Newbie Questions: Ask here and get answers!

[sumthinelse]

I can't find an accurate explanation of what luxuries and entertainment do. The civilopeadia says that luxuries make content citizens happy, and that wonders, improvements, and mil. police ("content" smilies) can make unhappy people content. It does not fully explain how luxuries and entertainment work.

This is the way I think it works:

Note: a "smily" is a little round happy face on the city screen. The one with the mouth open wider is the "happy" one.

"content" smily makes an unappy guy content (if there is one). I don't think it ever makes anybody happy.

"happy" smily: 1) if there is make a content guy happy it will make him happy.

2) if there are no content guys, it will make one unhappy guy content (if there is one).

 

[heikeott]

Mmmm, I don't think that's right, sumthinelse. For one thing, those little smiley faces are a MOD, not vanilla Civ III, and some people will not understand them.

When you look at a city screen, the group of people on the far left are HAPPY. The ones in the middle are CONTENT. The ones on the right are UNHAPPY. If you move the cursor over a head, it will tell you what it is.

Here's my understanding:
1) Each luxury resource that a city is connected to (via road, harbor, airport, trade, etc.) makes one citizen happy. Period.
This effect is MULTIPLIED by marketplaces and banks. For example, if you have several luxuries and look at the city screen for a city that has marketplace and/or bank, you will see that some of your luxuries are making more than one person happy.
(There's a formula for this somewhere...)

2) Depending on difficulty level, you get some citizens that are born "content," and won't go unhappy unless something makes them unhappy. After that, it seems like everyone is born unhappy!

3) You can increase the luxury slider in the Domestic advisor window and use part of your gold to make people happy instead of using it to pay expenses or do scientific research. The # of
citizens made happy in each city by upping the luxury rate 10% varies depending on city size and how much commerce the city is producing.

4) Under some govt. types, military units can be garrisoned in cities to make unhappy citizens content. There is a limit to this, which varies by govt. type.

5) Some city improvements and wonders make content or happy citizens. For example, temples, cathedrals, colosseums, the Hanging Gardens, JS Bach's, Shakespeare's Theatre, etc. The civilopedia will tell you how many citizens are made content or happy in that city (or in some cases in multiple cities!) by each improvement or wonder.

In short, happy factors can make either an unhappy or a content citizen happy.

Content factors only make unhappy citizens content. But, even on Chieftain, once your cities get over size 5 or 6 you WILL have unhappy citizens to cope with!

And BTW since it's probably relevant, cities go into civil disorder when there are more unhappy citizens than happy citizens, regardless how many content citizens there are.

 

[planetfall]

Originally posted by heikeott
Mmmm, I don't think that's right, t it is.

Here's my understanding:
1) Each luxury resource that a city is connected to (via road, harbor, airport, trade, etc.) makes one citizen happy. Period.
This effect is MULTIPLIED by marketplaces and banks. For example, if you have several luxuries and look at the city screen for a city that has marketplace and/or bank, you will see that some of your luxuries are making more than one person happy.

Banks are not generating happiness under default Firaxis settings. They generate 50% increase in tax revenue. No culture. No happiness. Cost 1/turn. However in civ3, 5 banks will allow you to build Wall Street. and the 50 gold it creates can be used to pay for some of your entainment costs.

== PF

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by heikeott
Mmmm, I don't think that's right, sumthinelse. For one thing, those little smiley faces are a MOD, not vanilla Civ III, and some people will not understand them.

When you look at a city screen, the group of people on the far left are HAPPY. The ones in the middle are CONTENT. The ones on the right are UNHAPPY. If you move the cursor over a head, it will tell you what it is.

I believe that sumthinelse is referring to the little icons on the standard screen, not to the citizen's faces or any icons which might be there.

The ones in the red boxes are always happy faces - from luxuruies or from money spent as entertainment.
The blue box is where content faces due to military police will be shown
The green box can show happy or content faces, depending on the improvement - although for the standard game I think only content faces will show up here.

To really see what's going on you need to look at the F1 Domestic Advisor screen

That shows the total number of happy and content faces being applied to each city in the column indicated. Note that these numbers often DO NOT add up to the ones on the city screen, since wonders do NOT show up other than in the city they reside in.

Comments in red italics below...

Here's my understanding:
1) Each different luxury resource that a city is connected to (via road, harbor, airport, trade, etc.) makes one citizen happy. Period.
This effect is MULTIPLIED by marketplaces and banksnot banks. For example, if you have several luxuries and look at the city screen for a city that has marketplace and/or bank, you will see that some of your luxuries are making more than one person happy.
(There's a formula for this somewhere...)first two lux, one each, second two, two each, third two, three each, last two, four each, total of 20 possible

2) Depending on difficulty level, you get some citizens that are born "content," and won't go unhappy unless something makes them unhappy. After that, it seems like everyone is born unhappy!

3) You can increase the luxury slider in the Domestic advisor window and use part of your gold to make people happy instead of using it to pay expenses or do scientific research. The # of
citizens made happy in each city by upping the luxury rate 10% varies depending on city size and how much commerce the city is producing. it just depends on the commerce, city size itself doesnt matter

4) Under some govt. types, military units can be garrisoned in cities to make unhappy citizens content. There is a limit to this, which varies by govt. type.

5) Some city improvements and wonders make content or happy citizens. For example, temples, cathedrals, colosseums, the Hanging Gardens, JS Bach's, Shakespeare's Theatre, etc. The civilopedia will tell you how many citizens are made content or happy in that city (or in some cases in multiple cities!) by each improvement or wonder.

In short, happy factors can make either an unhappy or a content citizen happy.no, they raise one citizen one 'level' as explained by sumthinelse. Try it in a huge city - changing a specialist from tax to entertainer makes a content happy or an unhappy content; it never moves them straight from unhappy to happy

Content factors only make unhappy citizens content. But, even on Chieftain, once your cities get over size 5 or 6 you WILL have unhappy citizens to cope with! [/B]

 

[Raijer]

I just bought PTW. Something happened in last night's game, and I'm a bit stumped. The Mongols offered me the wheel in exchange for literature and 100g. It sounds like a typical AI offer, but the twist was, I already had a force of riders gathering at his border - meaning I not only already HAD the wheel, but horseback riding as well. I've never seen this before!

Was this an attempt by the AI to pull a fast one, or was it some kind of bug/glitch?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Originally posted by Raijer
I just bought PTW. Something happened in last night's game, and I'm a bit stumped. The Mongols offered me the wheel in exchange for literature and 100g. It sounds like a typical AI offer, but the twist was, I already had a force of riders gathering at his border - meaning I not only already HAD the wheel, but horseback riding as well. I've never seen this before!

Was this an attempt by the AI to pull a fast one, or was it some kind of bug/glitch?

was that in an MP game?


sound very much like a bug...

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by heikeott

Here's my understanding:
1) Each luxury resource that a city is connected to (via road, harbor, airport, trade, etc.) makes one citizen happy. Period.

???? If there are only happy and unhappy citizens, obtaining/connecting a lux will make a citizen content , not happy. I get the same effect from increasing the "entertainment slider" in the F1 screen and creating entertainers by clicking on the city tiles. Of course the resource has to be in your boundaries or a colony but I think you knew that.

In short, happy factors can make either an unhappy or a content citizen happy.

Edit: At first I thought I agreed with this statement but now after a second look I think it's wrong. Correct would be: "happy factors can make either an unhappy citizen content or a content citizen happy."

Thanks for the comments.

 

[sumthinelse]

Continuation of the "happy" and "content" smilies discussion: What order does civ3 apply the smilies to the citizens? I think that it applies the 1) "content" smilies and then 2) the "happy" smilies. Otherwise, some of the "content" smilies could be wasted since there would be no unhappy citizens to apply them to.

 

[sumthinelse]

Impressive advisor graphics, Madscot!

 

[Hygro]

A luxery will make a content person happy. If there are no content people then it will make an unhappy person content.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by Hygro
A luxery will make a content person happy. If there are no content people then it will make an unhappy person content.

I agree. Why don't they explain that in the documentation?

 

[Shabbaman]

Originally posted by sumthinelse
Why don't they explain that in the documentation?

D'oh!

P.S. Killer, you could post madscot's post in the faq me thinks.

 

[redhulkz]

need how many post to have own custom avatar?

 

[Shabbaman]

300

 

[heikeott]

Back to the happiness discussion...

A. If happiness items don't make unhappy citizens happy, why do I always have the same # of happy citizens as I have luxury happy faces? Even on Warlord, all citizens after the first 3 or 4 are born unhappy, so by your reasoning some of them should just be content.

B. Ok, so banks don't multiply the effect of luxuries like marketplaces do. (Which is information that is not easy to find, and not clear when you do find it). However, they can and do have an effect on happiness if any commerce output is being used towards luxuries. Many times I have seen cities go into WLTKD immediately after a bank is built.

C. The size of a city does affect the # of citizens changed by adjusting the luxury slider. In a small town you could increase by 20 or 30% before it even makes 1 citizen happy. In a large metropolis, however, adjusting it just 10% might change 3 or 4 citizens. There's some formula involved, and the # of citizens in the city, ie the size of the city, almost has to be a factor in the formula, since I'm pretty sure it isn't 1 gold = 1 happy face.

And this is a side issue, but I can't remember where we were discussing it. Someone told me that war does NOT affect culture, but I found the sentence in the manual last night that clearly says "on a wartime footing" the culture produced by cultural structures and wonders is only half of normal.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by heikeott
Back to the happiness discussion...

B. Ok, so banks don't multiply the effect of luxuries like marketplaces do. (Which is information that is not easy to find, and not clear when you do find it). However, they can and do have an effect on happiness if any commerce output is being used towards luxuries. Many times I have seen cities go into WLTKD immediately after a bank is built.

Not true. Luxuries are just that. They are luxuries that your city has access too. Only marketplaces can alter the effect of luxuries. Banks increase Gold to the treasury by 50% of the base value. You may get more gold coming in after building a bank, so you can reduce the % to the treasury and increase your entertainment % to get more, but in itself a bank can not make you happier.

C. The size of a city does affect the # of citizens changed by adjusting the luxury slider. In a small town you could increase by 20 or 30% before it even makes 1 citizen happy. In a large metropolis, however, adjusting it just 10% might change 3 or 4 citizens. There's some formula involved, and the # of citizens in the city, ie the size of the city, almost has to be a factor in the formula, since I'm pretty sure it isn't 1 gold = 1 happy face.

Not directly. The amount of commerce you get in each city gets a % to entertainment, and that causes you to get happy faces. A size 12 city on the wrong side of the world (so with 95% corruption) would get nothing for a 20 or 30% entertainment rate. A size 3 city capital earning 10 gpt would get 2 or 3 happy faces, so although size can make a difference it is not the direct cause, commerce and entertainment % is.

And this is a side issue, but I can't remember where we were discussing it. Someone told me that war does NOT affect culture, but I found the sentence in the manual last night that clearly says "on a wartime footing" the culture produced by cultural structures and wonders is only half of normal.

IIRC, war is not the cause of 1/2 culture, but mobilization is.

 

[Grille]

Heike,

point B: IMO, info about marketplace/bank is in pedia.

Never noticed WLTKDs after building banks. I think banks just
affect gold output (not commerce) of cities, such as libraries
affect only science. However, (part of) commerce can be used to
increase moods by lux-slider. Your WLTKD must have other reasons
like new born citizen working on high-commerce tile (when lux-slider
is set well) or becoming entertainer just as bank was finished.
Of course, banks give you more gold out of a certain amount of
commerce, so you could raise lux-slider and will stay on a same
total income level. Then banks act indirectly on moods.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by heikeott

A. If happiness items don't make unhappy citizens happy, why do I always have the same # of happy citizens as I have luxury happy faces?

Note: govt.=republic so garrison doesn't matter for contentment.

 

[heikeott]

Cheez whiz, what did you DO to those poor people??? You have 5 different luxuries and only 4 citizens that aren't unhappy?!

I must be a much better ruler than you - my people are never that unhappy!

(just kidding - I know at least part of it is probably because of the lower level I play on)

If I get a chance I will try to test the bank thing tonight. *I* think that if I have my luxury rate set on say, 20%, and build a bank, changing nothing else, happiness will increase.

 

[sumthinelse]

Originally posted by heikeott
Cheez whiz, what did you DO to those poor people??? You have 5 different luxuries and only 4 citizens that aren't unhappy?!

I must be a much better ruler than you - my people are never that unhappy!

I sold the temple and marketplace to illustrate this point. Before that they were 100% happy.