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

[tu_79]

Alright, so let's break this down into 3 parts:

1. The UI:

The current UI is a holdover from vanilla. I'm considering changing it so that, instead of a flat +/- number with an appropriate face, it becomes:

'Unhappy Citizen Total' / 'Happy Citizen + Bonuses Total' (+/- Happiness Per Turn) (Appropriate Happy Face)

The top panel tooltip can also show the current tech penalty for your needs modifier.

2. The sudden drops:

Currently no easy solution here. Possible 'fixes' are:

- Buffer
- Rethink of how 'local' unhappiness translates into global unhappiness

3. Player agency:

Also not easy.

- Remove tech median penalty
- Processes can affect modifiers
- GAP as negative happiness pool buffer

Does this about cover it?

G

Agree with most.

In my opinion, buffers or delays only works for temporarily twisted values. For example, when capturing a new city, building a courthouse prevents rebels, but you need a period of grace for avoiding rebels before you can do something about it. I'm not against it, as long as it is clear to the player whether the crisis is acute or chronicle.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Do progress civs experience these huge happiness dips or just authority? Just wonder because I only ever see it as authority and makes me wonder if the source of happiness in the authority tree needs adjusted. Equality in progress is way better than discipline in authority.

I see it happen to all kind of ancient trees picks. But it simply looks like, wide empires are hit the most.

It's not unknown. It's caused by your population:infrastructure ratio compared to other Civs. Either you're getting so soundly beaten by other Civs you are probably on too high a difficulty level, or your pop is too high. Note that your pop doesn't have to be high in absolute terms, just high relative to the good tiles and buildings available.

I dont think its a citizen number only thing. Of course, more population makes you more vulnerable. But even I like growth, this doesnt mean I go into food rampage, planting farms everywhere. Remember, we are talking about drops in industrial age and later. At this state of game, I normally have improved every tile in my empire. And if it would be a growth thing, it would happen in every state of the game, even between researching techs, and it would go down over a long period, and not happen in 1 or 5 turns.

'Unhappy Citizen Total' / 'Happy Citizen + Bonuses Total' (+/- Happiness Per Turn) (Appropriate Happy Face)

The top panel tooltip can also show the current tech penalty for your needs modifier.

Yes, definitly in favor of this decision.

2. The sudden drops:

Currently no easy solution here.

We should do more investigations here, what exactly is triggering the drops.

3. Player agency:
- Remove tech median penalty
- Processes can affect modifiers
- GAP as negative happiness pool buffer

The tech median penalty is one of the best decisions you have made in the last patches. I never had the feeling its striking me too hard, and dont think its the source.
On the one side, processes already decrease the uhappiness, cause you can generate yields in the most necessary sort, on the other hand, running processes increases your gap in infrastructure, cause you didnt construct buildings, which would help.
GAPs as buffer sounds as a cool new feature, but it needs new balancing. A 20 city empire with full artistry would be immun to happiness issues, even if they have -100 happiness. This looks abusable and I dont think, the AI will be able to understand this.

 

[Gazebo]

GAPs as buffer sounds as a cool new feature, but it needs new balancing. A 20 city empire with full artistry would be immun to happiness issues, even if they have -100 happiness. This looks abusable and I dont think, the AI will be able to understand this.

Unless GAP became an un-earnable yield while your empire was unhappy. Which kinda makes sense...right?

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Unless GAP became an un-earnable yield while your empire was unhappy. Which kinda makes sense...right?

G

Are GAP an un-earnable yield, when my empire is unhappy? Or do you suggest such thing in future patch?

 

[matlajs]

May i ask why in this new version, now attacking civ receive anti-warmonger fervor bonus instead of defending? Shaka DoWed me already 2nd time at early game, yet he has that bonus. like he would need that with all his bonuses.

 

[Enginseer]

May i ask why in this new version, now attacking civ receive anti-warmonger fervor bonus instead of defending? Shaka DoWed me already 2nd time at early game, yet he has that bonus. like he would need that with all his bonuses.

it's assumed you probably took his cities/or someone else and Shaka is doing a war on liberation.

If the dropoffs are that annoying, just add a memory element to the unhappiness formula.

And the memory element would just remember the past happiness value. Upon researching a tech, the UI would indicate sudden happiness change while keeping you happy so you can prepare in the next 5 turns.

 

[Gazebo]

Are GAP an un-earnable yield, when my empire is unhappy? Or do you suggest such thing in future patch?

No, sorry, what I'm saying is, what if that became a rule in the future? Negative happiness wouldn't be offset by GAP yield at that point.

G

 

[CrabHelmet]

At that point GAP is like... less useful Happiness. Just makes them redundant. Think this is a poor idea.

Don't think the tech penalty will help either. It's not that you get penalized for going up in techs, it's that you are less penalized for being behind in techs. If this is removed and a constant rate is used, then if you are behind in Science and so have less new buildings and less yields, you will get punished for being behind. You're getting horse ahead of cart if you see techs as penalizing you, other way round.

Processes affecting modifiers is a good idea, but I think will very rarely prove decisive (I still approve of it as a change, mind, I just think it will only rarely be the difference between happy/unhappy).

I think you should put @tu_79's Food suggestion on there. Also the discussion earlier back of stopping Unhappiness only affecting Food/Science/Culture/Faith, and not Production/Gold, which are the main cures to Unhappiness. Otherwise it has a feedback loop.

 

[pineappledan]

No, sorry, what I'm saying is, what if that became a rule in the future? Negative happiness wouldn't be offset by GAP yield at that point.

GAP generating buildings would need to be buffed, since their ability to generate yields would now be conditional. there's also the question of instant GAP sources. Would they be affected?

 

[Gazebo]

At that point GAP is like... less useful Happiness. Just makes them redundant. Think this is a poor idea.

Don't think the tech penalty will help either. It's not that you get penalized for going up in techs, it's that you are less penalized for being behind in techs. If this is removed and a constant rate is used, then if you are behind in Science and so have less new buildings and less yields, you will get punished for being behind. You're getting horse ahead of cart if you see techs as penalizing you, other way round.

Processes affecting modifiers is a good idea, but I think will very rarely prove decisive (I still approve of it as a change, mind, I just think it will only rarely be the difference between happy/unhappy).

I think you should put @tu_79's Food suggestion on there. Also the discussion earlier back of stopping Unhappiness only affecting Food/Science/Culture/Faith, and not Production/Gold, which are the main cures to Unhappiness. Otherwise it has a feedback loop.

You'll have to forgive me for not memorizing the dozen or so suggestions - please link to the relevant post(s).

Tech median already exists, not sure what you're talking about, exactly.

GAP generating buildings would need to be buffed, since their ability to generate yields would now be conditional. there's also the question of instant GAP sources. Would they be affected?

I dunno, just pointing out a possible solution to the GAP + Unhappiness question.

 

[Omen of Peace]

Stepping briefly around the happiness debate: I tried Horsemen in the latest beta.

I was Russia, and had a lot of horses lying around (which got doubled up by the UA), so after building up a bit of infrastructure I started mass-producing them. Only when they started faring poorly against Carthage's spearmen did I remember the CS 14 change...

Part of me regrets the golden age of mass Horsemen, but overall I suspect it's good for balance.
The change may have weakened Authority's early game a little, but that's probably fine - given Gazebo's report that it overperformed.
I do need to play with it some more, perhaps with an earlier rush.

 

[pineappledan]

I dunno, just pointing out a possible solution to the GAP + Unhappiness question.

You could probably get away with putting a static +1GAP on all structures that currently give GAP and leave the instant boosts as is, just to try it

All-in-all, I'm not sure how I feel about re-introducing the "while empire is happy" mechanic. It was prevalent in Vanilla, especially for beliefs. I figured you wanted to do away with those mechanics entirely.

I'm not you, and I'm relatively new here, so you will have to recall why you decided to cut out those old happiness-dependent mechanics the first time, and if adding them here is a step back for your overall design goals.

At that point GAP is like... less useful Happiness. Just makes them redundant. Think this is a poor idea.

Isn't that kinda what they are already?

 

[Stalker0]

Ultimately there are two sources of unhappiness we need to analyze. I’m not offering solutions, more defining the reasons people are seeing these problems.

Per city. Right now the system is designed so each city generally adds a certain amount of unhappiness even with great infrastructure. This is countered by the happiness bonuses you receive. Some of those bonuses are per city and some of thst is static (like luxuries).

Ultimately this means there is a maximum sustainable number of cities before a civ will always be unhappy. It’s a fundamental limit, I’m just not sure what that limit is.

If you provide more per city bonuses all you do is make expansion unchecked, so you need an alternate.


High growth: Cities operate on a curve. As they grow their yields improve and unhappiness drops. But at a certain point this changes, the yields growth generates no longer accounts for the needs growth that your higher pop generates.

This means that in general, very high growth cities have greater unhappiness. And once again you have a fundamental limit of how big those cities get before their happiness becomes unsustainable.


So for players who don’t hit those extremes, they see no issue. The players that do experience the unsustainable crashes

 

[Gazebo]

You could probably get away with putting a static +1GAP on all structures that currently give GAP and leave the instant boosts as is, just to try it

All-in-all, I'm not sure how I feel about re-introducing the "while empire is happy" mechanic. It was prevalent in Vanilla, especially for beliefs. I figured you wanted to do away with those mechanics entirely.

I'm not you, and I'm relatively new here, so you will have to recall why you decided to cut out those old happiness-dependent mechanics the first time, and if adding them here is a step back for your overall design goals.

Isn't that kinda what they are already?

The binary nature of it was often frustrating because of the penalty incurred by a single digit dip in happiness. Probably not a great idea, but it would solve the problem.

If there is a problem. Which there may or may not be. Maybe.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Just be true to yourself, dawg

 

[Gazebo]

I mean, do we just get a little crazy here and...toss out national happiness? Just make the unhappiness penalties apply to each city individually? So if a city has -3 happiness, it grows more slowly and produces x% less gold/culture/science/faith etc.? I'd tweak the code so that (as with national yields) the unhappiness penalties don't affect the unhappiness metric (so there's no negative feedback loop).

At x unhappiness revolts can occur, and at y unhappiness barbarians can appear, etc. etc.? I mean, I know it's a little crazy...but it would solve the problem in one fell swoop.

'national' happiness policies and stuff could be replaced with GAP, since GAP would serve the same purpose as happiness does now (they double dip anyways).

Am I going crazy? Are you?

Edit: this would actually be easier than you might think, and it has the bonus of actually helping the AI (as 'empire' management' is harder than city-by-city management).

G

 

[CrabHelmet]

I've actually thought that for a long time but thought we'd get told off for being too radical for suggesting it. D:

 

[Gazebo]

I've actually thought that for a long time but thought we'd get told off for being too radical for suggesting it. D:

I mean, sometimes you need a minigun to carve a butterfly out of ice.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Isn't that just the amenities system from civ VI then? I dunno!

 

[Gazebo]

Isn't that just the amenities system from civ VI then? I dunno!

Maybe? Or maybe it's the happiness system from Civ3/4!

G