New Beta Version - August 16th (8/16)

[tu_79]

There are two kind of happiness buildings for wide play:
Defensive buildings (walls, castle, etc). This should be the main factor allowing warmongers to achieve their goals. Your people feel safe in their homeland, so they approve of your foreign affairs.
Public Works. This should be used only in case of really bad management.

The defence buildings reduce needs in the city they are built. It's main goal is to cope with the increase in unhappiness due to heavy expansion. Say you are a heavy warmonger, you build your castles in every city and now you can annex 4 or 5 more cities thanks to some spare happiness. If this you can't do, then I'd say defense buildings are currently underperforming in terms of the happiness they provide.

Public Works is for the ones who made mistakes, such as not securing some luxuries or forgetting to befriend some city states. If they were too good, then they would be the default option, and they shouldn't be it. Making Public Works reduce empire size penalties would make them severely strong. Removing a few raw unhappiness and some urbanisation should be enough for this building.

I guess some people can expand even faster than what is needed and use a combination of castles and public works, but as ElliotS put it, you will be sacrificing another maybe more useful building, just so you can produce a few extra units in that unhappy city.

 

[a3kov]

Capitals not having ABC food results in strange situation where some AI expansions have same or even higher population than the capital.

 

[Deljade]

Is it intended that a sanction from WC removes corporate franchises from ALLIED city states? Seems a little weird

 

[BiteInTheMark]

It's like this now already for years. Sometimes it worked well, sometimes it was a catastrophe (remember the median-is-based-on-own-median version?)

We already had a lot of discussions what the happiness system have to do, and what not. But no real result. Nearly all agree, that the happiness system should stop warmongers and overexpansion. If those 2 parts had only small or zero negative influence, the human, which excells in this areas, could outperform the AI too easily. Unhappiness from specialists is agreed from the most players too, cause else tall players would always swim in plenty of happiness. So, there needs to be something that hits tall players more. Losing cities/units causing unhappiness is agreed too, cause it forces people to accept more sooner than later a correct peace deal.

That's the point the most players would agree with, what the happiness system have to do. Beyond that, the opinions differ.

The real question you can ask, is...
Is it good, that you get more unhappiness in higher difficulties, if you do exactly the same things with the same result in 2 different difficulties? (cause in higher difficulties, the AI will play better and rise the median yields more, which is the base of your main unhappiness calculation)

 

[Recursive]

Is it intended that a sanction from WC removes corporate franchises from ALLIED city states? Seems a little weird

It is intended. Allied City-States might not be your allies forever.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Started a new game on the new hotfix, capturing civilians is bugged; if a civilian is escorted by a military unit and it's killed, the civilian is captured normally but capturing a non-esorted civilian is impossible that it's possible to create a wall of civilian units around a city to literally prevent it's capture.

 

[Zanteogo]

There are two kind of happiness buildings for wide play:
Defensive buildings (walls, castle, etc). This should be the main factor allowing warmongers to achieve their goals. Your people feel safe in their homeland, so they approve of your foreign affairs.
Public Works. This should be used only in case of really bad management.

The defence buildings reduce needs in the city they are built. It's main goal is to cope with the increase in unhappiness due to heavy expansion. Say you are a heavy warmonger, you build your castles in every city and now you can annex 4 or 5 more cities thanks to some spare happiness. If this you can't do, then I'd say defense buildings are currently underperforming in terms of the happiness they provide.

Public Works is for the ones who made mistakes, such as not securing some luxuries or forgetting to befriend some city states. If they were too good, then they would be the default option, and they shouldn't be it. Making Public Works reduce empire size penalties would make them severely strong. Removing a few raw unhappiness and some urbanisation should be enough for this building.

I guess some people can expand even faster than what is needed and use a combination of castles and public works, but as ElliotS put it, you will be sacrificing another maybe more useful building, just so you can produce a few extra units in that unhappy city.

Having a building you only use when you screw up seems like a poor design. I would rather it have an actual use in regular game play.

Honestly, it just needs a bit of a bump in power.

 

[Gazebo]

Ok...latest version is wonky as hell with unhappiness.
Had 40 net happiness one turn with 22 war weariness. Ended war, 2 turns later, 37 net happiness with none of it from war weariness. This is like the bad old days of unhappiness from several patches ago.

Happiness was in no way touched with this version.

G

 

[Deljade]

Small thing but would it be a big deal to make Global Wargames second prize scale with game speed? Kind of like how Autocracy tier 2 tenet does.

 

[Stalker0]

Happiness was in no way touched with this version.

G

Except as you said before G, the AI is playing better so it might have some additional yields. All I can do is share my experiences, and right now, playing on 10+ cities on Immortal is absolutely brutal with happiness. I don't know if that's because of a change in the patch, or I just started playing some more big wide games so I'm noticing it more, but its there.

 

[tothePAIN]

Except as you said before G, the AI is playing better so it might have some additional yields. All I can do is share my experiences, and right now, playing on 10+ cities on Immortal is absolutely brutal with happiness. I don't know if that's because of a change in the patch, or I just started playing some more big wide games so I'm noticing it more, but its there.

Not sure about the absolute most recent hotpatch, but happiness is still manageable. Wide 10 cities had similar challenges before this patch. Progress helps a lot now and feels a lot better. (There's still a push to get to 15 population.)

The tactical AI is as good as I've ever seen. I struggle to take cities from the AI on the 2nd to last hotpatch. The AI is also building certain wonders that were previously ignored (Terracotta, Leaning Tower). The game feels more fair because the human player has a strong shot at religion and has a chance to snowball that way (on Deity, the AI will still keep up anyways).

 

[Gazebo]

Except as you said before G, the AI is playing better so it might have some additional yields. All I can do is share my experiences, and right now, playing on 10+ cities on Immortal is absolutely brutal with happiness. I don't know if that's because of a change in the patch, or I just started playing some more big wide games so I'm noticing it more, but its there.

sure, but mechanically the system is the same. That’s my point.

 

[arthurF]

Happiness was in no way touched with this version.

G

Are you absolutely certain that nothing in this patch, as opposed to say, the july patch, affects player happiness? Let's say that the AI is doing better ( and it is, tactically, which is great), wouldn't that raise the medians for needs? Is there anything at all that could have raised those needs?
I am experiencing something that feels qualitatively different- It feels like unhappiness wide is very difficult to manage now.

 

[Recursive]

Started a new game on the new hotfix, capturing civilians is bugged; if a civilian is escorted by a military unit and it's killed, the civilian is captured normally but capturing a non-esorted civilian is impossible that it's possible to create a wall of civilian units around a city to literally prevent it's capture.

Report this on Github, please.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Settling should be strategic and considered. A player should weigh up the pros and cons

Of course, I'm not talking about settling a myriad of useless cities scattered across the map simply to see my city count surpass 20.

and not be rewarded just for doing it.

See this is where I disagree, because 'doing it' -- let's not forget how progressively expensive it gets to keep 'doing it' -- is precisely what makes the peaceful-wide style incentive and fun in the first place, and should be exactly what progress takes advantage of and synergizes with once the map opens up around mid-game. If there's viable land available, a competent progress civ with modest pops and solid empire-wide infra shouldn't have to be dissuaded from claiming it over fear of revolt, simply because they're above 10 cities (regardless of difficulty setting) -- I know it's an opening policy, but those opening policies basically dictate how you want to ideally play the game. Regardless of the second policy tree, a progress player's citizens shouldn't be nearly as 'upset' as the other 2 styles (turtle tradition / authority domination) just because they're doing exactly what they're supposed to by exploring and peacefully expanding. There are already significant cons from spreading yourself too thin (especially for group B, who unlike group C doesn't have the military to respond accordingly), and I really don't think happiness should be the main burden or salt in the wound for group B if playing 'properly', to an extent obviously. Again, I'm not asking for tall levels of happiness comfort, but a peaceful-wide civ with 'good' play should be able to reasonably stay above 50% despite going over 10 (settled) cities in mid-game, and currently that's not really the case even on a middle difficulty like King.

This is why I proposed Pioneers and Colonists come with some kind of tangible inherent happiness that represents the ambition and willingness of the adventurous citizens who take on the challenge of claiming new lands. It would create a small buffer to allow for the remaining infra to be established and happiness to not mount as bad empire wide. Civs in group B are essentially the only style benefiting from spending hammers on those units; it would only be useful for the intended peaceful-wide players, for reasons I already listed in my initial post -- hell, if there's worry of exploit/abuse from other styles you could even lock it behind finishing the progress tree: "Pioneers and Colonists create +3 (global or local?) happiness on settle".

The real question you can ask, is...
Is it good, that you get more unhappiness in higher difficulties, if you do exactly the same things with the same result in 2 different difficulties? (cause in higher difficulties, the AI will play better and rise the median yields more, which is the base of your main unhappiness calculation)

I think this is a large part of what I'd like to get figured out.

If this you can't do, then I'd say defense buildings are currently underperforming in terms of the happiness they provide.

I was overlooking the needs reduction from these buildings. Maybe part of a solution lies in adjusting those numbers? There can be so many moving parts and you're all more equipped than I am to consider the logistics behind certain changes -- I don't envy Gazebo or any of the other amazing brains involved for all the angles of consideration for this great project.

 

[glider1]

If there's viable land available, a competent progress civ with modest pops and solid empire-wide infra shouldn't have to be dissuaded from claiming it over fear of revolt, simply because they're above 10 cities (regardless of difficulty setting) -- I know it's an opening policy, but those opening policies basically dictate how you want to ideally play the game. Regardless of the second policy tree, a progress player's citizens shouldn't be nearly as 'upset' as the other 2 styles (turtle tradition / authority domination) just because they're doing exactly what they're supposed to by exploring and peacefully expanding.

I'm interested to learn. Are you sure you aren't just playing progress wrongly? Ten cities before the second policy tree sounds too much for progress.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Aside from the current issue with wide happiness and the civilians bug *gotta report as soon as i get home*, i'm blown away by the current patch performance.

• Tactical AI keeps getting better and better, it still does some wacky stuff like dipping way too deep into my formation and sometimes loses units unnecessarily but the bigger offenders like putting siege units in the frontlines are no longer there.
• I absolutely love how opportunistic the AI was in my last two games that i legit restarted one of them because i got my ass kicked real hard losing two cities out of 6 in the classical era by a conjoint war declared by two AIs (Surprisingly they were tradition Ethiopia that hated me for religious difference and Progress Brazil) at two opposite fronts (Playing the donut mapscript with ocean in the middle) at the same time .... Eventually i was able to recover them but i was just so far behind in terms of infrastructre, policies, army and economy that there was no way i was going to be able to compete on the long run even if the inevitable DOW by the same two civs that hate me does not happen anytime soon.
• Early game deals for strategics seems fine but luxury value for gold seems consistently low.
• A simple balance concern regarding Assyria is their unique NW; i don't think it's availability at writing changes much since it's tied to growing to a certain population that there is no way you can get to that population unless you have the most fertile lands playing tradition on floodplains with some luck too .... I think we could probably try reducing the population target a tad bit if the earlier availability is to supposed to be relevant.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

I'm interested to learn. Are you sure you aren't just playing progress wrongly? Ten cities before the second policy tree sounds too much for progress.

I don't think I stated 10+ for early game, and in my initial post a few pages back I actually stated how happy I was with progress and early game happiness after the 'Equality' change. Sorry if there was misunderstanding when I said "a progress civ", but I thought it would be assumed the civ would be well into, if not finished, their second tree by that point considering I'm discussing Pioneers/Colonists and intercontinental settling. You're generally only going to have room for 5-8 cities for initial expansion anyways, so my argument is concerning happiness after peacefully expanding in the mid-game.

Edit: I'll also add that after playing a couple games on the newest Communitu map, there definitely are even more substantial chunks of viable land for the taking, only reinforcing my desire. I'll try and provide a few screens when I can to further illustrate my reasoning with in-game examples.

 

[InkAxis]

Progress civs are the only civs that will regularly use public works, so buffing them will be the best solution. I'm not opposed to also buffing the normal building happiness reduction as even with all the buildings you still end up with unhappiness.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Progress civs are the only civs that will regularly use public works, so buffing them will be the best solution.

I'm also going to point out something obvious that I'm sure has been brought up before, but building a PW means hammers lost towards constructing any other buildings and/or units, so they definitely need to bring value.

I'm not opposed to also buffing the normal building happiness reduction as even with all the buildings you still end up with unhappiness.

This is arguably the thing leaving me the most perplexed about the entire happiness system. I'll have a city with reasonable pop and the majority of, if not all infrastructure, but will still be suffering unhappiness in some weird ways (e.g., lots of poverty despite me having the most gpt in the game with all contemporary poverty reducing buildings already constructed across my empire). I know the system was designed to keep civs reigned in a bit, but this aspect is puzzling a lot of times.