[NFP] Has amenity become even more irrelevant after the update?

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Prince
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I thought the update will make amenities more important, but hear me out.

Before the update if you settle x cities and keep population at 10. You need 4x amenities to keep your people content (no bonus, no penalty either). But if you happen to have 5x amenities, you can make your people happy, so you enjoy a 5% bonus. And if you happen to have 7x amenities, your people are ecstatic and you enjoy a 10% bonus empire wide.

Now since content is at -1 amenity. If you settle x cities and keep population at 10. You still only need 4x amenities to keep your people content (no bonus, no penalty either, every city is at -1 amenity, but people are content). However if you want to make your people happy... that will be a major challenge, since each city will need 8 amenities, and you need a total of 8x to make them happy, 10x to make them ecstatic. That's quite a lot of effort for a mere 5% - 10% bonus.

I guess a rational player will just say "screw amenities, I will just keep them content but not happy". And luxuries will be sold more often than before.

If I didn't do that math, the update would make it appears that amenities are more important. But after doing the math it doesn't seem to be the case any more. And yeah, Scotland is screwed.
 
That's what I'm afraid of (before touching the game, don't have time yet). If people can still semi-ignore the amenities without going into penalties, for instance keep it as -1 as you said, then the whole point of make amenities as part of the "meaningful choice" is less meaningful.

IMHO we may only see the actual extent/effects of the amenity changes after a couple of playthroughs.

On a positive side at least the changes in this patch looks at a right direction and I wish the devs will not stop at this.
 
I think a question after this patch will be whether Ecstatic needs a bigger positive bonus or there needs to be a level above Ecstatic.

I’m guessing these changes were heavily play-tested and QA/QC’d. So, FXS may have already tried buffing happiness bonuses but decided against it.

Probably also worth considering that Amenities get much easier to get later in the game. Indeed, changes to Naturalists might make National Parks a huge source of Amenities (2 in City with the NP, 1 for each for four closest Cities). There are also lots of Amenities cards and other sources of amenities that personally I just don’t use, but which I might use more now.

ECs and WPs may also just have more value overall because of the changes to Theatre Districts, which might also change the overall value / cost of Amenities (particularly as once you invest in an EC, you can keep buying the buildings without needing further district slots, so long term their return may be a little underestimated at least for longer games). Indeed, you might want an EC just so you can really buff one particularly tall City, eg a Pingala City.

So, it may shake out that early game it’s not worth pursuing Ecstatic Cities, but they might be something you push late game when it’s easier to do so and the percentage benefit is proportionally more valuable because of higher yields and or can stack percentage bonuses.

I’m really curious about the impact on mid game settles. I’m guessing the changes will make mid game settles harder. But they might also be more worthwhile, because you may want to capture additional luxuries.

I’m also really curious about the knock on impact on Loyalty. There’s -6 to +6 Loyalty riding on Happiness. Just chopping in more Pop to overcome Loyalty might not work so well anymore of all it does is make fat unhappy Cities.

I suspect there will be a need for a happiness level above Ecstatic, but people will need to play a lot of games first before making that call.

We might also see some more tweaks to Happiness after this, and FXS have had a chance to see how this plays out. Indeed, the changes might have even been made with some future Happiness or Loyalty related mechanics in mind.

Really exciting change to the game.
 
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At this point, anything that slows progression a bit, I am all for. Now just nerf a bit the Pyramids and Kilwa..... (I kid, I kid) :lol:
 
I definitely think changing -1 to content was a mistake, it effectively undermines the entire point of removing the free amenity from cities :think:

I think the -1 amenities should keep the -5% yields, and the positive side of the amenities 'scale' should give more granular bonuses, and higher bonuses in total. +5 in all cities is completely impossible to get unless you keep like 4 cities and stack luxuries, and getting a +10% to all yields as a reward is like basically no reward at all.
 
I definitely think changing -1 to content was a mistake, it effectively undermines the entire point of removing the free amenity from cities :think:

I agree. For a better balance between wide and tall playstyles, cities without amenities must be "Displeased" even at size 1.

I think the -1 amenities should keep the -5% yields, and the positive side of the amenities 'scale' should give more granular bonuses, and higher bonuses in total. +5 in all cities is completely impossible to get unless you keep like 4 cities and stack luxuries, and getting a +10% to all yields as a reward is like basically no reward at all.

I'd keep the penalties for negative amenities as they are now (though I'd change the thresholds). For "Happy" and "Ecstatic" cities, I'd double the non-food yield bonuses to +10%/+20% and lower the thresholds to +2/+4 amenities.
 
Yeah, the content at -1 is completely odd, and doesn't work well with the amenities warning. They should have kept the original thresholds.

The higher threshold for bonuses is perfect, IMO. Maybe increase the bonuses, or even add a 3rd level for very high amenities (7+).
 
Opened a game with Rome to have a taste/feel of the new amenities. As far as I can tell:

- The -1 is very absurd. Cities don't have any penalties, but the red warnings keep popping up, which is very counterintuitive. I understand that the devs probably don't want to have a newly-settled 1 population city to receive negative penalty instantly, but it is still absurd.

- Definitely harder to keep your cities at a higher amenities level, at least in the early game.

- It is also very hard to reach the Ecstatic, and the return of the investment are not really worth it - buying lots of luxuries, plugging a bunch of policy cards, only for the 10%.

So, yeah, I am with everyone else: -1 needs a small penalty, and Ecstatic needs a buff to make it worthwhile - or the players will simply lock their cities at 10 pop with a 0 amenity, and I don't think that's working as intended.
 
I wonder why they don't do -5% at -1, then 0, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% at amenity 0,1,2,3,4,5. This way it's a lot smooth and the benefit of extra amenity is small but rewarding. No more "positive but useless" amenity.

And if they don't want people to be punished on the start of the game make Palace provide 4 amenities but only 2 can be applied to 1 city. (So your first 3 cities will get 2,1,1 most likely and amenity will be at 0.)
 
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I am honestly in the camp that I think the game is desperately in need of more penalties, hence why I like the shuffle tech mode as well. Anything to slow down the game, really.

That said, a -5% yield penalty in a fresh city is not exactly punishing, I doubt it's even going to affect growth for the first 2-3 citizens - plenty of time to improve a nearby luxury resource and get rid of the penalty.
 
The -1 is very absurd. Cities don't have any penalties, but the red warnings keep popping up, which is very counterintuitive. I understand that the devs probably don't want to have a newly-settled 1 population city to receive negative penalty instantly, but it is still absurd.

As a fan of balancing wide vs. tall play I say: If you don't want "Displeased" size 1 cities, provide the necessary amenities. In particular, hook up (and don't trade) your first luxury resource before you found your second city.
 
That said, a -5% yield penalty in a fresh city is not exactly punishing, I doubt it's even going to affect growth for the first 2-3 citizens - plenty of time to improve a nearby luxury resource and get rid of the penalty.

Let me do the math for you. To grow from 1 to 2 population you need 15 extra food. If you are working a 2 food tile it take you 8 turns.

However if the penalty on food is -10% (usually it's double of other penalty), then working a 2 food tile will give you an extra food of 1.8. 15/1.8 = 8.333... so it will take you 9 turns to grow your city instead of 8.

Similarly for the case of 3 food tiles - it normally take you 5 turns to grow but a -10% penalty will make it 6. (15/2.7 = 5.555...)

So yeah it's already affecting growth. (and to grow from 2 to 3 you need 24 -- a -10% penalty will delay 3 population by 2 turns in the 2 food case.)
 
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The housing and amenities system in general is a weird mess. imo Happiness from civ v did both of their jobs much more clearly and efficiently.
 
I wonder why they don't do -5% at -1, then 0, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% at amenity 0,1,2,3,4,5. This way it's a lot smooth and the benefit of extra amenity is small but rewarding. No more "positive but useless" amenity.

And if they don't want people to be punished on the start of the game make Palace provide 4 amenities but only 2 can be applied to 1 city. (So your first 3 cities will get 2,1,1 most likely and amenity will be at 0.)

I like this structure, especially if coupled with different amenities for different difficulty levels, e.g. have the palace provide only +2 amenities on deity, +3 on immortal, +4 on emperor, +5 on king, +6 on prince and below. The AI can get +6 amenities from the palace regardless of difficulty.
 
Based on the discussion in this thread, I created a small mod: Happiness Rework.

The changes are:
  • Reduced all happiness thresholds by 1 (absolute values). In particular, cities are Displeased instead of Content at -1 amenities.
  • Non-Food Yield Bonuses for Happy/Ecstatic Cities doubled to +10%/+20%.
 
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Now since content is at -1 amenity. If you settle x cities and keep population at 10. You still only need 4x amenities to keep your people content (no bonus, no penalty either, every city is at -1 amenity, but people are content). However if you want to make your people happy... that will be a major challenge, since each city will need 8 amenities, and you need a total of 8x to make them happy, 10x to make them ecstatic. That's quite a lot of effort for a mere 5% - 10% bonus.

I guess a rational player will just say "screw amenities, I will just keep them content but not happy". And luxuries will be sold more often than before.

The way I see it, you're not supposed to aim to get Ecstatic state if you're going for a large empire. It's rather a matter of avoiding negative amenities. Maybe get Happy in a few. I used to have negative amenities pretty regularly because the low penalties meant I didn't have to care much. Now I take it seriously.

The 10% boost to non-yields from Ecstatic should now be nearly exclusive to small empires. I still would prefer if the bonus was a bit larger, but it's a step in the right direction.
 
The way I see it, you're not supposed to aim to get Ecstatic state if you're going for a large empire. It's rather a matter of avoiding negative amenities. Maybe get Happy in a few.

I agree. However, right now, the step from Content to Happy cities is larger than any other one -- you need -1 amenities for Content, and +3 for Happy. Combined with the underwhelming bonuses for Happy/Ecstatic cities, many players simply won't bother to aim higher.
 
@lockstep Ace! Well time little Mod! I notice that @pokiehl has also put a mod up on a similar theme.

Losing the free Amenity and the very slight buff to ECs and WPs feels right.

Stretching out the happiness range also feels about right. But, while the range feels right, the top end definitely feels a bit lacklustre although I’d like to play with it more to see. My guess is that players won’t worry about getting Happy or Ecstatic Cities early game, but those levels may have more relevance later in the game when Amenities are more plentiful and you have bigger raw yields to boost.

-1 being “content” feels odd, but having Cities start unhappy would also be odd (as in, we only just struck out and set up a new settlement, and were already all miserable?). Although, you know, maybe starting unhappy does make some sense, given it’s probably pretty tough setting up a new City. I do like you can basically cancel out that penalty with a Garrisoned Unit or one Luxe. Feels like you’re being made to invest a bit more in your Cities upfront.

I also feel like the range, negatives for unhappiness, and impact on loyalty really should adjust a little bit based on difficulty. The numbers seem right for someone playing at Prince, but not quite Brutal enough for say Immortal or Deity.

Really interested to see if these changes have any impact on Wide and game pace.

Really hope Neighbourhoods and Sewers get rebalanced in the next Update.

Really really interested to see what more FXS might do. Do any existing Civ Amenities bonuses need a buff (eg Roman Baths)? Will there be a Civ that does start with starting Amenities or a free Luxury? Will there be mechanics that let you increase how many Civs benefit from a Luxe? Will more manufactured goods get added to the game?

Exciting times.
 
I honestly don't understand the change. The impact is negligible and it seems obnoxious to try and stay in positive territory for amenities. Admittedly, I do tend to fight a lot of righteous wars and liberate a lot of the AI cities from their immortal oppressors.
 
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