New Version - June 21st (6/21)

[Strigvir]

Yeah, writers/artists/musicians provide less culture than scientists.

 

[Gamewizard]

Strigver, it has been said that this mod is balanced around standard size maps and standard speed. Your settings could be giving you the problems.

 

[Delekhan]

Seriously, stop fighting over the numbers, guys. We're still experimenting with ideas and systems right now, so no need to crusade for or against anything at this time.



Something like this shouldn't be too hard, actually - my current system is (ahem) crude. I'll use the amount of food needed to grow to the next level as the topnumber, and the bottom number as the food produced, so:

10 produced and 50 needed to grow = 5x value
60 produced and 200 needed to grow = 3x value

etc.

Is this what you had in mind?
G

Yes, the weight of the value would scale pretty accurately if we use that formula. Food produced in this case should be surplus food, not total food though.

 

[Delekhan]

Except you have to micromanage every city almost every turn due to huge happiness swindles (and barbarians spawning from them). I guess it's pretty fun to micromanage 4 cities, but not so much 20+ of them.

But that not just "numbers" it's a literal multiplier to EVERYTHING in the game.
Also I suspect there are rounding errors, because when I fiddled with the latest save in the bug thread, I could get different happiness results with the same specialists loadout.

The key to minimizing unhappiness is to simply have the right buildings in cities as they grow and keep them connected. There are also policies, ideologies, and of course religious beliefs to add more happiness.

Also, 20 cities? I don't know if you're exaggerating, but I can't really think of a time I even had 20 cities unless I was playing on a huge Earth map and was going on a rampage. If you get too many cities to soon, and don't develop them properly, you're going to run into happiness issues in the current system, that's a big part of the idea.

Even then, if you go with the Order ideology in the late game, you have plenty of tenets you can pick to manage happiness in huge empires. It's just a matter of planning ahead a bit and not overextending unless there's some huge payoff in another area.

Edit: Also, looking at your screenshots, your problem is clear. You're suffering from ideology pressure. -144 unhappiness from ideology pressure!! That's crazy town. You need to either:

1. Quickly crush whoever is emanating that ideology pressure if they're within reach

2. Get your culture and tourism up bigtime, though this is a slow solution. Terminate open borders, diplomats, and trade routes from ideology pressure civs. This requires declaring war on them.

3. Start razing your occupied cities, since ideology unhappiness is based on number of cities and population. Also, sell buildings in your occupied cities to raise funds, -1,444 GPT is no joke.

4. Switch to the ideology that is giving you pressure. This is a last resort because of the grievous cost, but it will solve the happiness problem in this case. If the WC congress proposal is coming up and you can make a proposal, put forward your ideology as the World Ideology. If the World Ideology is something else (likely in this case) then repeal that ASAP if you're not interested in switching ideologies.

5. If you're at war right now, see if you can make peace by giving away some of your puppet cities.

In your example, there is nothing wrong with the happiness system. It's simply the result of BNW's ideology system at work.

You do have a point about the barbarians taking obscene amounts of national resources, like 10,000 science and 12,000 culture. The amount taken depends on how much you have accumulated, which is a real problem. A better implementation in my view is that it should depend on how much you have accumulated as it is right now, up to a fixed cap based on the turn number, strength disparity of the barbarian unit/city, and/or the number of techs discovered. The way it is now leads to some absurd outcomes like the ones you posted.

Also one final tip:
I see you're playing on a huge map. Instead of accumulating so many cities, consider making other civs you conquer your vassals through capitulation. They will control the territory for you, give you access to resources on the territory, and actually give you a happiness BONUS for being your vassal. It's a decent way to control territory and resources without actually having to own the cities.

 

[Funak]

Ok, this will be the last time I do this, I promise...

Reading is hard, right? Aka the difference between 115 and 70.

Exactly.
115 is 64% larger than 70. (115/70)-1 = 0.64
However 70 is only 39% lower than 115. (70/115)-1 = -0,39
That means the difference between 115 and 70 is 49% because
(115-70)/((115+70)/2) = 0.49

So not only you get -64% yields

That would be -39%

Except you have to micromanage every city almost every turn due to huge happiness swindles (and barbarians spawning from them). I guess it's pretty fun to micromanage 4 cities, but not so much 20+ of them.

Basic micromanagement of 25- cities is pretty easy and there is no need for advanced micromanagement unless something goes seriously wrong. You just adjust specialists every 5 or 10 turns, lock some tiles and set your preferred focus. Never actually had over 25 controlled cities at the same time, I mostly end up leaving some as puppets and razing ones that aren't useful

In my games, there is a shortage of cultural GP, which causes a shortage of literature and art.
Those specialists get buffed later than the others, which causes the city governors to neglect them.
Previously it seemed like there was a big bias in favor of those specialists and those slots were filled first almost always. Now they're rarely getting filled unless I manually assign them.
(Obviously causes the AI to produce barely any art to trade and also little tourism.)

I haven't run into this problem, for me the AI usually produce art to trade just as normal. I myself however usually end up ignoring cultured specialists before they get their first upgrade, but I have no idea if that's actually optimal, that's just how I play.

Strigver, it has been said that this mod is balanced around standard size maps and standard speed.

I wouldn't go that far actually. But if you stray too far from the standard settings it's not really weird that you end up with problems. It's not like you can specifically balance something around extreme cases.

 

[Gazebo]

You do have a point about the barbarians taking obscene amounts of national resources, like 10,000 science and 12,000 culture. The amount taken depends on how much you have accumulated, which is a real problem. A better implementation in my view is that it should depend on how much you have accumulated as it is right now, up to a fixed cap based on the turn number, strength disparity of the barbarian unit/city, and/or the number of techs discovered. The way it is now leads to some absurd outcomes like the ones you posted.

Keep in mind, as well, that every city you found increases the global average for all cities by 2% (for needs).

Also, that's not how barbs work. They take a % of what you produce. This has already been changed to what the city produces (%) for next version.

G

 

[TeeInKay]

It makes me sad to see so many of our fellow leaders actually honestly complaining about micro-managing. Or saying that 20 cities is too many. I don't understand how you guys are playing the game. To me micromanagement is fun. I like to have 100+ citizen heads to place. And I usually completely manage all my non puppets.

• 
  Vassals help conquerors have better happiness, so does city state manipulation.
  
• Get a city state ally and feed them military units. Assist with their improvements, and make them defensible and powerful. Then declare war. rather than conquering cities, feed the city state more. He will have the AI necessity to fight, and a force to make a strike. I often have a ring of black around my empire.

It's actually a point where you don't have to micromanage lol.

 

[ecgopher]

I like how the system has turned out though. I feel there's actually a real payoff to managing citizens now. Before you could get away with letting the governor manage citizens on most cities, even at higher difficulty levels. Now it's more fun to manage citizens.

However I do believe the governors should value surplus on a logarithmic curve. As it is, each unit of surplus makes a far bigger difference to a size 7 city than to a size 20 city.

Therefore when a city is smaller, it'd be smarter for the governor to give more weight to each , and then taper off its value with each citizen that is born because - to use an economics term - the marginal utility of each extra surplus declines the more population there is.

For example, when a city is population 24, I really don't care whether the +18 surplus becomes +19 . On the other hand, for a size 7 city, an increase of +4 to +5 makes a real difference.

Idk if I agree with the premise that food surplus has diminishing marginal utility with city size. Other things equal, sure, each unit of food represents a smaller fraction of a new citizen the larger the current pop. However, a higher pop city is more likely to have more buildings that give bonuses per pop and more tile improvements and specialist spots meaning the new citizen has greater yield potential. So while the food surplus is a smaller slice of the new citizen pie in the higher pop city, the new citizen is a larger/more valuable pie to have a slice of.

I think governors need to just value growth more overall.

 

[Funak]

Idk if I agree with the premise that food surplus has diminishing marginal utility with city size. Other things equal, sure, each unit of food represents a smaller fraction of a new citizen the larger the current pop. However, a higher pop city is more likely to have more buildings that give bonuses per pop and more tile improvements and specialist spots meaning the new citizen has greater yield potential. So while the food surplus is a smaller slice of the new citizen pie in the higher pop city, the new citizen is a larger/more valuable pie to have a slice of.

I think governors need to just value growth more overall.

I think the idea in general is to value growth less if you don't have enough food to grow fast, which is pretty much the way to play.

 

[joosegoose25]

In my games, there is a shortage of cultural GP, which causes a shortage of literature and art.
Those specialists get buffed later than the others, which causes the city governors to neglect them.
Previously it seemed like there was a big bias in favor of those specialists and those slots were filled first almost always. Now they're rarely getting filled unless I manually assign them.
(Obviously causes the AI to produce barely any art to trade and also little tourism.)

Yeah, writers/artists/musicians provide less culture than scientists.

It probably doesn't help that GWAM require 200 GPP now to generate your first one (on standard speed), with increases of 150 GPP thereafter. They are less likely to be worked, and produce great works less frequently even when worked.

 

[Gazebo]

It probably doesn't help that GWAM require 200 GPP now to generate your first one (on standard speed), with increases of 150 GPP thereafter. They are less likely to be worked, and produce great works less frequently even when worked.

whoops, that should be 100 - turns out a subtraction of a subtraction is...addition!

 

[joosegoose25]

whoops, that should be 100 - turns out a subtraction of a subtraction is...addition!

I had a suspicion! I learned this some time ago when I edited the xml and got the opposite of the intended effect. I didn't know if you had changed it to be intentional in the time since, though (to balance out additional specialist slots, etc)

 

[Jorad]

whoops, that should be 100 - turns out a subtraction of a subtraction is...addition!

That is an improvement, but I still think that the city AI should prioritize those specialists. As a human player I can do it manually, but the AI seems to be hamstrung on tourism by this.

 

[Strigvir]

Strigver, it has been said that this mod is balanced around standard size maps and standard speed. Your settings could be giving you the problems.

The only person keeping repeating that "ur playing on non-standard settings" is Funak and last time I checked he wasn't the mod developer.
I don't use any mods aside from CBP so I use settings provided by it.

The key to minimizing unhappiness is to simply have the right buildings in cities as they grow and keep them connected. There are also policies, ideologies, and of course religious beliefs to add more happiness.

Thanks, capt. Obvious.

Also, 20 cities? I don't know if you're exaggerating, but I can't really think of a time I even had 20 cities unless I was playing on a huge Earth map and was going on a rampage. If you get too many cities to soon, and don't develop them properly, you're going to run into happiness issues in the current system, that's a big part of the idea.

The thing is underdeveloped city takes a lot of time to "develop", while it can potentially bog the whole empire for that duration (just like in BNW). As I said, order colonist-settled cities start with capped unhappiness and it keep increasing up until the city builds almost all buildings.

Even then, if you go with the Order ideology in the late game, you have plenty of tenets you can pick to manage happiness in huge empires. It's just a matter of planning ahead a bit and not overextending unless there's some huge payoff in another area.

Again, you are speaking general words, but did you play Order empire at least once?
These are "plenty of tenets you can pick to manage happiness in huge empires":

Edit: Also, looking at your screenshots, your problem is clear. You're suffering from ideology pressure. -144 unhappiness from ideology pressure!! That's crazy town.

That pressure was caused by world ideology resolution.
There are problems with AI regarding ideologies and the balance between ideologies, but for that subject I will create a dedicated thread.
The point is barbarians spawned on THE SAME TURN the resolution was passed. Like at one turn I had +30 happiness and on the next -121 with barbs on my ass.

1. Quickly crush whoever is emanating that ideology pressure if they're within reach

You meant to quickly crush that Shoshone with 50+ cities?

2. Get your culture and tourism up bigtime, though this is a slow solution. Terminate open borders, diplomats, and trade routes from ideology pressure civs. This requires declaring war on them.

I have 0 unhappiness from boredom, I am 4 policies ahead of Shoshone (who took aesthetics, btw) and mine tourism output is just a bit lower than Shoshone (who has the biggest tourism output). I also have The Motherland Calls built. I presume all these things would somehow help my ideology things, but turns out they won't. Also random wars quickly add up war weariness counter (of which AI doesn't care).
AIs didn't help this case either, picking Order and switching on the next turn to Freedom.

5. If you're at war right now, see if you can make peace by giving away some of your puppet cities.

That's conflicting your previous point about making a war for breaking all deals.

In your example, there is nothing wrong with the happiness system. It's simply the result of BNW's ideology system at work.

Except any ideology in BNW gave a ton of happiness to counteract these penalties (on my vanilla game with similar settings I have 200+ happiness, albeit with Autocracy, while having 3/5 of the map under my control).

Also one final tip:
I see you're playing on a huge map. Instead of accumulating so many cities, consider making other civs you conquer your vassals through capitulation. They will control the territory for you, give you access to resources on the territory, and actually give you a happiness BONUS for being your vassal. It's a decent way to control territory and resources without actually having to own the cities.

I've disabled vassals (lol vassalages in information era) because AI absolutely can't into them.
Also the Order ideology was supposed to help huge empires with a lots of cities, which it does poorly.

Ok, this will be the last time I do this, I promise...
Exactly.
115 is 64% larger than 70. (115/70)-1 = 0.64
However 70 is only 39% lower than 115. (70/115)-1 = -0,39
That means the difference between 115 and 70 is 49% because
(115-70)/((115+70)/2) = 0.49
That would be -39%

Again, you are trying to "prove" your point by using absolute numbers, whilst all unhappiness sources are relative. You can continue to argue about semantics and whatnot, but in the end fully happy empires will have 64% more yields (not SEVERE) than fully unhappy ones (and latter will penalized further for that). In the old system the difference was 67% (absolutely SEVERE). The only advantage of the new system is it spreads penalties across wider gap, but that's a moot point because happiness can drop to the cap at the drop of a hat.

Keep in mind, as well, that every city you found increases the global average for all cities by 2% (for needs).

That's interesting, why is it mentioned only now? What else hidden penalties we have for founding/conquering cities?

 

[Finarvi]

[...]
That pressure was caused by world ideology resolution.
There are problems with AI regarding ideologies and the balance between ideologies, but for that subject I will create a dedicated thread.
The point is barbarians spawned on THE SAME TURN the resolution was passed. Like at one turn I had +30 happiness and on the next -121 with barbs on my ass.
[...]

Never had this case but you should have at least 1-turn time to react. I mean, this should be changed, you should know when your people start being unhappy and decide to do something or prepare for riots. Riots shouldn't happen if you had positive happiness last turn.

 

[Strigvir]

Technically, the resolution was passed on the previous turn (when everyone voted). I've only seen the results on the next turn.

 

[Delekhan]

I don't get why you're complaining about the CBP's changes when you already know the problem is World Ideology. I understand why you're upset, putting so much time into a game only to see things crash around you sucks.

And as for laughing at vassalages in the Information Era: Surely you're kidding? The Soviet Union had over a dozen vassals (called Client States in modern language). Nazi Germany established vassal states all across Europe. So did the British Empire. Iraq was a US vassal state for nearly a decade before it pulled out and went its own way more recently.

Anyway, unless you have specific suggestions about the happiness system I don't see this conversation going anywhere. Everything seems to be working as intended.

 

[Gazebo]

That's interesting, why is it mentioned only now? What else hidden penalties we have for founding/conquering cities?

It was part of the past patch's notes. And none. I don't do 'hidden' penalties.

G

 

[Funak]

The only person keeping repeating that "ur playing on non-standard settings" is Funak and last time I checked he wasn't the mod developer.
I don't use any mods aside from CBP so I use settings provided by it.

I'm pretty sure I only mentioned that once, and later pointed out that you can't really expect the game to be balanced around adding extra civs. Which is still a valid argument as adding extra civs pretty much broke vanilla as well. going outside the standard settings have always been on your own risk, in pretty much every game.

Again, you are trying to "prove" your point by using absolute numbers, whilst all unhappiness sources are relative. You can continue to argue about semantics and whatnot, but in the end fully happy empires will have 64% more yields (not SEVERE) than fully unhappy ones (and latter will penalized further for that). In the old system the difference was 67% (absolutely SEVERE). The only advantage of the new system is it spreads penalties across wider gap, but that's a moot point because happiness can drop to the cap at the drop of a hat.

I stopped trying to "prove" "my point" ages ago, I think I've gotten my message across to those who cares at this point. Currently I'm just correcting your math, you're allowed to have whatever opinion you want, but if you're using faulty math on the internet someone is going to correct you. That pretty much goes for everyone and I assume someone would correct me as well if my math or data was wrong.

 

[TeeInKay]

Please chill out Stigvir. Can't you discuss without all the aggression? You give the impression that you don't even like to play, or the community, or open discussion. Nobody is going to say "Wow Stigvir you're right about everything, let's snapshot your ideas and implement them." Please be cooperative rather than confrontational.