Help with Keeping Empire Happy

[Gilkan]

Now that I've advanced to Prince difficulty, I'm having some trouble keeping my empire happy. When using a Liberty rapid expansion as France (three cities before 2,000 B.C.) I find my population swiftly becomes unhappy. And shortly after that, I'm knee-deep in a stagnation period that lasts until 1,000 B.C. Anyone have any suggestions for keeping this unhappiness down? Thanks!

 

[TW_Honorius]

Piety and Colliseums, and do not expand that fast.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Piety and Colliseums, and do not expand that fast.

On Prince difficulty you should easily be able to expand that fast. Just take his advice and don't forget to trade excess luxuries to other players. Some wonders help too.

 

[Gilkan]

So teching up to Coliseums should be the priority tech then? Also, I don't like to take Piety. Rationalism is just to good with all of its tech bonuses.

 

[starrywisdom]

So teching up to Coliseums should be the priority tech then?

What you research is entirely dependent on way to many factors to say 'should it be a priority'. If you've got a choice mid-game and have been unnecessarily happy(due in part to your fault or no) then, yes, it would be smart to pick a tech to give extra happiness. This does not mean that it's a priority for the majority of other gameplay styles.

What tech you select and at what time is entirely depenedent on a lot of variables; how large the map is(number of civs), how they are allied, number of city states, what policies you have and/or going for, how you /plan/ to win, your city focuses and their placements, etc etc.

 

[Helmling]

Now that I've advanced to Prince difficulty, I'm having some trouble keeping my empire happy. When using a Liberty rapid expansion as France (three cities before 2,000 B.C.) I find my population swiftly becomes unhappy. And shortly after that, I'm knee-deep in a stagnation period that lasts until 1,000 B.C. Anyone have any suggestions for keeping this unhappiness down? Thanks!

Only found cities that early if they add a new luxury good to your network, then refine it quickly.

 

[seasnake]

There are alternatives to Piety.

The right side of the honor tree is excellent for happiness, it will give you happiness from walls and garrisoned units, as well as culture. For a great game experience open Tradition then Honor, and then take the one that gives +100 city attack for garrisoned units (Tradition, on the right side) and then take the right side of the honor tree. Build Walls and put one unit in each city and this will 1) give you 2 happiness and 2 culture per city, 2) double your city's attack power while lowering unit maintenance costs and 3) make your cities difficult to take. Just did this as Babylon and it worked well, then I finished Tradition for the growth bonus.

Also, swap duplicate luxuries for unique luxuries from other civs OR find a city state with a luxury you don't have and court it. Killing Barb camps near city states really gets you a lot of points now.

Build colloseums but don't forget to build circuses, those really add up.

Beeline Civil Service (try to get the Great Library and time it so that Civil Service is available when you get the free tech) and Chichen Itza is really helpful now. If you fill out Liberty or build Hagai Sophia, save a Great Engineer and spend it on Notre Dame. 10 happiness in the medieval era is a big help.

 

[GrayingGamer]

Only found cities that early if they add a new luxury good to your network, then refine it quickly.

That's generally my early expansion strat. 1 luxury per city - so if my 1st city starts with 2, then I can found a 2nd city that is just a production powerhouse (or something)... but if my capital only has one, then the 2nd city is going to need to be near a new one, too.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Rationalism is just to good with all of its tech bonuses.

So you want the great benefits of Rationalism but you don't want to pay the cost of not going Piety. You want to have a huge empire, but not deal with the consequences of picking branches containing almost no +Happiness. We call this "greed".

This is WHY Rationalism is not that good. If you take it, you lock out Piety, which is one of the best branches for gaining Culture and Happiness (even with the reduction in this last patch). Since Culture is the way you get even more policies, it's a major opportunity cost, and without the Happiness you generally need to slow down your expansion. Since slowing down expansion obviously limits the benefits of Liberty and Rationalism, you can see the problem. This is why a Liberty start always seems so great, with you expanding far more quickly than the AI; the AI KNOWS that doing massive early expansion is likely to give massive unhappiness penalties as your cities grow. It's a trap, and you fell into it.

Now, you CAN still stay above zero Happiness with the Liberty+Rationalism combo if you have plenty of luxuries in your starting area, especially if the local terrain isn't conducive to massive early growth (plains instead of grassland, for instance), since it's the population unhappiness that really kills you in this sort of expansion. Others here have mentioned ways to do this. But it's much, much harder, and you can pretty much forget about having enough surplus Happiness to ever get a Golden Age.

 

[RazorChain]

This is what I have been doing and managed 7 cities in my prince game in the classical era. For me extra happiness means more cities and more citizens which gives me more research. Also going down the rationalist path comes in the renaissance which is quite late. For me money is more important than extra research (with it i can maintain more research buildings anyway) so I'd rather take commerce than rationalism

 

[MkLh]

So you want the great benefits of Rationalism but you don't want to pay the cost of not going Piety. You want to have a huge empire, but not deal with the consequences of picking branches containing almost no +Happiness. We call this "greed".

This is WHY Rationalism is not that good. If you take it, you lock out Piety, which is one of the best branches for gaining Culture and Happiness (even with the reduction in this last patch).

Yeah, rationalism may look good but it's actually useless in most games. Happiness issues simply force you to take Piety.

 

[jtb1127]

I would advise teching towards coliseums has previously suggested.

 

[JWAT44]

you can use piety for initial happiness needs until you have a lot of excess then switch to rationalism if you want. i wouldnt do it myself but you can if you really want both

 

[Babri]

Apart from building coliseums, I would suggest you to build happiness wonders, try to settle near luxuries, trade excess luxuries for luxuries you don't have & try to ally CS which have luxuries you don't have. Other than that I would say build courthouses in annexed cities & annex puppets & rush-buy courthouses. You may also try to cherry pick SPs like happiness one in Commerce, Honour & Patronage. I hope it helps !

 

[Adjuvant]

Watch your cities' food production ahead of time and project your cumulative unhappiness. Getting low on empire happiness, say 1 or 2?

Level food production and put some keen mines and plantations to work; unclick the cows, fish and farms til you have stagnant growth... in a couple cities. Keep your 2 specialty cities (science, culture, great people) growing, and stifle the rest as production mules.Try to not have these "secondary cities" have over 4 pop before they have a colloseum.

Let me say it again. Use your head and plan ahead.

Once you get this, you'll look back at all the games you facerolled "next turn" 50 times, and say, "ahhh, so this is civ5"! Not really sure, why this isn't so obvious: learning curve.

 

[fmlizard2]

Are you doing bits and pieces of several policy trees? Liberty and its +1 for connected cities is one of the worst for happiness...not to mention it encourages you to have more cities and thus more

Don't believe that you have to have the Piety tree to get enough . There are policies in all branches that can give you . They just tend to be at the end of trees. Nobody thinks of Honor being useful for anything but war, but the policy that gives +2 and +1 for garrisoned units can be very useful. Likewise for Rationalism's +1 for science buildings and Patronage's +50% from gifted luxuries.

 

[Drawmeus]

Now that I've advanced to Prince difficulty, I'm having some trouble keeping my empire happy. When using a Liberty rapid expansion as France (three cities before 2,000 B.C.) I find my population swiftly becomes unhappy. And shortly after that, I'm knee-deep in a stagnation period that lasts until 1,000 B.C. Anyone have any suggestions for keeping this unhappiness down? Thanks!

The main thing is you have to start planning out city expansion, instead of just expanding whenever you can afford a settler. If you aren't going to have the happiness to support another city, don't build one. If you are going to build one and do have the happiness, it's also best not to wait - your population in your existing cities will grow to fill whatever excess happiness you have. You can avoid this by checking "Avoid Growth" in each city (also useful for ensuring that what growth you do have is in the cities that can really make use of it - but don't overuse it; large cities are worthwhile). The corollary of this is that adding new happiness at Prince and higher difficulties will directly translate to more cities or more population, thus more power. Prioritize happiness-giving policies, techs and buildings accordingly; they're not always the best choice, but they do have a specific, powerful effect to bear in mind.

Factor in luxury resources in new city locations that will give you a boost; a city near a luxury resource that you don't already have is basically free from a happiness standpoint or even beneficial (with a circus/coliseum). Luxury resources that you already are valuable and worth prioritizing over many other city sites, but obviously still require you to have the happiness to support them already.

The other thing to remember is that a little unhappiness is not going to hurt you. When it goes negative, you should already be working towards solving it, and you should never let it drop to -10 or lower, but a -1 or -2 is not going to be a big deal unless it continues for an extended period of time.