Happiness Broken by Map Size

[Polobo]

The main issue is with domination where you will need more cities to achieve the victory condition on larger maps compared to smaller maps - or without more cities it becomes more (maybe prohibitively) difficult to keep your cities happy due to #-of-cities unhappy.

The main unknown is, for Normal/Standard, what percentage of available resources is it expected each civilization will have access to? As long as the balance play-settings plan for around 70% or so then while it will be harder to get the extra 30% on the larger maps it will be possible and thus not significantly hurt the playability of the larger maps.

I too hold this concern but figure that the different speeds and sizes that are being included in the core game (and available via the standard settings) are going to be balanced for just as they were in Civ4; the special options (OCC, Raging Barbs, etc...) are the ones that likely will be left unbalanced. The other victory conditions have their own challenges on larger maps so the possibility is there for having the victories still balanced relative to each other.

 

[Polobo]

Can you clarify or expand on this? What is this "happiness cap" and what does it have to do with the era?

[I'm really hoping that "eras" have no caps, restrictions or research limitations. That is my greatest fear since that was one of the key things that ruined Civ3.]

There are two associations between eras and happy:
1) New eras allow new policies that have the potential to increase the happy cap if chosen
2) More directly - each era has specific buildings that can be built in every city to increase the base amount of self-supported population you can have in a city.

The second case is what I presume the quoted poster is referring to but I'll let them speak for themself.

Regardless, your happy cap is whatever you can get it to be via one of the many available happy sources.

 

[Buccaneer]

Thanks Polobo.

each era has specific buildings that can be built in every city

To belabor the point, why did you say "each era has specific buildings" instead of "there are specific buildings that can be..."? Are you implying that you have to "be" in a specific era in order do something?

 

[Polobo]

To belabor the point, why did you say "each era has specific buildings" instead of "there are specific buildings that can be..."? Are you implying that you have to "be" in a specific era in order do something?

Because it is 12:01AM where I live and I just got home from a long day out

I believe you get my point and any attempt to clarify is likely to just confuse you more.

But no, eras are only relevant with respect to Social Policies.

 

[_hero_]

Just to clear up your numbers a bit, the bradygames strategy guide, which did not come from the final build of the game, has happiness at 2 unhappy per city, 1 unhappy per citizen without factoring in any bonuses/social policies/etc. so

Small map: 5 cities @ 15 pop equals, say, 80 unhappy. 50 + 5*6 = 80 happy so you're good

Large map: 9 cities @ 13 pop equals, say, 125 unhappy. 50 +9*6 = 104, which is WAY less than 125 so you are severely unhappy.

5 cities @ 15 pop = 85 unhappy
9 cities @ 13 pop = 18+117=125 unhappy

Now, your numbers for what the building provide are all screwed up. Here are the official numbers per the PDF manual that is available for DL, as well as each building not including the UBs that boost happiness:

Circus +3 happiness, city must have horses or ivory nearby
Colosseum +4 happiness
Theatre +4 happiness
Stadium +4 happiness

Now, we'll assume that no city can build circus, for calculation simplification as they won't all have the ability to for a large empire with many cities ever.
Thus each city can provide +12 happiness.

Now 5x10=60
9x12=84

Going back to your base of 50 that would be 110 and 134.
But I think that is the wrong way to look at it. That you can get +12 happiness from each city means that each city you add to your empire can ultimately support 10 pop (2 unhappy from city 10 from pop=12). Smaller empires simply can support a few large cities, but the aggregate population will be much smaller. Now, since science is determined by population, this ultimately means that a massive empire of 10 pop cities will be able to out research a tiny empire of 3 30 pop cities all else being equal. That base of 50 will still let the massive empire potentially have the same 3 massive cities, along with the rest of the moderate sized 10 pop cities. You may say "well this is kind of limiting, I have to keep some of my cities from growing!!!" and that is a valid concern, however I sense that the way population and expansion are handled now, it will be hard to get a lot of big cities anyways so that issue my be nullified.

This is explicitly false; no source has ever said that, so other posters should disregard everything in this post. This post implies resource trading doesn't work, etc... which is not true

His statement is not false, the manual provided from the developers for download says so (page 107)

Luxury Resources: Improve resources within your territory or trade for them with other civs.
Each kind of resource improves your population’s happiness (but you don’t get extra
happiness for having multiple copies of a single luxury).

Meaning luxuries are not cumulative (3 gems and 1 gem both provide +5 happiness. This is confirmed).

Buildings: Certain buildings increase your population’s happiness. These include the Coli-
seum, the Circus, the Theatre, and others. Each building constructed anywhere in your
civ increases your overall happiness (so two Coliseums produce twice as much happiness
as one, unlike Luxuries).

Buildings are cumulative. You should not tell people to disregard a post as false that has been proven true.

I suggest you download a copy and read the section on happiness (page 107). It may be downloaded here.
http://civilization5.com/#/community/feature_manual

 

[Earthling]

Circus +3 happiness, city must have horses or ivory nearby
Colosseum +4 happiness
Theatre +4 happiness
Stadium +4 happiness

Now, we'll assume that no city can build circus, for calculation simplification as they won't all have the ability to for a large empire with many cities ever.
Thus each city can provide +12 happiness.

You definitely cannot get stadiums till late in the game. The other buildings are still expensive and painful to be forced to build, when on a smaller map you may not have to do so. As such you're closer to being stuck with just 5, 6, 7 pop per city.

If things added up with buildings and resources (on a per city basis) where 15-20 pop was supportable it probably wouldn't be enough of a problem in the end. But it seems pretty likely it will be.

His statement is not false, the manual provided from the developers for download says so (page 107)

No, he said resources only apply to a local city, not to the entire nation. Again, his statement was false as far as we know. I personally think it would be cool that way, and maybe he did as well, but his statement has no basis in any evidence or fact. I actually quoted the manual myself anyway and I have read it, you should have read that more carefully though.

I too hold this concern but figure that the different speeds and sizes that are being included in the core game (and available via the standard settings) are going to be balanced for just as they were in Civ4;

This is a huge concern if that's the line of thinking people have. ANY relatively knowledgeable civ4 player could tell you they left speeds/sizes horribly broken in civ4. So if, say, civ4's Marathon is the baseline we are comparing to, that's not a good place to state.

...plus up to ~60 happiness from luxuries, and more from social policies.

...And the whole point is if that number stays constant, on smaller maps the constant 60 happiness is almost way overkill, on large maps it doesn't go far enough to cover many cities.

I know you've played civ4 a lot, so consider what would you think of the following:
-maintenance costs didn't change by mapsize
-tech costs didn't change by mapsize
-number of units you can draft/get free etc... didn't change by mapsize

 

[King Jason]

You definitely cannot get stadiums till late in the game. The other buildings are still expensive and painful to be forced to build, when on a smaller map you may not have to do so.

Meh.. I simply find this gripe trivial. In civ4 Courthouses were a to build to facilitate larger empires. You may not have needed them in every city depending on the strength of your economy (a couple of strong gold-producing cities helped offset costs)... but even if I can't create an accurate 1:1 comparison from a previous game, I find it completely acceptable to be "forced" to follow certain procedures in order to be able to expand our empires.

Either way, the buildings let us expand indefinitely, the excess happiness merely makes the process of expanding (until we break the cap) easier and quicker. Your concern appears to be the difficulty in this expansion process, and/or the limited nature of either city size or city count (depending on user preference)... If you want 50 pop 20 cities (exageration), I don't know what to tell you... but in either scenario, I definitely believe people who strive for larger empires should have to work for it.

So I guess I'm bowing out of this debate.

 

[_hero_]

No, he said resources only apply to a local city, not to the entire nation. Again, his statement was false as far as we know. I personally think it would be cool that way, and maybe he did as well, but his statement has no basis in any evidence or fact. I actually quoted the manual myself anyway and I have read it, you should have read that more carefully though.

I think you misunderstood him then.

Happiness buildings have a cumulative effect empire wide. Resources do not.

I took that statement to mean each happiness building ups are cumulative where as resources are not cumulative. He wasn't saying resources are not empire wide.

If things added up with buildings and resources (on a per city basis) where 15-20 pop was supportable it probably wouldn't be enough of a problem in the end. But it seems pretty likely it will be.

If we're talking about the late game, it's known that 10 pop per city is supportable without circuses. If you factor in SPs, you can get +1 per city from meritocracy, -1 unhappiness per city with garrison from military caste, +2.5 (empire wide happiness not per city) per gifted luxury of city states via cultural diplomacy, +1 from protectionism (per luxury and again empire wide not per city) +1 from each university from humanism OR -20% unhappiness from population in non-occupied cities via theocracy., -50% population unhappiness from freedom OR -50% unhappiness from cities through planned economy and -50% in occupied cities via police state.

If you take Meritocracy +1, Military caste (-1), Humanism +1, and freedom you get to 15 happiness before luxuries and with no circus and each citizen only causes .5 unhappiness. You lose 2 for the city so have 13/.5=26 population per city without factoring in luxuries. If you switch that to Theocracy you get 12/.3=40! population supportable per city with no luxury resources simply by using happiness buildings and SPs! I don't see why you'd go with planned economy and police state, unless you were trying to be an expansionist as India or wanted a ton of small cities and didn't want to build the happiness buildings.

The one thing to consider is the maintenance costs. 3 gold for Colosseum, 5 for theater, 6 for stadium, you will have to be generating at least 14 gold per turn per city to support this, and that's if you have no other buildings. But given that you can support at least 40 population per city with the proper SPs, getting to 14 gold per city doesn't seem hard.

Conclusion, you're concerns are unfounded. If you want a massive empire with strong cities, just gear your social policies to make use of it! If you don't want those social policies designed to support it, then don't expect to be able to build an empire that can!

 

[Earthling]

but even if I can't create an accurate 1:1 comparison from a previous game, I find it completely acceptable to be "forced" to follow certain procedures in order to be able to expand our empires.

The difference is that in civ4 maintenance scaled based on map size. You weren't forced to build courthouses on small maps but free to settle 100 tiles away on huge maps. Courthouses had an effect/became necessary on either.

Your concern appears to be the difficulty in this expansion process, and/or the limited nature of either city size or city count (depending on user preference)...

I don't mind if you don't see much more in this debate, though you still seem to have missed the point entirely. My concern is not about it being impossible to build large cities or too hard to play the game or something. It's not just like a new player asking "How can I get any happiness, I can't build cities, help!"

The concern is that things don't scale properly with different game settings. It appears a lot of folks here never knew/never understood problems with things like Marathon speed in civ4, but again civ4 was certainly not balanced regarding different speeds and sizes, independent of difficulty or other settings. That's what we'd like to see fixed in civ5.

I think you misunderstood him then.

Well, maybe so, but he worded the statement very poorly then, as different resources are cumulative, and if that was the point he was making it was a terrible argument (ie. he thought he was answering something by me and posted a non sequitur, then)

 

[_hero_]

Well, maybe so, but he worded the statement very poorly then, as different resources are cumulative, and if that was the point he was making it was a terrible argument (ie. he thought he was answering something by me and posted a non sequitur, then)

Agree it was poorly worded.

P.S. you may not have seen, my above post was edited with calculations for SPs and happiness factored in. Let me know if it eases your concerns any.

 

[pi-r8]

On huge maps you might be forced to adopt Planned Economy: Unhappiness from number of Cities reduced by 50%. Sort of like how if you go for a domination victory in a huge map in Civ 4, you'll probably have to adopt state property at some point.

 

[_hero_]

On huge maps you might be forced to adopt Planned Economy: Unhappiness from number of Cities reduced by 50%. Sort of like how if you go for a domination victory in a huge map in Civ 4, you'll probably have to adopt state property at some point.

I disagree with this. Planned economy only knocks off 1 unhappiness per city. Freedom knocks off 1 unhappiness per every 2 pop. If you had 100 1 pop cities you'd have 150 unhappiness with Planned economy, and 250 with freedom. If you have 100 2 pop cities, you'd have 250 with planned, 300 with freedom. At 3 pop, it's 350 and 350. Once you get to 4 pop per city, freedom becomes the better deal even for a massive empire.

 

[pi-r8]

I disagree with this. Planned economy only knocks off 1 unhappiness per city. Freedom knocks off 1 unhappiness per every 2 pop. If you had 100 1 pop cities you'd have 150 unhappiness with Planned economy, and 250 with freedom. If you have 100 2 pop cities, you'd have 250 with planned, 300 with freedom. At 3 pop, it's 350 and 350. Once you get to 4 pop per city, freedom becomes the better deal even for a massive empire.

freedom only affects specialists, not regular citizens. Anyway- why not do both? They're not mutually exclusive.

edit: you can also build the forbidden palace for another 50% reduction so... there you go.

 

[oChuckles]

Number of empires is limited by map size
Size of empires is limited by happiness

It would have been nice for them to include some kind of option for rebalancing the game for larger or smaller empires, but there's always modding...

 

[_hero_]

freedom only affects specialists, not regular citizens. Anyway- why not do both? They're not mutually exclusive.

Freedom and planned economy are mutually exclusive. The two SP branches are, anyway.

 

[Earthling]

IConclusion, you're concerns are unfounded. If you want a massive empire with strong cities, just gear your social policies to make use of it! If you don't want those social policies designed to support it, then don't expect to be able to build an empire that can!

Let me know if it eases your concerns any.

No, because you are not answering a single argument relevant to the thread. The title of the thread was not "Help, how do we build large cities?" I'm not saying it's impossible to build cities or build large cities, I've pointed that out several times so there's no need to "argue against that"

What nobody seems willing to understand or address is actual balance concerns related to mapsize. By the reasoning of everyone so far (saying your empire should be equal across all factors no matter the mapsize), technologies should cost the same on every mapsize right? Maintenance for military units and everything else shouldn't change right? Are you going to be surprised and angry if this isn't the case?

Now, we still have incomplete evidence on, say, what bonuses the AI may get to happiness. We also don't know how effective the AI is at expanding and so on. But if the system is going to work very differently on different game settings then we're guaranteed to see problems with the AI, respective to each other and to the player.

I also specified several times that considering late game maximums is a pretty bad place to start with because it's evident the differences would be less - you won't have most civics or late buildings throughout most of the game, so if you're stuck with 7 pop supported per city or so that will be the case through crucial parts of the game. But even with the lategame that considered that still doesn't change any problems with constant factors that aren't adjusted for mapsize.

On huge maps you might be forced to adopt Planned Economy: Unhappiness from number of Cities reduced by 50%. Sort of like how if you go for a domination victory in a huge map in Civ 4, you'll probably have to adopt state property at some point.

Good players of civ4 were never forced to do any such thing; none of the civics are anywhere close to as problematic as this will be. It's closer to the Marathon unit exploits is where I'd put it.

 

[SirTurtle]

Freedom and planned economy are mutually exclusive. The two SP branches are, anyway.

No they are not incompatible.

Planned Economy is part of the Order branch. Order is not incompatible with any branch. Freedom is incompatible with Autocracy. (according to the PDF manual)

 

[pi-r8]

Freedom and planned economy are mutually exclusive. The two SP branches are, anyway.

planned economy comes from Order which is not exclusive with anything.

 

[Schalke 04]

@Earthling:

I share your concerns. I think the problem is, that this thread is in the strategy forum. Therefore some user may think it is about how to maintain a large empire, but that is clearly not your point.

Happiness is by some meanings the CIV5 equivalent of CIV3's corruption and CIV4's city maintenance. I don't know CIV4 very much, but in CIV3 the formula for corruption changed with map size. Therefore I hope that CIV5-happiness will change with map size as well. The manual doesn't give any hint into that direction. However, the manual surely isn't perfect and doesn't provide a lot of information on other important topics. So I think there will be a different happiness setting due to map size. But I admit this is just my hope/guess.

 

[King Jason]

/Hops back on

The concern is that things don't scale properly with different game settings. It appears a lot of folks here never knew/never understood problems with things like Marathon speed in civ4, but again civ4 was certainly not balanced regarding different speeds and sizes, independent of difficulty or other settings. That's what we'd like to see fixed in civ5.

I get that and it's a concern I don't really share. Like you said, civ4 wasn't balanced across different specs and the game still turned out alright. I think the problem stems from people who are aware of the imbalances and are able to exploit them over the A.I.

Marathon is the perfect example of this because the A.I. in civ4 was terrible at war, and a player in most cases wasn't. Therefore, longer time for wars, more units in an era, and "faster movement" due to the speed change favored the player greatly because the A.I. never changed it's behavior.

So technically that means there's another way the game could be "balanced" for different settings ~ Those settings affect how the A.I. Plays.

Which, despite A.I. is always terrible... I'd say there's a possibility in civ5 it could be more adaptable given the fact that the A.I.'s in this game perform most of their actions under the pretense of winning the game. So in larger maps they migh expand appropriately... They might war appropriately, etc etc.

Ultimately, I don't share your concern because as unbalanced as civ4 was across different spectrums of settings... I never really found it to be a big deal.