Happiness Balance Discussion

[doublex55]

I agree on the gold buying. If the goal is to punish military we should go all the way. 75% greater cost to buying units as well. You could even take it one step further and make it +75% cost to upgrade units. This will also keep the system more balanced in the end game, as humans rarely build new units in the later game but focus on improving existing units.

All of the above please

There's a misconception in how distress hierarchy works.
When I was looking at the worst case, it means 0% need covered in all needs. This is rarely going to be the case, as it is impossible to not have some food and production in any city, so distress is never going to be 0% covered. Even the other needs, will only be 0% for a while, in very recently settled ones, where there can be 0 science and 0 culture, but that will change soon, with the first monument and the first council. Then, the size of the city will start to be relevant. In other words, controlling city size should be enough for keeping unhappiness low in any city.
Then.
It's not that distress is the highest need. It is that having high distress 'hides' other need issues.
For example, if only illiteracy is covered by 50%, and the other needs are fulfilled, then a 25% of the city population is going to suffer by illiteracy. But if there is also poverty in the city, and poverty is covered by 50%, then, instead of having 25% people suffering poverty and 25% suffering illiteracy, we have 25% suffering poverty and 18.75% suffering illiteracy.
In a scenario where 50% of the city population would be unhappy, the Marslow hierarchy makes only 43.75% of the city population unhappy. There's a 6.25% of the people that doesn't want to protest for their lack of education, because they prefer to protest for their poverty.

So, the method of using the remaining happy population is actually a way to reduce total unhappiness when there are several unfulfilled needs. The hierarchy just says which needs are hidden by which. Although it is not as simple to understand as a direct percentage of the city population (which can be as high as we would like), it is the advantage of giving a greater (subjetive) importance to some needs, that can be used as a suggestion to players on how to address their happiness problems (solve this first, then that).

It would be simpler to use a fixed percentage of the population, but I think it will prove to be more useful the percentage of the remaining happy people.

If we have each need have a 25% fixed percentage, then curing any 1 need cures 25% of unhappiness. With the 50/50/50/50 model, curing any one need cures only 12.5% of unhappiness, for a total of 18.75% happy population, since 6.25% is happy no matter what. So the maximum unhappiness is less, but curing one need fixes FAR less unhappiness. This helps us avoid the issue of curing only one or two needs while ignoring the rest and swimming in happiness.

From a UI perspective, what we need to show is that reducing any need fixes unhappiness by the same amount (while subtly suggesting the order of importance, as tu_79 noted). This part shouldn't be very tricky.
The tricky part is somehow explaining that when you fully cure Distress with 8 Distress / 4 Poverty / 2 Boredom / 1 Illiteracy, now you have 0 Distress / 7 Poverty / 4 Boredom / 2 Illiteracy
Seeing those other numbers jump up is for sure gonna make people FEEL the system is unfair unless we have a good UI.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

What about policies that affect happiness? Some will be made far worse, and some far better by the changes. Will some be changed, or will you roll as it is and implement changes later if anything appears to be underwhelming?

What about that Fealty policy with +1 Culture for 1 Happiness when Happiness can't be above 0?

 

[Gazebo]

What about policies that affect happiness? Some will be made far worse, and some far better by the changes. Will some be changed, or will you roll as it is and implement changes later if anything appears to be underwhelming?

What about that Fealty policy with +1 Culture for 1 Happiness when Happiness can't be above 0?

Right now I’m changing it to be a ‘25% of happiness produced by cities is converted into culture’

So it doesn’t care about ‘delta’ it just generates culture from happiness produced by the city, period. May be too strong.

 

[tu_79]

All of the above please


If we have each need have a 25% fixed percentage, then curing any 1 need cures 25% of unhappiness. With the 50/50/50/50 model, curing any one need cures only 12.5% of unhappiness, for a total of 18.75% happy population, since 6.25% is happy no matter what. So the maximum unhappiness is less, but curing one need fixes FAR less unhappiness. This helps us avoid the issue of curing only one or two needs while ignoring the rest and swimming in happiness.

From a UI perspective, what we need to show is that reducing any need fixes unhappiness by the same amount (while subtly suggesting the order of importance, as tu_79 noted). This part shouldn't be very tricky.
The tricky part is somehow explaining that when you fully cure Distress with 8 Distress / 4 Poverty / 2 Boredom / 1 Illiteracy, now you have 0 Distress / 7 Poverty / 4 Boredom / 2 Illiteracy
Seeing those other numbers jump up is for sure gonna make people FEEL the system is unfair unless we have a good UI.

You don't magically cure 1 unhappy people. There's no building that says 'reduce poverty by 1 person'. You get yields or modifier reductions that improve your city efficiency (yields/pop). If you have to choose between +4 hammers and +4 science, you must look at how it changes the ratio of fulfillment. For example, +4 hammers may help distress ratio by 10%, while +4 science may help illiteracy ratio by 18%. This way you will know which action improves better your happiness. The easy rule is that is typically easier to improve a need that has a lower rate of fulfillment. If you have to choose between improving a need at 10% fulfillment and a need at 90% fulfillment, the 10% one will be much easier to do, and the effect much greater. At the end of the day, having a city at 30%, 25%, 0% and 45% needs fulfillment is the same as 30%, 0%, 45% and 25%, if all of them adds up to the same amount. The order is not important, both will give the same amount of unhappy people. So, you get the most unhappiness when the mean fulfillment of all needs is 0, and your city is happy when the mean fulfillment is 100%. The more you increase the mean fulfillment, the less unhappy people. That's it. What you want to know is the rate of fulfillment, and it will be shown.

Now, what the hierarchy changes is the psychological relevance of each need. Usually it is better to improve the city production, even if it does not improve happiness right now, because the better the city the production, the faster buildings can be produced. So, let's suppose that we have 60% distress fulfillment and 60% boredom fulfillment, and we can choose between a building that increases fulfillment by 20% to distress or by 20% to boredom. In both cases, happiness will be improved by the same amount, the number of happy people will be the same. But the player will see that this city has 8 distress and 3 boredom, so he will think that it is better to improve first distress. Actually, it is the same, but by building production buildings first, this player will have a better time later. Experienced players will know that, sometimes, it is just better to build a science building over a production building because it will open up a technology that will enhance many things in the city very soon, but for those who don't play with this knowledge, the rule of production>gold>culture>science will do.

If you like better the fixed model, just look at the rates of fulfillment and ignore the specific number of unhappy people.

EDIT.
In fact, my rule of thumb for improving happiness when not knowing what I'm doing is:
production>culture>gold>science

 

[Stalker0]

There's no building that says 'reduce poverty by 1 person'. You get yields or modifier reductions that improve your city efficiency (yields/pop)...For example, +4 hammers may help distress ratio by 10%, while +4 science may help illiteracy ratio by 18%. This way you will know which action improves better your happiness.

This is the key in your UI. Your right that there is no "reduce poverty by 1 person" task or button....but ideally you want your user to think there is.

Crazy and I were just commenting about this in another thread on Trade Routes. When I choose between two trade routes, the UI clearly tells me the benefits and penalties. One takes 20 turns to complete, the other 18. There is math that determines that, but I can ignore it because the UI makes it a crystal clear decision for me. I make TR X, I get Y...and it lasts for Z turns. Its about as drop dead simple as you can get.

For Happiness, in our perfect UI scenario, the user will know what actions remove 1 unhappiness. If they build a market, it will reduce unhappiness by 1. Or...it won't. Or it will by 2, etc. In that scenario, most people don't care about the math, they have crystal clear instruction on how to fight unhappiness. Right now the issue is we have two layers of obfuscation that hinder that:

1) Will my building reduce a need? Lets say poverty. I have 3 poverty. Will building a market lower it by 1? Or 2? Or 0?
I don't care about the -10% modifier, or the market giving me 3 more gold...that comparing to my ratio of current X will reduce yadda yadda. I just want to know...is my market actually reducing poverty to a level that helps me? Yes or no...black or white, 1 or 0.

2) Will my need reduction actually reduce unhappiness? I have 10 unhappiness, and currently 3 comes from poverty. So lets say we have solved 1, the user knows with certainty that building that market will reduce their poverty by 1. Great! But...sometimes if I lower poverty, another yield comes in to fill the gap. So lower poverty by 1 didn't actually lower unhappiness by 1. Again, the user wants to know...yes or no, building that building will help my unhappiness.

In a perfect UI scenario we would solve both problems. A user can look at a market and it would tell them (will reduce this city's unhappiness by 1). The math to get to that answer may be complex, but that is what the computer is for. The UI makes the facts simple, so all the user has to do is make a decision.

Now maybe you can do all of that math with the current proportional system, I don't know. The fixed percentage system would make a flavor of that much easier, since needs don't shift with each other. But when we talk about the happiness system being "complicated", these are some of the reasons why. Its very loose, lots of numbers, and its hard to know when your action will have a strong impact or not. UI can fix a lot of that, but UI is also very difficult.

 

[tu_79]

1) Will my building reduce a need?

2) Will my need reduction actually reduce unhappiness?

This is interesting. Is it possible to show, for each building, how will happiness change on completion?
Then, people will stop complaining about how obscure the system is, and just accept what the tooltip says.

I see, and understand, that many people like to know binarilly whether they are going to improve happiness. But it is more simple. If you have happiness problems in one city then you have two options:
1. Look at ratio of fulfillment. The ones that have a lower ratio are easier to solve, so focusing in this kind of yields will give an immediate happiness reward.
2. Look at the number of unhappy people from needs. The need that strikes harder in the city is the one that the player should improve for a better long time reward.

 

[pineappledan]

Except we know that increasing gold by any amount or having a 10% reduction in poverty WILL reduce poverty, even if the actual doesn’t move. So a situation where you demand that the UI determine exactly how much will be eliminated by building X building would mislead you in a different way.

If the math works out that you will generate 6.2 poverty with the building, and 6.8 without, you would still want to build the building, even though your UI would say “poverty will be reduced by 0”. All the player needs to know is that building is helping poverty in SOME capacity; giving an exact happiness amount is likely to be as misleading as no information at all

 

[Gazebo]

This is the key in your UI. Your right that there is no "reduce poverty by 1 person" task or button....but ideally you want your user to think there is.

Crazy and I were just commenting about this in another thread on Trade Routes. When I choose between two trade routes, the UI clearly tells me the benefits and penalties. One takes 20 turns to complete, the other 18. There is math that determines that, but I can ignore it because the UI makes it a crystal clear decision for me. I make TR X, I get Y...and it lasts for Z turns. Its about as drop dead simple as you can get.

For Happiness, in our perfect UI scenario, the user will know what actions remove 1 unhappiness. If they build a market, it will reduce unhappiness by 1. Or...it won't. Or it will by 2, etc. In that scenario, most people don't care about the math, they have crystal clear instruction on how to fight unhappiness. Right now the issue is we have two layers of obfuscation that hinder that:

1) Will my building reduce a need? Lets say poverty. I have 3 poverty. Will building a market lower it by 1? Or 2? Or 0?
I don't care about the -10% modifier, or the market giving me 3 more gold...that comparing to my ratio of current X will reduce yadda yadda. I just want to know...is my market actually reducing poverty to a level that helps me? Yes or no...black or white, 1 or 0.

2) Will my need reduction actually reduce unhappiness? I have 10 unhappiness, and currently 3 comes from poverty. So lets say we have solved 1, the user knows with certainty that building that market will reduce their poverty by 1. Great! But...sometimes if I lower poverty, another yield comes in to fill the gap. So lower poverty by 1 didn't actually lower unhappiness by 1. Again, the user wants to know...yes or no, building that building will help my unhappiness.

In a perfect UI scenario we would solve both problems. A user can look at a market and it would tell them (will reduce this city's unhappiness by 1). The math to get to that answer may be complex, but that is what the computer is for. The UI makes the facts simple, so all the user has to do is make a decision.

Now maybe you can do all of that math with the current proportional system, I don't know. The fixed percentage system would make a flavor of that much easier, since needs don't shift with each other. But when we talk about the happiness system being "complicated", these are some of the reasons why. Its very loose, lots of numbers, and its hard to know when your action will have a strong impact or not. UI can fix a lot of that, but UI is also very difficult.

This is why I'm in the process of changing how needs modifiers from buildings works. Gone is % reduction of modifiers. In is flat happiness reduction for each type of unhappiness. So buildings will provide -1 boredom/distress etc. Easy, clear to understand, clear to scale. Since we're operating on a city-by-city basis it is much easier to balance all of this.

G

 

[pineappledan]

This is why I'm in the process of changing how needs modifiers from buildings works. Gone is % reduction of modifiers. In is flat happiness reduction for each type of unhappiness. So buildings will provide -1 boredom/distress etc. Easy, clear to understand, clear to scale. Since we're operating on a city-by-city basis it is much easier to balance all of this.

oh god this update is going to require so much modmod updating...

Global happiness reductions from wonders are going to be CHOICE if they eliminate 1 from ALL cities

 

[tu_79]

This is why I'm in the process of changing how needs modifiers from buildings works. Gone is % reduction of modifiers. In is flat happiness reduction for each type of unhappiness. So buildings will provide -1 boredom/distress etc. Easy, clear to understand, clear to scale. Since we're operating on a city-by-city basis it is much easier to balance all of this.

G

Aren't you afraid of how this would scale?

 

[Gazebo]

Aren't you afraid of how this would scale?

No? Why would I be? It’s all local.

G

 

[Stalker0]

This is why I'm in the process of changing how needs modifiers from buildings works. Gone is % reduction of modifiers. In is flat happiness reduction for each type of unhappiness. So buildings will provide -1 boredom/distress etc. Easy, clear to understand, clear to scale. Since we're operating on a city-by-city basis it is much easier to balance all of this.

G

Hallelujah!

All the player needs to know is that building is helping poverty in SOME capacity; giving an exact happiness amount is likely to be as misleading as no information at all

Wow would you feel if the Trade Route UI said: "Gives some gold, science, and culture"? That's effectively what the Happiness system does now.

Now your point is fair, and the language important. I think its fine to say something like "this reduces poverty. Currently Poverty reduction is 0 (1,2, etc)."

Now G's change may make a lot of this moot, we will see.

 

[pineappledan]

No? Why would I be? It’s all local.

Because global happiness reductions on wonders are going to be incredibly powerful if the minimum they can do is eliminate a discrete, full . That’s my impression at least, all global modifiers are set at -5 right now, which is half-power compared to the weakest local unhappiness reduction buildings

Wow would you feel if the Trade Route UI said: "Gives some gold, science, and culture"? That's effectively what the Happiness system does now

if you can give an exact number then you should, of course, but the happiness reduction rounds down from a ratio to a floating median, and simply doesn’t operate on discrete numbers. So it shouldn’t pretend to. The two simply aren’t comparable, and it’s fallacious to argue they could be. As you say however this is moot if happiness reduction is switched over to discrete unhappiness elimination.

 

[Gazebo]

Because global happiness reductions on wonders are going to be incredibly powerful if the minimum they can do is eliminate a discrete, full . That’s my impression at least, all global modifiers are set at -5 right now, which is half-power compared to the weakest local unhappiness reduction buildings
if you can give an exact number then you should, of course, but the happiness reduction rounds down from a ratio to a floating median, and simply doesn’t operate on discrete numbers. So it shouldn’t pretend to. The two simply aren’t comparable, and it’s fallacious to argue they could be. As you say however this is moot if happiness reduction is switched over to discrete unhappiness elimination.

I don’t think I’m going to change national ones. Just local ones.

G

 

[tu_79]

No? Why would I be? It’s all local.

G

Because 1 less poverty in a 20 pop city is less noticeable than 1 less poverty in a 30 pop city. Such effect will be more wide friendly than the current one.

 

[Gazebo]

Because 1 less poverty in a 20 pop city is less noticeable than 1 less poverty in a 30 pop city. Such effect will be more wide friendly than the current one.

That’s fine. Larger cities have more flexible means of dealing with happpness anyways.

Also for modders, I’m not removing the current modifier stuff, just adding a local flat table.
G

 

[Gothic_Empire]

That’s fine. Larger cities have more flexible means of dealing with happpness anyways.

Also for modders, I’m not removing the current modifier stuff, just adding a local flat table.
G

Unless they are India and are working every possible tile and specialist slot with left-over laborers. << >>

 

[vyyt]

Gone is % reduction of modifiers. In is flat happiness reduction for each type of unhappiness. So buildings will provide -1 boredom/distress etc.

Wow, love this so much. This is going to be the bestest VP update ever!!! So much looking forward to it!

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Wow, love this so much. This is going to be the bestest VP update ever!!! So much looking forward to it!

It looks good to me too. I can't wait to see what Bite hates about it.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Misconceptions:

Specialists are not calculated at the empire and the local level. Just local. 'Empire-wide' unhappiness is just war weariness and public opinion.

Empire-wide happiness sources like happiness from the world congress, events, city connections (unused by VP), etc. are calculated at the empire level and distributed because, otherwise, they'd all just go to the capital, and thus would largely be wasted. Distribution is the only solution that works for them.

Are puppet's unhappiness going to be local or empire?