Happiness Problems with Tradition

[mrpilhas]

Hi everyone! Think is my first post here.

I was out of the game for some time, and yesterday installed the last version of this great mod. Did 3 maps (King), playing tradition (Arabia, China, India), and in all of them by the time Im entering renaissance era, hapiness just goes down, and I can't recover from that. Honestly It's been a long time since I played VP, but I can't remember of this being an issue. Any advice?

 

[CppMaster]

Hi everyone! Think is my first post here.

I was out of the game for some time, and yesterday installed the last version of this great mod. Did 3 maps (King), playing tradition (Arabia, China, India), and in all of them by the time Im entering renaissance era, hapiness just goes down, and I can't recover from that. Honestly It's been a long time since I played VP, but I can't remember of this being an issue. Any advice?

Check what generates unhappiness by hovering mouse over happiness icon on top bar. The problem is probably that cities are underdeveloped in regard of population. Also it could be religion diversity, no connection to capital, war weariness or too many specialists.

 

[mrpilhas]

Did all of that. In my last game, I had no "fighting crime buildings" available, meaning I had built them all, and was getting 4 unhappiness from Crime in 1 city. I was playing Tradition, so I was in builder mode
Now that you talk about war, one of the events that made unhappiness rocket was Monty declaring me war. I was at 4 Happiness, and after that I went to -10. After peace treaty unhappiness stayed the same.
About specialists, I had my capital with mostly all of them slotted, but curiously, that city was not the source of unhappiness, he was actually generating happiness.
I'm confused, seems unintuitive playing Tradition, and can't grow your cities or slotting specialist in them.
Thank you for the advice

 

[CppMaster]

Did all of that. In my last game, I had no "fighting crime buildings" available, meaning I had built them all, and was getting 4 unhappiness from Crime in 1 city. I was playing Tradition, so I was in builder mode
Now that you talk about war, one of the events that made unhappiness rocket was Monty declaring me war. I was at 4 Happiness, and after that I went to -10. After peace treaty unhappiness stayed the same.
About specialists, I had my capital with mostly all of them slotted, but curiously, that city was not the source of unhappiness, he was actually generating happiness.
I'm confused, seems unintuitive playing Tradition, and can't grow your cities or slotting specialist in them.
Thank you for the advice

Specialists are not listed in city unhappiness, they generate global unhappiness.

 

[mrpilhas]

Thank you
Will try and roll another map. If it persists maybe I will try a previous version of the mod.
Cheers

 

[CppMaster]

Oh, by the way, do you play with recent hotfix? There was an issue with happiness that was fixed, so it should be higher

 

[CrazyG]

Make sure you have the recent hotfix.

Also remember you get +2 happiness from all national wonders, so build those ASAP (you want them in your capital anyways)

 

[chicorbeef]

Make sure you have the recent hotfix.

Also remember you get +2 happiness from all national wonders, so build those ASAP (you want them in your capital anyways)

+1, not +2.

I've never had a game where I was unhappy due to too many specialists. You need specialists to combat poverty/boredom/illiteracy.

I find it normal to be unhappy in the early game, but when poverty/boredom/illiteracy are wiped out due to increasing yields, you should automatically become pretty happy. Unhappiness isn't a bomb like in vanilla Civ, you can keep chugging along.

Edit: By the way, if you want to fight Crime long-term, you need defense buildings like Walls/Castles as well, not just the reduction ones. Don't go for them too early, though, it's not worth the hammers. I've adopted a rule of thumb, that if you can't get them built in 4-5 turns without investment at least, then you shouldn't build them

 

[CrazyG]

+1, not +2.

I've never had a game where I was unhappy due to too many specialists. You need specialists to combat poverty/boredom/illiteracy.

I find it normal to be unhappy in the early game, but when poverty/boredom/illiteracy are wiped out due to increasing yields, you should automatically become pretty happy.

Woops it used to be +2. Thanks for the correction.

I've also never ran into issues of specialists causing too much unhappiness with tradition. Their yields fight unhappiness anyways.

 

[hr_oskar]

A tradition empire shouldn't really have happiness problems unless it's got a lot of additional cities with underdeveloped infrastructure and not enough happiness from national wonders to compensate. I recommend sticking to 4 cities, maybe 5 if there's a really good fifth city site with enough production to keep up in infrastructure. Happiness problems with tradition are most likely to be caused by a) too many additional cities and b) underdeveloped cities because of excessive growth relative to production. Only focus on growth in your capital, the other cities need to be productive first and foremost and avoid growing if there are no good tiles to work.

 

[mrpilhas]

Oh, by the way, do you play with recent hotfix? There was an issue with happiness that was fixed, so it should be higher

Just downloaded and will give it a shot in the next hours.

Also remember you get +2 happiness from all national wonders, so build those ASAP (you want them in your capital anyways)

Doing it, it's a priority once they are available

A tradition empire shouldn't really have happiness problems unless it's got a lot of additional cities with underdeveloped infrastructure and not enough happiness from national wonders to compensate. I recommend sticking to 4 cities, maybe 5 if there's a really good fifth city site with enough production to keep up in infrastructure. Happiness problems with tradition are most likely to be caused by a) too many additional cities and b) underdeveloped cities because of excessive growth relative to production. Only focus on growth in your capital, the other cities need to be productive first and foremost and avoid growing if there are no good tiles to work.

I go usually 4 cities (with capital), maybe 5 if there's a good 5th spot like you mentioned. I still have the mindset of vanilla civ. I know VP it's completely different, but got so used to 4 city tradition that it feels strange playing other way. In previous releases of this mod I really can't remember having this issue. I would have some problems while expanding but once established I would never go down like now, where I played 3 different games, and In all of them in mid renaissance era I was swimming in unhappiness. Will see if this hotfix solves the problem, or if I need to up my game.
Thank you very much to all of you, for the advice.
Cheers

 

[hr_oskar]

I go usually 4 cities (with capital), maybe 5 if there's a good 5th spot like you mentioned. I still have the mindset of vanilla civ. I know VP it's completely different, but got so used to 4 city tradition that it feels strange playing other way.

What you need to unlearn from vanilla is the focus on growing your cities no matter what. In VP, the only city that I always want to grow as much as possible is a tradition capital. All other cities should only grow to be able to work good tiles and specialist slots. If those are not available, limit growth by working specialists and low food tiles like mines.

 

[chicorbeef]

What you need to unlearn from vanilla is the focus on growing your cities no matter what. In VP, the only city that I always want to grow as much as possible is a tradition capital. All other cities should only grow to be able to work good tiles and specialist slots. If those are not available, limit growth by working specialists and low food tiles like mines.

I grow all my expands as much as I can with Tradition. It seems a bit counter intuitive, but you need to grow to avoid late-game unhappiness because lack of growth means low yields.

I struggle with early-game Tradition happiness as well, but by the Renaissance-ish you should be getting happy again and it only gets easier as the game progresses.

 

[tu_79]

I grow all my expands as much as I can with Tradition. It seems a bit counter intuitive, but you need to grow to avoid late-game unhappiness because lack of growth means low yields.

I struggle with early-game Tradition happiness as well, but by the Renaissance-ish you should be getting happy again and it only gets easier as the game progresses.

I guess that's when you start to work on lots of GPTI.