Is the Happiness penalty from settlement limit a joke ?!

[remconius]

I was looking at Boesthius in the exploration age and I noticed going over the settlement limit is a very viable strategy. I really wonder what the impact of happiness is.

Here you can see turn 86 with Boes with 14 settlements and a cap of 9, +55% over the cap. And yet the global happiness is +94. Looking at 2 settlements below, one still has +46 happiness and the other is at -9, but this settlement still looks to have sizeable yields in all areas except gold.

Does this mean ICS is back?

 

[Siptah]

I was looking at Boesthius in the exploration age and I noticed going over the settlement limit is a very viable strategy. I really wonder what the impact of happiness is.

Here you can see turn 86 with Boes with 14 settlements and a cap of 9, +55% over the cap. And yet the global happiness is +94. Looking at 2 settlements below, one still has +46 happiness and the other is at -9, but this settlement still looks to have sizeable yields in all areas except gold.

Does this mean ICS is back?

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It seems to be more of a choice than a simple more is better after some point.

There‘s surely no point to have less than the settlement limit.

His penalty is 25 happiness per settlement, and as you can see that gives him quite a lot of negative happiness from cities. This means less celebrations, less bonuses, less policy slots. He also has 0 specialists, which would further diminish the happiness output, and means less yields from all the buildings in his cities than what he could have. It‘s probably a balance between more of less development settlements as in his game, or fewer but more yield-heavy settlements.

 

[ggmoyang]

-137.5 happiness from settlements but +94.5 happiness overall, have absolutely no idea how does this works.

 

[Siptah]

-137.5 happiness from settlements but +94.5 happiness overall, have absolutely no idea how does this works.

Cities =/= all settlements

 

[ggmoyang]

Cities =/= all settlements

Oh right. That means there's huge surplus of happiness in towns. Wilwakita is getting +56 happiness from rural districts, and those towns should be getting big happiness surplus like that.

 

[stealth_nsk]

As I understand, having negative happiness in some cities means they could potentially revolt even if global happiness is positive, so it's actually dangerous.

I consider it's UI problem - with so many happiness outside of cities it's quite easy to miss that some of your cities are actually unhappy. There should be some loud indication of that.

 

[Leyrann]

Does this mean ICS is back?

Let's hope so.

Obligatory reminder that "tall" is an ahistorical game construct, and not based in reality. Even supposedly "tall" examples like the Netherlands were either far wider in the past (Dutch colonial empire spanned every continent), are satellite states of much wider states (Germany, for the Netherlands) or both.

 

[8housesofelixir]

As I understand, having negative happiness in some cities means they could potentially revolt even if global happiness is positive, so it's actually dangerous.

This. In addition, in this particular game, Boesthius turned off the Age-ending crisis. If he had left it on, his empire might have gotten into a Rebellion crisis (the happiness penalty crisis for over-expanding) and fallen apart.

 

[UWHabs]

I do think some of the policies or uniques they're really going into the looney tile yields. Like I think there was one giving you like +1 or +2 happiness on every marine tile, I want to say? Stuff like that when you create some of those fishing towns can just overcome any penalties. I don't think that strat would necessarily work for other setups (although someone else broke happiness with the Khmer in one of the previews.)

 

[Siptah]

This. In addition, in this particular game, Boesthius turned off the Age-ending crisis. If he had left it on, his empire might have gotten into a Rebellion crisis (the happiness penalty crisis for over-expanding) and fallen apart.

Oh, is the type of crisis dependent on player action and not completely random?

But yeah, in case of the centralization crisis, he would have lost nearly all his cities.

 

[UWHabs]

Oh, is the type of crisis dependent on player action and not completely random?

But yeah, in case of the centralization crisis, he would have lost nearly all his cities.

I don't think we've truly had enough sample or clarification on that. Some people have said it's random, others seem to imply it's based on actions in the game. I'm sure it's random to a certain point, but definitely curious if there's 4 crisis options and you just get one at random 1/4 of the time each, or if there's like a base chance for each crisis, but like you get a higher chance for the revolt crisis if more civs are over the settlement cap.

 

[ggmoyang]

As I understand, having negative happiness in some cities means they could potentially revolt even if global happiness is positive, so it's actually dangerous.

I consider it's UI problem - with so many happiness outside of cities it's quite easy to miss that some of your cities are actually unhappy. There should be some loud indication of that.

There is a loud indication - though this warning says there's only 1 turn left, he was keep getting this warning several turns ago. It's just this window only showed up in this moment in the video.

 

[stealth_nsk]

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There is a loud indication - though this warning says there's only 1 turn left, he was keep getting this warning several turns ago. It's just this window only showed up in this moment int he video.

Yeah, this warning seem to come a bit late.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Let's hope so.

Let's hope NOT, because obviously everyone finds ICS boring right?
Maybe you should have said I hope so, because some players despise ICS as much as you seem to despise tall so let's hope both gameplays are equally valid so that everyone can have fun playing the way they prefer, thank you

Back on topic, this is very clearly something the devs will address relatively quickly if really it turns out that the settlement cap is useless. They certainly didn't add that feature to intentionally make it irrelevant. I think in most cases it will matter, even if it's not a hard cap and you can go above (at least temporarily) but there are certainly some combinations of UA, buildings, beliefs, traditions ... the list is too long to write everything that can turn it into a "joke" and that's the sort of things that usually gets fixed after release (so enjoy while it lasts ...) as the developers simply can't analyze every possible combinations with so many different modifiers.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yeah, this warning seem to come a bit late.

There are also large red fists next to the city tags.

But overall, the settlement limit is the highest safe number of settlements. You can and should game your Happiness to go over it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

There are also large red fists next to the city tags.

But overall, the settlement limit is the highest safe number of settlements. You can and should game your Happiness to go over it.

I think when you plan going over settlement limit, you could consult the cities report, but so far it's really unclear what else affects negative happiness and at which point you need to worry. I see "Building maintenance" in the report (I have no idea what's this) and a lot of negative happiness just without source. If you sum all the subcategories for Palembang, you get +32, but the sum is -9. Not only unhappiness from the number of cities not shown as a subcategory, but there seem to be other sources missed and unhappiness from the number of cities comes in 5s.

 

[evonannoredars]

I see "Building maintenance" in the report (I have no idea what's this)

Happiness and gold cost of building maintenance presumably

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

As I understand, having negative happiness in some cities means they could potentially revolt even if global happiness is positive, so it's actually dangerous.

I consider it's UI problem - with so many happiness outside of cities it's quite easy to miss that some of your cities are actually unhappy. There should be some loud indication of that.

There is, the advisors chime in and I've seen a lot of "Low Happiness", and it is quite in your face. You als ohave a defensless settlement notification.

 

[stealth_nsk]

There is, the advisors chime in and I've seen a lot of "Low Happiness", and it is quite in your face. You als ohave a defensless settlement notification.

I think it's quite late as it doesn't help in planning. And city info is quite bad so far as I wrote above.

 

[remconius]

Let's hope NOT, because obviously everyone finds ICS boring right?
Maybe you should have said I hope so, because some players despise ICS as much as you seem to despise tall so let's hope both gameplays are equally valid so that everyone can have fun playing the way they prefer, thank you

I love ICS. 100% prefer Wide vs Tall. Settle everywhere!