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

[Owlbebach]

The third factor, and a factor which was a late addition, is technology. You cannot stop researching techs, barring absurdity such as selling your science buildings (which will lower your happiness from illiteracy anyways). This is what tends to screw your happiness in the late game. You invent ballistics and your people are suddenly impoverished. I invent biology and suddenly they are bored. The problem here is I don't get more culture with every tech, only like 1 in every 10 techs has a boredom reduction, or a poverty reduction, or an illiteracy reduction. So if I have boredom, my only way to reduce that is to research towards the stadium, which means I have to discover 7 new techs all of which cause even more boredom.

Tech increasing unhappiness works just fine for the early parts of the game, however I'm seeing 0 complaints about happiness from ancient to medieval. Part of the reason it works out alright here is because there are so many buildings and other things being unlocked that almost all techs have something that fights at least one kind of unhappiness. I think around industrial era (where all happiness complaints occur) its a bad feature though. I can stop growing temporarily to deal with happiness issues, I cannot stop discovering techs.

Also I don't like distress. If you are missing hammers, you are already short on the buildings that fight unhappiness. Food causes you to grow so its weird, the food aspect just makes specialists heavy strategies better IMO. The only city that has lots of food but isn't growing to match that is working many specialists.

PS- if you are constantly having happiness problems, take inspiration every game. When happiness is a factor its uncontested for the strongest follower belief.

I'll just point out that i indicated that all of those will be a problem once new mechanics was introduced, without even trying the game. It was obvious, but nobody listened.

I don't like unhappiness increase with new techs - i understand the idea, but it just does not work the way it should. I understand the problem with integer values, but i'll throw an idea here. Can it be caused by % modifiers? I mean if you are in Classical - you research a tech and your needs increase 10% - from 5 to 5.5. And when you are in Modern - you have more citizens AND more yields per citizen. And same 10% is now an increase from 50 to 55, which is big and very hard to get. I may be wrong though, i'm not sure.
I don't like distress either, it is artificial and awkward. I still think crime was better. (From a gameplay perspective, i understand that G didn't like the code)

 

[CrazyG]

I don't think it matters if tech is going by a global median. Making my happiness depend on things that are outside of my control contributes to the unpredictability problem. The problem is unpredictability. I don't oppose a buffer, but we can't pretend it fixes the problem. As long as I can remember there have been late game happiness drops, and the tech thing just makes that worse, because late game players discover a lot of technologies, they discover them more quickly than before, and there are fewer ways to get those yields.

A buffer that basically serves as a warning isn't going to tell me anything I don't already know. I know my happiness is going to dive, that's why in Renaissance when I had 60 happiness I resisted the urge to settle two pioneers. I can't see this warning and unsettle those cities.

 

[Owlbebach]

I don't think it matters if tech is going by a global median. Making my happiness depend on things that are outside of my control contributes to the unpredictability problem. The problem is unpredictability. I don't oppose a buffer, but we can't pretend it fixes the problem. As long as I can remember there have been late game happiness drops, and the tech thing just makes that worse, because late game players discover a lot of technologies, they discover them more quickly than before, and there are fewer ways to get those yields.

A buffer that basically serves as a warning isn't going to tell me anything I don't already know. I know my happiness is going to dive, that's why in Renaissance when I had 60 happiness I resisted the urge to settle two pioneers. I can't see this warning and unsettle those cities.

Yes, exactly, and i think i have a solution. As @CrazyG pointed out it is incredibly stupid when your citizen become impoverished when you research ballistics. Why don't we assign needs increase to particular techs that are associated with this type of need? Like increase of boredom upon researchin Radio or increase of illiteracy upon researching Scientific Theory? This does make sense, serve the same purpose, and IS VERY predictable

 

[tu_79]

Yes, exactly, and i think i have a solution. As @CrazyG pointed out it is incredibly stupid when your citizen become impoverished when you research ballistics. Why don't we assign needs increase to particular techs that are associated with this type of need? Like increase of boredom upon researchin Radio or increase of illiteracy upon researching Scientific Theory? This does make sense, serve the same purpose, and IS VERY predictable

Tech level is useful for avoiding situations where you are very illiterate and your neighbors have built a lot of new shinning modern buildings. You'll be very unhappy just for you being backwards. It also acts as a rein for excessively fast teching. I'll leave it as it is.
We are not having happiness problems, it's just a thing for newbies. The system must teach them before they fall in a trap.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

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.

And I ask again. What is TOO much growth? Who has to decide, whats too much growth? (I know, in the end its Gazebo, cause he makes the numbers )
Nobody is declining, a city with only farms and size 50 in industrial is a very bad idea. But having 30 citizen cities, working only improved tiles, good infrastructure (some reports mentioning they have build everything), using specialists, but also suffers big happiness drops.... whats the conclusion now? Is now 30 citizen too big? Unlucky cause other tall empires rising the median values? A bad chosen number for need calculation?
Yes, I dislike the usage of an exponential method for the population-modificator, additional population is nearly always more inefficent than the provious population, and investing in growth already means sacrificing other yields while focusing on growth. Theres no need to punish growth even more.

But I dont think big cities are the problem.

Do you guys see too, the AI is drastically reducing their growth in industrial era? They have maybe size of 20-25 and could grow even more, the improvements would allow it but they mainly focus now in this period of the usage of specialists.
In my last game I conquered the capitol of huns, the city dropped to a size of 16, my capitol was at around 30. I dont wanted higher costs, so I puppet their capitol (and is now using the same city gouverner as AI cities).... and it switched to mainly specialists usage. The excess food was only at around 15-25. For any additional citizen the city would have needed 15-25 turns, which is for me a long period.

I could imagine this could be a part of the problem/situation. Me as human want a constant growth, not too fast, not too slow. Even I enter industrial age or higher. This leads to less usage of specialists while the AI is now using them mainly, pushing the values of culture/science/gold upwards, while I suffer happiness problems. But the AI is more resistant to unhappiness by distress, cause my high food/production values are not represented by the median values.

25 non-puppet cities. Wanted to feel the rush of China's UA and it was really amazing until those 5~ turns.

Did you enter a new era? Or only a new tech?
If you have 25 cities and are hit by a 100 happiness drop, this is 4 more unhappiness per city.....
How big is the possibility, roundings error only occur at researching a new tech in a new era? And how big is the chance, it happens in ALL 4 happiness related yields?
If rounding errors are the problem, such hard drops should happen extremly rare, but also in researching techs in mid era.

I see also big happiness drops for japan, carthage and ottoman. Do you think those nations have too much focus on growth too? The AI is much more cautios about growth.

 

[Owlbebach]

Tech level is useful for avoiding situations where you are very illiterate and your neighbors have built a lot of new shinning modern buildings. You'll be very unhappy just for you being backwards. It also acts as a rein for excessively fast teching. I'll leave it as it is.
We are not having happiness problems, it's just a thing for newbies. The system must teach them before they fall in a trap.

Okay, but why do my people feel bored and underpaid when my neighbor has shiny new tanks?

 

[Gazebo]

It sounds like the best solution is to do nothing, then. I mean, if I’m taking the honest approach it would be much easier for new players to just get thumped once or twice. If someone quits their first game because they got their feelings hurt over an unhappiness dip they weren’t going to stick around anyways.

I can turn off the tech median - in fact anyone can with the defines in the CBO. But I think you’ll see that it primarily benefits runaways to do so.

G

 

[CppMaster]

And I ask again. What is TOO much growth? Who has to decide, whats too much growth?

Player decides it.

I could imagine this could be a part of the problem/situation. Me as human want a constant growth, not too fast, not too slow. Even I enter industrial age or higher.

Remember that each new citizen will give you less and less yields, so growing without limit could be a bad idea.

 

[Questdog]

I like to play Civ for one thing and that is to build an empire. Five cities is not an empire and how you guys can enjoy playing the game with so few cities and nothing to do except hit the next turn button is beyond me. Currently, in VP, building an empire seems to be a naughty thing to do and the game will punish you. I want to expand. Always expand - bigger cities and more of them. I liked the old civ where each city was independent, happy-wise, and new and far away cities were more or less useless, but the people back home did not seem to suffer because you annexed Timbuktu.

I think Pioneers and the instant food yields are responsible for a lot of the later game unhappiness (At least the little bit that techs are not causing). New cities grow way too fast by the time Pioneers are available. I play on Marathon and they are popping every turn until they get to 10 and sometimes longer. Besides the strain this puts on the happiness system, it is just no fun. Building cities and watching them grow over time is a large part of the enjoyment of Civ and these insta-cities are taking that away. Not to mention that the carpenters cannot keep up with the birth rate....

Anyways, it is great that VP is more of a challenge than Vanilla, but you need to keep the fun in there too....

 

[tu_79]

It sounds like the best solution is to do nothing, then. I mean, if I’m taking the honest approach it would be much easier for new players to just get thumped once or twice. If someone quits their first game because they got their feelings hurt over an unhappiness dip they weren’t going to stick around anyways.

G

Mmm. Probably.
@Stalker0 just asked for an UI change.

How difficult would be to reduce growth locally based on local unhappiness? What can go wrong with this approach? There must be things I did not think of.
I'm not closed to other solutions, maybe something related to GAP, if the signals are clear and happen in time.

 

[CppMaster]

I like to play Civ for one thing and that is to build an empire. Five cities is not an empire and how you guys can enjoy playing the game with so few cities and nothing to do except hit the next turn button is beyond me.

Building cities and watching them grow over time is a large part of the enjoyment of Civ and these insta-cities are taking that away. Not to mention that the carpenters cannot keep up with the birth rate....

Anyways, it is great that VP is more of a challenge than Vanilla, but you need to keep the fun in there too....

For me, and I believe many other, the fun comes more from strategy and less from simulation. I've tried playing Cities Skyline, but it's so easy that it became boring for me.

 

[Stalker0]

I think some people are calling for a radical change to the happiness system...and that ship has sailed.

So if we are going to make changes to curb the worst aspects they have to be small and reasonable.

 

[Bromar1]

This might not be a popular opinion but I kinda like the unhappiness spikes. When they are manageable, I find them flavorful. Historically, new eras have been marked by shifting government traditions, internal ambitions (people wanting to get on the throne, etc) and other social unrest.

So to me, part of the problem is that there's no context to the unhappiness. Even if mechanically everything remained the same, the "feels bad" factor won't be as painful if you had some kind of canon for what is happening in your civ. I think the buffer would work great here because you could add small bits of story to what's going on. For example, a tradition civ might get a message like "pretender rebels are vying for the throne, and you are heading towards x unhappiness in y turns"

I think staying at positive happiness all game is boring but having no way to climb out of the hole is bad too. I like the way EU4 dealt with province unrest. You can give your provinces more autonomy (thus collecting less taxes and manpower from them) for a "happiness" boost. It creates a very interesting dynamic because you can deal with unhappiness relatively quickly and easily but autonomy lasts for a long time and you can lose out on tons of gold. I wonder if something similar can be implemented here

 

[Gazebo]

Mmm. Probably.
@Stalker0 just asked for an UI change.

How difficult would be to reduce growth locally based on local unhappiness? What can go wrong with this approach? There must be things I did not think of.
I'm not closed to other solutions, maybe something related to GAP, if the signals are clear and happen in time.

Just a UI change? Pretty sure that was the buffer rabbit hole.

I’m not sure that local unhappiness -> reduced growth would have much effect unless it was very severe.

For easy changes I could maybe adjust processes so that they also reduce their relevant need. Dunno if that would really help though.


G

 

[tu_79]

I’m not sure that local unhappiness -> reduced growth would have much effect unless it was very severe.

I was thinking on -2 growth per unhappy pop in the city, no matter what the global happiness is. So it is always in effect. Not much a penalty, but being always active must be noticeable.

***
Ok, now I'm going mad and throwing a silly idea.

Happiness sources are unknown in advance in a game. They depend on how many luxuries you can get, handicaps, and many other things.
Unhappiness, on the other hand, is quite defined. They are people. You can only have as much unhappiness as population in your empire.

Keeping happiness between -10 and +20 when having 30 population is one thing, doing the same thing when the population is 200 is another. So, instead of raw unhappiness, why don't we use the percentage value of unhappy people in the empire? In a 30 pop empire, 6 unhappy people represents a 20%. In a 200 pop empire that's the same as having 40 unhappy people.

Now. Partially the problem is that having 30 happiness in an empire of 200 population is bad, but the player does not know until it is too late. If unhappiness is expressed as the proportion of unhappy people in the empire, then it will be a variable number between 0% and 100%. Limiting in this way what the unhappiness number can be, also allows for limiting happiness in the same fashion, so we end up with two numbers that have a limited variation. In other words, we can tweak it so global net happiness are, for example, always between -25 and 25. Then, having net happiness at a certain value makes more sense (being under -25% means that more than half of the people in your empire is angry regardless of any happiness source).

EDIT. More clear. The only change is which number is showing in the happiness value, so it factors empire population. In industrial age, a happiness value next to 10 is desirable.

 

[Stalker0]

Just a UI change? Pretty sure that was the buffer rabbit hole.

I’m not sure that local unhappiness -> reduced growth would have much effect unless it was very severe.

For easy changes I could maybe adjust processes so that they also reduce their relevant need. Dunno if that would really help though.


G

If it eliminated the unhappy from one source while active it probably would. Although are we in the same boat as turning off growth, ultimately I’m still shooting myself in the foot by not developing the city long term.

A few more subtle controls:

1) a recurring capital only building that gives happy, but gets increasingly expensive each time you build it.

2) trigger more cs gives happy quests when your civ goes unhappy

 

[Moi Magnus]

Just a UI change? Pretty sure that was the buffer rabbit hole.

If the situation remain like know, a UI change would be welcome. If you have 20 cities, +10 happiness is not enough, since you can lose it at any moment. If you have 1 city, +10 happiness is far enough for a long time.

 

[Gazebo]

If the situation remain like know, a UI change would be welcome. If you have 20 cities, +10 happiness is not enough, since you can lose it at any moment. If you have 1 city, +10 happiness is far enough for a long time.

What does that mean?

If it eliminated the unhappy from one source while active it probably would. Although are we in the same boat as turning off growth, ultimately I’m still shooting myself in the foot by not developing the city long term.

A few more subtle controls:

1) a recurring capital only building that gives happy, but gets increasingly expensive each time you build it.

2) trigger more cs gives happy quests when your civ goes unhappy

I’m happy to tinker. This whole thread got way out of hand because I think people assume that if I mention an idea it’s the one I’m going to do - that’s rarely the case. I think it’s good to air concerns as we have, but ultimately I think the system - quirks and all - is in a better place now than ever before.

 

[CrazyG]

I can turn off the tech median - in fact anyone can with the defines in the CBO. But I think you’ll see that it primarily benefits runaways to do so.

G

Its good to have measures to manage runaways, however I don't think this how you do it. First of all, happiness primarily hurts bigger empires, which is not the same thing as a runaway. Secondly, its wrong to check a runaway by just crashing their unhappiness in a way they can't really control.

There are patches of VP from the past where my biggest enemy come industrial era was just my own unhappiness, and frankly it wasn't a fun or engaging game. What is the point of having a happiness system? I think happiness is mostly used to check overexpansion, and I don't see how linking happiness to discovered techs helps it achieve that goal.

 

[Gazebo]

Its good to have measures to manage runaways, however I don't think this how you do it. First of all, happiness primarily hurts bigger empires, which is not the same thing as a runaway. Secondly, its wrong to check a runaway by just crashing their unhappiness in a way they can't really control.

There are patches of VP from the past where my biggest enemy come industrial era was just my own unhappiness, and frankly it wasn't a fun or engaging game. What is the point of having a happiness system? I think happiness is mostly used to check overexpansion, and I don't see how linking happiness to discovered techs helps it achieve that goal.

If you have a better way of reigning in overexpansion and runaways I’m all ears. Seriously.

G