Happiness Questions

[budweiser]

What do you usually run for happiness?

0, 5-10, more, or negative?

Did you ever play a game where you were at 80 or more for most of the game?

I just played a game with only 2 cities where I was at plus 80-90 for most of the game, but what strikes me is, that if I had added more cities, my happiness would have only increased because of buildings.

 

[stormerne]

It depends on the type of victory. If it's a quick domination victory, it usually hovers between -2 to +10. If I'm going for something else it's rather different.

I analyzed a couple of very leisurely cultural victories, done recent for achievement points. This is what I found:

India, Bollywood, 2 cities only.
turn happy (gold science culture per turn)
320 85 (55 123 267)
267 86 (45 109 260)
198 55 (27 69 66)
101 28 (22 28 20)

Persia, all wonders built, 5 golden ages from happiness, 5 cities only
turn happy (gold science culture per turn)
363 96 295 280 501
299 81 (138 239 321)
252 74 (160 164 202)
197 43 (99 87 170)
147 35 (74 63 55)
99 25 (25 26 36)

So yes I also play games where the happiness is around 80 or more for long periods.

 

[budweiser]

I sometimes alternate beween 'serious' games and relaxing games to knock off achivements.

I think small and tiny versions of the earth map are good, just reload until you draw north america and you are all set to sit and build.

I havent done Persia yet, but I can see that maxing out happiness will easily get the 5 GA achievement.

 

[stormerne]

I havent done Persia yet, but I can see that maxing out happiness will easily get the 5 GA achievement.

There's a 'problem' or additional challenge that I found with the From Archaemennid to Safavid achievement.

For one thing you must only get the golden ages started by filling the happiness bucket for them to count. That is of course no problem.

The challenge is the golden ages last much longer than for anyone else. With policies and wonders, it seems to snowball. You're wanting the golden age to finish to start the next one, and it won't! When you get a golden age of 59 turns, like in the game above, you'll see what I mean.

 

[atteSmythe]

What do you usually run for happiness?

0, 5-10, more, or negative?

0+...typically, as little as I can while keeping it positive. In practice, this usually means letting it creep up to 20 or so in the early game to give some flex room for putting down cities when I can.

Did you ever play a game where you were at 80 or more for most of the game?

I'm currently playing a Huge map, where happiness and culture are easier to come by. For a large chunk of the game, I was running about 190 happiness, popping over 200 from time to time. I just plopped down about 20 more cities as I'm conquering another continent, and until those grow a little, get their improvements, and get on the trade network, I'm down to 'only' 45 or so. It's pretty crazy.

 

[budweiser]

There's a 'problem' or additional challenge that I found with the From Archaemennid to Safavid achievement.

For one thing you must only get the golden ages started by filling the happiness bucket for them to count. That is of course no problem.

The challenge is the golden ages last much longer than for anyone else. With policies and wonders, it seems to snowball. You're wanting the golden age to finish to start the next one, and it won't! When you get a golden age of 59 turns, like in the game above, you'll see what I mean.

With only 2 cities, I consistantly got 10 turn happy bucket GAs last game. And the length of GA number 5 wont matter.

 

[elthrasher]

I usually fluctuate from around -4 to 4. I don't sweat being below zero as long I have a plan to get happy again. It's actually good to grow back into unhappiness again, then get another coliseum or luxury for another round of growth or aggression. I tend to go for lots of cities, not true ICS, but I often wind up with 20-30 cities (many of them puppets). Toward the end of the game I may get Forbidden Palace or the Order policy that removes the per city unhappy and I'll shoot up to around 20 happy, but it doesn't take long at all to grow out of that. Freedom also offers a substantial boost. Assuming I can run 3 specialists per city in 20 cities, that's +40 happy, meaning I can grow 2 pop per city.

So short answer is between -4 and 4.