be softened a bit, but never done away with. What's the point of having an ideology system separate from policy trees if it doesn't affect gameplay uniquely?

Ideologial pressure has the flaw that it always tend to go freedom. Tourismn is the key factor for ideological pressure, and the civs which excel in this area are in most cases picking freedom.
It doesnt make that much sense, that my Order/Autocracy population might be happier than the Freedom empire, but my people are getting sad after visiting that less happy freedom empire or watching terrible bad/sad movies from that country.

 

[Rekk]

Ideologial pressure has the flaw that it always tend to go freedom. Tourismn is the key factor for ideological pressure, and the civs which excel in this area are in most cases picking freedom.
It doesnt make that much sense, that my Order/Autocracy population might be happier than the Freedom empire, but my people are getting sad after visiting that less happy freedom empire or watching terrible bad/sad movies from that country.

This is partially accounted for with Dictatorship of the Proletariat, but yeah. Do you generally find that wide Order/Autocracy empires are happier than tall Freedom empires?

 

[Txurce]

Ideologial pressure has the flaw that it always tend to go freedom. Tourismn is the key factor for ideological pressure, and the civs which excel in this area are in most cases picking freedom.

They're picking Freedom if they get there first. But I just played a game where Brazil was the tourism leader, but not the policy leader. It picked ARISTOCRACY because it was third to Ideologies. At first there was one order, One Autocracy, and three Freedom. By the end there were only two Freedom (both with Dissidents), the same Osingle Order, and everyone else Autocracy.

 

[Stalker0]

My notes inside

I guess the question becomes, what's the knock-on effect of killing global happiness and moving stuff to city localized happiness?

1 How will we deal with revolt?

--Do we really even need revolt? Personally its the absolute most frustrating aspect of the happiness system. That is what sparks my desire to rage quit. If my cities are all in shambles because of happiness, do I really need to lose them to?

2 How will we deal with combat penalty for unhappiness?

--I think your note below is good, but we will probably want a spot for the -20% combat penalty (I think that is the max today). I don't see a reason not to have that.

3 How will we deal with ideological pressure unhappiness?

--Toss it to the trash. Its completely unneeded.

4 How do we deal with 'other' sources of happiness (religion, world congress, etc.?)

--Or they are per city bonuses depending on the bonus.

1. & 2 My thought - we keep the 'unhappy/empire size' element in the top UI.

If +75% of citizens in empire are unhappy, then the cities with the most local unhappiness will attempt to revolt.
If +50% of citizens are unhappy, your empire will suffer a 10% combat penalty.

And that's it - no other 'global' happiness stuff​

We scrap the +10% global yield modifier for happiness. In the new version, unhappiness will only be a negative effect for cities.​

3. Ideological pressure will be divided up amongst all cities.
4. Other sources will be applied to either the holy city or the capital.


G

 

[Txurce]

How will we deal with revolt?

How will we deal with ideological pressure unhappiness?

I agree with Stalker0 that revolt has become a punishment for being punished... but I like the idea of revolt. (I wish we still had civil war.) For me revolt should be the consequence for ignoring repeated warnings (like it is now), but in a system where I have more agency. This is what you're working on now, so I'd go with your proposal for revolt, and see if it no longer feels too punitive.

Along the same lines, ideological pressure ought to result in unhappiness for "dustbin" ideologies. However, it shouldn't be warped to the degree it is now, due to the pressure exerted by tourism monsters. From the cheap seats, eliminating positive happiness should make any ideological unhappiness more manageable, unless you're truly a dead-end civ... in which case, as with revolt, the game should put you in a situation where you have no choice but to bail. So again, let's see how your proposed changes affect it.