New Version - February 27th (2/27)

[Moi Magnus]

Yes, unhappiness increase. AI was rocking 50-60 happiness in late game consistently. Trivialized end game somewhat.

Don't forget that the AI (now) better than the player at optimizing happiness.

Beginners always have problems with it (since its probably the most difficult part to manage as a beginner), and Experienced players have to compete with AIs able to build happiness building quicker than what is possible for a human.

(An I don't want happiness to be the main concern of all my games, some micro-managing is fun, but too much is too much)

 

[bigcat88]

Now herbalists are alive. That's And upgrading in vassal lands =
So good changes. So damn good.

 

[Gazebo]

Don't forget that the AI (now) better than the player at optimizing happiness.

Beginners always have problems with it (since its probably the most difficult part to manage as a beginner), and Experienced players have to compete with AIs able to build happiness building quicker than what is possible for a human.

(An I don't want happiness to be the main concern of all my games, some micro-managing is fun, but too much is too much)

I know, but 15% isn’t going to change that.

G

 

[Txurce]

Gaining more control over the happiness spectrum is one of the last large tasks remaining for VP. I think it'll take time because, as noted, AI optimization (which is always a good thing) is having an increased effect that can't be precisely accounted for yet. I don't know what causes the large swings that Stalker0 for one has mentioned, but that might be a good place to focus next.

 

[Gidoza]

Gaining more control over the happiness spectrum is one of the last large tasks remaining for VP. I think it'll take time because, as noted, AI optimization (which is always a good thing) is having an increased effect that can't be precisely accounted for yet. I don't know what causes the large swings that Stalker0 for one has mentioned, but that might be a good place to focus next.

A temporary solution to the large swing problem would be a gradual progression (closest thing I can compare it to is Tourism) where the Happiness "adjusts" gradually to changes in the world, but it doesn't happen over a single turn. So what formerly knocked your happiness by 60 in a single turn happens over the span of 20 turns instead -> the target of "-60" becomes not the condition but the target to which the ball is soaring.

 

[Gazebo]

A temporary solution to the large swing problem would be a gradual progression (closest thing I can compare it to is Tourism) where the Happiness "adjusts" gradually to changes in the world, but it doesn't happen over a single turn. So what formerly knocked your happiness by 60 in a single turn happens over the span of 20 turns instead -> the target of "-60" becomes not the condition but the target to which the ball is soaring.

Already does that. Global averages cannot alter significantly from turn to turn.

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Because they aren't the issue? If a large city is producing zero unhappiness from crime/poverty/boredom etc. in the 1900s, that's indicative of a curve not matching potential. Removing happiness sources won't alter that.

The time a big city is producing zero unhappiness is long over. And I will not complain about it.
Its only the stupid high values the treshold system creates and the forced building of former niche building like spy constabulary or tourismn zoo.
The influence of luxuries (former main source for happiness) feels now kinda meaningless. Building a circus in a city can decrease the unhappiness by 2 or 3. Getting a new luxury gives 1 or 2.
In former versions, I know, it has now changed, but.... in former versions, some of my cities produced 12+ unhappiness and all my luxuries created 13. Thats ridicoulous. Someone was complaining about a +167% tourismn modifier, mainly cause of 47 boredom unhappiness....
The threshhold system has more and more influence, making all other happiness things kinda irrelevant. All you do is increasing numbers more, making swings and policies/luxuries/buildings much more meaningless. Instead of simply cutting down happines generation and get back to more normal values.

 

[Questdog]

Where I have experienced quick swings from 50+ happiness to below 0, it has been due to war weariness (not in this patch, yet, but before). And it seems to me that some things that cause war weariness are causing much too much, especially losing trade routes. Another time it was because Sweden and I kept capturing the same city over and over. I captured it, but he threw in some knights and recaptured it and I took a hit for war weariness. I retook it and then he took it back and I got another big hit. It did not seem fair that I was taking all these hits for basically reducing HIS city to rubble.

1) Trade route loss should be negligible to war weariness unless we are given some means of preventing their loss. Like all trade routes are immediately recalled on a DoW. Then if you send them out again during the war and they get plundered, you have no one to blame but yourself. Currently, the only option is to give them military escorts, but this is not very effective as a one unit escort cannot protect the tile the trade unit is on AND the tiles the unit will move into at the beginning of the next turn, when if they bump into an enemy unit on one of those tiles, they are toast. And giving all you your trade routes multiple unit escorts is not feasible with the limited military unit cap. This is also exacerbated by the new rules that you cannot send more than one trade route to a city. Before, you could station 4 or 5 units along the route from your capital to wherever you were sending all your cargo ships and, if you were vigilant, you could prevent serious loss. But now with the diversification of trade routes, your navy just cannot cover them.

2) Losing a city that you just captured should not be a hit to war weariness and definitely you should not get penalized more than once for any particular city getting flipped. I personally do not think any city that formerly belonged to another civilization should count much in war weariness if lost, whether it is recaptured by its original owner or someone else. The theory being that losing colonies is not affecting the populace at home much, but losing core cities will certainly put them out.

3) Personally, I am not a fan of war weariness overall. I think it has a place in the game, but it should not have any affect until the 20th century when all the goody-two-shoes started poo-pooing war and even then, it should not matter a whole lot. Name one war shortened because of war weariness in real life. The only one you could make any argument for is Viet Nam, but I do not think even it would qualify under scrutiny. The First World War made all the participants about as weary of war as anyone could get, but it did not end until the armies were defeated on the battlefield and within 20 years they were at it again.

 

[Gazebo]

The time a big city is producing zero unhappiness is long over. And I will not complain about it.
Its only the stupid high values the treshold system creates and the forced building of former niche building like spy constabulary or tourismn zoo.
The influence of luxuries (former main source for happiness) feels now kinda meaningless. Building a circus in a city can decrease the unhappiness by 2 or 3. Getting a new luxury gives 1 or 2.
In former versions, I know, it has now changed, but.... in former versions, some of my cities produced 12+ unhappiness and all my luxuries created 13. Thats ridicoulous. Someone was complaining about a +167% tourismn modifier, mainly cause of 47 boredom unhappiness....
The threshhold system has more and more influence, making all other happiness things kinda irrelevant. All you do is increasing numbers more, making swings and policies/luxuries/buildings much more meaningless. Instead of simply cutting down happines generation and get back to more normal values.

Sorry, but your recent experiences are not reflective of the hundreds of AI games I've been running over the past few weeks.

Your latter point is equally incorrect, and highlights that, at the end of the day, I really don't think you understand how the happiness/unhappiness code works. You don't just 'cut down happiness generation' and suddenly fix the issue I was seeing.

Where I have experienced quick swings from 50+ happiness to below 0, it has been due to war weariness (not in this patch, yet, but before). And it seems to me that some things that cause war weariness are causing much too much, especially losing trade routes. Another time it was because Sweden and I kept capturing the same city over and over. I captured it, but he threw in some knights and recaptured it and I took a hit for war weariness. I retook it and then he took it back and I got another big hit. It did not seem fair that I was taking all these hits for basically reducing HIS city to rubble.

1) Trade route loss should be negligible to war weariness unless we are given some means of preventing their loss. Like all trade routes are immediately recalled on a DoW. Then if you send them out again during the war and they get plundered, you have no one to blame but yourself. Currently, the only option is to give them military escorts, but this is not very effective as a one unit escort cannot protect the tile the trade unit is on AND the tiles the unit will move into at the beginning of the next turn, when if they bump into an enemy unit on one of those tiles, they are toast. And giving all you your trade routes multiple unit escorts is not feasible with the limited military unit cap. This is also exacerbated by the new rules that you cannot send more than one trade route to a city. Before, you could station 4 or 5 units along the route from your capital to wherever you were sending all your cargo ships and, if you were vigilant, you could prevent serious loss. But now with the diversification of trade routes, your navy just cannot cover them.

2) Losing a city that you just captured should not be a hit to war weariness and definitely you should not get penalized more than once for any particular city getting flipped. I personally do not think any city that formerly belonged to another civilization should count much in war weariness if lost, whether it is recaptured by its original owner or someone else. The theory being that losing colonies is not affecting the populace at home much, but losing core cities will certainly put them out.

3) Personally, I am not a fan of war weariness overall. I think it has a place in the game, but it should not have any affect until the 20th century when all the goody-two-shoes started poo-pooing war and even then, it should not matter a whole lot. Name one war shortened because of war weariness in real life. The only one you could make any argument for is Viet Nam, but I do not think even it would qualify under scrutiny. The First World War made all the participants about as weary of war as anyone could get, but it did not end until the armies were defeated on the battlefield and within 20 years they were at it again.

1. Goes both ways, though (for attacker and defender). Alpha strikes on trade routes are a time-honored, real-life warfare method.
2. Why? Otherwise there's no incentive to hold a city in a siege zone. If you're so worried, secure the city's perimeter before taking it.
3. The fact that you call it poo-poo tells me you're not ready to take this seriously. There are enough examples of war weariness crippling war efforts throughout history that you could fill a dozen libraries with them.

G

 

[Txurce]

The First World War made all the participants about as weary of war as anyone could get, but it did not end until the armies were defeated on the battlefield and within 20 years they were at it again.

Do you know anything about the First World War? Starting with the fact that Germany wasn't defeated on the battlefield, but succumbed to... wait for it... extreme war weariness -- including revolts?

 

[Questdog]

Sorry, but your recent experiences are not reflective of the hundreds of AI games I've been running over the past few weeks.

Your latter point is equally incorrect, and highlights that, at the end of the day, I really don't think you understand how the happiness/unhappiness code works. You don't just 'cut down happiness generation' and suddenly fix the issue I was seeing.



1. Goes both ways, though (for attacker and defender). Alpha strikes on trade routes are a time-honored, real-life warfare method.
2. Why? Otherwise there's no incentive to hold a city in a siege zone. If you're so worried, secure the city's perimeter before taking it.
3. The fact that you call it poo-poo tells me you're not ready to take this seriously. There are enough examples of war weariness crippling war efforts throughout history that you could fill a dozen libraries with them.

G

1) It does not matter that it goes both ways. It is not the alpha-strikes on trade routes that I am for banning; it is their loss causing war weariness when there is no way to prevent it. And you cannot name a war in history where losing trade routes caused riots at home. Losing the income ought to be loss enough.
2) Why? It is obvious why, because when you capture a city it is vulnerable to recapture. When my military cap holds me to a handful of units against hordes of knights and other fast moving attackers, securing the perimeter is not an option. Especially when my goal is to raze the city in the first place. And taking multiple hits of weariness for the same city in the space of a few turns is just unfair. Especially when the hits are so large.
3. The poo-poo was a bit of a joke, but it is more of a joke that war weariness becomes the number one factor in whether I can continue to fight or not. And it would not be so bad, if each hit was not so large.

 

[Questdog]

Do you know anything about the First World War? Starting with the fact that Germany wasn't defeated on the battlefield, but succumbed to... wait for it... extreme war weariness -- including revolts?

That is a pleasant post. Excuse me sir, are you an idiot? would be similar question. Yes, I know something of WWI and Germany was definitely defeated on the battlefield. Read a book....

You could make an argument that Russia succumbed to war weariness with the 1917 revolution and that would be technically true, but the revolution would have happened sooner or later with or without the war to speed it up.

 

[Gazebo]

That is a pleasant post. Excuse me sir, are you an idiot? would be similar question. Yes, I know something of WWI and Germany was definitely defeated on the battlefield. Read a book....

You could make an argument that Russia succumbed to war weariness with the 1917 revolution and that would be technically true, but the revolution would have happened sooner or later with or without the war to speed it up.

Please, stop. It hurts, and you're doing yourself no favors with 'read a book' as an argument.

G

 

[Questdog]

Please, stop. It hurts, and you're doing yourself no favors with 'read a book' as an argument.

G

Well, the fact of what wars were ended or not due to war weariness is not the issue anyway. The issue is that I am getting huge amounts of war weariness in this game very quickly from sources that should not be causing it.

What is the rationale of trade route loss making my populace unhappy?

Why is it fair that a city I just captured flipping two or three times in row is upsetting my populace the same as if I lost three separate cities? It seems to me that if, at the end of the turn the situation is the same as it was at the start of the turn, no one should be all that upset. At the start of the turn, the city belonged to Sweden. At the end of the turn, the city still belonged to Sweden, but the population went down some. Why am I penalized my having riots at home over that?

 

[Gazebo]

P.S. I do not know what the heck I am doing to make these empty posts of quoting myself.....

Read a book?

Moderator Action: Deleted them. leif

Well, the fact of what wars were ended or not due to war weariness is not the issue anyway. The issue is that I am getting huge amounts of war weariness in this game very quickly from sources that should not be causing it.

What is the rationale of trade route loss making my populace unhappy?

Why is it fair that a city I just captured flipping two or three times in row is upsetting my populace the same as if I lost three separate cities? It seems to me that if, at the end of the turn the situation is the same as it was at the start of the turn, no one should be all that upset. At the start of the turn, the city belonged to Sweden. At the end of the turn, the city still belonged to Sweden, but the population went down some. Why am I penalized my having riots at home over that?

War weariness and warscore are intertwined. They affect each other.

Reality-wise, soldiers (and their families) aren't terribly happy at their lives being spent on taking a city, just to have it be abandoned to the enemy a few days later. Similarly in civ, the conquest and abandonment of a city is not something your people simply regard and ignore.

G

 

[ashendashin]

What is the rationale of trade route loss making my populace unhappy?

Why is it fair that a city I just captured flipping two or three times in row is upsetting my populace the same as if I lost three separate cities? It seems to me that if, at the end of the turn the situation is the same as it was at the start of the turn, no one should be all that upset. At the start of the turn, the city belonged to Sweden. At the end of the turn, the city still belonged to Sweden, but the population went down some. Why am I penalized my having riots at home over that?

Trade is what makes the home comfortable. Losing trade will make it very uncomfortable and will lead to unrest.

War weariness from repeat city capture is crazy annoying yeah, but it prevents you from exploiting it for quick razing. I doubt many people would be happy after an entire city gets obliterated in the shortest time possible (while switching who owns that population at the same time).

 

[Stalker0]

To me the recapturing thing is preventable. You can focus on killing the surrounding units and ensuring the permiter is secure before moving in. If you don’t have the troops for that, well sorry than your going to suffer for that.

The trade routes im more sympathetic for. Protecting them requires a level of babysitting thst is not fun...and still difficult to do even then. So I could see some merit to that.

 

[Gazebo]

To me the recapturing thing is preventable. You can focus on killing the surrounding units and ensuring the permiter is secure before moving in. If you don’t have the troops for that, well sorry than your going to suffer for that.

The trade routes im more sympathetic for. Protecting them requires a level of babysitting thst is not fun...and still difficult to do even then. So I could see some merit to that.

Trade route pillaging should make the home front angry, though. Not sure what the issue is here. DOW, seek out their routes, and shut them down. Economic warfare, ho!

G

 

[Questdog]

I am not arguing the validity of War Weariness as a mechanic. War weariness ought to be a mechanic to shorten prolonged wars. It is entirely understandable that your populace would grow weary of having to make the sacrifices necessary during prolonged wars and gradually become less proficient at making war. But that is not the way the mechanic seems to work. My people are peacefully going about their business on one turn. Happiness is not all that great, but sits in the positive. Some evil tyrant sneak attacks us and wipes out some trade routes and on the first turn of the war, my populace is clamoring for me to make peace (which is impossible). This does not seem like the right way to implement a war weariness mechanic.

It seems to me that a better way would be to have it tied to the war score and the length of the war. For the first 10 turns, or however long it is that you have to wait before you can make a peace, there should be no effect from war weariness, no matter how bad the war score. After that you take a hit each turn based on the war score (only a negative one should cause any) with a cap at how much can be hit in a single turn (though the amount accumulated can continue to grow and be doled out in subsequent turns). After a certain number of turns another amount is added to whatever you are getting from the war score and is doled out with a cap on how much can be hit in a single turn. This way even a positive war score will eventually accumulate war weariness and the unhappiness will grow at a steadier rate, rather than everybody going from gung ho for the army one turn to storming the gates of the palace on the next.

 

[Questdog]

Trade route pillaging should make the home front angry, though. Not sure what the issue is here. DOW, seek out their routes, and shut them down. Economic warfare, ho!

G

Sure, make them angry, but at who? Me or the evil tyrant that destroyed them?