How do you manage happiness as conqueror in late game?

[suvin123]

Hi. I usually play on Emperor difficulty. In early to mid game when I don't own much cities through conquest, it is easy to control my empire's happiness in positive condition.

However, as the game goes on, it gets worse. Since i become a warmonger, all the other civs declare war on me, and get ideology different from mine. As a result, unhappiness from war weariness and ideological pressure gets bigger and bigger, since i have to fight indefinitely and tourism-focused civ gives ideological pressure. Moreover, all the cities I conquer only contribute to unhappiness, and my empire turns into a -40~50 hellish empire.

I tried getting Police state tenet from autocracy, but it didn't seem to help much because after courthouse is built, since most cities are so empty that it only contributes to unhappiness through poverty, illiteracy, boredom, etc. Especially poverty really drives me crazy. Anyways, in my experience, setting the cities to puppet felt almost the same as annexing cities and building courthouse in controlling unhappiness.

Here is summary :
1) in late game, unhappiness from ideological pressure&war weariness becomes tremendous
2) lack of infrastructure in conquered cities turn them into unhappiness machine

So...please share your wisdom, forum.

 

[tu_79]

You need more culture and tourism. If not, your citizens get angry when you don't share the ideology of civs that have influenceD you, or something like that.
Also, Piety helps.

 

[Jdoug312]

And use your trade routes to send production to the cities that need infrastructure.

 

[infidel88]

Just take Order ideology. It's so very OP over anything that if you have any wide empire (and if you conquer, you will have wide empire), you will benefit from it greatly:

- peace, land, love -20% poverty;
- free public schools give great illiteracy solution and on top of that you get -10% illiteracy;
- people's army gives +1 happiness per city and free mil. academy reduce crime a little;
- iron courtain gets you free courthouse upon capture, which saves you couple of turns;
- motherland calls gives you -30% defence modifier;

---

Yeah, with fascism (or whatever the name of that ideology is), you'll get supreme army, but constantly unhappy people. Once I hit ideology in most of my wide empires I hit +70 jump in happiness and swim easily around 100, even during wars.

 

[suvin123]

Wow.. haven't adopted order while at war. I should try that.

Guess autocracy needs some buff regarding happiness considering the fact that happiness system had gone enormous change in CBP. Police state is not just enough. Directly increasing happiness, or reducing unhappiness-related debuffs in tier-3 tenet would be really good.

 

[Fakoleon]

Hi, I always play same style as you, go for Domination victory, on 22civ/41cs on TSL Earth map, I play on Immortal/Deity, as Emperor become fairly easy now.
During the ideology phase of the game, I can face the same problem, it's a key part, which can lead you to defeat, or let you rule the world !

In previous difficulties, I used to keep almost every city I conquer, so at the end you have that nice effect that your empire... is the entire world, but in higher difficulties you will have to consider razing (beware of partisan), not capture a city, actually, focus on capital, defend it and wait for peace, or even better, vassalage, which is a key feature, especially in mid game, you should not spend too much time on one civ, but be big and wide as quick as possible, before ideology (preferably with couple vassals, it prevent unnecessary unhappiness from many cities, and give bonus science/culture/gold)
You should not set high taxe at first too, remember vassals gives you yield on science based on their own production, taxe them too much will reduce their science output and they will just become dead weight.

As you pointed it, culture and especially lack of it can be problematic, especially at ideology phase, where you get enormous unhappiness from other ideology influence(+ war weariness).
To prevent that, you should spot which civ are big cultural producer, and get them to war in early phase of the game (pay warmonger civ). Also, the best way to have a big culture output... is to steal that culture from other civ, so it can be a good move to declare war to a weaker cultural civ, even if it's far away.

There is also key wonder to focus on, first one for me is Pyramids, actually it's mandatory and I always reset if I don't get it. I play in standard speed, and have road from 3 to 2 turn changes everything, especially if you plan to go for a very wide empire, have 1 less turn for everything else is very good too.
Other wonder to focus is Neushwanstein (thanks google ), +1 happiness for every castle is HUGE, as at that time of the game, I usually have a big amount of cities.
Last one would be CN tower, but it's almost impossible to have it yourself, you should usually capture it from Egypt (that guy...) or that cultural leader.
You can focus on capitals that have wonder that reduce something empire wide (especially wonder from other ideology)

A thing you can try too is to act Casus belli, but it's very hard.

A thing you can do too is to take Industry+ Free trade (-20% poverty, which is the higher unhappiness source with crime).

I used to play Order in vanilla (long time ago now..), but in VP I go for Autocracy all the time, Lighting warfare is too powerful to be ignore.
But now I'm considering order, as AI choose between those two(order/freedom), and never go Autocracy, you always end up Alone vs the World.

Anyway, the ideology part of the game is "The Big Rush" as I like to call it, you have to be big and powerful enough to crush the world, because the war will never end at that point.

About the new conquered city, my build order is something like > courthouse of course> wall + castle if I have the wonder, or Barrack if not> council/library> aqueduc> arena
then you see from that product more unhappiness, what you can do is too stop growth in that city for a while. Set gold production massively can help reduce poverty too.
About cities with very low production (courthouse > 3 turns and more), you can consider > RAZE, or put almost every one as laborer (3prod + 3g in late game), even if the city is massively starving (they deserve it ), so you can reduce that gape time where city produce maximum unhappiness.

I think I wanted to add something but I forgot now ~~
and I'm curious, what policy branch do you take ?

 

[Strigvir]

Yeah, with fascism (or whatever the name of that ideology is), you'll get supreme army, but constantly unhappy people. Once I hit ideology in most of my wide empires I hit +70 jump in happiness and swim easily around 100, even during wars.

Are you just pulling the numbers out of your ass? Autocracy has better "happiness per city" Tenets, better mobility (so you don't need to field a huge army around your huge empire and hence less maintenance), doesn't need to annex cities to wage wars (puppets have lower happiness thresholds and don't require building up completely, so it's also less buidling maintenance). Order is mediocre at best for wide empires.

 

[DimCarcosa]

Don't annex cities for a while, go for Authority right away, than Progress, than you can go for this policy from Rationalism branch that gives you -100% unrest. Order is op as mentioned before. If you annex, build market and library first. WIth your caravans you can lower poverty in cities, don't use just one city with great connection to trade. Also, try to get a religion, there is a belief that gives you +1 happiness for every 2 cities owned. Of course, don't sell all luxuries Later, focus on Mercantile CS, if you play with 41 CS like me, you will get a lot of them. That's huge happy bonus. I don't know why everyone declares war on you. In my present game I have conquered half of the world (Earth map) and still have friends. Obviously, build roads. Try to build wonders which lower unhappiness (Oracle, Statue Of Zeus, Branderburg Gate etc.). That's all I can think of right now.

 

[suvin123]

Fakoleon/For war-oriented civs, I usually take Authority left side-Progress right side(maybe finish it), or Authority finish-piety.

I agree that pyramid is essential for warmongers. I play on fast speed, and building road in one turn(combined with liberty) and cutting wood down in one turn is just absolutely amazing.

I usually let AI manage tile in conquered cities.(without using stop growth) Maybe this is why conquered cities grow larger and larger, and become my source of unhappiness I guess I was too lazy xD

Anyways, your idea of using laborers is quite tempting. Next time I go for domination victory, I should really try your way. And yeah, autocracy is too good for warfare. Lightning warfare+air supremacy is pretty damn OP. It's really hard to give up on that.

As for me being a public enemy... well, maybe that's because I didn't stop war? I don't know. Or maybe i was too lazy on diplomacy

 

[infidel88]

Are you just pulling the numbers out of your ass? Autocracy has better "happiness per city" Tenets, better mobility (so you don't need to field a huge army around your huge empire and hence less maintenance), doesn't need to annex cities to wage wars (puppets have lower happiness thresholds and don't require building up completely, so it's also less buidling maintenance). Order is mediocre at best for wide empires.

Wide I meant 15+ cities. If you have that many, it's fairly irrelevant how big army you have, as it shouldn't matter if you have 600 or 700 GPT, you will sit on it like Smaug for most of time, unless you like to rushbuy everything.

You say Autocracy is giving nationwide bonuses? Which tenets?
NWO reduces crime by 20% and it's only 1st level tenet.
Lvl 2 gets you war weariness reduced by 50%, which is way less powerful than, let's say, 20% reduce of poverty over your empire.
Oh, and you get +1 happiness from police station. Except it comes in atomic era. And is expensive.
And Prora. Which is giving you like +15 happiness. It's far less powerful than -30% defense required in cities. Unless you have all cities with Arsenals and up-to-date defending units.

Like I wrote before - I love wide empires, almost like ICS (for proper civs, like Carthage) and if you cruise around -10/+5 happiness having 15+ cities all the time before ideologies, getting order first wins you game, as Peace, Land, Bread and People's Army gives you insane instaboost.

 

[Funak]

well... +3 happiness from every courthouse is pretty massive.

 

[tu_79]

Autocracy's Lebensraum while playing Rome was actually quite funny. Conquer first city in a continent, open a good area for healing your units and proceed to take the rest.

 

[infidel88]

well... +3 happiness from every courthouse is pretty massive.

He was advising puppeting cities. But ok... it's local happiness. It's relevant, sure, but I'd rather go for happiness in all of my cities AND instant courthouses.
Let's face it, you're not able to hold your own cities happy (unless you micro every turn or keep them from growing) and focus on all needs. Not doable. Myself, I am always struggling with poverty and crime. Order helps me with both, maybe it's only playstyle.

 

[Funak]

Let's face it, you're not able to hold your own cities happy (unless you micro every turn or keep them from growing) and focus on all needs. Not doable. Myself, I am always struggling with poverty and crime. Order helps me with both, maybe it's only playstyle.

I've never had any late-game unhappiness issues, but you're naturally allowed to think whatever you want.

 

[Strigvir]

Wide I meant 15+ cities. If you have that many, it's fairly irrelevant how big army you have, as it shouldn't matter if you have 600 or 700 GPT, you will sit on it like Smaug for most of time, unless you like to rushbuy everything.

The size is relevant as army maintenance cost increases exponentially. Also increased upgrade costs due to it. And Order doesn't have anything to increase GPT for the playstyle it imposes.

You say Autocracy is giving nationwide bonuses?

Where did I say that?

NWO reduces crime by 20% and it's only 1st level tenet.

Modern+ era buildings give 30%+ reductions so the tenet will only shave 2 crime unhappiness at best.

Lvl 2 gets you war weariness reduced by 50%, which is way less powerful than, let's say, 20% reduce of poverty over your empire.

Are you sure? War Weariness caps at 1/4 of your population so on average leads to 100+ unhappiness if the war lasts long enough. Also allows to lock your humongous opponent into a war and suffer from unhappiness penalties. Order tenet can outpace it only around 50 cities, which will ramp maintenance cost.

Oh, and you get +1 happiness from police station. Except it comes in atomic era. And is expensive.

Are we talking about wide? You will have to eventually build constabularies and police stations in every city just to counter enemy spy stealings. And there will be a lot of them.

And Prora. Which is giving you like +15 happiness. It's far less powerful than -30% defense required in cities. Unless you have all cities with Arsenals and up-to-date defending units.

It gives a happiness of 15 cities with Order factories. Far better than probably decreasing 1-2 unhappiness per city.

Like I wrote before - I love wide empires, almost like ICS (for proper civs, like Carthage) and if you cruise around -10/+5 happiness having 15+ cities all the time before ideologies, getting order first wins you game, as Peace, Land, Bread and People's Army gives you insane instaboost.

I've played enough Order games which were subpar at best, when Freedom/Autocracy turn the table. Even Freedom is better at creating wide empires than Order.

He was advising puppeting cities. But ok... it's local happiness. It's relevant, sure, but I'd rather go for happiness in all of my cities AND instant courthouses.

Puppets have -50% needs threshold and if you annex you get more flat happiness than all tenets of Order combined.

Let's face it, you're not able to hold your own cities happy (unless you micro every turn or keep them from growing) and focus on all needs. Not doable. Myself, I am always struggling with poverty and crime. Order helps me with both, maybe it's only playstyle.

I don't see how having -20% thresholds here and there helps you to fight unhappiness, since for wide empires you either get 1-2 crime/poverty unhappiness in core cities, which won't change with tenets, and 8+ in non-core ones, in which case you will shave 1-2, but there is still 6 more to go.