The 'Anarchy Bucket'

[Stormbolt]

Is there any way to mod this in?

 

[Trias]

One of the reasons that I like the idea of global happiness is that it provides a handle for revolutions etc in a much more organic way than was available in previous civs.

The idea of unhappy faces piling up in the same manner as happy faces do, with some very undesirable result if the bucket is filled, fits nicely with the other mechanics of civ5.

Exactly what does result should be can be debated. To keep inline with happy faces and golden ages, filling the bucket could spark a dark age for your civilization. This age should last a period of X turns with X depending on the number of dark ages your civ has had. During the dark age, the civs economy should be crippled. Say massive hit to production of gold, science and culture. This hit should be so massive that it sets the player back at least a few turns. The first dark age should be survivable, with proper actions taken (or even planned), mostly because it will be very short. (View it as warning or in some strategies a calculated cost) longer dark ages should however lead to the player being likely to lose the game.

I also like the idea of cities trying to split off. This should take the form of the cities trying to form their own city state. One way to implement this would be to have an x number of insurgents spawn around the city which produces the most unhappiness (maybe x equal to number of unhappy faces produced) which then try to take the city. If succesful, the city will be iberated if it was a captured city, other wise the city forms a new city state.

I think this is a very good idea.

[...]

There were a couple of threads rather relevant to this, about a year ago.
Argetnyx's Empire-Crashing Idea
Rebellions, Civil Wars and Civ Disintegration

Notice that it was suggested that minor civs could be introduced to help with this.

Interesting suggestion. I agree that "ignore happiness" exploits should be fixed - though I could also see the strategy itself kept viable, as long as it's balanced with other approaches instead of being clearly superior. In Civ4, the "specialist economy" (or later, "espionage economy") weren't intended by the devs, but evolved out of the system. Specialist economy is a good example for an unintended strategy that fit well into the game and that was balanced with the "conservative" approach (cottage economy). Espionage economy arguably didn't fit quite as well (though it still does to some extent), and was a bit overpowered in high difficulty games. I think "ignore happiness" strategies might enrich the strategic options available in a similar way as EE did in Civ4. Therefore, I think that balancing the strategy (instead of fixing the exploit) might be an even better option.

It seems to me that the option of a specialist economy was intended in civ4. That is, focussing on specialists of cottages seems to have been one of the core choices offered by the civics system.

 

[Psyringe]

It seems to me that the option of a specialist economy was intended in civ4. That is, focussing on specialists of cottages seems to have been one of the core choices offered by the civics system.

Well, it's speculation either way. To my knowledge (which isn't complete), the specialist economy was not part of any beta tests, while other economic concepts were. I think the devs designed specialists as a mechanic that could help your economy a good deal, but not as one that could actually replace cottages if the player focused on them. When they found out that it could, they saw that it actually enriched the strategic options in the game, and decided not to trim it down. But as i said, this is speculation on my part, and i can see how someone else might arrive at another conclusion.

In any case, my point wasn't specifically about Civ4, I was rather using at as an example for how combining game mechanics in unforeseen ways can enhance the enjoyment (if balanced out). Another example would be the 60hp monk build in Guild Wars, but in a CivFanatics forum, I thought the Civ4 example might be better suited.

 

[Nick Doom]

I like the Dark Age idea but I think that it should be a mirror image of the golden age i.e.

atm golden age is +1 gold and production when one is produced so a dark age should give -1 on them both.

And with killmeplease Mod Emigration it would be a good start to stopping the ignore happiness tactics

 

[TrashMan]

Note that anarchy effects shouldn't be TOO terrible, since it will take AT LEAST several turns for you got get out of it. In other words, you have to give the player enough leavy to get out. Happines buildings take time to construct.

 

[Trias]

Note that anarchy effects shouldn't be TOO terrible, since it will take AT LEAST several turns for you got get out of it. In other words, you have to give the player enough leavy to get out. Happines buildings take time to construct.

This is why I suggested dark ages that end after a number of turns. You might not be able to alleviate the problem while in the dark age, but you should be able to do something to prevent the next one.

Note that the whole idea of having the bucket is that you can see the "dark age" or period of anarchy coming ahead of time allowing you to take measures to try to prevent it. If something happens to your empire that causes a sudden loss of happiness (say you loose access to some luxuries, then you will have time to try to solve this before the dark age hits.

The basic idea is that players should be striving to avoid dark ages at almost all costs. The effect of the first dark age (which should be relatively short) should be severe enough to make it hurt, but a player should be able to recover and avoid the next one. After that consecutive dark ages should grow in length, and so be able to bring any empire (no matter how powerful) to its knees. (Making them impossible to ignore).

 

[Goldklecks]

I agree to the overall idea of this thread, I especially like the term "dark age".

However we should consider how it came to the negative happiness and what are the possibilities to go back into positives. There should be a constructive way back.

Just an example from my current game. I played very peaceful and was around +10 happiness. Then Monty attacked me very hard and managed to conquer one of my minor cities. He gave me no chance to peace for fair conditions. So I switched to unit production, fought him back and conquered two of his cities including his capital and made them puppets. That brought me to -4 happiness (including the pop grow during this quite long war). Then he offered me peace and gifted me all of his cities except one. I took them all as puppets and have now -23 happiness. Now I have -50% production and it will take a very long time to produce all needed happiness buildings.

Of course I could raze all this cities or gift them to someone, but from my feeling this is also an exploit. How could elimitating a whole region of humans enhance your happiness?

I would prefer something like:
- I get no production malus if I build happiness buildings even in the darkest dark age
- all puppets concentrate on happiness buildings exclusively as long as long as the happiness is negative
- or puppets do not count at all for (negative) happiness
- There should be enough time after end of war to react and build the necessary happiness buildings bevor a dark age begins
- Maybe the end of a war should even trigger a small period of "we love the king" that give a happiness bonus and/or prodcution bonus to buildings (not units)

 

[Camikaze]

Yeah, digging your way out of a hole could become a problem. It's all well and good to say that 'you should have prevented unhappiness in the first place', but remembering that people don't like losing, there always needs to be some chance for them to get out of it. You want it to be bad enough for players to attempt to avoid going into it at almost all costs, but not bad enough that once you go into it, there's no coming out. Dark ages would perhaps do the trick, but what would stop you from automatically going back into a dark age once you had come out of one?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Which is why the best solution for the Unhappiness issue is Very Unhappy gves a Food Production penalty, so your cities starve out. (prodctivity collapses and people abandon your civilization for the hinterlands)

 

[Narmical]

I think combinding this idea with the emigration idea would be wonderful!

It would make unhappiness and happiness smetrical. When happy your empire grows and can have golden ages. Which brings you closer to unhappiness.

When unhappy emigration will kick in and reduce your population bringing you closter to happiness

 

[Paeanblack]

For the game to be fun, the penalties for unhappiness should have the side effect of making the empire happy. If not, you risk death spirals.

Historically, unhappy people didn't just vanish into thin air; they usually decided they would be better off themselves.

How about incorporating this into the game? If your happiness bucket goes to zero and you are still negative happiness, your puppets (and annexes w/o courthouse) will start breaking away and forming NEW city states.

They don't go back to your enemy; you don't lose everything you just accomplished in that last war, but you also don't get to keep everything if you can't support it.

I want to see empires expand and contract several times through the game as a part of normal gameplay, with the world getting more and more populated.

 

[javaja]

I agree to the overall idea of this thread, I especially like the term "dark age".

However we should consider how it came to the negative happiness and what are the possibilities to go back into positives. There should be a constructive way back.

Just an example from my current game. I played very peaceful and was around +10 happiness. Then Monty attacked me very hard and managed to conquer one of my minor cities. He gave me no chance to peace for fair conditions. So I switched to unit production, fought him back and conquered two of his cities including his capital and made them puppets. That brought me to -4 happiness (including the pop grow during this quite long war). Then he offered me peace and gifted me all of his cities except one. I took them all as puppets and have now -23 happiness. Now I have -50% production and it will take a very long time to produce all needed happiness buildings.

Of course I could raze all this cities or gift them to someone, but from my feeling this is also an exploit. How could elimitating a whole region of humans enhance your happiness?

I would prefer something like:
- I get no production malus if I build happiness buildings even in the darkest dark age
- all puppets concentrate on happiness buildings exclusively as long as long as the happiness is negative
- or puppets do not count at all for (negative) happiness
- There should be enough time after end of war to react and build the necessary happiness buildings bevor a dark age begins
- Maybe the end of a war should even trigger a small period of "we love the king" that give a happiness bonus and/or prodcution bonus to buildings (not units)

I think the idea is basically that, the people you eliminated were the source of unhappiness, once you eliminate them / they are no longer under your control, the source is eliminated, you no longer care about their happiness, their value no longer contributes to the overall composite. Or if you spend the effort to make them happy, and keep them around, they figure into the score and eventually become productive.

I think it makes sense, but I agree the penalties at -10 are a pretty hard hit. My ENTIRE EMPIRE isn't going to logically rebel because a few chumps that didn't want to be under my thumb are getting pushy. The rest of my empire might not care if the new unhappies are remote enough either. I wonder if a distance modifier reducing BOTH + and - happiness for distance from capital might make sense. On the other hand, when an empire is terribly unhappy, logically it's not going to be producing or growing much. So maybe the -10 effects aren't so bad. After all, it's fairly easy to avoid -10 once you know to expect it and plan accordingly, and if you ride that margin, you know and accept the risk.

 

[javaja]

For the game to be fun, the penalties for unhappiness should have the side effect of making the empire happy. If not, you risk death spirals.

Historically, unhappy people didn't just vanish into thin air; they usually decided they would be better off themselves.

How about incorporating this into the game? If your happiness bucket goes to zero and you are still negative happiness, your puppets (and annexes w/o courthouse) will start breaking away and forming NEW city states.

They don't go back to your enemy; you don't lose everything you just accomplished in that last war, but you also don't get to keep everything if you can't support it.

I want to see empires expand and contract several times through the game as a part of normal gameplay, with the world getting more and more populated.

A really cool implementation of this is in the Random Event Mod floating around in the MOD DB (v6 as of this post). I was doing a Roman conquest / ICS on Emperor, and had been in -10 to -16 unhappy for about 6 turns during total world war (all v me). Then I was at 0 unhappy. I asked myself: why? And then found out and took the following screenshot. Basically emigration mod incorporated as a causality. Really cool, definitely should have been part of the original game... even if one of my 3 core production cities had to start over at size one. 5x maritime city states fixes that in short order. Screenie follows.

By the way, how do people insert full-sized images into their posts? **EDIT: Figured it out.

 

[Camikaze]

Which is why the best solution for the Unhappiness issue is Very Unhappy gves a Food Production penalty, so your cities starve out. (prodctivity collapses and people abandon your civilization for the hinterlands)

But that would have the effect of a killer blow, and would be hard to get out of...

If a food penalty has the effect of lowering production, then it doesn't really allow you to get out of the situation anymore than simply lowering production does.

 

[javaja]

But that would have the effect of a killer blow, and would be hard to get out of...

If a food penalty has the effect of lowering production, then it doesn't really allow you to get out of the situation anymore than simply lowering production does.

It's much less of a hit. Due to MMF, production lost to food is MUCH easier to recover than that lost due to unhappiness. You might end up in a cycle where your citie shrink and grow based on pop --> unhappy --> starve --> grow, but that's not all that un-like previous editions of the game mechanically. Likewise, Cumae (in the above post) grew back to size 8 within a reasonable amount of time (~<30 turns, if I recall.) Really a much more workable side effect.

 

[Nick Doom]

any system for unhappiness/dark age will have to iver directly or indirectly affect population of your cities as its population that cores unhappiness

Where its emigration
People just running away
People committing suicide

One way we could simply impalement this (although I doubt it would be simple from when i have looked in to over things) could we add a % to the base food required to feed your citizens when unhappy/very unhappy in place of the % on food surplus

atm the system will only slows down growth in your cities which will not get you out of unhappiness in a lot of cases your cities have grown enough to keep you unhappy by the time you build your happiness building completes

The IC reasoning for this could be that your people are comfort eating or just hording in case of the riots they feel are inevitable (even if they can&#8217;t happen in game yet)

 

[CivMyWay]

(As a way to let you get out of it...) what if you had to cede some of your cities into a separate civ-state. You would obviously choose your most problematic cities, which would theoretically give you some money etc to play with to try and improve conditions in the other cities. You would then have the challenge of woo-ing those city-states to rejoin the motherland.

 

[Camikaze]

That could be an idea, although I would think that the cities making demands to secede would be a better way of doing it. You could either agree to the demands, and hope to woo them back later, or you could refuse the demands, and a civil war would ensue. This would seem to be a more realistic mechanism than giving you control over possible secession of cities.

 

[a barbarian]

Great, we need some revolution or 'dark age' mechanism. I would also like to see:

1) That I can re-assign my social policies at the end of a revolution/dark age (some culture should be destroyed as well). This would make it possible to choose a different set of SPs for more happiness instead of having only the option to build happiness buildings.

2) The possibility to enter a revolution intentionally in order to reassign my SPs (some culture should be lost but the required amount of culture points for the next SP could also be lowered)

 

[UWHabs]

Definitely makes sense to have a sort of "reverse golden age". As mentioned, you should be able to recover. I'd say:

first time: simply one turn of anarchy, like in the old games. No science, no money, no production for one turn. Hurts you, but it's not the end of the world.

second time: 2 turns of anarchy. Also, any city which is a big neg unhappy city (so annexed cities, recently captures ones, etc...) have a chance to break away. They either return to their previous owner, or become their own city-state (or perhaps join a neighbouring city-state if their borders touch one).

third time and all subsequent: 3 turns of anarchy. Increased chance of cities breaking off. I'd love to see a mechanism as well where if you have multiple adjacent cities that are all net unhappy, there's a chance that they break off not into another minor civ, but into another major civ. All your units in their new lands have a certain chance of defecting to the new empire.

After each anarchy period, you should have 5-10 turns where you're guaranteed anarchy-free to recover, but you should still be in an unhappy time, where you get certain other negative effects (unit costs increase, units fight at reduced strength, science output of your empire is reduced, chance of mob riots in your cities where random buildings get destroyed, chance that some of your population in cities vanishes).