How do I make my people happy?

[Civ001]

So I have been playing this game for a while and I really enjoy it. However, there is one problem that I seem to be having and that is keeping people happy. I know how to build special buildings like circus, Coliseums, harvest luxury resources, have one unit to defense, and adopt special social policies. But for whatever reason my happiness seems to go down in my civilization. I think one of my reasons is that I keep expanding and settling cities too quickly. But I mainly do this to keep up with the AI who settles a lot of cities like 6 or 7 when I still have 3. I mainly play on Warlord difficulty in this game but I would really like your advice on what i can do to improve my happiness in the game?

 

[Dushku]

You don't have to build more cities just to keep up with the AI. There's advantages to having fewer cities with a lot more population per city. It's the difference between playing Tradition (tall) vs Liberty (wide)

have one unit to defense

This leads me to believe you're playing with Honor. Honor is easily the worst starting policy tree. It can be made to work, but mostly on very high difficulty by very skilled players. Germane to the topic, both Tradition and Liberty have policies that assist with happiness. I would set Honor aside entirely until you have a better grasp on happiness management.

Other ways to get happiness are from other civs. If you have 2 of a luxury, that 2nd copy isn't doing anything for you. You can either loan it out for money, or do a swap with another civ for one of their luxuries that you don't already have. Also, you can do quests for city states. When you're allied with a city state, they will give you their (luxury) resources. Mercantile city states give you happiness just for being friendly. Ally one of those and you'll get 2 luxuries, including a luxury you can only get in this manner.

I've put out a number of videos dealing with happiness management. A couple of the more entertaining ones include min max Shoshone snowball demonstration (showcasing tall play): https://youtu.be/Udsy5lU2nnw

As well as Wide 'n' Happy episode 2 - Spanish Mesa Gibraltar (showcasing wide play): https://youtu.be/Rgk2rDDrG24?list=PLq46mc4m-emD1CzO-k0mpZqcsC5Wp-U8t

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well if you're settling 20+ cities and you can't support them, then it's obvious what you should do. In my experience, 9-10 cities is pretty much the most you would want

 

[HughFran]

both Tradition and Liberty have policies that assist with happiness. I would set Honor aside entirely until you have a better grasp on happiness management.

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Honor also has a policy that helps with happiness - albeit perhaps not as powerful as any in Liberty or Tradition. The one where garrisoned units add one happiness and culture. Can come in quite handy at times.

I agree though, there is no need to build as many cities as the AI as they will continue to spam cities everywhere. Concentrate on 3-4 well placed cities with plenty of internal food trade routes and buildings/wonders that help with growth. Use the tradition policy to help with growth also. Your cities will grow tall and be far better than having ten small cities that aren't growing at all!!

 

[Kriogen]

... I think one of my reasons is that I keep expanding and settling cities too quickly. ...

You are right. You expand faster then you(your empire) can handle it.

You don't need lost of cities anyway. Tipical domination way goes with just 2-3 (and then capture the rest), more peaceful science/diplo/cultural with 3-4.

My most succesful (as in easy, fast) victories are with 3 cities. Only 3, but 3 super good cities.

Go for quality over quantity.

Sources of happy faces:
- your lux
- your buildings
- social policies
- trade(buy) lux from other civs
- religion
- City States. When you become friend/ally with CS they give you lots of stuff. It includes happy faces
- World Wonders
- Natural Wonders

 

[vesp3r1987]

On warlord i usually did mostly 4 cities of my own... rest i conquer. Like stated above you dont need to start up with honor just for the barbs who are not that vicious on that difficulty. Usually for me there is always a point in the game when both my happiness and my income drop down drastically. And thats usually a bit before i found my ideology... and some of them offer nice happiness traits. For example Autocracy have one that give you +1 happiness for every defensive building (walls, castles, bomb shelters) and another that give you happiness for each barracks, armory, arsenal etc. With 7-8 cities those 2 traits will give you nice balance in happiness. Id also say that because you pop up so many towns you cant keep up with the national wonders that give happiness boost. Lastly you can try to pick up nation that will have some happiness boosts. Late game you can try the option "avoid growth" to prevent more unhappiness from number of citizens.

 

[Popedesu]

Like other people said, choose liberty if you want to expand with new cities, usually wide isn't the best way to play and is more of a challenge than tall. Though a good choice for playing wide would probably be to with India as they generate far less unhappyness at a certain point with their population. They only generate 1/3 of what other cities generate when they get to 6(?) population.

 

[beetle]

Honor is easily the worst starting policy tree.

Worse than Piety?

 

[Sclb]

Yea, honor is only viable on deity or maybe immortal and specific to Dom V. Piety has some other uses such as CV

 

[claudiupb]

Honor is viable on all difficulties, only it's rarely the best starter policy. On high difficulties the finisher is quite good as AIs will usually spam units and you get a lot of gold. On lower difficulties you don't actually need it, but it really doesn't matter especially for a dom victory, you can do whatever you want just go for the right techs and build enough units.

Piety on the other hand is a pretty weak starter, you get some bonuses that will get you a religion, and will further buff your religion, but you can get a religion without piety, and even so the religion is more like a nice bonus not something essential. The reformations are really not game changing and 2 of the best ones are available for everyone, so you can get the bonus without investing a single SP in Piety. There is so much RNG in the religion part, that you might as well settle for your neighbors and don't even bother with founding.

 

[Civ001]

I start with Liberty and then go to Honor

 

[reddishrecue]

Piety is challenging, i tried it out the other day and realized too officer.

 

[joncnunn]

For conquest unless planning on a massive raze and replace of conquered cities in their correct locations one or two hexes away, first go with Tradition since it's happiness bonuses from Monarchy + Obligary exceed that from Liberty. Honor isn't needed; fighting is the area the AI is weakest at.

The other sources of happiness problems while conquering:

1. Being at bare minimum happiness to be happy pre-conquest. For conquest plans, you need to make happiness buildings and social policies more of a priority.

2. Keeping every single AI city instead of razing the surplus ones that don't uniquely bring in any key tiles. If a given city you just conquered doesn't have any key tiles that's not already within 3 hexes of another city that you are planning on keeping and doesn't have a world wonder either, then it's junk.
Key tiles = any luxury or strategic resource that you can use and/or sell, and natural wonders.

 

[Sclb]

Tradition is often slow to start conquest unless what you're aiming is in fact industrial or later start of war. You can begin war earlier but it is usually just a war of attrition and honor works better for those type especially at deity where AI has huge amount of units for you to make gold off honor finisher. If you're aiming for CB rushes, you should liberty for the free settler and focus on producing archers for upgrades into CB. Your cities wont have much chance to grow until you take the first AI capital.

 

[vesp3r1987]

You also have to remember to build Courthouses in the annexed cities to remove the unhappiness from them being captured

 

[beetle]

I start with Liberty and then go to Honor

Honor from the start is okay, but it weaker (and not just from a happiness perspective) than Patronage, Commerce, Aesthetics, or Exploration.

 

[DarkestOnion]

You do not need more than 3-4 cities to win the game even on Deity. You need to play Tall (Open and complete Tradition, avoid temptation to Open Honor for early Warring.) Larger Cities win games more often than Many Cities on Deity in my experience.

 

[reddishrecue]

Well it also depends on what social policies the future of tradition will carry. Whats going to happen after that? Straight into rationalism? No because it would be to soon since tradition is usually finished off way before the renaissance era. Theres other options open during pre rationalism era.

 

[Dushku]

Straight into rationalism? No because it would be to soon since tradition is usually finished off way before the renaissance era.

Not necessarily. If you do not hard build the first Monument, get any cultured city states, don't work your Writer's Guild right away, and have a good science start, it's pretty repeatable to enter Renaissance before your next social policy after finishing Tradition.

I used to not think it a realistic goal. I saw Acken do it once on Deity. Armed with the knowledge that it was possible, I tried. I can do it fairly consistently on Emperor. Keep in mind going with no filler policies isn't always the best route. However, it will make for an earlier Secularism, which is fantastic.

 

[reddishrecue]

Not necessarily. If you do not hard build the first Monument, get any cultured city states, don't work your Writer's Guild right away, and have a good science start, it's pretty repeatable to enter Renaissance before your next social policy after finishing Tradition.

I used to not think it a realistic goal. I saw Acken do it once on Deity. Armed with the knowledge that it was possible, I tried. I can do it fairly consistently on Emperor. Keep in mind going with no filler policies isn't always the best route. However, it will make for an earlier Secularism, which is fantastic.

I guess, but then production would be spent on other non cultural buildings such as science, gold or units and expansion etc. Where you try to find out where the production is going to.