New Beta Version - March 14th (3-14)

[Enginseer]

Sorry but no. Civ 4's happiness system remains, to date, the best of the series. Simple, yet powerful. Every new citizen above the (dynamic) threshold in each city becomes unhappy until the threshold is moved up by luxuries, civics, buildings, wonders, etc. Unhappy citizens do not work. Period. I know it's too late to ask for something similar here, but I don't want people to get confused with statements like that one.

No, we can force unhappy citizens to become unemployed citizens(which if you are more unhappy than happy then unemployed citizens produce no yields at all while happy cities will have unemployed citizens producing +1 production as usual).

Which is why Vox Populi has been leaning toward that happiness system if it's the best system to date.
A majority of Positive Happiness occur from:

• Luxuries
• Buildings
• Religions (certain beliefs)
• Civics (exist in some other modmod I forgot you could also say social policies do provide happiness.)
• Wonders (some globally reduce needs and certain wonders provide naked happiness)
• Events
• Sliders
• Future Tech

A majority of Negative Happiness occurs from:

• Population
• Muh Garrison
• Events
• We will resist our oppressor!
• Hell no, we won't go!
• War Weariness
• We yearn to go back to our motherland (some of this exist in city revolution and creating its independent state or returning to its former owner...)
• We won't attack our brothers in faith!
• Muh Emancipation!

 

[Stalker0]

Yes, luxuries scale off of population, you won't gain much immediately from luxuries in small cities.

G

So more luxuries doesn't help me unless I've got some big cities, is that right? How much pop do I need before my city benefits from a second luxury?

 

[Aristos]

No, we can force unhappy citizens to become unemployed citizens(which if you are more unhappy than happy then unemployed citizens produce no yields at all while happy cities will have unemployed citizens producing +1 production as usual).

Really? I did not dare to ask something like that for a long time because I assumed it was too late to do so (didn't want to trigger Gazebo's wrath against me... for that we have Bite).

If you really can do that, and implement it, then I will finally ditch Civ 4 in favor of VP (bleh, not really, but you know what I mean...). Can you? Will you?

 

[tu_79]

It'll bounce back after annexation, it's intended that it'll drop as a consequence of war. But the real question is, how does it feel? Is the UI intuitive enough?

G

I built 8 cities more or less in a row and happiness was still at 100%, no changes. I didn't look at my GAP to see how much spare happiness I may had.
Right now, I've forced a prolonged war, with 13 unhappiness from war weariness, 8 cities 1 puppet, and still at 92% happiness.

I can't see where my unhappiness come from, though. The city screen only shows my positive happiness. There's a briefing in the city banner inside the city screen with my needs, but nothing says how much unhappiness I'm getting from specialists. The UI is not working for EUI.

 

[Gazebo]

So more luxuries doesn't help me unless I've got some big cities, is that right? How much pop do I need before my city benefits from a second luxury?

I believe I set it at a factor of 5. Can’t recall.

G

 

[Gazebo]

I built 8 cities more or less in a row and happiness was still at 100%, no changes. I didn't look at my GAP to see how much spare happiness I may had.
Right now, I've forced a prolonged war, with 13 unhappiness from war weariness, 8 cities 1 puppet, and still at 92% happiness.

I can't see where my unhappiness come from, though. The city screen only shows my positive happiness. There's a briefing in the city banner inside the city screen with my needs, but nothing says how much unhappiness I'm getting from specialists. The UI is not working for EUI.

If you are using the improved city view stuff it won’t work. Gotta use standard EUI and 6a

 

[tu_79]

If you are using the improved city view stuff it won’t work. Gotta use standard EUI and 6a

Pleeease! Someone fix this!!

 

[John.B.C]

I see that barracks removes -1 unhappiness from distress and other buildings. But let's say when I only have the abiltity to build barracks (early game) and I have -2 unhappiness, from distress in a city, can this be removed through "improving the land" like in previous patches?

 

[Enginseer]

Really? I did not dare to ask something like that for a long time because I assumed it was too late to do so (didn't want to trigger Gazebo's wrath against me... for that we have Bite).

If you really can do that, and implement it, then I will finally ditch Civ 4 in favor of VP (bleh, not really, but you know what I mean...). Can you? Will you?

As much as I like to experiment with coding, I have too much on my plate to do.

I see that barracks removes -1 unhappiness from distress and other buildings. But let's say when I only have the abiltity to build barracks (early game) and I have -2 unhappiness, from distress in a city, can this be removed through "improving the land" like in previous patches?

yes.

 

[CrazyG]

My initial thought is that the happiness system seems very wide friendly, at least initially. I like the UI for it, clear and pretty easy to understand.

BTW, barbarians will leave camps to attack your units.

 

[crdvis16]

Just fired up a game as Venice and by turn 30 my 5 population city had all 5 citizens unhappy (2 happiness from difficulty level) resulting in 2/5 = 40% happiness. By turn 40 I've had 6 barbarian rebels spawn in my territory .

Maybe it's a weird corner case of being Tradition (so quick population growth) and having luxes I can't improve yet (cinnamon and coral)? Also didn't find any natural wonders which would have helped immensely at this point. I went shrine-monument-well-council and 2 warriors intermixed so my infrastructure is about as good as I could make it at this point. The unhappiness is 2 from distress, 3 from poverty.

I'm not real sure this is a recoverable game as the rebels really stole a bunch from my city.

EDIT: second try as Venice is better so far. I dipped down to 60% happiness after taking the tradition opener and getting to 5 citizens (and found a natural wonder this game so that helped) but then bought a nearby CS which actually improved my happiness haha. I wonder if maybe the +2 citizens opener from tradition is clashing with the new happiness system a bit?

 

[Txurce]

r

It'll bounce back after annexation, it's intended that it'll drop as a consequence of war. But the real question is, how does it feel? Is the UI intuitive enough?

G

I posted this to say I thought it was working as it should. The courthouse put it up to 97%. Annexing the second city only dropped em to 88% this time. How does it all feel? Smooth and appropriate. Still early, though.

 

[John.B.C]

Perhaps out of nostalgia, but I miss striving for that juciy +10 happiness when I got those +10% to every yield (except production?). Now the happiness system doesn't feel as punishing/rewarding. I can't see myself caring about happiness at all at the moment; so I really really miss that.

EDIT: It felt like having a mini golden age running at all times in one's empire. Having +10% growth in a single jungle city isn't fun and rewarding at all.

 

[Gazebo]

My initial thought is that the happiness system seems very wide friendly, at least initially. I like the UI for it, clear and pretty easy to understand.

BTW, barbarians will leave camps to attack your units.

Re: barbs, take that up with @ilteroi

And yeah, it may end up being too wide-friendly, if so, we can up the empire modifier from 8->whatever. I didn't want to throw huge unhappiness at everyone right off the bat, so I dropped it from 12->8 for release.

Just fired up a game as Venice and by turn 30 my 5 population city had all 5 citizens unhappy (2 happiness from difficulty level) resulting in 2/5 = 40% happiness. By turn 40 I've had 6 barbarian rebels spawn in my territory .

Maybe it's a weird corner case of being Tradition (so quick population growth) and having luxes I can't improve yet (cinnamon and coral)? Also didn't find any natural wonders which would have helped immensely at this point. I went shrine-monument-well-council and 2 warriors intermixed so my infrastructure is about as good as I could make it at this point. The unhappiness is 2 from distress, 3 from poverty.

I'm not real sure this is a recoverable game as the rebels really stole a bunch from my city.

EDIT: second try as Venice is better so far. I dipped down to 60% happiness after taking the tradition opener and getting to 5 citizens (and found a natural wonder this game so that helped) but then bought a nearby CS which actually improved my happiness haha. I wonder if maybe the +2 citizens opener from tradition is clashing with the new happiness system a bit?

Yeah tradition Venice can be rough on the highest difficulties, because the handicap bonus is so low. I consider it...a challenge!

r


I posted this to say I thought it was working as it should. The courthouse put it up to 97%. Annexing the second city only dropped em to 88% this time. How does it all feel? Smooth and appropriate. Still early, though.

Cool.

Perhaps out of nostalgia, but I miss striving for that juciy +10 happiness when I got those +10% to every yield (except production?). Now the happiness system doesn't feel as punishing/rewarding. I can't see myself caring about happiness at all at the moment; so I really really miss that.

EDIT: It felt like having a mini golden age running at all times in one's empire. Having +10% growth in a single jungle city isn't fun and rewarding at all.

The problem with the 'mini golden age' is that it largely benefitted players that were already ahead. The snowball thus further punished players behind the median, etc. etc. Yes, it's not as exciting to have positive happiness now as before, but it's also, overall, a less essential system. Which puts into focus the more fun parts of the game.


G

 

[pineappledan]

Perhaps out of nostalgia, but I miss striving for that juciy +10 happiness when I got those +10% to every yield (except production?). Now the happiness system doesn't feel as punishing/rewarding. I can't see myself caring about happiness at all at the moment; so I really really miss that.

This places you in a firm minority of vocal players, where most felt that happiness was becoming an overriding concern for empire management. I can recall a few versions where I felt I was more in direct competition with my top ribbon happiness meter than against other civs. I don't miss those days...

 

[glider1]

This places you in a firm minority of vocal players, where most felt that happiness was becoming an overriding concern for empire management. I can recall a few versions where I felt I was more in direct competition with my top ribbon happiness meter than against other civs. I don't miss those days...

Please don't argue by argumentum ad populum and please don't pigeon hole your imagined minority groups. Thanks.

 

[pineappledan]

Please don't argue by argumentum ad populum and please don't pigeon hole your imagined minority groups. Thanks.

Everybody knows you shouldn't pick fights with strangers on the internet.

Literally. Everyone.

 

[Gazebo]

@tu_79 I fixed that mod for everyone. It was only a few lines of UI code. Now everyone go play and be nice.

G

 

[Stalker0]

I am very curious to hear how diety players are doing with the system. So far, I've noticed that my difficulty happiness (Emperor = 3) is a pretty significant portion of my city's happiness number so far going into Medieval. I imagine if that drops to 2 or 1 it would have a pretty big impact on gameplay.

 

[DeAnno]

I am very curious to hear how diety players are doing with the system. So far, I've noticed that my difficulty happiness (Emperor = 3) is a pretty significant portion of my city's happiness number so far going into Medieval. I imagine if that drops to 2 or 1 it would have a pretty big impact on gameplay.

Weirdly I have 4 handicap happiness on Immortal. Also Lux happiness seems like the multiplier is very weak, in a size 9 city (size 25 empire) I'm still only getting +1 happy from six unique luxuries available (all other cities also get the +1 happy). It seems weird that luxuries don't just use the Empire happiness system and a function for scaling based on total population, it would be one less mechanic to understand.