New Beta Version - September 25th (9-25)

[Stalker0]

I’m still a fan of Gs earlier idea of an overflow pool, especially if it’s in the happy UI.

My happiness starts a slow drop, and I can check the bar to tell me how it bad it could get. Thst gives me warning, and then time to react.

Now the possible issue is the flip side. If my happiness only rises slowly as well, then I can get frustrated waiting 20 turns for my happiness to rise back to s good level.

 

[pineappledan]

I'm tilting more towards the idea of an overflow pool as well. I wouldn't have it change 1 happiness per turn though. Maybe 3-5 per turn. 1 is far too gradual.

Really, I think the optics of a 20 happiness swing are hurting more than actual mechanical issues, and that having some method of smoothing out the dips is all that might be needed.

 

[Workerspam]

A lot to digest here.

First, a lot of minor (and a few major) misunderstandings on how happiness and Golden Ages work.

Just as a random example, I went and got my save from Vox Populi Challenge 7, with Portugal. The point of the challenge was a tech-race under hostile circumstances, and I went Tradition, which is normally the happiest tree. On turn 199 I have 27 Empire Happiness between 5 cities, which is quite high, I don't normally go much higher than 50 before Renaissance ends. However... my cities have 3, -3, -3, -2, -5 happiness respectively. All the rest of my Happiness is from Luxuries and Empire-wide modifiers. For people saying "the migration mechanics is abusable", no, it'd be really hard. The only place I can get people to migrate to is my Capital, as I mentioned earlier, and even then, that is a temporary reprieve because it can only take 3 more Citizens.

Not to single CrabHelmet out (seems like he understands both systems as well as most) but this one caught my eye. This isn't how the happiness system works. 3 happiness in a city does not mean adding 3 citizens will drop happiness to 0. This is because being above the median does not add happiness; it simply means you have a much bigger buffer before that yield can lead to unhappiness. Depending on the state of the city you might add 10, 15, or more citizens and not change the overall happiness in that city; you wouldn't add any unhappiness until your city actually drops below the median in a yield.

I'm largely ambivalent about the proposed GAP and migration solutions; the former (depending on how it's implemented and WOW we all make bold assumptions with limited information on that score) gives you time to sort out your issues but doesn't necessarily make them more visible/predictable, the latter directly addresses them but in a way that is potentially less desirable than the unhappiness itself. I'm against the food penalty as a form of correction in a happy empire; if my city has -8 happiness but my empire is sitting at 100 happiness, I'm fine.

What would help me is feedback on how resilient my happiness level is. If I'm sitting at 40 happiness and most of my cities are well above the median in most yield categories, I'm in good shape. If I'm at 40 happiness but all my cities are just a hair above the median in most categories, I'm in danger of a sudden big drop. Having some feedback on that level would be very helpful to me and likely to new players as well.

 

[Gazebo]

I’m still a fan of Gs earlier idea of an overflow pool, especially if it’s in the happy UI.

My happiness starts a slow drop, and I can check the bar to tell me how it bad it could get. Thst gives me warning, and then time to react.

Now the possible issue is the flip side. If my happiness only rises slowly as well, then I can get frustrated waiting 20 turns for my happiness to rise back to s good level.

It is the change I like the most as well.

G

 

[Edaka]

I am in favor of an overflow pool, but it must be visible in UI. Something like a notification saying "Your empire is heading towards X happiness/ unhappiness at a rate of Y happiness/ unhappiness per turn." These could be two separate notifications. This would ensure that the player would know what's heading towards him/her, as well as that he/she has time to react.

Edit: Or, better yet, it could be displayed in the happiness tooltip, as Stalker has proposed.

 

[tu_79]

You people didn't seem to have listened to complaints.

With any buffer like solution you are just delaying the problem and not sending the right signals.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

The discussion about food and growth penalty is kinda useless. How should it help in an instand big happiness drop?
The amount of additional citizen in a 10 turn period should be marginal. If the drop happens, you are maybe already in big red numbers, and stopped growth dont help in getting out of those red numbers in 10 turns till a revolt is triggering.

"I predict they have overly populous cities, and, yep, correct every single time."
Nobody is speaking about the problem a 50 citizen city in industrial era is creating. But it looks like, everybody knows, WHEN a city is overpopulated? I think if its possible to tell this, we are at a level with too many restrictions.

But, back to the topic. Gazebo, a stupid easy question:
What if we simply multiply each happiness source and each unhappiness source by 10. Would this decrease the issue of roundings and create less artifical jumps?

 

[tu_79]

". If the drop happens, you are maybe already in big red numbers, and stopped growth dont help in getting out of those red numbers in 10 turns till a revolt is triggering."

Precisely, you must act in advance, before things get out of control. And yes, it is important to know if that happens for excessive growth or excessive research, because then you can target the problem. Apparently it is due to excessive population. Then, the right signals must be sent to the players to delay growth before it is too late. If we wait for the happiness drop, that's too late.
A right signal tells the player clearly that the play style must change immediately. But it must not prevent the means for recovery.

If you dislike my proposal, fair enough, but I still think buffers are a waste of time if they are not alarming enough. And just releasing players from penalties a while longer is not going to achieve that.

It works for gold and research because delaying your research is not that hard, and cutting expenses is something doable pretty fast. Gold is not expended while research goes low. You don't have an anti research mechanic that eats gold. So on.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I don't think the overflow mechanic will work at all. I still think it will make things worse. Now the extent to which you have made a mistake is hidden for more turns. That's a step back, not a step forward.

I agree utterly and totally with @tu_79. A buffer will only help experienced players.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't think the overflow mechanic will work at all. I still think it will make things worse. Now the extent to which you have made a mistake is hidden for more turns. That's a step back, not a step forward.

I agree utterly and totally with @tu_79. A buffer will only help experienced players.

The thing is this. If I see my happy drop by 2, I won’t think much. If next turn it does it again I may perk up. On turn 3 I’m going hey this is a problem. Now I go to the tooltip and it tells my happiness is going to drop by 20 more!!

On no that’s bad! Ok I need to fix that. So I start building the buildings and such. My happiness starts to stabilize before it gets too low. Phew!!!

That to me is how an effective buffer would work. Also I would love if we could make the happy number orange when it’s dropping to further show a player that some attention is required.

 

[CrabHelmet]

@Stalker0: You can't fix happiness in a turn or two. There are no Distress reducing buildings between Armories and Constabulary. That's a lot of techs, which you won't even get near to finishing researching in the time a buffer lasts. Similarly, you're going to be able to build maybe two buildings before your buffer runs out. That won't give anywhere enough yields to fix the problems. Seriously, have you seen how difficult it is for inexperienced players to fix a happiness spiral? The idea they'll be able to solve it with a buffer is silly, because a) happiness is really hard to fix once you have the problem, and b) as discussed before, they don't even know what the problem was to begin with (bad pop:infrastructure ratio).

All a buffer will do is allow really experienced players to skirt into low unhappiness without suffering, because they know how not to get further but can now endure a few turns. It will make the game easier for people like @CrazyG, and harder for new players because it hides their mistakes for longer.

 

[Gazebo]

@Stalker0: You can't fix happiness in a turn or two. There are no Distress reducing buildings between Armories and Constabulary. That's a lot of techs, which you won't even get near to finishing researching in the time a buffer lasts. Similarly, you're going to be able to build maybe two buildings before your buffer runs out. That won't give anywhere enough yields to fix the problems. Seriously, have you seen how difficult it is for inexperienced players to fix a happiness spiral? The idea they'll be able to solve it with a buffer is silly, because a) happiness is really hard to fix once you have the problem, and b) as discussed before, they don't even know what the problem was to begin with (bad pop:infrastructure ratio).

All a buffer will do is allow really experienced players to skirt into low unhappiness without suffering, because they know how not to get further but can now endure a few turns. It will make the game easier for people like @CrazyG, and harder for new players because it hides their mistakes for longer.

You've decided that your method is the only solution. I get it. There are lots of valid and interesting solutions here. But you can't sit here and say that a buffer would hurt new players, that's objectively untrue.

G

 

[CrabHelmet]

@Gazebo that's unfair and untrue. I offered multiple solutions, and I have also pointed out @tu_79's is also viable. I am also making in my view a true statement when I say the buffer will hurt new players. While there's a buffer, your growth continues. If you growth continues, then the underlying problem (bad pop:infrastructure ratio) is still getting worse. New players do not know this is the problem. During the buffer, they will not adjust growth - why would they? Nothing is telling them to. As such, the underlying problem is getting worse and worse, and eventually the buffer will catch up with that, and they're at a much lower point than they would have been before, even if it took slightly longer to get there. At least instant unhappiness shuts off growth immediately!

I have better things to do with my time than argue for stuff I don't think is true on a video-game forum. :/

 

[tu_79]

I have better things to do with my time than argue for stuff I don't think is true on a video-game forum. :/

Yes. Getting some hours of sleeping, for example.

 

[Emperorman1]

I like the idea that we multiply all the current happiness numbers by ten. I think happiness would then drop more smoothly.

I also want to add that I like the GAP as it is. Collecting those precious points has been great fun since I quitted playing vanilla.

 

[glider1]

Leave the system don't change it. The happiness system is what it is (ten times better than vanilla even with the integer numbers design problem).

Just get the word out to new players that they need to aim for +50 happiness by mid-game to withstand sudden changes.

The volatility of the happiness system is a feature not a flaw.

If most of the players are frustrated accountants who want to play the game like an excel spreadsheet, warn them ahead of time that this mod requires them to budget for +50 happiness mid-game even when they think they don't need it. The beginners will learn over time that they don't need to leave +50 margin.

I am an experienced player. I played a warlord game for the fun and easily got a 70 pop capital with ten cities without a happiness problem and not even a drop in the industrial age.

 

[CppMaster]

Happiness buffer along with city manager that avoids growth and focus on reducing happiness when empire is unhappy would really help newbies.

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo that's unfair and untrue. I offered multiple solutions, and I have also pointed out @tu_79's is also viable. I am also making in my view a true statement when I say the buffer will hurt new players. While there's a buffer, your growth continues. If you growth continues, then the underlying problem (bad pop:infrastructure ratio) is still getting worse. New players do not know this is the problem. During the buffer, they will not adjust growth - why would they? Nothing is telling them to. As such, the underlying problem is getting worse and worse, and eventually the buffer will catch up with that, and they're at a much lower point than they would have been before, even if it took slightly longer to get there. At least instant unhappiness shuts off growth immediately!

I have better things to do with my time than argue for stuff I don't think is true on a video-game forum. :/

Nothing tells them to right now either - with the buffer, I can introduce notifications for rising/lowering happiness and the top UI can say 'hey, look, your happiness is in decline!' It'll be comparable to how war weariness works right now - there's a target value (the real value) and the buffered value. If a change can never exceed, say, +/- 3 happiness per turn, players would in fact have a few turns to both realize and course-correct. Saying they won't have a warning or wouldn't be able to change it is arguing in bad faith.

Edit: also, 'I have better things to do with my time' is a terrible way to treat people, like me, who spend our spare time making a game for you.

G

 

[Stalker0]

@Stalker0: You can't fix happiness in a turn or two. There are no Distress reducing buildings between Armories and Constabulary. That's a lot of techs, which you won't even get near to finishing researching in the time a buffer lasts. Similarly, you're going to be able to build maybe two buildings before your buffer runs out. That won't give anywhere enough yields to fix the problems. Seriously, have you seen how difficult it is for inexperienced players to fix a happiness spiral? The idea they'll be able to solve it with a buffer is silly, because a) happiness is really hard to fix once you have the problem, and b) as discussed before, they don't even know what the problem was to begin with (bad pop:infrastructure ratio).

All a buffer will do is allow really experienced players to skirt into low unhappiness without suffering, because they know how not to get further but can now endure a few turns. It will make the game easier for people like @CrazyG, and harder for new players because it hides their mistakes for longer.

Ultimately the divide we have here is thst we are arguing different problems.

1) new players don’t recognize they need to address happiness before it’s too late.

2) The happiness system doesn’t have enough course correction to allow a person to address a drop quickly.

You are arguing number 2 and I argument 1. Your argument may be valid, and if true I agree further changes are required.

But so far the consensus seems to be thst 1 is the main issue. For thst problem I do believe the buffer system is a good way to address it.

 

[crdvis16]

"I predict they have overly populous cities, and, yep, correct every single time."
Nobody is speaking about the problem a 50 citizen city in industrial era is creating. But it looks like, everybody knows, WHEN a city is overpopulated? I think if its possible to tell this, we are at a level with too many restrictions.

Are you saying that you recognize that too much growth might be your problem but you don't want to change your playstyle because you see a penalty on growth as too restrictive?

I'm really curious to see examples of these massive swings in happiness. I don't think I've ever experienced it and I'd like to see the situation that leads to it.