Soma for everyone (100+ happiness)

[gremlins0]

I saw the achievement soma for everyone, where I need to get 100+ happiness. Has anyone done this? Which civ and idelogies might be best? Also, what would be the optimal number of cities playing on normal difficulty.

 

[FrostK]

Well I got 50 smiles quite often, to get 100:
1. Full merkantilism.
2. Full commerce.
3. Ally a lot of city states.

Well, I believe on i.e. King difficulty it must be quite easy using one city. You can get fast religion and spread it to get a lot of gold for CS and smiles also. Greece, India or Byzantia seem to be best.

 

[LostKnight]

Or, just play Portugal!

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

I got that achievement in a culture game as Sweden with Order. I had lots of City state allies and Cultural diplomacy. Traded for as many resources I could reasonably afford.

 

[ahawk]

I've never hit triple-digit happiness. Ever.

Why? Well, if you have anywhere near that much happiness (even just 30 to 40 happiness), it's usually a good time to go on the warpath, or to expand.

100 happiness, to me, is sort of like the Panzerscharfenator General achieve for having 100 units in a single game (and spawned 100 generals and won 100 games across a life time): if you have 100 units, well, you probably were capable of ending the game a long ways before you reached 100.

 

[Kwami]

This one is actually pretty easy. The ideologies have an absurd amount of happiness in them. I got this one in my second game when I went for a diplomatic win as Morocco. I had Tradition, Patronage, Commerce, the Rationalism opener, and a bunch of stuff in Order. Five cities. No happiness bonuses from religion, no stadiums, only one zoo. Easy mode!

Or, just play as Portugal. You can get a copy of every luxury on the map without much effort.

 

[Yzman]

I got the achievement after winning a domination game as the zulu and controlling all of the world except for 1 city. I was using autocracy. Really just late game stabalize the game, and start building any building that can get your happiness. Honor and autocracy were nice because I was getting happiness from basically everything like walls, castles and barracks etc. So I just liberated all the cities, got courthouses ( which were also providing more happiness with autocracy), Prora ( more happiness) and got there quite easily. It seemed intimidating but if you try it after you have already beat the game and just focus on happiness, its not bad.

 

[player1 fanatic]

My max was around 70 happiness.

It was a very nice tall Order game, with full Commerce.

 

[Outlandish]

I didn't even know this achievement existed until I just now stumbled into it playing Pedro. Wasn't even trying for too much happiness, just to keep mine above everyone else's for the 34% tourism bonus from order. As I had 9 cities and my religion wasn't very happiness oriented, just the +1 from rivers as I had lots of not-so-useful-anymore-but-still-nice-for-gardens rivers everywhere, I'd say it isn't that difficult to get.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my first victory with Pedro after multiple failures was also the only one where I didn't get a jungle start. I think I had 3 brazilwood camps total; I just have a ton of difficulty with that jungle start.

 

[zyx]

I got the archievement when I annexed all puppets and build courthouses everywhere. Had merkantilism tree and had all kinds of lux. Could be that a religious believe got me happiness too.

 

[simonthesinner]

Maybe play as Siam with the above suggestions.

 

[ggmoyang]

play settler level.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I only got 100+ once, but I can easily get 50 or 60 when I don't expand too much. Four cties are fine. Maybe five or six if there are enough really good spots with luxuries nearby available. You should also consider if the terrain lets you build stone works or a circus in the majority of your cities.
The ideologies have some helpful tenets, but the biggest factor for me is always the +2 per luxury from the end of the Commerce tree because I always try to get my hands on one copy of each luxury. Notre Dame is obviously very helpful too as is Forbidden Palace, and of course alliances with mercantile CS. If you get a lot of from CS luxuries there's also Cultural Diplomacy.
Then there's of course religion. Ceremonial Burial and Peace Loving were hit pretty hard with the nerf stick and the AI is now much more proactive in spreading their own religion, so those beliefs are really only worth considering if you're really desperate for a little more happiness and/or inhabit a large continent with many civs that you have a significant head start over in the religion game. But Pagodas and Religious Centers are as strong as ever. Actually Pagodas were slightly buffed through the new Mandate of Heaven.

 

[z284pwr]

I've never hit triple-digit happiness. Ever.

Why? Well, if you have anywhere near that much happiness (even just 30 to 40 happiness), it's usually a good time to go on the warpath, or to expand.

100 happiness, to me, is sort of like the Panzerscharfenator General achieve for having 100 units in a single game (and spawned 100 generals and won 100 games across a life time): if you have 100 units, well, you probably were capable of ending the game a long ways before you reached 100.

If you take the Tenant that gives you 34% tourism modifier against Civs with less happiness, you can use it. I had to hit 60 once to get this modifier in place.

 

[app]

Got it without even trying when playing venice as OCC. Maxed tradition, commerce and patronage tree. This causes my luxury resources, most of which came from city states, to give a ton of happiness. On the other hand, due to monarchy, venice barely generated any unhappiness (also because it didn't grew very big, I found it hard to grow it to 30 without any internal trade routes). I think I got to around 140 happiness in that game.

 

[Mesix]

play settler level.

This is the best advice. Happiness is much easier at lower levels.

 

[iggymnrr]

India.

 

[joncnunn]

Cheezy way: Play on Settler

Less cheezy: Play an OCC (or play Venice).

Ally a lot of city states and be at least friends with every merch city state. (Use the renamed policy under Patronage that raises the resting point by 20 points and combine with DOF abuse for free friendship.)

Then if playing Venice, don't buy any Merch city states. In addition, only buy other types providing a duplicate luxury (on top of the free), and even then only if you think you can sell if for another luxury.
(If playing Austria, that's the marriage rules to use as well)

Build all happiness buildings, obviously including those you don't need other than for the achievement.

Ideologies is where the massive bonuses are. If you've built every single building in every single city you own and in late game are running a lot of specialists, you're likely to see similar results between Freedom & Order.
But if you've only done so of those things, then preview both of them to see which you have done the most of.

Also, while this might not help for the achievement, if you are going for Soma, you should probably at some point complete Aesthetics. (I'm thinking first complete the ancient era tree chosen, next cherry pick that 50% of happiness goes to culture policies, then the above cherry pick of city state influence, then complete Aesthetics)

 

[Arrowstorm]

A bit off topic, but why go Order when you build tall? Isn't Freedom better for small empires?

 

[Arachnofiend]

If you're going for a culture victory it could be a good pick. You're unlikely to get enough happiness for Dictatorship of the Proletariat to kick in if you're wide.