(un)Happiness formula

[Kordanor]

Heya,

well, in MrGameTheorys thread someone wrote a bit about the happiness formular. Unfortunately this thread got deleted and as I could not find this forumar anywhere, I'd like to ask here and put everything together we know about happiness to also show newcomers the full picture.

Happiness is Global now.
As far as I heared there are 3 states of it? Like Happy, unhappy and very unhappy. Happiness is also contributing towards the next golden age.
Unhappy will start decreasing your growth rate
Very Unhappy, cities stop growing altogether and can no longer produce Settlers, and military units receive a combat penalty. (Only known example had "very unhappy" at -10 happiness). keeps your cities from growing (from http://well-of-souls.com/civ/civ5_cities.html)

Increasing Happiness:
Now as far as I remember the base happiness is assumed to be 5 or 6.
Luxury resources appear to provide +5 Happiness (to the whole empire). More than one deposit of the same resource has no additional benefit, but can be traded to other civilizations as in Civ IV. (from http://well-of-souls.com/civ/civ5_cities.html)
You can build buildings and wonders to increase it.
Some social policies will increase them

Unhappiness Formula:
Unhappiness = Number of Cities*2 + Population + Malus for Annexed Cities* + Malus for Puppet States**
*you can decrease (or even get rid?) of this malus by building a courthouse which you can build with mathematics
**Malus for puppet states are not as high as it is from annexed cities, therefore before having mathematics it does make sence to make a puppet state instead of annexing a city in order to annex it later on when you can build a court house

(I have no Idea how high the mali are or by how much they can be reduced)

Ideas which were already mentioned to deal with unhappiness might be to build very small cities which craft "happiness buildings" in order to provide brigger cities which can use the additional population more effectively. However additional cities mean that you need more culture for new social policies and more great people points for gp. So it's hard to say what will make sense here as long as we don't have detailed numbers.

Important! This is what I remember, but I am not sure in any way. If anything is different, or you got a overview about this, please tell me.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yep that's pretty much it as far as we can tell.


Unhappiness does not decrease 'performance'; it only decreases growth rates.


And I really would like to know what the numbers are on Social Policy costs.

 

[wcil]

I think India's is (Cities*4 + Pop / 2) + Rest

It seems that India is gearing towards becoming a civ with very few cities and super high populations.

 

[Pinstar]

So building a courthouse in a home-grown city no longer has any effect? Fine by me, especially if every building is going to be drawing maintenance, a fact that I find very keen as building spam is now an even less viable strat and you have to make thoughful decisions to maximize the utilization of a normal building before you build it, in the same way you would have to with world wonders in previous Civs.

 

[Modiga-Disabled]

Although with India, any city that reaches a population of 4 breaks even: A city has 2 extra unhappiness, but 4 population in it gives -2 unhappiness relatively, so they cancel out. So India can have just as many cities as other civs and allow their combined size to be fairly large than normal or they can have just a few and have them much greater than normal. I wonder which is the optimum strategy.

 

[adrianj]

It has been noted somewhere that at the easiest difficulty the base happiness is 15, and 9 at the hardest difficulty. How it progresses, eg, 15/14/13/12/11/10/9 or 15/13/11/9/9/9/9 I don't think is clear yet - but my guess would be the latter.

Overall I like the mechanic that allows smaller empires to compete with larger ones. Small, happy, efficient empire is still a threat to win the game. Though, large empire still likely has more total and , and can field a larger military. Guess we'll find out which is best soon enough

A bit off the happiness topic: I'm not sure it is clear how annexed vs puppet states affect the cost of Social Policies. If for example annexing does increase the cost (I've read +30% cost per city) and puppet states do not, then I think this would make puppet states a bit more balanced. Depending on your goals, annexing every city and building a courthouse might not be the best move.

 

[King Jason]

I think India's is (Cities*4 + Pop / 2) + Rest

It seems that India is gearing towards becoming a civ with very few cities and super high populations.

This is one of the biggest misconception's that float around this forum.

India will be able to field the largest empire in the game.

A civ with 10 cities of 10 pop each = 120 unhappiness

India with 10 cities of 10 pop each = 90 unhappiness.

Under this equal circumstance, India can field 2 more 10 pop cities with happiness to spare.

The only way a civ could build more cities than india is if all of them were kept under a size 4; after size 4, India's ability allows for a greater number of cities. A city at size 4 costs 6 happiness regardless of what civ you're playing.

What the real drawback to India's ability is slower expansion, not limited expansion.

 

[Modiga-Disabled]

I suppose there are advantages for India to build fewer, but bigger cities than lots of medium sized ones. If you think of it in terms of tiles worked then fewer can be better. This by no means implies India should forgo expansion though.

To take your example, you could go with 2 more cities of 10 population, but there's the alternative option (in theory) of allowing the existing cities of growing to size 16. That's 60 extra tiles being worked rather than 20 and fewer resources need to be put into creating buildings.

 

[King Jason]

Oh of course, the strategy is certainly variant.. I just don't like the misconception that India can't establish a large empire, because that's easily another direction one could go in if they wanted to. But the decision expand horizontally or vertically is one everyone is subject to; I'm merely trying to expel the notion the india is crippled in horizontal expansion, which is certainly not the case. It'll just take longer for them to break into additional cities, pending happiness.

 

[Modiga-Disabled]

Definitely agree with you there.

All about opportunity cost.

 

[Earthling]

What the real drawback to India's ability is slower expansion, not limited expansion.

When you keep on painting things in absolute to insist others are wrong (It's not "impossible" or "can't" just relative advantages/disadvantages) you seem to be missing that slower expansion results in your opponents claiming the land instead, so you could well be stuck with less geographical area. With no competition/that effect ignored there is no problem - and in the long run of course it's right that India's trait isn't mathematically a drawback, but this isn't entirely ruled out.

Particularly as there is little evidence the AI can't effectively settler-spam, as they've been known to especially at competitive levels, and given policies like those in the Liberty tree, this could still result in India looking rather different than other empires.

 

[King Jason]

When you keep on painting things in absolute to insist others are wrong (It's not "impossible" or "can't" just relative advantages/disadvantages) you seem to be missing that slower expansion results in your opponents claiming the land instead, so you could well be stuck with less geographical area. With no competition/that effect ignored there is no problem - and in the long run of course it's right that India's trait isn't mathematically a drawback, but this isn't entirely ruled out.

That's absolutely correct, but this is also why I feel the primary draw of India's ability is more noticable and gives it's greatest disadvantage in the early game.

When I said limited I meant in terms of size, and of course, slower expansion results in limited expansion due to land area being gobbled up by others. That's absolutely true, but the general meaning of what I said factors in methods of expansion such as war, in addition to the early land-grab and later backfill.

 

[Celevin]

I can't wait till tomorrow to find all of this out... I don't have it in me to argue anymore.

IF each new city only generates 2 unhappiness, two things will happen:
1) India will be vastly overpowered compared to all other civs
2) There will be no reason whatsoever not to build as many cities as possible, even if you are India.


I have this gut feeling like the happiness formula is exponential for higher levels of difficulty, but is linear for Noble level to ease in new players...

 

[dra]

IF each new city only generates 2 unhappiness, two things will happen:
1) India will be vastly overpowered compared to all other civs

Same can be said about Rome, Russia or France.

2) There will be no reason whatsoever not to build as many cities as possible, even if you are India.

The reason is national wonders. To build Heroic Epic you need barracks in every city. Buildings are expensive and slow to produce, unless you want to keep buying them but will all those small pop cities create enough gold? Doubtfull.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The reason is national wonders. To build Heroic Epic you need barracks in every city. Buildings are expensive and slow to produce, unless you want to keep buying them but will all those small pop cities create enough gold? Doubtfull.

Assuming the same population

Fewer, Bigger cities gets
1. Better Building Maintenance, Better Building production costs (easier for 5 pop-10-cities to build 5 Libraries than 10 pop-5-cities to build 10 Libraries), Better Social Policies (5 cities makes ~1/2 as much culture as 10 cities from Buildings, but the Policies cost about 1/2 as much... and they make just as much culture from City-States+Wonders)

More, Smaller cities gets
2. Faster Population growth (10 cities going pop 5->6 costs less than pop 5 cities going pop 10->12), Faster Tile acquisition, Greater possible max population (after Colusseums)



So the overall spread should be
horizontal (for some fast growth)
Vertical
Horizontal (when you start running into the maximum happiness your cities can provide)

 

[remconius]

I've said it before and i'll say it again....

Civ 5 is all about happiness. If you find, trade, conquer happiness you can grow big. And bigger is better, because with High population you get high science, gold and production from tiles, etc.

I agree India are one of the most powerful, Egypt second as they have the burial tomb (temple) that adds +2 happiness.

 

[Aldor]

I made a little program that calculates the unhappiness with some numbers of cities and population, using the formula 2*cities + pop. Of course then you still get other sources of unhappiness, but these are the base numbers of unhappiness that might be interesting for early expansion:

Spoiler :

1 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 3
With an average pop of 2: 4
With an average pop of 3: 5
With an average pop of 4: 6
With an average pop of 5: 7
With an average pop of 6: 8
With an average pop of 7: 9
With an average pop of 8: 10
With an average pop of 9: 11
With an average pop of 10: 12
With an average pop of 11: 13
With an average pop of 12: 14
With an average pop of 13: 15
With an average pop of 14: 16
With an average pop of 15: 17

2 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 6
With an average pop of 2: 8
With an average pop of 3: 10
With an average pop of 4: 12
With an average pop of 5: 14
With an average pop of 6: 16
With an average pop of 7: 18
With an average pop of 8: 20
With an average pop of 9: 22
With an average pop of 10: 24
With an average pop of 11: 26
With an average pop of 12: 28
With an average pop of 13: 30
With an average pop of 14: 32
With an average pop of 15: 34

3 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 9
With an average pop of 2: 12
With an average pop of 3: 15
With an average pop of 4: 18
With an average pop of 5: 21
With an average pop of 6: 24
With an average pop of 7: 27
With an average pop of 8: 30
With an average pop of 9: 33
With an average pop of 10: 36
With an average pop of 11: 39
With an average pop of 12: 42
With an average pop of 13: 45
With an average pop of 14: 48
With an average pop of 15: 51

4 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 12
With an average pop of 2: 16
With an average pop of 3: 20
With an average pop of 4: 24
With an average pop of 5: 28
With an average pop of 6: 32
With an average pop of 7: 36
With an average pop of 8: 40
With an average pop of 9: 44
With an average pop of 10: 48
With an average pop of 11: 52
With an average pop of 12: 56
With an average pop of 13: 60
With an average pop of 14: 64
With an average pop of 15: 68

5 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 15
With an average pop of 2: 20
With an average pop of 3: 25
With an average pop of 4: 30
With an average pop of 5: 35
With an average pop of 6: 40
With an average pop of 7: 45
With an average pop of 8: 50
With an average pop of 9: 55
With an average pop of 10: 60
With an average pop of 11: 65
With an average pop of 12: 70
With an average pop of 13: 75
With an average pop of 14: 80
With an average pop of 15: 85

6 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 18
With an average pop of 2: 24
With an average pop of 3: 30
With an average pop of 4: 36
With an average pop of 5: 42
With an average pop of 6: 48
With an average pop of 7: 54
With an average pop of 8: 60
With an average pop of 9: 66
With an average pop of 10: 72
With an average pop of 11: 78
With an average pop of 12: 84
With an average pop of 13: 90
With an average pop of 14: 96
With an average pop of 15: 102

7 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 21
With an average pop of 2: 28
With an average pop of 3: 35
With an average pop of 4: 42
With an average pop of 5: 49
With an average pop of 6: 56
With an average pop of 7: 63
With an average pop of 8: 70
With an average pop of 9: 77
With an average pop of 10: 84
With an average pop of 11: 91
With an average pop of 12: 98
With an average pop of 13: 105
With an average pop of 14: 112
With an average pop of 15: 119

8 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 24
With an average pop of 2: 32
With an average pop of 3: 40
With an average pop of 4: 48
With an average pop of 5: 56
With an average pop of 6: 64
With an average pop of 7: 72
With an average pop of 8: 80
With an average pop of 9: 88
With an average pop of 10: 96
With an average pop of 11: 104
With an average pop of 12: 112
With an average pop of 13: 120
With an average pop of 14: 128
With an average pop of 15: 136

9 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 27
With an average pop of 2: 36
With an average pop of 3: 45
With an average pop of 4: 54
With an average pop of 5: 63
With an average pop of 6: 72
With an average pop of 7: 81
With an average pop of 8: 90
With an average pop of 9: 99
With an average pop of 10: 108
With an average pop of 11: 117
With an average pop of 12: 126
With an average pop of 13: 135
With an average pop of 14: 144
With an average pop of 15: 153

10 cities:
With an average pop of 1: 30
With an average pop of 2: 40
With an average pop of 3: 50
With an average pop of 4: 60
With an average pop of 5: 70
With an average pop of 6: 80
With an average pop of 7: 90
With an average pop of 8: 100
With an average pop of 9: 110
With an average pop of 10: 120
With an average pop of 11: 130
With an average pop of 12: 140
With an average pop of 13: 150
With an average pop of 14: 160
With an average pop of 15: 170

Large numbers of cities with high population will require insane numbers of happiness, as you can see. If I count right, you can get a max of 90 from luxury resources alone, but after some point you won't get around building multiple temples/collosseums and so on.

 

[Horserush]

Courthouses do eventually get rid of all the unhappiness caused by annexing. It then becomes just like any other city that you built.

 

[Ahriman]

It then becomes just like any other city that you built.

Right, except for the 5 gold maintenance.