Happiness Question

[blinky501]

Hi my question is concerning happiness and burgeoning empire. I have just started a new game on prince difficulty, my first try on this difficulty. Anywhoo I have three cities right now and I have just completed the tradition policy tree. So right now my cities are growing pretty rapidly especially my capital I was wondering how I can keep my happiness up because it is decreasing with each new citizen so I was wondering what were some good ways to counteract this. I am in 40 bc and I have quite got to the medieval era yet. so any help is appreciated.

thanks,
blinky501

 

[Stellarnight]

Well there are a few options here though it will be nice if you give more details;

1) Do you have duplicates of luxuries? Scroll through the diplomatic tab and see if anybody else has duplicates. Usually the AI is willing to do a one to one extra lux trade. free +4 happiness
2) No extra lux on your side? Buy an AI's extra lux. This could be expensive though and should be a last resort.
3) Make friends with City-States who have luxs that you don't have. Mercantile City-states give you +2 happiness for just being friends and +4 happiness when allied because they possess unique luxuries.
4) Build Happiness buildings like the Colosseum. Having Colosseum in all 3 cities allow you to build the National Wonder Circus Maximus which gives you more happiness.
5) Have a religion? Grab beliefs like the pagodas which gives you +2 happiness.
6) Beeline to Machinery and grab the Notre Dame wonder which grants +10 happiness. There are also a couple of wonders that grant happiness so you should look at them and plan ahead.
7) You can open your city tab and click on "avoid population growth" to prevent your cities from growing. That said, a little unhappiness is alright in the short term because growth is beneficial in the long term.
8) Commerce Social Policy has Protectionism which grants you +2 extra happiness for each lux.

 

[blinky501]

sweet thanks for the quick reply and advice stellarnight.

1.will check on the duplicate lux, I have sold lux, didn't think about buying any from the AI
2. see 1.
3. will try that I am thinking about killing a few city-states for some other city-states.
4. working on building circus and the like right now.
5. I am playing vanilla, so I assume this is part of an expansion.
6. will do.
7. this is what I thought about as soon as I got done posting this I am trying to switch around my tiles and increase production.
8. will do that I am getting policies like crazy this play through already filled tradition before I got to AD.

i appreciate all the advice because i need to do something because i am trying to expand because i got the short end of the stick when it comes to strategic resources no iron, and only 2 horses which is pretty wweak if you ask me.

what additional info. would you need i am new to the forum so i wasn't sure what info to give out.

edit to add: what exactly does unhappiness do. i am at 1 unhappiness so i thought it stifles production, but it seems to only stifle growth, which i can deal with right now.

thanks,
blinky

 

[Stellarnight]

Welcome to Civfanatics btw

Usually when members request for help, they would post the difficulty, the map type(optional), the Civ they are playing as and most importantly, the version of Civ V they are playing. There is actually a huge difference between Vanilla, Gods & Kings and Brave New World and the tips given might not be universally applicable for all version.

Sorry to say that my Vanilla memories are extremely hazy.

You can ignore my advice about Mercantile City States and religion as they do not exist in Vanilla. Befriending City States is still a good idea though for the lux they grant. Be careful about conquering City-States, the other AIs will hate you and other CS will be become apprehensive. Conquering city-states also give you unhappiness unless it is offset by lux and courthouses. So do keep that in mind.

Do check if Protectionism is in commerce. There were a considerable number of policy swaps in the expansions so I might be wrong.

Unhappiness (at least how i remember it) have different tiers. If you have minimal unhappiness, it will stifle only growth but have too much unhappiness ( i think that is around -10?), your production and science output suffers. At -20, rebels spawn in your territories to make your life more miserable. Just as excess happiness adds to your Golden Age counter, unhappiness deducts from it.

 

[Barghaest]

sweet thanks for the quick reply and advice stellarnight.

5. I am playing vanilla, so I assume this is part of an expansion.

Yeah, that's a small issue right there. Happiness was really hard to maintain in vanilla unless you planned out cities very well (mainly making sure to snag as many Luxuries as possible).

With the Gods & Kings expansion, Religion made Happiness almost obsolete... with the right choices of beliefs and Social Policies, you'll never have to worry about unhappiness again. Since G&K came out, I regularly have 50+ happiness with 20+ cities.

 

[Browd]

If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to read the War Academy Complete Guide to Happiness: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=436022. It is for vanilla (hasn't been updated for G&K or BNW).

 

[TractorBoy]

Playing VANILLA, social policies are your biggest friend in the battle against unhappiness. You don't have to complete every tree that you start as you can fill them in later if you so wish. Below is a list of the policies that will help you.

1 - Tradition to monarchy.
2 - Liberty down to meritocracy
3 - Honor right side down to professional army.
4 - Piety down to organized religion.
5 - Freedom down to democracy.

You can use these five Policy trees in conjunction with one another without penalty.

If you are playing a wide Empire then the forbidden palace is the best wonder to strive for.
Everything that Stellarnight has mentioned is also very sound advice.

 

[blinky501]

stellarnight: I am playing on prince difficulty, as Suleiman, in vanilla civ, and on a large small coninents map. thanks for the warm welcome and I have been able to keep my happiness stable at about 3-6 while adding three new cities, up next is my conquest of some Siamese territories.

protectionism is in commerce. this is the first time I tried tradition, usually do liberty, but my cities are growing fast as crap.

well I am off to conquer this world domination style. appreciate all the advice.

blinky501

 

[blinky501]

Given my specific game which one of the final three policy trees should I go for freedom, order, autocracy. I like to annex all the cities I take over and I am playing on a large map so I plan on having a butt-ton of cities by the end.

blinky

 

[Barghaest]

In Vanilla Civ I tended to favor Order because building maintenance was always my highest expense. It depends on your playstyle. By the time you reach the point to choose... if you pay more in building maintenance, go Order. If you need more happiness, go Freedom, if unit maintenance is an issue, go Autocracy.

 

[Walter R]

Didn't the Order opener give happiness per city in Vanilla? I can't remember, but I usually take it in G&K if I've been conquering, along with the RHS of Commerce.

 

[Browd]

The Order opener gave +1 happiness per city in both vanilla and G&K.