Happiness Issues As a Basic Prince Player

[randomnub]

Gold maintenance does contribute to unhappiness from poverty.

Typo?

 

[CrazyG]

Typo?

Yes, edited. Sorry

 

[CrazyG]

@CrazyG Okay that was definitely one of the puzzle pieces I was missing in terms of specialists, I think that is a good jump off point is to teach myself how to manually assign specialists. I did not know about the gold maintenance affecting poverty, that will allow me to think more tactically about what buildings really need to be in a certain city and not click the icons the governor(?) recommends.

I think manually doing specialists is important because the city governor is especially bad at specialists. He LOVES merchants for some reason.

 

[Bryan317]

I think manually doing specialists is important because the city governor is especially bad at specialists. He LOVES merchants for some reason.

Agreed. Even though the governors have gotten much better. They at least focus on writers and artists as much as possible. (Which they should) I'll sometimes alternate between times I'm using them manually or certain time periods where the governor's do exactly what I like. I also feel that merchants are one of the weaker great people. It's good to use the specialists early when you really need the income. But then I tend to slow down and maybe even stop using them completely.

 

[vetox20]

@CrazyG Okay so then is the local poverty score is based on the gold yields (or lack thereof) from tiles in the city itself? So if I have no improved resources that provide gold, a city will complain they are broke? Sorry, I have no idea why I can't grasp this. I even went back and re-read the stickied beginners guide.

 

[Bryan317]

@CrazyG Okay so then is the local poverty score is based on the gold yields (or lack thereof) from tiles in the city itself? So if I have no improved resources that provide gold, a city will complain they are broke? Sorry, I have no idea why I can't grasp this. I even went back and re-read the stickied beginners guide.

I don't mean to interrupt because I look forward to his answer as well. He's one of the pros here...

Don't feel bad because it's not like I understand every little microdynamic of this mod either. I just have "Macro" understanding of creating a balance of a Large army, Building all the buildings and plenty of public works and you usually can succeed lol

 

[CrazyG]

@CrazyG Okay so then is the local poverty score is based on the gold yields (or lack thereof) from tiles in the city itself? So if I have no improved resources that provide gold, a city will complain they are broke? Sorry, I have no idea why I can't grasp this. I even went back and re-read the stickied beginners guide.

It's local poverty (they are all local), based on that city's and that city's .
Here is my general understanding, step by step. I don't know the exact math (and I don't think you need to). Consider skipping the first half of this post and just reading the end. Also know that it's okay to lose a game due to unhappiness and start over, I've done it many times.

1. Take your yields (any of , they all follow the same concept) and divide them by your population. That's the base need. It's calculated using the world median. The idea is your people are happy if they are above average, relative to the world.

2.Then, it gets increased by a few things. How many techs you discover, and how many cities you have, make small % changes. Overall I wouldn't worry about this step too much (don't try avoiding techs for happy, it won't work long term).

3. Then, it gets decreased by a few things. Progress gives -10% to all of them, I think walls lower them too. Overall I find these effects fairly weak.

At this point we have a basic amount. We're done multiplying, but we have some addition/subtraction to do.


4. Now, there are a few buildings that give a flat -1 to a certain category. Usually it's thematic, arena gives -1 boredom because it provides , public school fights illiteracy because its a tech building. Overall these effects are very strong and important.

5. Now, this value will be capped at the cities population. So a 1 city can't produce more than 1, a 5 can't produce more than 5.

This covers all the unhappy before specialists.

6. Now, we apply urbanization. This means that urbanization can go above the city's population, if a 5 city has 5, but you use the market specialists, you might go to 6. Of course you get some free urbanization too.

7. A specialist can reduce , for example a scientists might lower illiteracy. You might trade -1 urbanization or 1 illiteracy. If you have free urban (see below), you might actually get less .

Here, unhappiness is done being calculated. All that matters is positive yields (a hypothetical building that gives +100 but also has -200 maintenance would lower poverty). In theory you could have -10,000 each turn but no poverty. Similarly, +10% growth won't matter, and penalties to growth won't matter either (important because will lower growth).




I don't think you need to know the details, but the broad concepts. The broad concept is that you want high yields relative to your population size. Here are my practical gameplay tips:

• From the list above, reductions of part 3 are generally unimportant compared to the reductions of part 4.
  
• Bonus yields don't count (like authority's for killing). If your strategy has a lot of bonus yields, expect to have lower populations.
  
• Don't use to fix distress. It's a short term solution to a long term problem.
• If you don't micro-manage your tiles, give cities a focus other than default or . The default manager overvalues , it's normal to go without growth for periods of time. A good example is with progress, I always take the policy last, and often between 5 and 6th policies I'm unhappy and growing slowly or not at all. That's okay, just push out buildings for a few turns.
  
• Long term, unhappiness is largely about having buildings, so and will fight it. If constantly struggling, try a civ or religion with bonuses to those and focus on building everything you can. For example, Cathedrals will not only fight poverty by generating gold, they also mean you'll build a bank or opera house earlier, and that helps too.
• The buildings from religion make a huge difference in happiness. I've had cities lose 5 from building a Pagoda.
  
• Trade routes do count as local yields, so trade route locations matter. Consider putting a trade route in a city fighting poverty, even if it earns a little bit less .
• Landmarks are good for late-game .

Let me know if that helps.

 

[vetox20]

@CrazyG Okay that makes a whole lot of sense now, thank you for the breakdown! I'll copy and paste that into my sticky notes. I did not know about the TR scenario, and that would be great to now try. I now will use the other tips and play around with specialists. Thanks to everyone for being patient and helping. You all rock.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Then, it gets decreased by a few things. Progress gives -10% to all of them, I think walls lower them too. Overall I find these effects fairly weak.

Just curious about Progress. Do you find happiness with Progress a little weak on happiness and require a lot of investments like Public Works and such? I'm doing a playthrough and the unhappiness feels rough like Poverty early on.

 

[CrazyG]

Just curious about Progress. Do you find happiness with Progress a little weak on happiness and require a lot of investments like Public Works and such? I'm doing a playthrough and the unhappiness feels rough like Poverty early on.

The -10% aspect is minor but the rest of the policy is good, you get 1 per city and 1 per 10. My big point was just that in general I find those % modifiers (Walls, progress, fealty has one, there are many others) less important than the flat -1 tend to be.

I think happiness is one of progress's few advantages.

 

[amateurgamer88]

The -10% aspect is minor but the rest of the policy is good, you get 1 per city and 1 per 10. My big point was just that in general I find those % modifiers (Walls, progress, fealty has one, there are many others) less important than the flat -1 tend to be.

I think happiness is one of progress's few advantages.

The UI says 1 per 15. Is that wrong?

 

[wabab]

Do the AI's get a bonus to happiness as part of difficulty? I almost rarely see AI's become unhappy, even if they have high population cities and are starved for luxuries.

 

[CrazyG]

The UI says 1 per 15. Is that wrong?

Nope I just missed the change

 

[tothePAIN]

The UI says 1 per 15. Is that wrong?

it’s one happiness per city and one per 15 population also.

pro tip - when it says 1 per 15, it really means that. You only get the happiness when you have 15 pop. That’s why we made the change, because there was a happiness cliff before when it was 1 per 10.

 

[azum4roll]

I actually find the percentage needs reduction effects strong. A Public Works gives a -15% to all needs (= 3 walls), and that can easily reduce a city's unhappiness from max to ~3.

 

[Stalker0]

I actually find the percentage needs reduction effects strong. A Public Works gives a -15% to all needs (= 3 walls), and that can easily reduce a city's unhappiness from max to ~3.

I often feel though that the needs reductor almost goes away when you grow again though, and take on another several unhappy. But that +1 happy is for life, it always ensures you can only be so unhappy (barring urbanization).

 

[vetox20]

I can report some great progress using the tips you all gave me. I starting playing a more conservative approach to how many / how quickly cities I was settling and focused internal TRs over external. Only downside is AI notices that and forward settles me and starts blocking me off, but I can always burn them down later

I started being friendlier and engaging with other friendly civs for luxuries. My unhappiness due to poverty has plummeted and I am now paying attention to my specialists and turning them on and off as I see fit (whether or not I'm doing it right, at least my happiness is better).

Thanks again

 

[Bryan317]

I can report some great progress using the tips you all gave me. I starting playing a more conservative approach to how many / how quickly cities I was settling and focused internal TRs over external. Only downside is AI notices that and forward settles me and starts blocking me off, but I can always burn them down later

I started being friendlier and engaging with other friendly civs for luxuries. My unhappiness due to poverty has plummeted and I am now paying attention to my specialists and turning them on and off as I see fit (whether or not I'm doing it right, at least my happiness is better).

Thanks again

Great! Yes, That's one thing I found amazing is how helpful everyone on this site is. Basically anyone here is an enthusiast for this game and loves to just babble about it lol

There's also no shame in targeting the difficulty level that works for you. We all seem so smart, but my Steam playtime is probably 6,000+ lol And that's just what's showing up properly because sometimes I would play offline on my laptop haha. So yeah, it's not like I started on Deity. I slowly worked myself up to it, getting better each time. And there's so many options and playstyles it's not just about getting better, it's finding what works for you... Or what you find enjoyable