[NOT BUG] Happiness does not accrue during Golden Age

[durindana]

The issue: when your civ is not in a Golden Age, the happiness count is displayed along with the next total that will trigger a 15-turn Golden Age. When your civ is in a Golden Age, the happiness count (I think I read it referred to as a "bucket" before release) is not displayed, although the happiness level is. When you emerge from the Golden Age... the happiness count is exactly where you left it, however many turns before, no matter what your happiness level has been in the interim.

I'm posting this as a bug because, although I could find no documentation on the mechanic, it makes zero sense for this to be working as intended; not only is it exploitable (the count neither rises nor falls during a Golden Age) but it renders a lengthy Golden Age potentially more harm than good (exactly what happened to me in a game I just won). Golden Age time in every other circumstance is cumulative, and this bug breaks that mechanic.

 

[Sc4Freak]

I wonder if this is by design. IIRC that happiness "bucket" is a constant size - it doesn't change regardless of how many golden ages you've had. So a civ with a sufficiently high happiness could enter a perpetual golden age if the "bucket" filled during the golden age.

 

[wilson1225]

Sounds more like a feature to me. Why would they get rid of the "bucket" display during a golden age if it was intended to keep going up.

 

[ainwood]

This is actually as per design. Not a bug.

 

[SatanasOz]

I wonder if this is by design. IIRC that happiness "bucket" is a constant size - it doesn't change regardless of how many golden ages you've had. So a civ with a sufficiently high happiness could enter a perpetual golden age if the "bucket" filled during the golden age.

Seems like it is - but it is still annoying. I wonder what contributed to that decision. So far, getting a GA from happiness seems the hardest way to archive it. Why you should get punished for using that?

In my recent game I had a 120 Turn GA, initially ignited by happiness but kept going via GP and policies. All the happiness generated is "lost" - should have been enough to trigger one or two more times.

As a result, it again favors big empires who use their happiness for pop and punish small ones for building happiness buildings. With this, I see almost no way to get more than 2-3 GA out of the happiness thing - which means that happiness buildings are again only useful for large empires

 

[largedarryl]

The real question is, does the count go down when you are in a golden age? Since you still make significant money during unhappiness, and golden age greatly increases your gold output. A human player could potentially save great people to use as a holdover in times of war (times when you are likely to lose luxury resources).