Theoretical question: Is it possible to negate global unhappiness completely?

[Ralgar]

I searched but I didn't find anything definite on it.
The happiness-system is divided in a global and local component. Cities produce 3 global unhappiness and 1 unhappiness per population point. If a city produces happiness this is capped up to the population value.

My question: There are policies which give 1 happy face per city connected to the capital, there are religious traits which give 1 happy face per two cities, or 1 happy face for cities over 6 population, etc, is it possible (and with what combination) to counter the -3 global unhappiness per city completely and (theoretically) found infinite cities?

There is also the case that India's population penalty is halved and there is also the forbidden palace (-10%) and a liberty policy (-5%). Do they also lower the cap for local happiness? Or is it possible to produce extra local happiness which carries over to the global pool? For example with the forbidden palace, if a 10 pop town has buildings who give 10 happiness, do you get 10 or only 9?

 

[phillipwyllie]

Every policy/building seems to give local happiness only. The trick would be to go Freedom and unlock 'Universal suffrage. I've calculated that you can have a guaranteed +15 in non coastal cities and +18 in coastal cities regardless of the civ you play assuming you get to choose 2 religious buildings. To combat the +3 from each city you only need to work 6 specialists. With each city pop 15 or lower.

 

[ravenmagus]

Local happiness can never fully get rid of happiness, as local happiness is capped by the city's population, and population creates unhappiness 1 for 1.

Monarchy in Tradition does not actually give happiness; it lowers the unhappiness ratio in your capital city (so is better since it doesn't interfere with the happiness cap), allowing your capital to produce some extra happiness.

The Circus Maximus and other Wonders all produce global happiness. I'm fairly certian Ceremonial Burial is also global happiness. Just about every other source of happiness is local.

And then there's India. This is one of the reasons I think India is a very cool civ. India has half unhappiness from population, which means if they have enough sources of local happiness they can actually create cities that -produce- happiness. For instance, Autocracy India with pagodas, mosques, and Neuschwanstein can get 20 local happiness from buildings. If they grow a new city to size 20 and get all that stuff built, it'll produce 6 unhappiness for being a city, 10 from population, and then give 20 happiness - a net total of +4 happiness just for having the city.

 

[joncnunn]

It's possible to get global happiness above 100 even without the AI unhappiness modifiers, in fact there is an achievement for that (Suma Tablets for everyone)

Note that local happiness buildings may never remove more unhappiness than the local population based unhappiness, but there are several things that would more than offset the per city unhappiness (most significant is luxuries)
If you have a typical tall 4 city empire, that is 3 * 4 = 12 city based unhappiness.
Which would be offset by 3 unique luxuries even if you didn't have any global sources (you do, human starts with flat 9 global happiness on Prince and above even if you've not discovered any natural wonders)
Very careful micro could keep all cities local happiness equal to local pop based unhappiness, but not worth it.

 

[ravenmagus]

It's possible to get global happiness above 100 even without the AI unhappiness modifiers, in fact there is an achievement for that (Suma Tablets for everyone)

I've had this happen a few times when I've managed to conquer a nearly mapwide empire - ideology happiness bonuses conquer most local unhappiness, and then you get a ton of luxury resources.

Protectionalism from deep in Commerce (+2 from every Luxury resource) adds an absolute ton of global happiness in nearly every situation, but it's hard to recommend Commerce since Rationalism, Aesthetics, and Patronage are all so good.

 

[zukenft]

you could get a ridiculous amount of happiness on huge (only 1.8 unhappy per city, more luxuries, more mercantile CS, more AI cities to spam ceremonial burial).

 

[oaklandmurphy]

I had a game on king as the Maya and I ended up conquering the entire world and by the end I had 400+ happiness

 

[Trackmaster]

When I clicked on the thread I thought that the OP was trying to start a philosophic discussion about the human condition. That might be an interesting discussion to have too...

 

[revelation216]

When I clicked on the thread I thought that the OP was trying to start a philosophic discussion about the human condition. That might be an interesting discussion to have too...

my sides

 

[Fluffball]

The trick or confusion in regard to ICS comes from figuring out what provides local happiness and what provides global happiness.

Off the top of my head...
Any happiness provided by buildings that are not wonders should be local even if it is a bonus provided by social policies, tenets or religions.

Ceremonial burial and peace loving beliefs are global but all other happiness from religions are local including ones that aren't specifically tied to a building.e.g. sacred waters which provides +1 happiness for a city on a river and goddess of love which provides +1 happiness from cities with 6 pop.

All wonders (including national and natural wonders) that provide happiness themselves should be global. There are some tricky ones which are:- Neuschwanstein...the +2 you get from the wonder itself is global but the happiness it provides from each castle is local.
To add to the confusion also the happiness you get from national wonders via the universal healthcare tenant is local. (this is why it is so confusing....)
For CN tower, because it automatically provides +1 citizen and +1 happiness in each city it's hard to tell weather it is local or global happiness but it should provide local happiness(??) but i haven't really tested it due the way it works not really being much of an issue plus by the time it arrives you aren't usually worrying about happiness. I am basing my assumption off the way goddess of love works.

Meritocracy...+1 from each connected city is global happiness.

All luxury resources provide global happiness including the unique ones from mercantile city states.
Bonus happiness from resources provided by social policies .i.e. cultural diplomacy in patronage and protectionism in commerce also provide global happiness.

Military caste is local even though it is not provided by a building so may seem like it shouldn't be.

The -5% from meritocracy along with the - 1 unhappiness from monarchy as well as the -10% from forbidden palace and India's bonus are complicated terminology wise as they don't really give global happiness but it could be said they take away global unhappiness so they do in essence provide global happiness via the spill over local happiness that is added to the happiness pool but not used if you consider the difference between the 2 being that local happiness can only remove happiness from a specific city but global happiness can remove unhappiness from any source.
So the extra happiness those mechanics provide in the general pool can be used by any source rather than just by that city which makes them technically a source of global happiness.

So unlike in G&K you can't produce 3 global happiness in every city and therefore remove the global unhappiness from building cities therefore given theoretically infinite space you can't do a true infinite city sprawl as there is a finite, diminishing amount of global happiness available but due to the amount of global happiness available and the restrictions of the game in most cases you can fully negate any global unhappiness you would produce in a game.

In theory with infinite food you could grow the Indian capital to an infinite size and be effectively producing infinite global happiness using monarchy, meritocracy and/or forbidden palace because every 2 citizens in the capital would produce -0.15 unhappiness which in effect means they produce 0.15 happiness and every 20 citizens would mean another free city. Again though there is finite food available in reality to the capital so could not be done infinitely.