Poll: How much does the happiness system influence your gameplay?

[Stalker0]

All,

G would like some help understand the current impact of the happiness system. What we want to understand is, how much does the happiness system affect your decisions? Things like what buildings you build and when, what policies you take, how much your expand or conquer, etc. I have started a poll to look at it.

Poll Option Description:

1) Frequent: Happiness is commonly on your mind. Many of your decisions around keeping the number up.
2) Occasional: Happiness is often a non-factor, but there are times when you feel you need to change some decisions or focus on happiness buildings to stay in good stead.
3) Seldom: You don't even look at the happiness number. You ignore it, and it very rarely influences your game.

 

[theMisterRud]

it depends, as a King player

- Warmonger game -> rarely a factor, plenty of ways to mitigate happiness. I have to correct something when overexpanding.
- Diplo Game -> non issue, when I'm sub-30, I feel I'm doing something wrong
- Tall artistry game -> Always a factor, it drives my game consistently

In all 3 cases though, I have to be really careful when Industrial era comes around

 

[Stalker0]

it depends, as a King player

- Warmonger game -> rarely a factor, plenty of ways to mitigate happiness. I have to correct something when overexpanding.
- Diplo Game -> non issue, when I'm sub-30, I fell I'm doing something wrong
- Tall artistry game -> Always a factor, it drives my place consistently

In all 3 cases though, I have to be really careful when Industrial era comes around

This sounds overall like an "occasional" vote, though the detail is useful!

 

[Bascule2000]

I voted frequent. While happiness doesn't drive every micro decision it almost always shapes my strategy - how many cities I can settle or capture. During the industrial era most of my building decisions are made wrt happiness.

 

[Omen of Peace]

I'd suggest using 4 choices (so that there is no middle one), and rewording them - because your top choice says both "frequent" and "always", and the bottom choice says "seldom" and "never".
I chose Occasional, but I'd have chosen Seldom if it didn't mention "never".

Example:
Almost all the time
Frequently
Rarely
Almost never

(I'm not a professional pollster, so I'm sure people can come up with even better suggestions. )

 

[Mad Madigan]

Emperor Player: Happiness has become sort of a non-issue for me regardless if I play Authority/Progress wide or Tradition tall ever since "Distress" was introduced to replace "Crime" and some of the happiness needs were readjusted. I feel like I can pretty comfortably play the game without having to worry much about per-city because there are plenty of sources of "global"/non-city to compensate. The AI doesn't seem to have many issues either, as looking at the Excess Happiness graphs from the end of games, the AI seems to slip into negative only very rarely, usually right before they're conquered and vassalized by a warmonger. I haven't seen a Civ hit the -20 threshold and lose a city to Revolt since before the last big Happiness rework.

From what I see, Distress tends to be the largest source of City Unhappiness for most of the game, with Poverty, Boredom, and then Illiteracy (in that order) being the next biggest sources through around the Renaissance/Industrial Eras. But I don't usually worry much about combating specific sources of City Unhappiness because I'm usually sitting in the 10-40 range for most of the game. The only time I have ever gotten negative is right near the start when I am first expanding and building new cities, and a "slump" period in the Renaissance that ends when I get access to Zoos in the Industrial Era or adopt an Ideology, whatever comes first. Honestly, I think the yield modifiers for City Unhappiness need to be tweeked back a bit in the other direction so that cities produce more , especially Poverty, Boredom, and Illiteracy.

 

[Baddo]

For Deity I always micromanage my cities buildings/tiles/specialist to reduce the constant unhappiness.
Sometimes I stop growth altogether on a city until its up to par with the happiness because it becomes an immense happiness hog.
However sometimes it seems happiness completely snowballs out of control for me, everything is perfect and I just get up to 50+ happiness and I just stop caring completely until the end of the game

 

[mikes61293]

Ever since the distress rework I'm not running into unhappiness issues past the mid-classical era. I've noticed that the AI always has plenty of happiness as well. I definitely think there needs to be some tuning to distress and to puppets.

 

[Blue Ghost]

In recent games happiness has largely been a non-issue for me. I think the distress rework could be partially responsible.

 

[Tzar Sasha]

Depends on who is playing I suppose. I, who am still fairly new to VP and its complexities, find happiness to be difficult to maintain in the early game. There comes a time when it isn't that much of a worry, but I've made a habit of always doing something to bring the happiness up. Whether that be building specific buildings to help at the local level, grabbing policies, building wonders, trading for new luxuries, or even picking certain religious beliefs, something is always being done to increase happiness somewhere. As a result, the mid-to-late game is usually in a "non-factor" state but that doesn't mean I turn a blind eye to it either.

 

[Enginseer]

It's because the AI can reasonably balance Distress (Food and Production imbalance) and the governor does it with fairness for humans as well. Crime is something that you can't control because it requires certain technologies, policies, or religious beliefs which worsen the imbalance of City Defenses globally.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I said occasionally, but would have taken a 'seldom' if that was an option.

However, I am not sure this could be fixed, really. If you play well generally, you won't have happiness problems, since they come from falling behind the curve. If you raise the production amounts required for happiness, then it will be very hard for players to avoid unhappiness. Like, if you increase unhappiness from Distress, as a player, I can't really respond to that much more than I already do - I already get whatever Food and Production is going because they're generally Good Things. At most, I might switch away some Specialists, but I think the game has a good balance with Specialists. If you increased the amount required, I would be punished with no real way of avoiding it.

If you play non-ideally in other regards, happiness will come and bite you.

If you had to increase the margins for one of the Unhappiness sources, I would say Science and Illiteracy. It is the one I see causing serious trouble the least. Alternatively, maybe Religious Distress or whatever it is called, I can't even remember that causing me trouble even when I was losing religious contests.

 

[Stalker0]

I said occasionally, but would have taken a 'seldom' if that was an option.

Seldom is the last option. You can change your vote if you think seldom is more appropriate

 

[CrabHelmet]

Seldom is the last option. You can change your vote if you think seldom is more appropriate

I know, but it also said "never". I also don't want to give the wrong impression that I think Happiness needs changing a lot. I don't think it does. If you play well generally, you don't need to plan around Happiness, if you play badly, Happiness will affect you. I rarely think about Happiness because I spend so much time thinking about its component parts - am I maxing Production? Gold? Food? Science? - that I rarely need to conceptualize it as a greater whole. That doesn't mean it isn't doing anything.

I'm struggling to grab the right way to communicate this concept, but I would simultaneously say a) I don't think much about happiness, and b) it is performing a valuable role.

 

[Workerspam]

Early on happiness is very much on my mind and I'll usually dip into the negative for bit; occasionally I've even been unable to settle a new city and been forced to find a quick fix. After Classical the happiness impact is game by game. Some games I can ignore it completely, others I have to monitor it and build some infrastructure before I otherwise would to forestall issues.

I think happiness is largely working right now. I believe it's purpose is largely to reign in extreme play, i.e. over-expansion or excessive focus on certain yields. If you're playing a balanced playstyle I don't think you should run into many happiness problems. But if you want to edge toward an extreme you better have a plan to deal with it.

As for excess happiness, every effective happiness related mechanic is a defacto Golden Age point generator when you are already happy (and culture generator if you take Fealty); not the worst result in the world.

 

[lunker]

Emperor/Immortal here. Not sure what to vote because keeping up happiness is hammered into me from bad experiences. I try to grab happiness boons when they give me a lot because I am afraid of huge swings. However, I've haven't fallen into unhappy for a very long time now so I am not sure if it is because I am playing as such or because staying happy is a non-issue.

I rarely see AI dip into unhappy in my games, but it does happen from time to time (usually warmongers or losers of wars)

Edit: Tradition/Progress player.

 

[glider1]

Happiness is just another bucket now and is actually easy to manage. Happiness controls how dynamic a game is when players are not playing domination (domination is inherently dynamic). In my opinion happiness is too easy and the game is too stable since distress was implemented. I like distress but it needs tuning.

 

[CrazyG]

Ever since distress I've had very few happiness problems. I have a feeling if my food and production was low enough to cause happiness problems, I would just be losing the game from low yields anyways. Science is similar because if my science is so low that I have much illiteracy, I'm probably just falling behind and happiness is the smallest problem. Boredom is different because lots of culture is bonus yields.

With that said, I don't think happiness should be brutally difficult, it should be mostly relevant for bigger empires. I've been supporting making luxuries have more impact but more unhappiness for a while. More sources of positive happiness (not needs reductions) along with more unhappiness would make a dynamic game.

 

[FoxOfWar]

All the time, but then again my favourite playstyle is Progress into grabbing all the turf I can, then building up. Comes with the territory, as it were.

Much less if I go Tradition wonderspam, or Authority warmonger, of course.

 

[yogiebere]

Immortal player. Depends on a few things but seems like its in a good spot.

1. Rapidly expanding in ancient/classical can easily put me into -5 to -15 happiness which kicks a direct hit to science, culture, and everything else but doesn't destroy me. Feels about right.

2. If I'm going wide (7+ cities) there's certainly a happiness crunch around industrial and modern eras. I feel like every tech in that era drops me 25 happiness and I have to beeline important buildings like the military academy, police station, and broadcast tower to stave over -5+ unhappiness per city. Even with very high food and production distress becomes a huge problem for cities over 25 pop.

3. I just played an arabia tradition game (6 cities with a couple puppets) and happiness was a non-issue. Never really dipped below 20 happiness all game. I still beelined these buildings but I might skip a few next time. It felt about right considering you're a smaller empire and even with Arabia the culture to get to Earth Protocol took forever.