New Version - February 17th (2-17)

[dylansan]

As already said. The system has a inherent flaw. The unhappines rise can only be stopped by need reduction buildings or by other positive happiness sources. But NOT by increasing the yields. The better you play, the better you plan and succed economically, the more unhappiness you will earn. I will show you why.

Example A is the curent state in my game with Germany. Real values. Cause every full 1 yield difference from yield per pop to median per pop causes 1 unhappiness, and the real median is always modified percentual, In this system, the happiness is permanent rising. If you try to solve the unhappiness by more yields, you only shift the median to a higher value. The risen median value gets increased by the need modifier, which is percentual, but the treshold for 1 unhappiness is flat 1 yield. This discrepancy leads to more unhapppiness, if you rise the yields.
This means, if you play an awesome game and have more yields than anybody else, better than any human, you would also suffer from more unhappiness than any human.

Example B and C are fictional calculations. B shows, how much unhappiness you would gain, if you research 5 more techs and rise the gold income by 20%, thanks to the better techs.
C shows how the next 5 techs would work, if you are able to increase the yields from 120 to 140% of the initial values.
As you can see, the unhappiness rises significantly, and this only by 10 techs and 40% more. Even if you pick a social policy, which increase your yield income percentual, this would inevitable also lead to more unhappiness.

I'm not a fan of the civ-based yield targets. I think it removes the aspect of unhappiness that represents your overall weaknesses and strengths. You could have terrible gold yields, but suffer no unhappiness as long as it's an empire-wide problem.

That said, you may be thinking of it wrong. First, I think your "median" in those examples is actually the mean. Median is not an average, but the most "middle" value in the set. If the lowest values increase, it will not change the median unless they surpass the median themselves.

The strategy for dealing with unhappiness now is not to build up yields everywhere, but improve the yields where they are worst. Basically, even out the difference between your cities. If you add culture to the city with the most boredom, it should not increase the median and tbtherefo unhappiness.

That's the theory, at least. I can't comment on how it works in practice as I haven't tried it.

 

[Gazebo]

Re: medians and empire stuff, please note that all the median values are logged at the global and player level in the GlobalMedian_Log log file. There's no guesswork needed, you can see the median data there quite easily. And I'm very interested in what you come up with.

G

 

[glider1]

I'm not a fan of the civ-based yield targets. I think it removes the aspect of unhappiness that represents your overall weaknesses and strengths. You could have terrible gold yields, but suffer no unhappiness as long as it's an empire-wide problem.

You are right but are missing a key point about imbalance. It is not about strengths and weaknesses but imbalance.

An equally poor nation won't be unhappy - but if you want to succeed globally you have to ratchet up development which creates imbalances and the poor happy nation will become unhappier in other ways because you cannot progress evenly.

So even with the latest changes there is still an indirect connection between your happiness and the performance of other nations - through forced imbalance.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Re: medians and empire stuff, please note that all the median values are logged at the global and player level in the GlobalMedian_Log log file. There's no guesswork needed, you can see the median data there quite easily. And I'm very interested in what you come up with.

G

The game I just finished with England (progress/fealty/industry/order) saw no problems with happiness whatsoever, even with 15+ cities. It felt great from start to finish, providing the most challenge I've had on King in ages. I was surprised to have to deal with a 12 city tradition Morocco that swallowed 2 neighbors, and really put up a fight.

Just to note, Venice was sandwiched between Rome and I, and Augustus had no issue going progress and settling 10 cities...

 

[Rekk]

The game I just finished with England (progress/fealty/industry/order) saw no problems with happiness whatsoever, even with 15+ cities. It felt great from start to finish, providing the most challenge I've had on King in ages. I was surprised to have to deal with a 12 city tradition Morocco that swallowed 2 neighbors, and really put up a fight.

Just to note, Venice was sandwiched between Rome and I, and Augustus had no issue going progress and settling 10 cities...

What map, speed and size did you use?

 

[amateurgamer88]

Just sharing my thoughts about my most recent game regarding happiness. The settings are King difficulty, America, Standard size and Continents. I shared a continent with four other civs while the other continent has 3 civs.

Early game happiness will definitely drop negative. My policies were: Traditions/Fealty/Artistry and Autocracy. I went on to settle 6 more cities early (yes, a 7 city Tradition America). I decided to get greedy and see what happens if I expand more since the AIs seem to do it all the time. My happiness went negative but never below -10. I generally tried to slow down growth whenever I can to focus on production heavy tiles or those I need to get my religion. I did lose a city to one of my neighbors, Austria, fairly on so I was basically working with 6 total cities until I decide to return the favor by conquering all of Austria eventually.

Did I ever drop below -10 happiness? This happened either when I captured a new city, annexing cities or retaken the city I lost to Austria. Since this city was originally mine and it had a population of around 17 when I retook it, let's just say that getting the infrastructure in place took awhile so I stayed negative for quite awhile. For those warmongers out there, you definitely shouldn't annex newly cities unless you know you have the happiness for the annex and the estimated amount of time to get the unhappiness into reasonable territory or they will wreck you.

What helped me? Getting a bunch a luxuries helped as they provide a flat 2 happiness which is a lot. With the importance of luxury, good relationships with other civs becomes quite important. While this happens less often mid to late game, you actually have situations where AIs will gift you a luxury and that can be huge as it helps buy you time to fix your happiness. Roads are equally important as isolation can grow out of proportion if you allow it to. Since I took Fealty, the happiness from Castles helps a fair bit too. National Wonders like Circus Maximus is also a huge contributor to happiness as it not only gives you flat happiness but also gives Arenas gold to help with Poverty need. In addition, focus on Wonders that help reduce a certain need because, while those values seem small, they do add up over time once you have buildings also contributing.

For me at least, happiness seems to be at a good spot. Early game, you will encounter unhappiness as it's normal but you also have quite a bit tools available to fight it. Mid to late game, unhappiness is caused when you've overlooking it early game as it doesn't just plummet as it did once in older versions.

One thing I do have complain is how strong AIs are and don't need anymore bonuses. I recall spying a secondary city for Austria and that city, despite not having having Production buildings like Forge, has decent production allowing that city to get other buildings focused on Science, Culture and Gold.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

What map, speed and size did you use?

Standard Continents with research agreements/tech trading/events disabled; no mods active that would influence happiness, like MUCfVP or anything gameplay wise.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

First, I think your "median" in those examples is actually the mean.

I used the median function from excel. Its not the average.

In other words, cities without unhappiness can be ignored. Cities with a small unhappiness need to increase population, or slow down development. Cities with big unhappiness need to lower growth or improve development.

Improve development isnt possible, cause I have build everything, except hotels. Iam playing Germany with 12 CS trade routes, so I have a +36% production modifier and be able to buy the stuff, cause of Industry tree.
As you can see, only the 2 top cities are free from unhappiness, cause the median is always modified. The Joke is, I should be leader in production and food, thanks to the Hanse ability, but nearly half my unhappiness comes from distress. But this comes from the mechanic I mentioned.

In your example, you raised all cities by a percentage. It's not how this usually works. You usually get a flat bonus from a building or a scaling extra yield from some of your citizens, limited to specialist slots or resources, so it's no like you could increase a 20% everywhere.

It works this way if you construct a wonder or pick social policy (like +5% science from rationalismn). But It doesnt play any role, cause theres the percentual modifier for the treshold.
Lets say all you cities have 25 population and earn 5 gold per population. The median is modified by around 50%, so hes now 7.5. Now all your cites are generating 2.5 (=2) unhappiness by poverty.
Lets say, you go forward in tech, construct buildings but still hold the modifier to 50% (which isnt possible in long term), now your generating 8 gold per citizen. The median is now changed to 12 and will give you 4 unhappiness per city.
Now go even further in tech, the median rise to 10, and the modifier cant be stopped, so hes now 70%. The modified median is now 17 and will cause 7 unhappiness in all your cities.
Gazebo said, my people will be unhappy cause they look to their neighbors first, but even if Iam generating the perfect balanced empire, my unhappiness rise and rise.....
This percentual modifier combined with a flat treshold check for unhappiness is also the reason why my people are so unhappy from distress. Cause of my unnatural high production output which comes from hanse and Industry tree.

And this makes it absolutly unfun to play against its own strength, to be punished cause your good in management. Its only again another rubberbanding/anti runaway mechanic....

 

[Gazebo]

I used the median function from excel. Its not the average.


Improve development isnt possible, cause I have build everything, except hotels. Iam playing Germany with 12 CS trade routes, so I have a +36% production modifier and be able to buy the stuff, cause of Industry tree.
As you can see, only the 2 top cities are free from unhappiness, cause the median is always modified. The Joke is, I should be leader in production and food, thanks to the Hanse ability, but nearly half my unhappiness comes from distress. But this comes from the mechanic I mentioned.


It works this way if you construct a wonder or pick social policy (like +5% science from rationalismn). But It doesnt play any role, cause theres the percentual modifier for the treshold.
Lets say all you cities have 25 population and earn 5 gold per population. The median is modified by around 50%, so hes now 7.5. Now all your cites are generating 2.5 (=2) unhappiness by poverty.
Lets say, you go forward in tech, construct buildings but still hold the modifier to 50% (which isnt possible in long term), now your generating 8 gold per citizen. The median is now changed to 12 and will give you 4 unhappiness per city.
Now go even further in tech, the median rise to 10, and the modifier cant be stopped, so hes now 70%. The modified median is now 17 and will cause 7 unhappiness in all your cities.
Gazebo said, my people will be unhappy cause they look to their neighbors first, but even if Iam generating the perfect balanced empire, my unhappiness rise and rise.....
This percentual modifier combined with a flat treshold check for unhappiness is also the reason why my people are so unhappy from distress. Cause of my unnatural high production output which comes from hanse and Industry tree.

And this makes it absolutly unfun to play against its own strength, to be punished cause your good in management. Its only again another rubberbanding/anti runaway mechanic....

Please don't ignore my mention of the median logging above. The information in logs is more useful than speculation.

G

 

[glider1]

You aren't being punished for bad management. It is all about whether you can be better relative to other civs for the victory you want. The industrial era at high production mean people are distressed because they are working in factories? What would you expect them to be. Happiness should be a struggle all the way to victory.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

You aren't being punished for bad management. It is all about whether you can be better relative to other civs for the victory you want. The industrial era at high production mean people are distressed because they are working in factories? What would you expect them to be. Happiness should be a struggle all the way to victory.

You didn't compete anymore with other civs, there's no global median anymore. You are only facing a system which rise the difficulty if you have more yields than a typical civ would have in the moment.
The former system was:
You are bad in management, you get punished.
Now is:
You are great in management, you get punished.

 

[tu_79]

First, I'll comment on my recent games. I went very wide, just for testing purposes, King standard. First China (unfinished) now Carthague. I had no noticeable happiness swings, but on war time. I managed 10+ cities with a net empire happiness, at least until industrial, where I stopped. I have no puppets or vassals.
If you read 15 (98 / 221 ), then, everything is fine. I read this as follows: my empire is well managed (15 ) and the administrative cost of managing my cities is 44% of my population. The bigger my empire, the more difficult it is to be managed. Anyways, I push the boundaries a little.
In the Carthague game, my last three cities are island ones. I founded there for tactical reasons. They grew to 9 population very fast, and they all are 100% unhappy. I could have prevented them to grow, but since I had over 40 happiness, I let them grow and build some infrastructure faster. Now Portugal has declared war on me and several city states and trade routes were lost, putting me back to -6 . I was trading some luxuries with Portugal too.
A thing I noticed is that the administrative cost of cities went down from 60% , to almost 30% , with the help of need reductions from buildings and policies. So if you were to control your growth and expansion earlier, you could stay happy if you wish.

Next. The effect you described when improving efficiency everywhere (like +10% food from Temple of Artemis), is just capitalism in action. If you improve efficiency everywhere, the richs gain much more than the poor, thus it ends up increasing inequalities. And in this game, inequalities increase makes managing population harder. This is not how you must address happiness now. If you have already reached your maximum development, and you can't gain happiness by other means (trade for luxuries, expend great admirals/ great musicians, reassign trade routes, gain city state allies), then your only variable left is population. If we had migrations, people from the most unhappy cities will move to the happier ones, and that would solve the problem itself. Since we don't have migrations, you have to encourage growth in the happier cities while discouraging it in the unhappier ones.

Gaining more techs is a double sided coin. Sometimes extra technologies will just increase needs everywhere. Sometimes they will allow for some unhappiness reduction buildings, or extra trade routes, or just a new building that you could build in your most unhappy cities first.
The same applies to new cities. Sometimes they come with extra resources that will help having more people without increasing cost. Sometimes they will not.
But you gain techs and found more cities even if that hits your happiness, because more techs and more cities and more people usually helps you to win.

Gaining policies is a win-win situation. You get more yields everywhere without increasing management costs, except for Industrialism, whose yield gains are proportional to the city outcome, which increases inequalities.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

If you are in first position, score wise, and you have 4 net unhappiness, that's a first-world problem.

 

[Stalker0]

Just one comment for people reporting on their happiness. Please make sure to include your net happiness along with per city.

I’m hearing a lot about how every city has -3 unhappiness kind of thing. However if your overall happiness is positive than to me there is no problem at all. But if your at -20 all the time that’s a big problem.

So that’s just a request for more accurate reporting.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I managed 10+ cities with a net empire happiness, at least until industrial, where I stopped.

Well, then you should play further, cause that's the period when I got a unhappiness spike. I went down from +10 to - 35 in only some turns (10-20).

If you improve efficiency everywhere, the richs gain much more than the poor, thus it ends up increasing inequalities.

Cmon, really? I showed you in my last post how the unhappiness would rise even if every city would be equal in yields like an utopian communism Country. You can't explain that with real world stuff.

Since we don't have migrations, you have to encourage growth in the happier cities while discouraging it in the unhappier ones.

LOL. In the last version everyone said to me, growing too much is bad gameplay, now the solution is growth? Cause my Cities are too efficient I have to let them grow to artificially lower the median? Is it that what you mean? What's with the population effect to the need calculation? Every citizen will rise my need modificator, isn't this making it worse in the long term?

Gaining policies is a win-win situation. You get more yields everywhere without increasing management costs,

You didn't understand my former postings, or? The math behind it? Increasing the yields empire wide always hurts your happiness. The modified median ALWAYS grows faster than your real yield generation. The gap gets bigger and bigger, and the only thing you can do is to compensate it by external positive happiness.

 

[tu_79]

Well, then you should play further, cause that's the period when I got a unhappiness spike. I went down from +10 to - 35 in only some turns (10-20).

I plan to. If I manage to not sink my happiness, wul you believe me?

 

[Rekk]

I understand what he's saying. As long as the modified median (median*(1-0.15+tech-needs reduction+misc)) is greater than the median, the worst cities need to produce more yields than the median to become happy again. This just increases the median, meaning that cities below the median are chasing a moving goal post, and as the distance between the median and the top cities decreases, they risk pulling the top cities into unhappiness.

In this situation, increasing a city's yields doesn't help reduce unhappiness below 1; past that, yields can only increase unhappiness in other cities.

How often is the modified median above the actual median (ie net modifiers >15%)?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I plan to. If I manage to not sink my happiness, wul you believe me?

This wouldn't be a proof.
Why do you think my unhappiness from distress is 45% of my total unhappiness? Cause with a very hilly terrain, industry policy tree and 30-40% additional production from Hanse Iam pushing my production capabilities in tremendous heights. And this causes 80 unhappiness in a 10 city empire, while the other yields only generate 20-30 unhappiness each.

I understand what he's saying. As long as the modified median (median*(1-0.15+tech-needs reduction+misc)) is greater than the median, increasing, the worst cities need to produce more yields than the median to become happy again. This just increases the median, meaning that cities below the median are chasing a moving goal post, and as the distance between the median and the top cities decreases, they risk pulling the top cities into unhappiness.

How often is the modified median above the actual median?

Always.

 

[Rekk]

As an anecdote, I see this in my current 6 city tradition-artistry Denmark game that is entering the Industrial Era. Every city has a minimum of 1 unhappiness in each need, aside from the capital which has 0 boredom.

 

[Rekk]

Why do you think my unhappiness from distress is 45% of my total unhappiness? Cause with a very hilly terrain, industry policy tree and 30-40% additional production from Hanse Iam pushing my production capabilities in tremendous heights. And this causes 80 unhappiness in a 10 city empire, while the other yields only generate 20-30 unhappiness each.

Can you post the values from the median log file and what your net need modifiers are?