Shocked, and suddently hating the patch

[lschnarch]

If they are going for realism, than yes getting any city from the enemy should create tons of unhappiness in the short run. It sucks for gameplay though. I think a minor solution would be to undo the production penalty from heavy unhappiness. Production or tons of gold is needed to get the happiness back up, so reducing it creates an "unhappiness trap." At the very least, the production penalty should not apply to happiness buildings.

The problem is not in local unhappiness which everybody would understand.

The problem is in the current design, where UNHAPPINESS is global, and happiness is local.
Ok, you have some wonders and resources which are still global, but the original concept nevertheless has been turned into a travesty.
Even having ALL resources will only give you 75 happiness, and most times you will just have less than all.
Wonders are not guaranteed from a certain level upwards, neither are the respective social policies.

Allowing the booty from a peace treaty to throw your victorious empire into turmoil just renders the whole "happiness" concept obsolete.

Edit: the very least would be your advisors popping up and warning you.

 

[Sneaks]

I have many thoughts on this matter:

First, there are many ways to avoid this. The easiest being not taking the cities in the first place. The second is to sell off the happy-sink cities to someone you plan on DoWing soon anyway. I agree that ANY city changing hands, be it through war or peace, should cause major instability issues in the empire it belongs to.

I do agree that there is an issue when there seems to have been no sensible way to take that city through war or other means if the population was so large, the new owner could in no way handle it. The game as it stands now lacks any manner of loyalty changing system (i.e. religion/spies, etc) which would help ease this. That is certainly a game flaw.

As many posters stated, one key issue with this situation is the way the AI is balanced at higher levels with the inflated base happiness. The biggest issue with this type of balancing is that it prohibits the player using the same tactics available to the AI.

 

[bryanw1995]

The problem is not in local unhappiness which everybody would understand.

The problem is in the current design, where UNHAPPINESS is global, and happiness is local.
Ok, you have some wonders and resources which are still global, but the original concept nevertheless has been turned into a travesty.
Even having ALL resources will only give you 75 happiness, and most times you will just have less than all.
Wonders are not guaranteed from a certain level upwards, neither are the respective social policies.

Allowing the booty from a peace treaty to throw your victorious empire into turmoil just renders the whole "happiness" concept obsolete.

Edit: the very least would be your advisors popping up and warning you.

as I mentioned earlier, the best way to deal with it is to just accept every city you can then sell them to different leaders. if there's enough money out there and you have enough military you could just sell them all to one or two enemy leaders and reconquer at your leisure. also, you can view the cities before deciding whether to annex/puppet/raze them, if the city has no colosseum and you don't think you'll have any good buyers then you could just raze right away.

 

[alpaca]

The problem is not in local unhappiness which everybody would understand.

The problem is in the current design, where UNHAPPINESS is global, and happiness is local.
Ok, you have some wonders and resources which are still global, but the original concept nevertheless has been turned into a travesty.
Even having ALL resources will only give you 75 happiness, and most times you will just have less than all.
Wonders are not guaranteed from a certain level upwards, neither are the respective social policies.

Allowing the booty from a peace treaty to throw your victorious empire into turmoil just renders the whole "happiness" concept obsolete.

Edit: the very least would be your advisors popping up and warning you.

Actually unhappiness from population is semi-local in the same way as happiness buildings are local. You can get rid of it completely by building the local happiness, so it's local. Only the spill-over and unhappiness from # of cities is really global.

 

[Bob1475]

The game is not broken, just different. Certainly something that can slow you down as you mow down the AI. You just need to learn to adjust. Turn down that offer! You want the capital don't you? Go for it and ignore the other cities until you can handle them - or not.

The 20 unhappiness rule is certainly having an effect and I find it a new challenge!

 

[Windsor]

You just need to learn to adjust. Turn down that offer!

In this case, the game should be adjusted. I have trouble to understand why people even are defending this mechanic.

This mechanics feels unfair and is not fun. Imo it's also very unrealistic, but it's the fun-part that matters here. Civilization5 isn't a game that punishes the player a lot. They even throw 500 randomly at you. But then, you got this bizarre situation where the player obviously feels he have done well and should be rewarded. Instead he gets punished. And not just a small correction, the punishment is brutal and certainly a major source for rage quits.

The whole point of warfare in Civ5 is to capture cities and Civ5 manages to kill the excitement as your enemy falls to your mighty army! Yes, it's perfectly fine that the new cities cost some money and time to get productive. But it's not fine that winning the war can cripple your entire empire. Nowhere else in the game is the punishment for errors so harsh. And the game also fails to communicate why. It's like setting a new lap record in a racing game and being downgraded to a Fiesta because "your mom think you drive to fast". When the AIs bonuses also becomes so clear it just makes the whole thing even worse.

Overall capturing cities should make you feel successful! Not drag you down in the deepest depression you've ever seen. Make offensive warfare without progression costly and make newly captured cities require some rebuilding. That's what the player would expect.

 

[bryanw1995]

In this case, the game should be adjusted. I have trouble to understand why people even are defending this mechanic.

This mechanics feels unfair and is not fun. Imo it's also very unrealistic, but it's the fun-part that matters here. Civilization5 isn't a game that punishes the player a lot. They even throw 500 randomly at you. But then, you got this bizarre situation where the player obviously feels he have done well and should be rewarded. Instead he gets punished. And not just a small correction, the punishment is brutal and certainly a major source for rage quits.

The whole point of warfare in Civ5 is to capture cities and Civ5 manages to kill the excitement as your enemy falls to your mighty army! Yes, it's perfectly fine that the new cities cost some money and time to get productive. But it's not fine that winning the war can cripple your entire empire. Nowhere else in the game is the punishment for errors so harsh. And the game also fails to communicate why. It's like setting a new lap record in a racing game and being downgraded to a Fiesta because "your mom think you drive to fast". When the AIs bonuses also becomes so clear it just makes the whole thing even worse.

Overall capturing cities should make you feel successful! Not drag you down in the deepest depression you've ever seen. Make offensive warfare without progression costly and make newly captured cities require some rebuilding. That's what the player would expect.

um, how does the game "fail to communicate why"? if you add 4 cities with 50 population but only have +17 happiness going in, then you'll be at -41 the next turn unless you have some sp's wonders that work on a per-city or per-pop basis. it's very simple and linear, gets a big more complicated on large/huge maps but not enormously so. in many/most cases I'd rather conquer the cities, they get their pop cut in 1/2 to lower happiness penalty and you get the experience from the battles. plus it's more fun to win on the battlefield than at the negotiation table...

 

[SuperJay]

If they are going for realism, than yes getting any city from the enemy should create tons of unhappiness in the short run. It sucks for gameplay though. I think a minor solution would be to undo the production penalty from heavy unhappiness. Production or tons of gold is needed to get the happiness back up, so reducing it creates an "unhappiness trap." At the very least, the production penalty should not apply to happiness buildings.

That's my thinking as well - while it may be realistic, it is never fun for a player to get stuck in a downward spiral where they're trapped in a bad situation and lack the tools to get out of it. Despite all the "it all your fault lololol" responses in this thread, it's just bad design to even allow a player to fall into a trap like you describe. This needs fixing. If Firaxis were to say the such situations are intended and that this mechanic is working as designed, I'd be shocked.

 

[Ahriman]

I think this thread is missing something important; AFAIK, just because when you received the cities they had no happiness buildings does not mean they didn't have any happiness buildings in them beforehand.

I *think* (but I'm not sure) that getting a city gifted to you in a peace treaty is the same as if you're conquered them but without the population loss; they go into rebellion, and many of their buildings are destroyed.

In any case, the simple solution of re-gifting any cities you don't want to a friendly player (or a weak civ that poses no threat) works just fine.

If you don't want the city or can't handle it, don't take it.
Its exactly the same as if you'd conquered the city. Why should getting 50 new population somehow not be a difficult thing to integrate into your empire?

they're trapped in a bad situation and lack the tools to get out of it

How are they trapped? Give the city away.
If you don't want the city, don't take it.

 

[City Raider]

My issue with happiness (global) being the growth constraint is that it just isn't fun because it lasts all game and fresh new cities (verical expansion) immediate suck up some of the global pool AND any growth (horizontal expansion) also suck up any extra happiness. This is great for early parts of the game, slow excessive rexing and ICS, which is fine but at some point you need to allow for some type of rapid expansion either through peaceful means or war.

I understand the need to slow early growth for the human player, but even in CIV 4 with city maintaince, once you got a few key economic techs you were free to build as many cities as you liked. And you could do it relatively early or early enough to gain plenty of land peacefully to win. Mon/CoL/Cur all could be had at a decent rate.

But right now in CIV 5 the happiness constraint lasts all game and just makes for slow expansion all game long (or at least through the meaningful part of the game). What this means is the AI will suck up more land early, which is fine, but unfortunately your growth (vertical) is now hindered b/c you have a fixed number of luxuries and buildings you can build, so at some point you will reach your happy cap. Now what? Your empire can no longer grow, either vertically or horizontally since that will add more unhappiness.

And for a peacefule builder player this is terrible. It means I either need to go to war and raze cities (maybe puppet) or sit there and try and painfully grown my current empire, maybe new happiness buildings come online after more techs. But it isn't really fun. In the past no matter how many cities you had, 5, 10, 15, 20+ you could always grow them as big as you wanted to as long as you had the food. And that is what I miss in Civ 5. I have tons and tons of food, but my stupid core cities are stuck at sizes 15 maybe 20, because I have a few border cities at size 8 or 10. I can't grow the boarder cities even though they have food and I can't grow the core. Just frustrating. At some point, either via an era (reniassance), tech, building or social policy or some combination the happiness cap needs to be rendered moot or raised so high you can't reach it.

I know there are helpful social policies, but again those increase with number of cities and so even a small empire of 8-12 cities (standard) can take forever early on and you can't get that many until later in the game when you can really focus on it but at that point all the land is taken and it is late enough in the game where you probably already know if you are going to win or not. I'm talking by 1600-1700's, that's too late IMO. As an example, I'm playing an earth game, I have 12 cities (all of Africa with 1 CS), its like 1600AD or so and I've gotten like 5 or 6. That is just too low, IMO. At this point I just want to concentrate and build up, but I'm at my happy cap and will be for a while (working on rifling now), but my next policy is a ways off and I'd need another one after that to get a happy helper. Instead I'm taking the trading post boost (forgetting happiness) and just going the tech route and it'll probably be game over since I can TP spam. I'm just missing the variety in my games, they all seem to play out in the same way or are predetermined or determined in the first 30-50 turns.

 

[Sneaks]

That's my thinking as well - while it may be realistic, it is never fun for a player to get stuck in a downward spiral where they're trapped in a bad situation and lack the tools to get out of it. Despite all the "it all your fault lololol" responses in this thread, it's just bad design to even allow a player to fall into a trap like you describe. This needs fixing. If Firaxis were to say the such situations are intended and that this mechanic is working as designed, I'd be shocked.

The trap aspect is nasty. What would solve that is simply displaying by hovering over the accept button or maybe via popup, let the player know the immediate changes to his economy, science, culture, and happiness if he agrees to the peace treaty.

Otherwise, part of me really likes that if I conquer a large civilization, I better take a serious happiness hit or have some serious authoritarian social policies to keep my victims in line.

 

[Ahriman]

but at some point you need to allow for some type of rapid expansion either through peaceful means or war.

Why?

Expansion should have benefits and costs. Why does there necessarily need to be a possibility for rapid expansion and power-gain without commensurate investment to overcome the costs?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The trap aspect is nasty. What would solve that is simply displaying by hovering over the accept button or maybe via popup, let the player know the immediate changes to his economy, science, culture, and happiness if he agrees to the peace treaty.

Otherwise, part of me really likes that if I conquer a large civilization, I better take a serious happiness hit or have some serious authoritarian social policies to keep my victims in line.

This really should involve a popup...

If
Population of new cities+2*#of new cities > 9+current happiness

Then the game should warn you...
Sire, these new cities May make it difficult to maintain our troops and imerial development... are you sure you want to take them?

and if
Population of new cities+2*#of new cities > 19+current happiness

Then the game should warn you...
Sire, these new cities May make spread rebellion into our empire... are you sure you want to take them?

 

[Bob1475]

In this case, the game should be adjusted. I have trouble to understand why people even are defending this mechanic.

This mechanics feels unfair and is not fun. Imo it's also very unrealistic, but it's the fun-part that matters here. Civilization5 isn't a game that punishes the player a lot. They even throw 500 randomly at you. But then, you got this bizarre situation where the player obviously feels he have done well and should be rewarded. Instead he gets punished. And not just a small correction, the punishment is brutal and certainly a major source for rage quits.

The whole point of warfare in Civ5 is to capture cities and Civ5 manages to kill the excitement as your enemy falls to your mighty army! Yes, it's perfectly fine that the new cities cost some money and time to get productive. But it's not fine that winning the war can cripple your entire empire. Nowhere else in the game is the punishment for errors so harsh. And the game also fails to communicate why. It's like setting a new lap record in a racing game and being downgraded to a Fiesta because "your mom think you drive to fast". When the AIs bonuses also becomes so clear it just makes the whole thing even worse.

Overall capturing cities should make you feel successful! Not drag you down in the deepest depression you've ever seen. Make offensive warfare without progression costly and make newly captured cities require some rebuilding. That's what the player would expect.

Windsor - One of the first things I noted about CIV 5 was that the domination victory was not based on % land, % pop or even % cities. It merely requires that the last CIV with their original capital intact wins. This means you don't need to take all those cities, in fact, sometimes you dont' need to take any cities from a civ if they lost their capital to someone else.

You just need the capital cities to fall.

Taking all those cities is not necessarily a path to victory.

Try adjusting to the game rules before you think everything is all screwed up. This is a strategy game, not a conquer the city game.

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I have enjoyed all the Civ games since the original, and I actually enjoy Civ 5 as well. I might even be called a "defender".

However, there seems to be no reasonable way to describe this situation as anything other than an unintended consequence coming from the designers hoping to boost the AI's ability to compete and not fully understanding (by testing or otherwise) the impact it would have.

I don't see any reason to defend them on this one. It's pretty obvious that it is a mistake.

 

[Windsor]

um, how does the game "fail to communicate why"? if you add 4 cities with 50 population but only have +17 happiness going in, then you'll be at -41 the next turn unless you have some sp's wonders that work on a per-city or per-pop basis. it's very simple and linear,

The actual rules are easy enough, however the player is placed in a situation where he does not normally think about empire happiness. Negotiating feels like a place where you're supposed to select your reward, not a place where you can destroy your game.

As some have said, it's a trap! The game doesn't tell you the consequences even though this decision will affect empire happiness more than anything else you do in the game. A pop-up would at least help a bit.

There's also a problem on communicating justification for the rules. A player can have been very peacefully and kind leader always thinking about his citizens happiness. Then an evil leader can declare war and after some time the player finally manages to defend his empire and the citizens. As a result, they are unhappy with him, why?

 

[City Raider]

Why?

Expansion should have benefits and costs. Why does there necessarily need to be a possibility for rapid expansion and power-gain without commensurate investment to overcome the costs?

Because the AI can expand at will from the start.

No matter what, the adage of land = power is true and will always be true for civ. Don't get me wrong, you can win with fewer cities, I personally prefer to have my empires at 10-15 cities, but in general the more cities the better.

The problem in Civ 5, is if you stay small and I'd love to stay small (even under 8 cities) it is easier to run into money issues and you usually have a lower happy cap b/c less land equals less potential resources. Then comes war at some point the AI (or some AI or 2 or 3) will pick a fight. Now what? Okay fight defensive war and slaughter them. They won't sign peace, b/c they think they are winning. You take city - bam unhappiness, you raze city - people pissed off and call you warmonger, you puppet and you still get unhappiness. But puppets aren't really your cities, at least for me I like to control what my cities build and stuff. It is part of the fun of empire building.
Also you always have to worry about the run away AI that snowballs all the other AIs.

If you don't claim the land the AI will.

I agree there should be costs to rapid expansion or over expansion, I just don't like the fact that there is an overall population cap. It doesn't matter to me if you have 2 size 30 cities or 10 size 6 cities there is still a cap. If you have a city it should be able to grow if you have the available food in the city radius. And if there is empty land at 1500 AD you should be able to settle it without throwing your entire empire into unhappiness.

 

[joyous_gard]

I have felt trapped in peace deals too.

I get this offer and can't figure out what will happen, I am usually thinking something like "Well, it's going to affect my happiness. I wish I could see the cities. I am going to try to see the cities. Oh yeah, I am locked in this screen. OK. Well, I guess I will just take them and then sort it out afterward."

I think that thought process is exactly what I do every time I get an offer with a ton of cities. The rage varies depending how badly I want to see the GD cities he is offering. Where the hell are they?

 

[Ahriman]

Because the AI can expand at will from the start.

Then tweak the extra happiness that the AI gets from higher difficulty levels downwards, and encourage it to ICS less.

Its easy to get the AI to do whatever behavior we want it to have.

The problem in Civ 5, is if you stay small and I'd love to stay small

You're conflating two ideas here. "Staying small" and "growing at a constant, steady rate without rapid expansion", these are not the same.

If you have a city it should be able to grow if you have the available food in the city radius.

Why? You could never do this in any previous Civ; happiness has always been some form of constraint on expansion, its just that in previous versions it only limited vertical expansion rather than horizontal.

 

[SuperJay]

The actual rules are easy enough, however the player is placed in a situation where he does not normally think about empire happiness. Negotiating feels like a place where you're supposed to select your reward, not a place where you can destroy your game.

Very well said. Thank you.