New Version - June 2nd (6-2)

[tu_79]

Ok. Buildings reduction are not reducing the cap, but the effect is even stronger than I thought, making the whole unhappiness from needs complexity unnecessary.

As it is, the biggest factors are city pop size and the reduction buildings. See.
Unhappy = deficit (capped by pop) - reductions
In the case above, where the cap is at 4 in the worst case, and reduction is 1 from buildings, unhappiness can never be bigger than 3 from this need, which would be the same as the reduced cap value. But it's even stronger since having a deficit value lower than the cap will still benefit from the reduction. If deficit is 2, capped at 4, reduced by 1, the unhappiness is 1.

Anyways, the example discussed by Biteinthemark, where all the deficits were well over the pop cap, shows that we can ignore yields as long as we can provide happiness for the reduced cap value (which is obtained by hammers).

If that is going to be the case, I understand CrazyG proposal for dumping the whole yield needs mechanics. We don't need such luggage for such trip.

Alternatively, the reduction could be applied to the deficit values before the cap, making yields relevant as long as the pop cap is not hit.
For example,
Deficit 8, pop cap 4, reduction 2,
Unhappiness should be 6 (8-2), capped at 4, thus 4.
Now we can just work on caps so they are slightly lower than the happiness we may find to guarantee that some care must be taken to our yield efficiency.

This will have the side effect that building a barracks won't immediately reduce distress by 1, if deficit is well over the cap. But unhappiness from needs will be connected to yields for longer.

 

[CrazyG]

Correct - I could do that, but I think it would muddy the info.

G

Things are pretty muddy already.

 

[Moi Magnus]

X per unhappy is still helpful, in that it shows you what you need to make to reduce your deficit by 1 at the minimum. The accuracy does decrease as your reduction grows, but it’s still a reliable minimum value.

G

Then, why not display this information directly: "how many yield you need to decrease the (actual) unhappiness by 1".

Because currently, if you have a deficit of 8 with 2 unhappiness, it says "you need 4 yield to improve the situation".
But if you contribute 2 yields, you now have a deficit of 6 with 2 unhappiness, so it says "you need 3 yields to improve the situation", which is very counterintuitive, as 2+3>4.

So I suggest to replace "X per unhappy" by "Y for -1 ", as it is the information that the player will care about.

 

[FaarmAnimal]

Correct - I could do that, but I think it would muddy the info.

G

You mean the 'happiness' wall of text?

I can't imagine how it could get any muddier, or anyone could care less about that information.

 

[Rekk]

Ok. Buildings reduction are not reducing the cap, but the effect is even stronger than I thought, making the whole unhappiness from needs complexity unnecessary.

As it is, the biggest factors are city pop size and the reduction buildings. See.
Unhappy = deficit (capped by pop) - reductions
In the case above, where the cap is at 4 in the worst case, and reduction is 1 from buildings, unhappiness can never be bigger than 3 from this need, which would be the same as the reduced cap value. But it's even stronger since having a deficit value lower than the cap will still benefit from the reduction. If deficit is 2, capped at 4, reduced by 1, the unhappiness is 1.

Anyways, the example discussed by Biteinthemark, where all the deficits were well over the pop cap, shows that we can ignore yields as long as we can provide happiness for the reduced cap value (which is obtained by hammers).

If that is going to be the case, I understand CrazyG proposal for dumping the whole yield needs mechanics. We don't need such luggage for such trip.

Alternatively, the reduction could be applied to the deficit values before the cap, making yields relevant as long as the pop cap is not hit.
For example,
Deficit 8, pop cap 4, reduction 2,
Unhappiness should be 6 (8-2), capped at 4, thus 4.
Now we can just work on caps so they are slightly lower than the happiness we may find to guarantee that some care must be taken to our yield efficiency.

This will have the side effect that building a barracks won't immediately reduce distress by 1, if deficit is well over the cap. But unhappiness from needs will be connected to yields for longer.

Are your examples talking about a 4 city?

 

[tu_79]

Then, why not display this information directly: "how many yield you need to decrease the (actual) unhappiness by 1".

Because currently, if you have a deficit of 8 with 2 unhappiness, it says "you need 4 yield to improve the situation".
But if you contribute 2 yields, you now have a deficit of 6 with 2 unhappiness, so it says "you need 3 yields to improve the situation", which is very counterintuitive, as 2+3>4.

So I suggest to replace "X per unhappy" by "Y for -1 ", as it is the information that the player will care about.

This is a good idea. Say how many yields you need for increasing unhappiness, and how many for lowering it.
Sadly, these values mean little once you are over the cap minus the reduction.

Something like
2 poverty (-9 to +4 gold)
Reduced by 1, caps at 4 pop

But once you are over the cap, it is harder to understand.
4 poverty (? to +42 gold)
Reduced by 1, caps at 4 pop.

Or, when you are already happy.
0 poverty (-6 to ? gold)
Reduced by 1, caps at 4 pop.

 

[tu_79]

Are your examples talking about a 4 city?

Nope. A 16 pop city where one need is capped at 4 pop.

But the key is to make building reductions affect the deficits before the cap is applied. This way, unhappiness is effectively capped by population, not by population plus hammers.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Things are pretty muddy already.

You mean the 'happiness' wall of text?

I can't imagine how it could get any muddier, or anyone could care less about that information.

This really unhelpful feedback. Please try to be constructive so that the discussion can move forwards. For example, if there is something you dislike, be specific about what part(s) of it you think could be improved.

 

[Tekamthi]

with RL time restrictions, and the intermittent game-breaker that shows up via my own system changes, or occasionally in VP, I haven't been able to start a game of VP in over a year

attempted again last night and this morning.. sunk a few hours and got further than most of my last few attempts, but alas couldn't overcome the UI issues and abandoned. Probably not game-breaking entirely, but still no fun... Playing 43-civ no-eui cbp, no other mods beyond VP's 1-7:

edit: reported on git. Thanks as always to G and VP team! 43 civs or no civs!

 

[FaarmAnimal]

This really unhelpful feedback. Please try to be constructive so that the discussion can move forwards. For example, if there is something you dislike, be specific about it what part(s) of it you think could be improved.

Good effort but fooling nobody.

 

[JNZS13]

This really unhelpful feedback. Please try to be constructive so that the discussion can move forwards. For example, if there is something you dislike, be specific about it what part(s) of it you think could be improved.

Yeah i was about to write something like that.
Depressing the level of some criticism lately. People full of reason and little humility. Few "thanks" and many "this is bad".
If you criticize a work (which is already free) in this way, you already lose your reason. If it ever had any.

 

[FaarmAnimal]

Yeah i was about to write something like that.
Depressing the level of some criticism lately. People full of reason and little humility. Few "thanks" and many "this is bad".
If you criticize a work (which is already free) in this way, you already lose your reason. If it ever had any.

Get off your high horse and read some of the balance discussions.

Moderator Action: Please be constructive. This post is not helpful. You have been banned from posting in this thread for 7-days. leif

 

[Stalker0]

Everyone, let’s stop attacking the debaters and get back to the debate itself.

 

[CrazyG]

This kind of feedback is really unhelpful people. Please try to be constructive and to be respectful.

I've praised G many times and helped balance this mod for years. I really don't think my comment is rude. To be frank, your feedback isn't helpful. I like the general positivity in this forum (its rare on the internet), but sometimes there are problems and we need to be critical. Bad ideas have been added to the happiness system, they need to go.

Currently the entire happiness system, complex as it is, has a simple answer: buildings. It boils down to a simple answer, production and gold. If the happiness system is going to stay Fealty needs a complete rework, and many other things will to (I'm looking at India). Its much easier to change the happiness system, especially since apparently no one actually understands it!

 

[Gazebo]

Ok. Buildings reduction are not reducing the cap, but the effect is even stronger than I thought, making the whole unhappiness from needs complexity unnecessary.

As it is, the biggest factors are city pop size and the reduction buildings. See.
Unhappy = deficit (capped by pop) - reductions
In the case above, where the cap is at 4 in the worst case, and reduction is 1 from buildings, unhappiness can never be bigger than 3 from this need, which would be the same as the reduced cap value. But it's even stronger since having a deficit value lower than the cap will still benefit from the reduction. If deficit is 2, capped at 4, reduced by 1, the unhappiness is 1.

Anyways, the example discussed by Biteinthemark, where all the deficits were well over the pop cap, shows that we can ignore yields as long as we can provide happiness for the reduced cap value (which is obtained by hammers).

If that is going to be the case, I understand CrazyG proposal for dumping the whole yield needs mechanics. We don't need such luggage for such trip.

Alternatively, the reduction could be applied to the deficit values before the cap, making yields relevant as long as the pop cap is not hit.
For example,
Deficit 8, pop cap 4, reduction 2,
Unhappiness should be 6 (8-2), capped at 4, thus 4.
Now we can just work on caps so they are slightly lower than the happiness we may find to guarantee that some care must be taken to our yield efficiency.

This will have the side effect that building a barracks won't immediately reduce distress by 1, if deficit is well over the cap. But unhappiness from needs will be connected to yields for longer.

Aha! I see the confusion. To note, it’s not capped. There is no cap. The ‘real’ value is simply the unmodified unhappiness from a need, and the reduction is the effect of buildings built for that need in the city.

Well technically the cap is your total population. But you get the idea. So yields do matter, quite a bit. The current build shows that especially, as the needs modifiers are much lower and the scaling against missing yields is much higher.

‘Throwing it all out’ is absurd. I abhor defeatism and bath water tactics.

For the UI, I’ll see if I can figure out a clean way to add the ‘x yield = -1 unhappy.

G

 

[tu_79]

So to not express everything as a critic... I think some of the changes are here to stay. Unhappiness as local and limited to city size is a great change.
City growth penalized by local unhappiness is another one.
These both are helping massively to get the reins.

Then, I don't have a strong opinion on flat reductions to unhappiness from buildings (the fact that it's reducing unhappiness by a whole point instead of some percentage), but overall it gives some flexibility. Flat reductions are better for low pop cities and relative reductions better for tall cities. So a mix can be healthy.
However, I think that applying flat reductions after the population cap on needs is leaving a very short range for the yield efficiency mechanics. In a 20 pop city with 3 reduction buildings, this accounts to 1 or 2 people affected for each need.
(edit. After G explanation, I'm now uncertain about how much is a flat reduction disconnect from the yield production)

About the UI I have no complaints. It might get refined a bit further, but it's doing the job. The wall of text is required by many people in order to understand what is going on, and it won't show until you hover over, so it's fine. Maybe showing how many yields you must gain/lose to change the number of unhappy people could be more useful from a planning perspective, but the current one is informative too.

About urbanization, I haven't played enough with it to form an opinion (going progress this time). Overall it looks like a good idea. Cities are using their happiness excedents for working specialists. The only complaint I hear of is that the very early game, tradition is struggling for happiness, so Gazebo is going to have a look to palace bonuses. All good, in my opinion.

I haven't had the chance to use public works yet. I didn't need them since happiness is too easy to manage up to the middle of the game.

 

[Rekk]

Nope. A 16 pop city where one need is capped at 4 pop.

It's been said quite a few times that there is no cap, other than a city cannot have total unhappiness greater than its population. Distress can create 16 unhappiness in a 16 city (at which point poverty, illiteracy and boredom are producing zero unhappiness).

 

[tu_79]

Aha! I see the confusion. To note, it’s not capped. There is no cap. The ‘real’ value is simply the unmodified unhappiness from a need, and the reduction is the effect of buildings built for that need in the city.

Well technically the cap is your total population. But you get the idea. So yields do matter, quite a bit. The current build shows that especially, as the needs modifiers are much lower and the scaling against missing yields is much higher.

‘Throwing it all out’ is absurd. I abhor defeatism and bath water tactics.

For the UI, I’ll see if I can figure out a clean way to add the ‘x yield = -1 unhappy.

G

Really I'm confused, man.

From your last screenshot.
2 illiteracy
Actual 3 / Reduced by 1
Deficit 8 (4 for population)

3 reduced by 1 building is 2 illiteracy. That part sounds well.
Deficit 8, I understand that it is the difference between the yield efficiencies, modified by the percentage penalties and bonuses.
So what is this 4 from population if not a cap?

 

[Rekk]

Really I'm confused, man.

From your last screenshot.
2 illiteracy
Actual 3 / Reduced by 1
Deficit 8 (4 for population)

3 reduced by 1 building is 2 illiteracy. That part sounds well.
Deficit 8, I understand that it is the difference between the yield efficiencies, modified by the percentage penalties and bonuses.
So what is this 4 from population if not a cap?

Deficit is now the total number of yields missing, not the number of yields per population. If you gained 8 science total in that city, you would have zero illiteracy.

(4 per unhappy ) refers to the maximum number of yields you need to increase by in order to alleviate unhappiness from illiteracy by one. It generally overshoots what's actually required.

 

[CrazyG]

Aha! I see the confusion. To note, it’s not capped. There is no cap. The ‘real’ value is simply the unmodified unhappiness from a need, and the reduction is the effect of buildings built for that need in the city.

Well technically the cap is your total population. But you get the idea. So yields do matter, quite a bit. The current build shows that especially, as the needs modifiers are much lower and the scaling against missing yields is much higher.

‘Throwing it all out’ is absurd. I abhor defeatism and bath water tactics.

For the UI, I’ll see if I can figure out a clean way to add the ‘x yield = -1 unhappy.

You claimed throwing everything out was absurd for like 2 years, then you threw out that system to create this one, and I don't think anyone even suggested throwing it out completely this thread. Frankly this a gross misrepresentation of the people who are criticizing, who are trying to improve the mod.

I have to be honest I can't make sense of the current UI, I don't understand what you are changing. From a mechanics point of view, I'm just lost. I understand just as someone who plays the game. From playing, I understand that I regularly get 2, sometimes 3, new unhappiness for growing in the Industrial era, which is making me value food extremely lowly. Maybe the removal of the pop scaler helps, but what this happiness system is telling me is that production strong, food weak. From a gameplay perspective, that is what it encourages, not the goals you listed earlier.

About the UI I have no complaints. It might get refined a bit further, but it's doing the job.

I believed your explanation from earlier today, but apparently it was totally wrong? There are other explanations which contradict each other, and I can't tell who is right. So, I really have to challenge that the UI is "doing its job"; this whole discussion is evidence that it isn't.