How do I get out of this black hole?

[civnoob13]

I've really noticed that after the patch, it is far harder to maintain happiness. I've also noticed, that even on normal difficulty, the AI gets insane bonuses. How they manage to maintain a good economy and be happy is beyond me in this scenario. My economy is in the red, and I see no visible way to recover it, my happiness is very close to negative, and has been for much of the game, and I have just been DOWed on.

Anyway, please see what you can do with this saved game. I am using some mods:
InfoiAddict
City-State Diplomacy
Barbarian XP level 6
City State Leaders
Cultural Capitals
12 Hr clock

Please not I am also playing as The Incas (which are great BTW) and all DLCs that have new civilizations.

 

[bhavv]

Using all those mods will make it tricky for anyone to check your saved game, but Inca are the easiest civ to develop a strong economy with their UA, and as for happiness, you have to do the same as everyone else - look for luxury resources, and build colloseums / circus and even the new stoneworks.

Notre Dame is also hugely powerful now. If you're having trouble with managing happiness, then try sticking to playing with a small empire of 4-6 cities and trying vertical instead of horizontal growth.

Another thing to remember is not to grow your cities if you dont need to. Early on in the game I normally keep my second to fourth cities stagnant at size 2 while I grow my capital, then after I have enough happiness I start to grow them.

 

[civnoob13]

Using all those mods will make it tricky for anyone to check your saved game, but Inca are the easiest civ to develop a strong economy with their UA, and as for happiness, you have to do the same as everyone else - look for luxury resources, and build colloseums / circus and even the new stoneworks.

Yes, I even went on highlands with the Incas, and I've never been this bad at maintaining my economy before. I am, of course looking for luxury resources (I'm not completely incompetent ). I have got all the luxuries I can, but none surplus for trading. I've also allied with a CS for luxuries, but it is barely enough. I am currently building colleseums, but after that I won't be able to build circuses because I am already in the red for my economy and I've only got about 30 gold left as it is. I am also working literally all the gold tiles I can and am now trade post spamming. But there are barely any tiles that actually produce gold in this game for some reasons.

Notre Dame is also hugely powerful now. If you're having trouble with managing happiness, then try sticking to playing with a small empire of 4-6 cities and trying vertical instead of horizontal growth.

I usually stick to 4-6 cities as it is, otherwise SP acquisition is painfully slow, and I can't yet get Notre Dame. I am only at three cities at the moment, and their population is hardly high, at turn 78 I have my capital at 5, my second city at 5, and my third and final at 3.

Another thing to remember is not to grow your cities if you dont need to. Early on in the game I normally keep my second to fourth cities stagnant at size 2 while I grow my capital, then after I have enough happiness I start to grow them.

thanks, but surely it is absolutely vital to have your cities growing as fact as possible, otherwise you will inevitably fall behind in science, the economy and military (due to lack of production).

 

[mrlovanhey]

Yes I am really noticing how difficult it is to keep people happy now. The happiness buildings do very little and are quickly negated by growth.

I feel like I have to beeline more towards happiness now than pre-patch and am forced to build certain wonders to keep up (Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower). Same thing with policies where I feel like I'm forced to go Piety for Monument, Temple, Monastery happiness.

I tried Rationalism for beaker building happiness, but they come too late and take too long to build.

When trying to manage my happiness I feel like I have very little wiggle room for anything else, and to be honest, post-patch the game is just slightly less fun.

I'm looking forward to someone posting a good how-to-video of managing happiness

 

[Gamewizard]

You could stop growing by focusing on production, which in turn gets you those happy buildings and/or culture buildings faster, which in turn allows you to grow and/or gain more policies (many of which now helping with the happiness problem).

 

[bhavv]

thanks, but surely it is absolutely vital to have your cities growing as fact as possible, otherwise you will inevitably fall behind in science, the economy and military (due to lack of production).

No it isnt, and you cant grow while your happiness is red. Its better to completely avoid growth early on in your filler cities and focus on getting all your eggs in one basket (Capital), and get your NC built and have all your science being boosted by it. I spam 4 cities as fast as I can and keep them all at size 2 while growing my Capital ASAP. More production and population in your capital and National College gives you much more science than wasting your happiness into growing other cities.

With happiness being so limited, you have to control your growth until you have enough of it.

 

[Keejus]

My method of happiness maintenance so far has been to focus the vast majority of my growth into my capital and taking Monarchy. My capital is usually big enough (on Prince) that I can snag the Hanging Gardens and Notre Dame

 

[Sonereal]

If you have any puppeted cities, that might be the problem. When I annex a puppet city, my unhappiness goes up but when I build a courthouse, my happiness went up easily 10 or 15.

 

[Txurce]

Yes, I even went on highlands with the Incas, and I've never been this bad at maintaining my economy before. I am, of course looking for luxury resources (I'm not completely incompetent ). I have got all the luxuries I can, but none surplus for trading. I've also allied with a CS for luxuries, but it is barely enough. I am currently building colleseums, but after that I won't be able to build circuses because I am already in the red for my economy and I've only got about 30 gold left as it is. I am also working literally all the gold tiles I can and am now trade post spamming. But there are barely any tiles that actually produce gold in this game for some reasons.

As someone else wrote, happiness alone is pretty simple - just build the right buildings, choose the right policies, and aim for the right Wonders (which are easier to snag than ever). It still doesn't come as easily as pre-patch, though, which means you usually have to expand more slowly and - more importantly - plan ahead.

Consider your game. You have a very economically minded civ, yet are in the red. This is what doesn't make sense. Part of it sounds like bad luck with regard to luxuries. But part of the problem has to be that you grew too quickly, given your luxuries. I avoid this by playing NC start, but obviously other approaches work, too. You just have to manage your city number and growth to keep your nose above water in the early stages. If I calculate that luxuries aren't going to do the trick alone, then I stagger my builds so that colosseums are coming online in an existing city right around the time I found another one.

Taking this approach, I've had little problem maintaining happiness in a tall empire (4-6 cities) aiming for a victory other than Conquest. (I never limit city size, and always try for HG). Conquest requires its own set of policies, and obviously not swallowing too many huge capitals too quickly.

My own sense is that the patch makes everything take more effort and more time. This makes it more of a challenge, but one that's definitely achievable.

 

[Zhahz]

I haven't had a problem with happiness and I'd almost say I have less happy problems now with big empires early than I did before the patch, but I have to play games more to be sure.

There are some nice SPs and/or SP synergies to help, some redesigned wonders do um....wonders for your happy. Annexing can be more favorable than puppeting but it'll depend on your approach and goals.

Econ isn't usually a problem if you give it some priority.

 

[gingerbill]

i think happiness is easier after the patch , on paper it looks worse but your happiness really can shoot up with certain buildings/wonders/policies. At the very early stages its harder but as you tech and build it gets easier . I like it this way.

 

[Sonereal]

There are some nice SPs and/or SP synergies to help, some redesigned wonders do um....wonders for your happy. Annexing can be more favorable than puppeting but it'll depend on your approach and goals.

Especially for large cities you get from peace treaties. Puppeting cities creates more unhappiness than Annex+Courthouse. I Annexed/Courthouse a size-20 city and my happiness shot up fifteen.

 

[civnoob13]

As someone else wrote, happiness alone is pretty simple - just build the right buildings, choose the right policies, and aim for the right Wonders (which are easier to snag than ever). It still doesn't come as easily as pre-patch, though, which means you usually have to expand more slowly and - more importantly - plan ahead.

The AI, even on normal difficulty, expand faster than me and still easily manage to have far more happiness than me. They don't have bonuses on normal difficulty (do they?). It just doesn't make sense.

Consider your game. You have a very economically minded civ, yet are in the red. This is what doesn't make sense. Part of it sounds like bad luck with regard to luxuries. But part of the problem has to be that you grew too quickly, given your luxuries. I avoid this by playing NC start, but obviously other approaches work, too. You just have to manage your city number and growth to keep your nose above water in the early stages. If I calculate that luxuries aren't going to do the trick alone, then I stagger my builds so that colosseums are coming online in an existing city right around the time I found another one.

I don't really see how the Incas can be considered economically minded when their UI, which gives food, is effectively what I am told to be avoiding by keeping a stagnant growth. The reason I was in the red at that point was, I think, mainly down to the tiles, very few of which provided any actual gold at all. I think what I did wrong was settle places that had good resources and had lots of mountains, but had absolutely nothing of economic value. I would argue that I had enough luxuries, but what you said about growth is probably correct, because of the terrace farms. I didn't really feel I was growing or expanding any faster than any other post-patch game though, where I was comfortable both in the economy and in happiness, which is what doesn't make any sense. Thanks for those points, BTW. They will be very useful in new games.

 

[Txurce]

The AI, even on normal difficulty, expand faster than me and still easily manage to have far more happiness than me. They don't have bonuses on normal difficulty (do they?). It just doesn't make sense.

Even if you're playing on Prince, the "fair" level, the AI has Chieftain-level happiness. This is true on all levels. If you want to eliminate this, try Buckets' mod. It kills the bonus outright. (It really changes the game, by the way, making it more interesting in many ways.)

I don't really see how the Incas can be considered economically minded when their UI, which gives food, is effectively what I am told to be avoiding by keeping a stagnant growth. The reason I was in the red at that point was, I think, mainly down to the tiles, very few of which provided any actual gold at all. I think what I did wrong was settle places that had good resources and had lots of mountains, but had absolutely nothing of economic value. I would argue that I had enough luxuries, but what you said about growth is probably correct, because of the terrace farms. I didn't really feel I was growing or expanding any faster than any other post-patch game though, where I was comfortable both in the economy and in happiness, which is what doesn't make any sense. Thanks for those points, BTW. They will be very useful in new games.

The Incas are "economical" in that all their hill improvements are heavily discounted, and in that those same hills give them the hammers to put up buildings faster. But although I didn't see your map, I'll bet you're dead right about the tiles you settled in doing you in. You never reached the tipping point where the Inca trait starts paying off. They are a blast to play with, but tricky in that regard.

 

[bhavv]

I don't really see how the Incas can be considered economically minded when their UI, which gives food, is effectively what I am told to be avoiding by keeping a stagnant growth.

Free roads on hills, half cost elsewhere gives the Incas the highest gold savings compared to other civs. Even maintenance free temples that a couple of other civs get, and paper makers cant compensate for the amount of GPT that Inca save with their heavily discounted roads / railroads.

Also the UI IS economically minded. You can settle in mountainous hill ranges and create cities with massive food and production output very early into the game. Food and Production contribute the most to your ecomony because they let you build things a lot faster.

 

[civnoob13]

Free roads on hills, half cost elsewhere gives the Incas the highest gold savings compared to other civs. Even maintenance free temples that a couple of other civs get, and paper makers cant compensate for the amount of GPT that Inca save with their heavily discounted roads / railroads.

Also the UI IS economically minded. You can settle in mountainous hill ranges and create cities with massive food and production output very early into the game. Food and Production contribute the most to your ecomony because they let you build things a lot faster.

*facepalm*. How could I forget about the roads/railroad maintenance reducements? I hope it's just because I'm tired. I agree that their UI would be economically minded, if it weren't for so many people here saying that I should deliberately not grow my cities that much.

 

[Snezza]

Even if you're playing on Prince, the "fair" level, the AI has Chieftain-level happiness. This is true on all levels. If you want to eliminate this, try Buckets' mod. It kills the bonus outright. (It really changes the game, by the way, making it more interesting in many ways.)

I am so glad you said this, I always play on the fair level, and the game I just played, I had a great start, built lots of cities while maintaining my economy and happiness levels and was ahead in tech, but the Mongols who had a dozen cities like me decided to destroy all other civilisations in a really short time except me as we were not near each other, ending up with thirty cities and he still had 50+ happiness, I still won with a space victory, but his army was four times the size of mine and my plan was to win by conquering all civilisations, I am going to go find that mod cheers!

 

[bhavv]

You should grow your cities - As much as your happiness allows. You should just control where your population points are going, and early on its best for them all to go into the capital. Other cities can stay at a population of two in the early game, and with a granary can work 2 hill mines to allow them to produce whatever you need (I like to build Monument > Library > Granary in all my cities, then leave them sat at size two early working a couple of production tiles while my Capital keeps on growing. Then after I have more happiness from luxuries and buildings, I start growing them).

Later on into the game when all your happiness buildings are placed, terraces allow you to pop boom really rapidly.

 

[bhavv]

I just started a new Inca Highlands game, and created a nice example scenario for the OP:

Spoiler :