The Bandit Lord Event

[odalrick]

2) Each unhappy population slows down your growth rate without giving you anything in return, and possibly forces you to work more food tiles without getting anything from them. Also, the unhappy population doesn't give anything, but adds unhealthiness.

How can you say unhappy population slows down growth? Unhappy population is basically growth that has already happened, how could any growth be faster than that?

Unhappy population gives nothing, true, but it doesn't cost anything* either. Unhealthiness is just food, and you already had enough food to grow once.

It would be nice if there was a governor option "Work to eat." that made the governor only consider working citizens when deciding how much food to produce, but most of the time it works well enough.

Come to think of it, that sound like a fairly simple mod that wouldn't have any negative effects. Just find the part in the AI where the food needed is calculated and replace current pop with happy pop.


* Apart from the events that can happen with unhappy pop. Those are necessary to make unhappy pop have any cost.

 

[westamastaflash]

Unhappy population gives nothing, true, but it doesn't cost anything* either. Unhealthiness is just food, and you already had enough food to grow once.

2 food can feed a specialist that otherwise now is feeding an unhappy person...

 

[odalrick]

2 food can feed a specialist that otherwise now is feeding an unhappy person...

But that would-be specialist is unhappy.

(I suppose you could be talking about the governors tendency to feed people that are unhappy, but that isn't a cost from the unhappy pop, rather the sub-optimal choices of the AI. Besides, had you been using that food to feed your specialist, you wouldn't have grown above the happy cap.)

 

[Sarisin]

Apparently this is not a "one of" event in a game. I'm not sure there are really any of those and the way events repeat in a game can be a bit bizarre at times.

Anyway, the only game I ever received this event I chose to take Bandit Nietz and some time later in the game while at war with the Svartalfar managed to meet and kill another Bandit Nietz. Must be a bad family!

 

[blacknight]

Just wanted to voice another vote for replacing some of the temp happy events with temp commerce/gold/research/culture events. It would be much more rewarding and more clear that it was a good thing (which temp happy is not always).

 

[Halancar]

I've had this event twice, taken Nietz twice (because I was playing evil civs anyway...). I have to agree, 5 unhappiness is a very heavy price to pay, even for a hero.

Both times, it actually triggered early enough that a horseman was a decent unit (anyway, if it comes later, you can just upgrade him to something better). That means that my larger cities were size 7 or so, it was well before gambling houses, so basically it cut my usable population in two for the duration (and from starvation it must have knocked two or three pop from every city). I must say that while flavorwise it was fun, rationally taking him was a very poor decision : from all the lost production I could have had an army of ordinary horsemen instead.

I think it would be more balanced if the unhappiness was just in the city he's created.

 

[Vitek]

I had Nietz for the first time in my last game.
I took him and it was really quite a setback. I don't now if I would do it again. But now when he is level 17, he's not so bad.

Also I have to agree on temporary happines bonus, I never take it.

And I've got question. Would be possible for Nietz to start with Horselord promotion, when you play Hippus?

 

[Ekolite]

Does anyone know what would happen if this event triggered for the Kuriotates? Would the hero be a centaur?

 

[Ahriman]

Apparently this is not a "one of" event in a game. I'm not sure there are really any of those and the way events repeat in a game can be a bit bizarre at times.

Anyway, the only game I ever received this event I chose to take Bandit Nietz and some time later in the game while at war with the Svartalfar managed to meet and kill another Bandit Nietz. Must be a bad family!

It's obvious.
He's the Dread Bandit Nietz. Once you kill or recruit one, another must take on the Dread Bandit role.

Another possible fix would be for the unhappy to go away like blight does. 5 unhappy, then 4 the next turn, then 3, then 2, then 1 then 0.

 

[Vitek]

Another possible fix would be for the unhappy to go away like blight does. 5 unhappy, then 4 the next turn, then 3, then 2, then 1 then 0.

It already is this way. It is just harsh and take long to go away (Not one per turn, but likely something like one per 15 turns).

 

[westamastaflash]

But that would-be specialist is unhappy.

(I suppose you could be talking about the governors tendency to feed people that are unhappy, but that isn't a cost from the unhappy pop, rather the sub-optimal choices of the AI. Besides, had you been using that food to feed your specialist, you wouldn't have grown above the happy cap.)

That was my point. Growing beyond the happy cap makes you feed an unhappy person instead of a specialist.

For simplicity's sake, say I have a pop 5 city with 2 food in the city center. 5 worked tiles are 2 food cottages. This leaves 2 food to grow to size 6, and then we feed the unhappy person and work the 5 cottages. Or if we stay at 5 pop, we could work 4 cottages, and run a specialist. You can't pull someone off a cottage once you reach size 6 with an unhappy person. If you change one of the cottages to a farm w/ agriculture, you can run 2 specialists, but only one once you grow and feed the unhappy person. I would call this a "cost" of growing too early.

 

[Bad Player]

It would be nice if there was a governor option "Work to eat." that made the governor only consider working citizens when deciding how much food to produce, but most of the time it works well enough.

That sounds reasonable.

 

[DuckAndCower]

That was my point. Growing beyond the happy cap makes you feed an unhappy person instead of a specialist.

For simplicity's sake, say I have a pop 5 city with 2 food in the city center. 5 worked tiles are 2 food cottages. This leaves 2 food to grow to size 6, and then we feed the unhappy person and work the 5 cottages. Or if we stay at 5 pop, we could work 4 cottages, and run a specialist. You can't pull someone off a cottage once you reach size 6 with an unhappy person. If you change one of the cottages to a farm w/ agriculture, you can run 2 specialists, but only one once you grow and feed the unhappy person. I would call this a "cost" of growing too early.

I finally understand your point. Of course, you could just let the unhappy citizen starve, but that's not really an argument for allowing unhappy populace.

I guess it's a tradeoff between having that specialist now, or having more working population instantly when you increase the city's happiness.

 

[Zechnophobe]

The only down side of an unhappy person in your city, is the rate at which you build units that use food production. Health, and eating food, will only at worst cause your population to shrink back to the point it was happy at.

You don't have to feed the unhappy people... they really don't matter. (Barring Calabim/Pillar). Do not fret about their well being, they aren't about yours.

Also, the person suggesting adjusting sliders to compensate for the nietz happiness penalty is correct. If you lose some money to culture during that time, it will very much be better than if you 'shrunk down to size 1'. Though I admit that hasn't been the case in the few times I've gotten the event.

Sometimes, though, you just gotta turn him down, and 'deal' with having a bonus to happiness in your cities.

 

[Fafnir13]

Also, the person suggesting adjusting sliders to compensate for the nietz happiness penalty is correct. If you lose some money to culture during that time, it will very much be better than if you 'shrunk down to size 1'. Though I admit that hasn't been the case in the few times I've gotten the event.

No sliders to adjust, unfortunately. Event came before I had access to that kind of stuff. There was literally nothing that could be done except watch the cities shrink. Haven't been able to play that game much since then, but the unhappiness is almost gone. As someone else said, a drop off of one unhappiness a turn would make this a lot more manageable.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Does anyone know what would happen if this event triggered for the Kuriotates? Would the hero be a centaur?

No, it's always a horsemen unit. It can be upgraded tho and still keeps its name. I upgraded mine to a Horse Archer.

 

[Soam]

No sliders to adjust, unfortunately. Event came before I had access to that kind of stuff. There was literally nothing that could be done except watch the cities shrink. Haven't been able to play that game much since then, but the unhappiness is almost gone. As someone else said, a drop off of one unhappiness a turn would make this a lot more manageable.

I agree, the happiness seems to be per turn as the event suggests but unhappiness seems compounded by game speed or difficulty, I'm not sure which, and as such lasts much longer then 5 turns. I've never had this event but I remember one where it stated 3 turns of unhappiness but it was something like 15.

As far as unhappiness goes I'm going to side with those that avoid growth. You might think that your city is read for when you get the happiness resources but you forget about the 5 - 10 -15 turns or more that you lose out on the extra commerce or hammers that you could be getting from a cottage or mine because you had to work a farm, not to mention the turns your cottage needed to grow. Those hammers lost mean a loss in culture if you were for example trying to build a obelisk, or even falling behind in science with the lost commerce. Also having to work a farm over a cottage means you'll have to reduce your slider resulting in an even greater loss in science to make up for lost income, and in the early game all these things are killer.

 

[DuckAndCower]

Alright, I'm completely convinced now

 

[Caradoc]

Um... yes? What is the point of this question?

If it's to passive-aggressively argue with me (i.e., you are trying to say that gambling house + slider set to 50% cash is not a reasonable solution), please remember that the unhappiness is temporary, so it's not like you're setting your research back indefinitely. Also, your slider is probably not set to 100% science, so you're not even taking a 50% hit to research. Also, you only need to offset the full unhappiness if your cities were already at the happiness cap.

"Oh, is that all?" Yes, yes it is. It's a simple solution, which I think works quite well.

Sorry if I sounded snarky. In my view a Gambling House is too expensive and takes too long to build until the City population is getting pretty high. But I'll try it your way and see how it works.