Quick Questions / Quick Answers

With the recent changes to the happiness system, namely distress being high in all of my cities, I can no longer actually play this game as I used to. I'm constantly reaching peak distress levels, can't assign specialists, and I don't actually know how to combat it. What am I supposed to do to keep this value manageable? I don't actually know how this happiness system works in depth, but now, I certainly need to know! Please point me in the right direction... Guides? Tips? Anything's appreciated at this point, else my cities are gonna flip (exaggeration, hopefully)!

 

Are you building walls and barracks? If you expand too much, you'll have to reduce your growth too, namely avoid working farms, and if nothing helps, pick the 'avoid growth' button. Don't control more cities, just puppet them if you have to (puppets still increase your yield demand in every city, but less than what a controled city does).
Global happiness around 75% is not a problem yet, but it means that you need to start to care about it. Even if your cities revolt, this usually means a few bandits here and there, if you are a warmonger probably you can handle it.

In industrial, you may build Public Works too. Edit (Renaissance, I think)

 

The issue, I feel is...

1) I don't actually know how this system works in any depth. I'm returning to VP after about a year of inactivity with it. I don't know how a city that has plenty of food and production can be distressed. It's not like I'm starving it. And it's on such a powerful scale. Distress here, distress there, distress everywhere. Why? I don't have the answers, so I don't know how to fight it. It feels like all I can do is just build buildings that give -1 distress, making barracks a new high priority building. Is this based on some global average? Empire average? And why is it so high despite working so many high yield tiles? Not only does assigning a specialist add urbanization unhappiness, does this not also make your city "more distressed"? It's so punishing.

2) More than ever, it feels like you have no choice on what early buildings to build. The answer is just to build them all (just to get your city to shut up about its needs... only for another to take its place). Why should I be building walls in a city that's on the inside of my empire with no risk of attack? Why should I be building barracks when I don't wish to train a specialized military? I do have the answers to these questions, but it just feels like even buildings you would selectively choose not to build, you now have to.

Edit: Typo.

 

You don't need to know the depths. You are mostly suffering from needs, I guess, otherwise you'd be complaining about war weariness. Your citizens require an amount of yields each one. They base their demand on the world average yield efficiency. If the world's median city is producing 10 gold per person, in your city they don't want to receive less. But there are also some modifiers: each city you control adds up to the modifier, each technology you gain also increases what your citizens aspire to get. If you hover over the unhappiness tooltip in the city view screen, you'll see a summary of the modifiers: technology, empire size, and any buffs you gain from buildings. It also says the estimated happiness change upon growth.
If you are struggling too much about needs, it's because you either expanded too fast or grew your cities too big. Once you start having troubles, control these factors. You can have more cities with fewer population, or fewer cities with larger population, depending on terrain and your choices, but you can't have it all. As you build your infrastructure up, you'll be able to expand further or grow bigger.

If you have overexpanded, then yes, you need barracks and walls ASAP, and any building that directly contributes to your deficitary yields (arenas make barracks produce extra hammers, for example). But you could have not overexpanded and you would have a bigger flexibility over what to build now.
Also, don't disregard what you gain from the terrain. If you manage to form a farm triangle adjacent to a river, some of these tiles are going to yield 4 or 5 food with just one worker. You don't need to work all these farms, but you want your workers to be working on very efficient tiles. A hill with a mine and a forge is yielding 5 production per worker too. So, the direct way to combat distress is to work on mined hills with the forge and on some farm clusters near rivers. If your city is going to grow and there's no good tiles available and you don't have spare happiness to use specialists just don't grow, choose low food tiles (more mines, less farms) or directly click on 'avoid growth' button.

Anyways, if you only care about distress, you are going to miss technologies and policies coming at the right time, so it's not wrong to endure unhappiness for a while if that gives you a policy in time.

 

Thank you very much for the detailed answer! I still feel the current version's distress levels are excessive, but knowing why I was struggling is a big help. I would expand rapidly and rarely improve the land all except the most crucial tiles and luxuries. I'd have many large cities working 2/1 tiles, because I was playing with the logic of "improve later, a big city is still a more productive city". So again, thanks for explaining my error.

 

Everyone around here seems to think the same. In my current game I struggled a little between turns 90 and 120, but now it's controled and I'm expanding again. I think we just need to learn and adapt.

 

Does maritime city states giving food when you meet them early in the game (4th turn) removed?

 

If I take Fealty with other civ's religion, do I get bonuses stating "...your majority religion"? Or do I get everything else but these? Thanks guys

 

When I start razing a captured city and then stop razing, does this city become puppet or occupied?

 

Annexed.

 

Majority religion: the religion that you have the most followers, as far as I know. So you will get the bonuses (I think).

 

anyone know if there is any point to using "faster aircraft animations" with the current VP mod? have the animation speeds been fixed already or...?

 

It can still happen. All of the bonuses still happen, but are smaller and less common than before.

 

AI starting with 2 pathfinders does not help either

 

Looking at the files, the additional starting pathfinder has been removed since the May version
I don't remember seeing it listed in the changelog, but AI should no longer have this bonus.
(According to Gazebo when he removed it, it didn't significantly help the AI in practice, while being frustrating for the player)

 

Do puppets still get instant yields e.g. from Progress or Authority policies? Do they still get border expansions? Are these bonuses reduced by the 80% penalty like yields?

 

They get all bonus yields, the borders grow, and bonus yields are not reduced.

 

Interesting, thank you!

 

I see some resources in some of my cities, I see them inhappiness panel i cities, but they are not listed in local resources and absent in main resource list.
Started game using Eurekas modmod, but find out it doesn't work, dropped it and contd, may it be the reason?

 

If it is a luxury shown in the city banner, that is a luxury the city is demanding for a 'We love the king day'.
If it is a resource marked in red in the global happiness tooltip, that is a resource you can connect in your city, maybe later when your borders expand.
Otherwise, it could be a resource that is exactly under the city tile, or a luxury gained from a great admiral expedition.