Processes (city projects) and unhappiness

[Delvemor]

It might have been discussed in the past but I was unable to find a thread about this. As many other players I often get very high amounts of unhappiness while being the leader in most metrics with up to date cities. For example I could be the tech leader by 5-6 techs with all the science buildings in every city working all the specialists I can and still get a lot of illiteracy even though I was fine not so long ago in that same game. However, if I choose to run "Research" as a city project instead of building something, most if not all the illiteracy in that city is gone, even without working specialists. The same goes for poverty, boredom and distress.

Now does that mean I will get unhappiness because a few of the AIs decide to run city projects in many of their cities ? Because I assume it's the case. I don't know for sure but it's the only explanation I can imagine. If they are behind in science it would make sense for them to do research, especially if they don't have anything to build for a while, which is likely the case on higher difficulties. But then why should I get unhappiness because they decide to do that ? That part doesn't make sense to me. It would be like Elon Musk being affected because all of a sudden I decide to go back to university and get a second PhD, or Warren Buffett being affected because I work 20 more hours a week.

Not only it doesn't make sense in terms of realism, but sometimes the city will remain unhappy regardless of your choice. You can stop being illiterate but you'll be poor, or you can choose to stop being poor but you'll be illiterate. Add boredom and distress and this is a mess. I've once checked Ghandi AI cities with spies for around 20 turns and it does use city projects quite a bit in peace time. At some point all cities will start on the same new building, and then they will go back to either "Research", "Culture" or Wealth" most of the time.

If it is the case that city projects do inflate unhappiness needs for everyone, should it be that way ? Maybe city projects should not be considered in the equation. Why should everyone get unhappy because New Delhi and a couple of other indian cities are using the "Culture" process ? IMHO we should get bored because indian cities have broadcast towers and we don't. The way it seems to work now, other players using the "Culture" process will cause boredom problems for Ghandi even though he is ahead.

 

[psparky]

I like the way you are thinking here and the large discounts the AI's get on unit and building costs, even at moderate difficulty levels, could be the root cause (I think recursive is fixing a bug in the calculation for buildings, but I doubt it will significantly affect things). Excluding processes from the happiness needs is an idea that I think should be considered.

 

[Gazebo]

It might have been discussed in the past but I was unable to find a thread about this. As many other players I often get very high amounts of unhappiness while being the leader in most metrics with up to date cities. For example I could be the tech leader by 5-6 techs with all the science buildings in every city working all the specialists I can and still get a lot of illiteracy even though I was fine not so long ago in that same game. However, if I choose to run "Research" as a city project instead of building something, most if not all the illiteracy in that city is gone, even without working specialists. The same goes for poverty, boredom and distress.

Now does that mean I will get unhappiness because a few of the AIs decide to run city projects in many of their cities ? Because I assume it's the case. I don't know for sure but it's the only explanation I can imagine. If they are behind in science it would make sense for them to do research, especially if they don't have anything to build for a while, which is likely the case on higher difficulties. But then why should I get unhappiness because they decide to do that ? That part doesn't make sense to me. It would be like Elon Musk being affected because all of a sudden I decide to go back to university and get a second PhD, or Warren Buffett being affected because I work 20 more hours a week.

Not only it doesn't make sense in terms of realism, but sometimes the city will remain unhappy regardless of your choice. You can stop being illiterate but you'll be poor, or you can choose to stop being poor but you'll be illiterate. Add boredom and distress and this is a mess. I've once checked Ghandi AI cities with spies for around 20 turns and it does use city projects quite a bit in peace time. At some point all cities will start on the same new building, and then they will go back to either "Research", "Culture" or Wealth" most of the time.

If it is the case that city projects do inflate unhappiness needs for everyone, should it be that way ? Maybe city projects should not be considered in the equation. Why should everyone get unhappy because New Delhi and a couple of other indian cities are using the "Culture" process ? IMHO we should get bored because indian cities have broadcast towers and we don't. The way it seems to work now, other players using the "Culture" process will cause boredom problems for Ghandi even though he is ahead.

Because we're using the Median, not the average, you don't really see statistical anomalies in the model. Also it is graded to only go up a % of the actual new median each turn, to prevent spikes in the algorithm.

G

 

[Stalker0]

Because we're using the Median, not the average, you don't really see statistical anomalies in the model.

Normally true, but on the other hand if something does make its way to the median it can create a very large increase. I know the AI likes to use processes in the later game as it finishes building everything....is the AI actually using processes in enough cities to hit the median?

 

[Delvemor]

Because we're using the Median, not the average, you don't really see statistical anomalies in the model. Also it is graded to only go up a % of the actual new median each turn, to prevent spikes in the algorithm.

G

Thank you for your answer. I was aware that the median value is used and not the average. I have to recognize it works much better now than it used to be too. The spikes are not as bad as in previous versions but they still happen sometimes. Part of my reasoning is that processes seem to be a bit too powerful though, probably enough to increase the median. In my last game on Emperor using the "Research" process could remove up to 8 illiteracy in one of my up to date cities, while using all science specialists could only remove 2 illiteracy, with an Observatory.

 

[Gazebo]

Normally true, but on the other hand if something does make its way to the median it can create a very large increase. I know the AI likes to use processes in the later game as it finishes building everything....is the AI actually using processes in enough cities to hit the median?

Perhaps on deity late game, but not early. Another point is that even if they did, it would still increase gradually.

G

 

[Gazebo]

Thank you for your answer. I was aware that the median value is used and not the average. I have to recognize it works much better now than it used to be too. The spikes are not as bad as in previous versions but they still happen sometimes. Part of my reasoning is that processes seem to be a bit too powerful though, probably enough to increase the median. In my last game on Emperor using the "Research" process could remove up to 8 illiteracy in one of my up to date cities, while using all science specialists could only remove 2 illiteracy, with an Observatory.

Keep in mind processes also reduce the unhappiness from that yield an equal amount, it is a double-dose of removal.

G

 

[stii]

Perhaps on deity late game, but not early. Another point is that even if they did, it would still increase gradually.

G

I certainly haven't noticed a happyness issue for late game deity. By that point happy is generally a non issue as you have lots of different sources.