How to cure Unhappiness?

[SpikerzZ]

When I play I play, lol I am on turn 1,119, I stoped excpanding so I can work on my happiness, I have all resourses in my civ excepted sugar and the only 2 civs who has sugar wont trade with me, I am -17 for unhappiness, I have all the happiness social policies, I am on an earth map huge marrathone and king difficulty.

My question is, how do we make my citizines happy? From the start of the game my happiness has never been great, mostly unhappy throughout, some times I make them happy again like when I adoped "Order" I was 18 for happy.

I am working on a mod to make 8 happy for resources instead of 4, is that going to be the only way I will make my civilization happy?

 

[_hero_]

This game isn't designed to have you fill up a huge map with cities.

I suppose if you really want to increase your happiness you could go into your highest population cities and starve the citizens. Be sure to checkmark "turn growth off" in all of your other cities so they won't absorb any of the added happiness.

 

[SpikerzZ]

I like having a huge civilization, I did it will all civ games starting with civilization 2, I was able to do it with civ 4 too, maybe I will just try to get the mod working then.

 

[Becephalus]

Build fewer farms and food improvements.

Get more luxuries.
Build more happiness buildings.
Builds more happiness wonders.
Take more happiness policies.


That is the list. it is not difficult keeping empires of any size happy if that is all you focus on, but you cannot hjave a giant happy empire and have a great army, and get all the wonders.

Opportunity costs!

 

[BenAxiom]

Good list, but in playing a late game, these are a given. The game design breaks down even on a small map with more than 18 cities, each with a pop size of ~60. To make such a set up work, you have to space your cities out by 10 tiles in order to maximize the number of resources you can grab with each city. In addition, you have to stop city growth once you fill up all the specialist and land slots. To the op: eliminate some cities.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I like having a huge civilization, I did it will all civ games starting with civilization 2, I was able to do it with civ 4 too, maybe I will just try to get the mod working then.

I like having an expensive sports car and dating a supermodel. Doesn't mean that it's possible to actually happen.

Civ5 is balanced around the idea that bigger empires are not automatically better. Happiness is one of the ways it does this, but things like culture and maintenance costs also reinforce this concept. If you want a giant world-spanning empire, then you NEED to keep the cities small to avoid accumulating too much unhappiness. Or puppet cities. Or raze the ones you don't need.
This is deliberate. This isn't the earlier Civ games where once you had an even slightly larger empire than anyone else you became basically unstoppable. Happiness is not the only way this is kept in check, it's just the most visible.

 

[Babri]

Can you post a save.

 

[chazzycat]

It's true that happiness is intended to balance wide empires, but it's also true that you can maintain good happiness in most non-extreme games. For instance if you want cities size 60 like Ben's example, you're probably SOL without modding. But that doesn't mean you can't maintain a reasonably huge empire. So many of the policies are per-city bonuses that you can get decent sized cities.

If you really have ALL the happiness policies (I'll assume no autocracy because you have order and I'll assume piety over rationalism but the effects are the same) think of this:

+1 per city from meritocracy
+2 or 3 per city from organized religion (3 for cities with monastaries)
+1 per city for each garrison under honor
+4 for defense buildings undor honor (i assume you have built these by turn 1119)
+1 per city (Order opener)

So that's at least +9 per city right there. Meaning you could have an INFINITE number of pop-6 cities (3 unhap per city built in) without any buildings. Then let's add in all the buildings - another +9 per city (2 from colo, 3 from theatre, 4 from stadium). Then let's say 1/3rd of cities have stone, and 1/3rd of cities have horses or ivory. That average out to another +1 per city due to stoneworks/circus. So we are now talking about supporting an infinite number of size-16 cities.

Then we have 75 happy from luxuries (5 per with commerce policy) and possibly more if you are getting some from city states and have that policy. Then there's wonders...not sure if you have any, but Notre Dame and Eiffel Tower are both decent.

Oh and then there's the policies that give happiness based on population. Monarchy is not so great for a huge empire, but should give you at least +15 happy or so depending on your capital. But landed elite is now very nice for large empires with big cities. Since we have already demonstated above that all cities can be size 16, landed elite gives at LEAST +1 per city. Then for any cities over size 20, they get +2. Given the amounts of happiness from luxuries and wonders, you really should be able to grow from 16 to 20 in all your cities and take advantage of that second +1 from landed elite.

So basically I think you can have a nearly-infinite amount of size 20 cities. If that's not enough for you, then yeah I guess you'd want to check out some mods or something.

 

[BenAxiom]

For instance if you want cities size 60 like Ben's example, you're probably SOL without modding.

No, I just tested this this week. It's possible to contain the entire globe (sans ocean) within your borders in an unmodded game. It just takes smart city plotting; the wonders, policies, and buildings you've mentioned; and abundant resources ticked.

 

[Callonia]

I have a finished domination win game with 1109 happiness someting and 1080 unhappiness.

And i was growing my cities like mad aggressive 12 maritime city states

 

[SpikerzZ]

I noticed if you are at war and take cities to fast your screwed, I was stupid and turned city razing off, lol my next game I will manage a lot better

 

[Becephalus]

Good list, but in playing a late game, these are a given. The game design breaks down even on a small map with more than 18 cities, each with a pop size of ~60.

What does having 18 size 60 cities have to do with anything? It is a completely implausible game condition. There is no chance your civ is that size and has not already won.

The game isn't balanced to cater to people playing after victory.

 

[chazzycat]

No, I just tested this this week. It's possible to contain the entire globe (sans ocean) within your borders in an unmodded game. It just takes smart city plotting; the wonders, policies, and buildings you've mentioned; and abundant resources ticked.

Right, but that was on a small map right? It's still an impressive effort, but OP mentions he's on a huge map where things are very different.

@SpikerzZ - taking autocracy policies & buying courthouses helps a lot for this problem, if that's an option.

 

[BenAxiom]

What does having 18 size 60 cities have to do with anything? It is a completely implausible game condition. There is no chance your civ is that size and has not already won.

The game isn't balanced to cater to people playing after victory.

Right, but like I said, this was a test. At turn 1,119 on a marathon King game, I'm guessing that the OP already won too. What can I say, this is Civfanatics.

Right, but that was on a small map right? It's still an impressive effort, but OP mentions he's on a huge map where things are very different.

@SpikerzZ - taking autocracy policies & buying courthouses helps a lot for this problem, if that's an option.

Ninjaed! True, but it's still possible to have a very tall and very wide empire.

 

[seasnake]

The challenge of Civ V is that bigger is not always better. It isn't like previous civs, what it does though is it offers smaller, well-planned empires a chance at winning as much as a larger one.

 

[PTUP]

Nukes

 

[Sonereal]

Nukes

There's something to be said about a game where nuking your population makes your people, overall, happier.