Happiness is a Warm Guide

[goodolarchie]

I'm noticing a pattern in a lot of threads.. many folks are struggling with keeping your empire slightly ahead in happiness of the growth curve. How expansive you play will have a bearing on which methods of attaining happiness you will require, so keep that in mind!

The Basics:
Why keep my civilization Happy?
Well, you sadistic bastard, there are a few benefits! First of all, your cities will grow and produce while they're happy. If you're reading this guide you probably know that unhappiness will stymie your growth, or stop it altogether.
Surplus happiness will also contribute to your golden age points, so you will naturally move faster towards a GA with high amounts of surplus .
Some Social Policies will grant bonus Culture or Science based on your Happiness.

Where does Happiness come from?
Lets not get all philosophical here.. happiness comes from a few different places:
-Luxuries uniquely increase happiness at the base rate of 5 . There are 15 total, and can provide all the way up to 9 Happiness each under the right circumstances.
-Buildings and Wonders can also provide . But they cost money to operate, and have to be built, so we want to focus on the first bullet..
-Certain SP's will grant more or less when activated.
-Finding Natural Wonders will grant 1 each.
-Difficulties will adjust the base as always.

Unhappiness comes from number of cities and your total population. As you grow, so to will your unhappiness. Growth is important, so we want to make sure we can stay ahead of the curve by securing to spare.

Attaining Luxuries:
This is the most important aspect of Happiness. With 15 luxuries available, the game is basically giving you 75 free to acquire in your own sweet time, in your own sweet way. Lets have a look at a few sweet ways.

Rule 1: You don't need to settle next to any luxuries! (though a few wouldn't hurt and you shouldn't avoid them )

How? Hit F4. Welcome to your newly gutted Diplomacy screen. If you haven't figured it out by now...

Rule 2: City States are your best friend. Try to prioritize allying with non-Hostile Maritime City-States that will give you new Luxury Resources.

Earning Allied status (60+) with them will result in you getting whatever resources they have. In other words, giving 500g or appeasing otherwise whichever C-S displays a resource you don't already have will earn you +5 Happiness for X number of turns. Patronage is a fantastic Social Policy line that can greatly ease this, and make that number of turns go up. It's important to budget enough gold and manage these relationships to not drop out of allied status!

Alternatively, you can trade things like Gold or Horses for another AI's resources, but they won't give you the nice bonuses that an allied CS will.

Conquering AI cities near resources and turning them into Puppet-states is another option (annexing will most likely net you more than the resource gives)

Attaining Happiness in other ways:

Rule 3: Once you've procured all of the luxuries you can get, it's time to look at SP's and City Improvements.

Colosseums and Theaters are examples, but realize that you're now spending gold per turn to achieve this happiness. These may be necessary if you're expanding 5+ large cities.
Notre Dame is 500 hammers, but gives +5 with no upkeep. Eiffel gives +8.
Some civs get a UB with free happiness, which is usually good to build anyway.

Reducing Unhappiness

Rule 4: Following the basic rules of Hedonism, we want to minimize Unhappiness.

Puppet states, if you warmonger will greatly reduce

Forbidden Palace will cut your from # of cities in half.

There are MANY Social Policies that increase the and decrease the
Legalism (tradition)
Meritocracy (liberty)
Military Caste (Honor)
Piety and Theocracy (piety)
Cultured Diplomacy (Patronage)
Protectionism (Commerce)
Humanism (Rationalism)
Freedom
Police State (Autocracy)
Planned Economy (Order)
...I won't get into each one, they read pretty straightforward in the game.

There are other tricks, I'll add them later. This was mostly to serve as a preliminary guide. Now go out there and bribe some city states!

 

[ZapRowsdower]

Good guide! Thanks

Hit F4. Welcome to your newly gutted Diplomacy screen.

Especially this....

As some other threads have touched on, leaving conquered cities as puppets may be the best result for happiness, but if you never annex them, they will keep building and cost you lots of gold. You might add that as an aside, although I know that your intent is to focus just on happiness.

Also, it would be useful to list some civs/leaders that have particular bonuses towards happiness, like Egyptian Burial tombs or Persian Satrap Courts. Even some of the civs with culture bonuses would synergize well with getting the social policy benefits that you mention.

Nice job!

 

[andrewlt]

If you're patient and you conquer a good production city, wouldn't annexing be better than leaving puppets? An annexed city with a courthouse has lower happiness penalty, though there's gold maintenance.

 

[Lord Chambers]

I think I recall an advisor telling me that if I settled a city next to a natural wonder, I would get even more happiness beyond the +1 for discovering it. However, I've been unable to confirm this with the inadequate civilopedia or manual. Can anyone report on this?

 

[Syiss_]

Good post OP.

If you're patient and you conquer a good production city, wouldn't annexing be better than leaving puppets? An annexed city with a courthouse has lower happiness penalty, though there's gold maintenance.

I find courthouses are a poor solution to unhappiness. They are pretty far down the tech line considering many civ's have abilities or unique units that come into play very early in the game. They are also take far too long to build and cannot be purchased. Any city that doesn't have like 12-15 production (which is shockingly rare in this game) is going to waste far too much time on building a courthouse, all of that time adding the extra happiness from having annexed the city. I have a feeling courthouses will be tweaked in the future.

 

[AlienFromBeyond]

I think I recall an advisor telling me that if I settled a city next to a natural wonder, I would get even more happiness beyond the +1 for discovering it. However, I've been unable to confirm this with the inadequate civilopedia or manual. Can anyone report on this?

Pretty sure that they're talking about the fact that Natural Wonders have pretty good tile benefits for the city to work.

 

[Ahriman]

Good post OP.
I find courthouses are a poor solution to unhappiness.

Necessary though, in many cases. If you puppet a lot of cities, then they will build junk buildings you don't want (barracks, armory, walls) and soak you with maintenance costs.

They're not *that* far in (you can puppet until you get them).

 

[goodolarchie]

If you're patient and you conquer a good production city, wouldn't annexing be better than leaving puppets? An annexed city with a courthouse has lower happiness penalty, though there's gold maintenance.

Be careful using a broad term like "better," it's very subjective. Would you make/save more ? Potentially. Would you be ultimately adding ? Perhaps not.

You most certainly will add until you get a courthouse, Colo, theater, etc. online in that city.

Plus, I'm not really sure if "good" production exists in this game while the costs are so high. An all-plains city can output quite a few in a Golden Age. It's still going to likely take 50-80 turns to build all of those improvements.

The point is that the "better" choice 9 times out of 10 is to just Puppet the states (edit: if you're not razing them). All arrows point in the direction that a high city-count is not needed to win in this game, even on high difficulty. If you're worried about that city being largely unprofitable as your puppet, build trading posts in it's area.

The 10th case would be that you only have a few cities, have the capacity (workers, happiness, spare gold, etc.) to take on another, and its land would be better-served under your governance.

 

[Syiss_]

Necessary though, in many cases. If you puppet a lot of cities, then they will build junk buildings you don't want (barracks, armory, walls) and soak you with maintenance costs.

They're not *that* far in (you can puppet until you get them).

I think at the moment it really is very rarely necessary. Like I said above, unless you have enough production in the city to actually build the courthouse in a reasonable amount of time then you are stuck 30-50 turns just trying to counter the extra unhappiness of annexing the city, then another 50-80 turns to build whatever buildings you actually WANTED in that city. This means you spend a ton of turns just in the process of coming out even, and even more turns before you start realizing any kind of benefit.

Sure if you leave them puppets they will keep on making buildings, but again if the city has poor production, its taking 30+ turns to even build anything in the first place, and some of those buildings are bound to be useful as well.

As it stands, I find there is very little reason to annex anything but a high production city, and those are few and far between.

 

[CHEESE!]

+1 for any Beatles reference, ever.

Yeah, I'm back. I preordered Civ5, but I'll be at Harrow until Christmas, civ-less. Am furious.

 

[Common Sensei]

+1 for any Beatles reference, ever.

Agreed.

Cultural Diplomacy is amazing if you befriend enough city-states, and it gives a great strategic benefit to boot.