How to fix unhappiness?

[remconius]

What I am wondering is how the happiness mechanic works and especially what you can do to fix it in a hurry. In civ4 you could increase the culture slider or use slavery to reduce population.

In civ 5 it is different and empire wide. At the first level of unhappiness , growth is slowed. At the second level also military receives a combat penalty.

Let's say you are at war and running at first level of unhappiness and you annex an enemy city (you really want it). This pushes your civ into level 2
Suddenly you are in the middle of enemy territory with combat penalties from unhappiness.
Of course, you’re thinking you should have made it a puppet or razed it, but you didn’t.

Is there any way to fix the unhappiness before the turn ends and the enemy has a field day rolling over your weakened units?

Is the only way to rush happiness buildings… and what if you are low on cash?

UPDATE:
Ok, last night actually happened what I described in the opening post.

I had to wage ware because arabia was getting seriouly hostile and napoleon asked me... I puppetted 4 cities which i didnt want to annex or raze. This added 10 unhappiness to my civ (population - several luxuries) and I went from +4 to -6 happiness.

On no my civ was unhappy....
But it wasnt so bad. Growth halted, which was good and prevented further unhappiness and the rest kep moving.

So how to fix unhappiness?

Change all worked tiles to produce gold and production. Food surplus is wasted anyway. Build or buy some happy buildings and 10 turns later you can continue growing....

 

[Azazell]

Building cities next to resources luxury.. Each this resources gives +5 happines. Having different this resources, you have more and more points of happines.

Or building more buildings in the city, which gives happines.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Some immediate measures:

You could rush-buy happiness buildings with money.
Some SP allows increasing happiness:
- Military Caste, 1 Happiness from garrisoned unit. You could rush-buy something cheap.
- Freedom. Specialists generate only 1/2 of unhappiness, so if you have it, you could assign more people as specialists to reduce unhappiness.

But there are no instant and cheap solution. You should think beforehand.

 

[Wolle68]

I imagine you could also trade for happiness resources if you can find something to trade with.

Basically, the lesson is that if you're this strapped for happiness, don't annex the city. You can make it a puppet and annex it later.

 

[Schuesseled]

Building cities next to resources luxury.. Each this resources gives +5 happines. Having different this resources, you have more and more points of happines.

Or building more buildings in the city, which gives happines.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not, i'm just being polite) but doesn't unhappiness penalty 2 prevent the building of settlers.

@ OP

If you find yourself unhappy and you don't want to be, you can:

1)Rush a happy building e.g. a coluseum (or you can just build it normally and wait for unhappiness to die off that way)
2)Expand using gold or a culture bomb onto a tile with a new luxury resource, and then build an improvement to gather it.
3)Purchase luxury resources from other civs
4)Give a donation to a citystate so they become allied, this will get them to give you access to thier resources.
5)Adopt a social policy in piety.

 

[Schalke 04]

with this system it is absolutely important to plan your empire's happiness before you conquer other cities. I guess that you should avoid unhappiness penalty 2 in most cases.

another short term solution: you are always free to starve your population down to happiness...

 

[12agnar0k]

Please stop using 2 as "to or too", it should only ever be used as two.

*Mutters to himself in the corner, damn kid's, confusing this old man*

Schuesseled Explained the various ways of increasing your happiness.

 

[craig123]

I believe he meant two - as in "level 2" unhappiness.

 

[stealth_nsk]

5)Adopt a social policy in piety.

Or from another tree. All trees we know have happiness boosters.

 

[neev]

Or from another tree. All trees we know have happiness boosters.

Fixed. Otherwise one would avoid those SP like the plague !

 

[stealth_nsk]

Fixed. Otherwise one would avoid those SP like the plague !

Thanks!
My focus on speaking sometimes do me a bad turn.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Points

1. stay at before annexing an enemy city, don't do it if you are

For 'This turn' relief
1. Rush happy buildings
2. Buy Luxuries from a civ
3. Culture Bomb or conquer an improved luxury
4. Ally a CS and get their Luxury
5. Adopt a SP (Piety, Theocracy, Legalism, Warrior Caste, Meritocracy, Humanism, Protectionism, Freedom)

 

[iop]

6. Use GP to have a golden age.

From the gamespot multiplayer/modding article about Shafer's strategy:

In our defense, we will again point out that Shafer is the lead designer of the game, and therefore he has memorized optimal building and research orders, regardless of any opening circumstances. After he slaughtered us, he allowed us a peek at his computer screen, which revealed that the designer had been building up a sizable nation of four cities of his own. Though none of his citizens were particularly happy with the choice of aggressively expanding, the sheer size of the designer's holdings made it more likely that he'd have iron nearby once he had researched the iron working technology (he had plenty of the stuff, in fact), and his ruthless warmongering meant that he had generated at least a great general or two, which would lead to lengthy golden ages that superseded the public unrest.

 

[stealth_nsk]

7. Assign more citizen as specialists if you have Freedom.
8. Add some city garrisons if you have Military Caste.

 

[PawelS]

I wonder if it's possible to convert a normal city into a puppet city anytime, or only when capturing?

 

[Ahriman]

I wonder if it's possible to convert a normal city into a puppet city anytime, or only when capturing?

Only when capturing, as far as we know.

 

[12agnar0k]

I believe he meant two - as in "level 2" unhappiness.

Oh okay, well.... the term "Very Unhappy" can be used to describe that rather than "Unhappiness level 2", Its the term used in the official community Happiness feature.

When your happiness is negative and your happiness icon is looking angry, your population is “very unhappy.”

See.. .

It would be less confusing if people didnt make up terms for things that already have them.

But anyway,

Perhaps you have exhausted all possible methods of increasing happiness and are still negative.
An alternative to increasing happiness to remove yourself from negative happiness, would be to lower unhappiness directly.

Thier being several methods.

- Starve (to death) Population / Raze Cities to lower the unhappiness they bring.
(Note: this is a heafty cost to get happy again)
- Build a court house in newly annexed Cities.
- Take a relative social policy, their are a few that reduce unhappiness caused by number of population/cities.

 

[12agnar0k]

Only when capturing, as far as we know.

Their would be no point in turning a normal city into a puppet, you would be loosing control of the city for no gain. Besides that, no you can't ever do it. The positive of a puppet, is to avoid annexing, which gives a heafty Unhappiness penatly till you build a courthouse.

You can annex a puppet city any time you want, however you can't puppet an annexed city or puppet a regular city. You can only create a puppet on capturing.

 

[PawelS]

Their would be no point in turning a normal city into a puppet, you would be loosing control of the city for no gain. Besides that, no you can't ever do it. The positive of a puppet, is to avoid annexing, which gives a heafty Unhappiness penatly till you build a courthouse.

You can annex a puppet city any time you want, however you can't puppet an annexed city or puppet a regular city. You can only create a puppet on capturing.

I meant that if it were possible, it would decrease the unhappiness (which is what this thread is about).

 

[12agnar0k]

I meant that if it were possible, it would decrease the unhappiness (which is what this thread is about).

No it wouldn't, not unless you were puppetting an annexed city, in which case... why not just build the courthouse ^>^.