Happiness issues with ICS strategy

[MadDjinn]

chgrogers:

It's Monarchy. India only gets 1 unhappy for every 2 citizens as its UA. If you eliminate that in the capital with Monarchy, your happiness limit in the capital is infinite.

not even close, but thanks for playing.

India's UA drops the population unhappiness by 50%. Monarchy drops it a further 50%. That's not additive, that's multiplicative, so it comes out to 25% unhappiness in the capital. There is no way to drop it to 0%.

You can do a very large population in an Indian cap, but it's far from infinite.

 

[Roxlimn]

Is it?

Monarchy's wording isn't that it drops the unhappiness by 50%. It's specifically minus one unhappy face per 2 pop in the capital. This works independently of India's UA because the bonus isn't universal - it's just for the capital city. India's UA reduces pop penalty by half, so only one unhappy per citizen. I'll try it out later today, but I think it works out.

Do you have code that says otherwise? Or a game thing?

 

[Kevin J]

Just try it and you'll see Rox. Just make one game, settle a city with India. Get the monarchy policy. You'll still have unhappiness from population - at the rate of 1 per 4 with monarchy instead of 1 per 2 population without.

 

[MadDjinn]

Is it?

Monarchy's wording isn't that it drops the unhappiness by 50%. It's specifically minus one unhappy face per 2 pop in the capital. This works independently of India's UA because the bonus isn't universal - it's just for the capital city. India's UA reduces pop penalty by half, so only one unhappy per citizen. I'll try it out later today, but I think it works out.

Do you have code that says otherwise? Or a game thing?

It's been know for a very long time. Pretty much since Monarchy existed in that form. (March it seems)

I even did a video with it... (3:56 or so I select monarchy)

 

[Roxlimn]

Thanks for the vid. It seems that that's how it is, but I'm still gonna try it. ;P Haven't had an India with Monarchy and Hanging Gardens yet. It sounds like a fun way to open.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

not even close, but thanks for playing.

India's UA drops the population unhappiness by 50%. Monarchy drops it a further 50%. That's not additive, that's multiplicative, so it comes out to 25% unhappiness in the capital. There is no way to drop it to 0%.

You can do a very large population in an Indian cap, but it's far from infinite.

This is correct, but the nice part about this is that a Colosseum will handle the first 8 population with nothing else needed to combat local happiness.

But overcoming the +6 from the city is going to be very hard

 

[MadDjinn]

If it's just your capital (OCC), then the default 9 happiness you get is more than enough. (let's you hit 6 pop before monarchy; just like everyone else)

else, other cities tend to rely on the -50% removing enough unhappiness to cover the 6 from the city. (12 pop)

 

[WeaselSlapper]

If it's just your capital (OCC), then the default 9 happiness you get is more than enough. (let's you hit 6 pop before monarchy; just like everyone else)

else, other cities tend to rely on the -50% removing enough unhappiness to cover the 6 from the city. (12 pop)

It's not that simple. Since buildings in the city can only counter from population, not the 6 from city, you will have a lot more that your luxuries/wonders/global policies will have to deal with.

Check out the post I linked to earlier for all the details.

 

[MadDjinn]

It's not that simple. Since buildings in the city can only counter from population, not the 6 from city, you will have a lot more that your luxuries/wonders/global policies will have to deal with.

Check out the post I linked to earlier for all the details.

only the coliseum line (and circus) covers population only. all of the SP related 'buildings' are global. (unless there's a stealth change in the recent patch)

otherwise, for India, it is that simple. 12 pop - 6 unhappy = 6 unhappy 'saved'. So that's effectively the per city issue gone and you need to cover the rest.

 

[headcase]

That Tradition Policy you speak of is Landed Elite and its

+1 for every 10 Population.

Or are you talking about the Monarchy that is

-1 for every 2 Population?

Unless I'm having a brain fart, Landed Elite JUST changed (like yesterday) so that now it gives more apples in the capital (the finisher of more apples everywhere is still there as well). That's not a noted change, so maybe I'm wrong, but I could've sworn I saw that last night.

Landed Elite is the left side of the 2nd row of Tradition, right?

 

[Roxlimn]

Just reporting to confirm MadDjinn's observation. As an aside, how do you play the vertical game, MadDjiinn? I played trying vertical with India and the lack of luxuries was just killing me. I'm used to have 5 luxuries...

 

[WeaselSlapper]

only the coliseum line (and circus) covers population only. all of the SP related 'buildings' are global. (unless there's a stealth change in the recent patch)

otherwise, for India, it is that simple. 12 pop - 6 unhappy = 6 unhappy 'saved'. So that's effectively the per city issue gone and you need to cover the rest.

The patch that added it said that happiness from buildings can only cover the population for that city. Now the policies that cover happiness overall like say adding 1 for each city connected to trade route or for a city garrison would cover the city, but the policies that add happy to buildings cannot cover the unhappy generated by the city, only the population.

 

[MadDjinn]

Just reporting to confirm MadDjinn's observation. As an aside, how do you play the vertical game, MadDjiinn? I played trying vertical with India and the lack of luxuries was just killing me. I'm used to have 5 luxuries...

what's 'tall'?

I never figured out how to stick to a few cities. And well, they changed the happiness system to effectively prevent properly tall cities again, so it doesn't really matter.

The patch that added it said that happiness from buildings can only cover the population for that city. Now the policies that cover happiness overall like say adding 1 for each city connected to trade route or for a city garrison would cover the city, but the policies that add happy to buildings cannot cover the unhappy generated by the city, only the population.

that's not been my understanding of it. I played out an 'ICS'-ish game and just used meritocracy/Organized Religion to spam cities out.

Otherwise, the reason India 'saves' 6 unhappiness (to cover the city) is that the mechanic looks at total population vs. buildings that generate happiness for the cut off. India cuts the pop side in half, but the mechanic doesn't take that into consideration.

So a 12 pop Indian city, producing 12 happiness from buildings/etc, *generates* 6 happiness, which is 'global' and therefore applies to the 6 unhappy from a city. It's been this way from the start, which is why I refuse to use India. It's broken.

 

[Roxlimn]

I never figured out how to stick to a few cities. And well, they changed the happiness system to effectively prevent properly tall cities again, so it doesn't really matter.

Kind of OT, but I really need to know:

1. How do you REX with India's +6 unhappy per new city? It's a heavy cost at the start.

2. How does the happiness system prevent properly tall cities? Tall to me is about size 30-ish. Not tall enough?

 

[MadDjinn]

Kind of OT, but I really need to know:

1. How do you REX with India's +6 unhappy per new city? It's a heavy cost at the start.

2. How does the happiness system prevent properly tall cities? Tall to me is about size 30-ish. Not tall enough?

there's only so many +happy available, so you're capped in a particular city by what you can build there and what SPs you've taken.

30 is decently tall, though outside of the Indians, it's hard to get there with a non-capital city.

an Indian REx doesn't start until you line up enough happiness to overcome the 6/city. You also need to be able to grow them to 12 pop each, which takes time. So you will be stuck with needing 3 lux/2 cities for some time. Settling choices early is fairly important. Once you get rolling though, you will just use lux's/other global happiness not listed below to 'manage' the happiness/city until the city hits 12 pop.

generally, you need to wait until Renaissance (at least) before really pushing it.

keeping in mind that your capital will only produce 1/4 unhappiness, that's only 3 for a 12 pop cap. you'd only need Aristocracy and a coliseum to handle that. (if you use the 9 default happy to cover the city. Else you'd need a bit more happiness)

Assuming a Tradition/Honour game since you 'might' build the UU Fort anyways.

coliseum + theatre = 5
aristocracy (new) = 1
garrison + wall/fort = 3

That's 9 you can easily do, so you just need 3 more from:

circus (2)
Stoneworks (1)
Organized Religion (2 for monument/temple; 3 if a monastary)
Professional army also adds +2 more for the Arsenal/Military base, but that's less useful.
Order (Industrial, but still +1)
Meritocracy (1 + 5% discount on total pop)
- it's a little odd trying for the -5% unhappiness with India. I'd have to test if it's additive or multiplicative.

toss in the FP and you get another 10% off.

Eventually you can grab mass media for the Stadiums, but that's more to add population to each of the cities.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

that's not been my understanding of it. I played out an 'ICS'-ish game and just used meritocracy/Organized Religion to spam cities out.

Otherwise, the reason India 'saves' 6 unhappiness (to cover the city) is that the mechanic looks at total population vs. buildings that generate happiness for the cut off. India cuts the pop side in half, but the mechanic doesn't take that into consideration.

So a 12 pop Indian city, producing 12 happiness from buildings/etc, *generates* 6 happiness, which is 'global' and therefore applies to the 6 unhappy from a city. It's been this way from the start, which is why I refuse to use India. It's broken.

Meritocracy is pretty powerful because it eliminates one of the three unhappiness generated by the city. If you didn't have enough happy buildings to cover the population in each city it's impossible to tell if the culture buildings changed anything. Now I have to do some testing to figure this out because it's going to bother me.

I can't specifically talk about how it works in the code but India's UA is produces half the unhappiness from number of citizens. And the description for happiness says buildings can only counter happiness generated from the population in that city. If the code works the way the descriptions are your theory should not be correct, but who knows how the code actually works with India's UA and how they determine how much unhappiness is caused by the number of citizens. I'd have to do some testing which I really don't feel like doing.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I thought the Building-SP happy (Organized Religion, Professional Army, Secularism) worked just like regular Building Happy.

If not then you are right they Really broke it.

Ideally all "building" happy would be limited to pop and not straight pop. (since India, Monarchy, Freedom Specialists, and Forbidden Palace all Disrupt that relationship.)

If they wanted properly Tall cities as a good option, they should
1. keep that rule
2. Change Collusseum line to provide a decrease in per person unhappiness in that city (ie with the right buildings adding a pop to a large city would cost less than adding a new small city)..
say Colluseum 1 per 3 pop, Theatre 1 per 4 pop, Stadium 1 per 5 pop (at which point you would have ~7 for every 9 pop in that city.)

 

[MadDjinn]

I agree, the 'happiness' buildings need to be scalars so that 'tall' cities can actually be that, but prevent someone from going both tall and wide. That's one of the problems. There needs to be a way to get 20+ pop in 4-7 cities, but ensure that you can't do that + build 20 cities. Else you're in the same boat of 'wide' gets the same happy as 'tall', which effectively makes it 'wide and tall'.

They also have to fix the problem with the mechanic re: population vs. adjusted unhappiness. It's there, it's been tested, it's not been fixed.

 

[WeaselSlapper]

They also have to fix the problem with the mechanic re: population vs. adjusted unhappiness. It's there, it's been tested, it's not been fixed.

Can you please explain this, I'm not familiar.