late-game happiness on higher levels: hereditary rule versus culture slider

[Ray Patterson]

If you get to prince and definitely monarch, in the beginning hereditary rule is almost indispensable. But as your empire grows, and you trade more resources, it almost seems like by the time you get democracy, you could actually switch to universal suffrage.

Well, can you? I'm tempted to do so, as I've cottage spammed pretty massively and would like the towns to foster production. But that means my bigger cities (over 15 or so) will be in big trouble, especially if I'm at war, which I will be a lot probably. I guess police state would be an option too. But the main point is, should I be willing to crank up the culture rate almost permanently? It's almost impossible to calculate the benefits, since you're essentially switching science for production in this situation. Monarch is hard

 

[UncleJJ]

It is certainly possible in the late game to run large cities without HR. In my games I typically have a size 20 city with a happiness cap at 30, without HR or cultural help. The 10 spare happiness is useful for combating WW or Emancipation. Sometimes at the end of a big war I have to set the cultural slider to 20% and boost happiness up to 35.

The key is is assembling the various happiness resources (from conquest and trade) and building enough of the buildings that boost those resources (forge, market, theatre) plus a temple for each religion you have (typically 3 for me at that stage) plus a Cathedral of the state religion. I usually run Representation for another 3 happiness in the big cities as well as the beaker boost.

For an exhaustive list of ways to happiness see this thread by cabert

Finally, if you are still running slavery always consider removing a few pop if they are more trouble than they are worth Even better use them to whip in another temple.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

For me, I use representation most of the time. The happiness for your six largest cities (usually your six most important cities) is nice. Granted, I run representation for the research, but the happiness bonus allows me to kill two birds with one stone (and also making it my favorite civic). Another thing you can do is spread religion and build temples...in the late game you should have multiple (if not all) religions.

In my current Monarch game, running representation, I didnt have any problems with happiness till very late game (im talking researching computers and the other space race techs) and only in a couple very large cities. Finally I relented and bumped the culture slider up 10%...at that point in the game I have more then enough money to run 10% culture with 80-90% research.

 

[Ray Patterson]

representation is nice if you have a lot of specialists... but I have almost none. I guess that's the weakness in my current game. I've been reading acidsatyrs immortal thread today, quite impressive. I still view specialists and great people as too flavory, instinctively to me they don't belong in higher-level strategy just like wonders don't (and heaven knows I'm wrong about them as well). Cottages are just so no-nonsense... you know precisely what you get. In my last game I had quite a few specialists and wonders, and because of that National Epic I kept getting great artists. So I decided not to build it and somehow ended up without any GP farm at all.

So I guess I should rephrase my question: who uses universal suffrage at prince or higher? Do you wage wars in that state and crank up the culture rate? Or do you switch to police state? Regardless, in my next warmongering game I'll play a spiritual civ, to improve my civic skills.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

If you are playing a cottage economy and have a lot of cities then you want US - it means you can rush buy and get extra hammers from towns in the commerce cities, which means you can drop slavery for emancipation, which means that your towns grow quickly - which is the main source of your power in this economy.

Generally if you have been warring and occupy the land of at least one defeated opponent, happiness won't be too much of a problem by now - because:

- Your commerce cities don't grow that huge - all you want to do is work every tile that can support a cottage. Size 20 is enough. If you can grow beyond that you can probably support more cottages instead of farms.

- You have markets in your commerce cities + forges + theatres, all of which have happiness modifiers.

- You can run free religion and get additional religious happy.

- You own a lot of resources by now - with good trade and the multipliers from markets/forge/theatres, you should have enough happiness to support a size 20 city.

So you don't need HR. And you don't want it either. Instead of one big commerce city you now have lots - you don't want to be stacking lots of troops in every city - better to use those troops to defend your borders or go and get some more land.

Where the culture slider comes useful is against war weariness. In a late game war some of my cities might have +22 unhappy from war weariness - but I can shrug it off with the culture slider. Also a high culture slider during a conquest war helps you quickly claim the land you have taken.

Even if you have to raise the culture slider initially to replace HR - you should aim to lower it as quickly as possible - your steady state peaceful situation should be culture slider at zero (unless going for a culture win). But you now have a lot more production capacity - use it to build the necessary buildings to eliminate your unhappiness problems.

 

[InvisibleStalke]

So I guess I should rephrase my question: who uses universal suffrage at prince or higher? Do you wage wars in that state and crank up the culture rate? Or do you switch to police state? Regardless, in my next warmongering game I'll play a spiritual civ, to improve my civic skills.

I will use it at Emperor and Monarch as long as I am running a cottage centered economy. Unless you are running lots of specialists as your main economy, it is more powerful than representation in the late game. I don't see any reason why it would be a bad choice at any difficulty level.

 

[Mutineer]

Well, from my opinion Monarchy is more sutable and needed if you went for earcly cottagess.

1 gp (On deity) upkeep on military unit and posible about 0.5?-1? gp for civic/city upkeep per population will be compensated by cottagess and cost of culture slider is hight, as it cost % of you total commerce in city, which is higher in cottage economy.

But, if you runing specialists economy, then % of commerce become negligeble and cultural slider become mach more money efficien way to keep your population happy.

 

[cabert]

happiness in the late game comes from resources (going for domination like victory ) or culture slider (going for cultural obviously).

You only need HR in the early/mid game, or in OCC.

 

[Ray Patterson]

thanks everyone. I'll switch to universal suffrage asap.