Happiness

[mitsho]

This thread brought me to the idea that surplus happiness doesn't really help us all that much. Golden Ages are mostly accumulated through other ways and it's better to to sell the ressources. So why not introduce a Very Happy penalty as there is a Very unhappy one?

Say, if you have more than 10 or 20 happiness, you receive a sum of X in your capital. This helps Tall and Peaceful Empires obviously more. Excess happiness already gives culture (through piety) or Commerce (through selling ressources), so gold may not be the perfect bonus. Science as well seems to be a ressource where Tall empires don't lack. Maybe lift up the Unit-per-city count as I do seem to run into them sometimes in tall games, or give the units experience per turn (happy soldiers = motivated soldiers) to help them defend better. The AI might also benefit from that as they seem to be over that threshold a lot (since happiness is what they receive as a bonus on higher levels). Alternatively, they could receive a bonus with city states since Very Happy = Admiration, though that then might be self-fulfilling since happiness is given by city states (through ressources), but there might be more competition for the city states by the AI (I don't think we need that, right?). But I do like the experience idea


On another topic: Advanced Starts. One big problem I seem to run into with Medieval or Later Starts is that the money vanishes quickly into thin air since it takes time to set up the cities and the units cost a lot of upkeep. Is there a possibility for giving free upkeep or a bit of gold for the first 10 turns? Also, some phasing into Science and wonder building could help (none of that in the first 10 turns?) But mostly the gold please

So, that was my wishlist for today

 

[Thalassicus]

@mitsho
I like emphasizing for peaceful empires and for militaristic empires. Since peaceful empires generally have more happiness, how about national happiness affects research in the capital?

1 happiness = 1% capital science rate

40 = 140% in capital
00 = 100% in capital
20 = 080% in capital

Anything like this is very simple to do. I did some testing, and was able to successfully implement this in <10 minutes, since it's a small extension from the code used for the Commerce finisher policy. I could also make it so 1 converts into some % of every yield in the capital. Like say... 1 = 0.25% . This would improve any strategy we have for the capital.

Experience would be much harder since it's not a traditional yield. I'd prefer to stick with the regular yields.

=====================

I have not played advanced starts often. What values would you recommend... something like this?

50 : Classical
100 : Medieval
200 : Renaissance
400 : Industrial
800 : Modern

 

[Txurce]

Does all the above affect only advanced starts?

 

[Thalassicus]

Only the second part.

 

[Txurce]

I like it. 40 happy is a hard enough goal that you're not just giving it away.

 

[Thalassicus]

Should it be just science, or one or more other yields? We could start with science and tweak further based on playtesting experience.

 

[Txurce]

I would think that culture makes as much sense, but am happy to test it first.

 

[EmperorFool]

I would shy away from culture for excess happiness as there's already a social policy for that. I would like to see several levels a la unhappiness, and it would be best if they gave things not available through other means.

• +25% [happy people feel more confident to have kids]
  Too similar to WLKD, and it would erode excess happiness. But it's fairly logical.
• +25%
  Too powerful?
• +25%
• +10%
  Too similar to the "+15% when empire is happy" policy.
• Spontaneous unit spawns [similar to the rebels caused by massive ]

I find it interesting that the first level of unhappiness is designed to slow the progression of unhappiness, yet the other two levels are pure penalties that actually make it harder to climb out of the hole. Should excess happiness have a similar effect: either the first level slows happiness progress while the others are pure joy or vice versa?

P.S. I'd just like to say that this mod has really boosted my enjoyment of Civ5. Nay, returned it, as the last five or so games of Vanilla have been a real drag. Using this mod gives me the same feeling I experienced when I first installed Ruff's Cobbled Modpack for Civ4.

 

[Thalassicus]

The effects have a similar theme, but the details are distinct enough I think it would be okay:

• Policy: Each point of positive happiness converts to a point of national culture.
  • Policy
  • Positive
  • Flat modifier
  • Affects nation
  • Culture
• Generic: Happiness determines a % percentage modifier for capital yields.
  • Generic
  • Positive & negative
  • Percentage modifier
  • Affects one city
  • All yields

I lean towards an option C, a science-only benefit, because of the goals for peaceful-tall empires in the three playstyles thread. This science focus is the same reason RAs strongly favor peaceful empires in vem, with the 50% declaration of friendship bonus. It gives peaceful players a technological advantage to counter militaristic players' army advantage.

I like each point of a yield to have a direct correlation to some benefit or penalty. The threshold system leads to problems like the ignore-happiness strategy popular a year ago. At that time 11 and 200 had the same effect, so it was highly effective to ignore it completely. There's no gold or research penalties so people could buy massive armies and conquer the world. Firaxis applied a bandaid to remove this more obvious exploit, but the underlying problem is still there.

I think these thresholds are the reason people feel getting happiness isn't important. The only direct benefit of stacking large amounts of happiness is slightly faster golden ages, which is not enough, as you pointed out before. If we created a positive threshold at 10 or 20 the problem would just be shifted to there. The underlying issue is the threshold itself.

A similar example was upkeep in Warcraft 3. A lot of players prefer the more straightforward supply system in earlier and later blizzard games, like they returned to for Starcraft 2.

This is why I like to use a direct 1-to-1 approach for rewards. I think it would improve things if each point of happiness gives an immediate, tangible benefit. I left the thresholds in place because most of that code is in the game core only Firaxis has access to.

 

[Stalker0]

My only issue with happiness is that I don't keep accumulating during golden ages. If I have a really happy civ, then I should be able to be in GA all the time!