Unhappiness caused by empire size

[<Nexus>]

Why should civ size cause unhappiness anyway? You don't see any Canadians who are unhappy about their country size.

It's just a way to model difficulty in handling a large country. It's there for gameplay purpose

So I am pretty sure I am not the only one who finds this new feature too artificial and unrealistic (and therefor annoying). While I understand why such a feature is needed I also hope that we can come up with some better concept, something that is easier to accept.

I have only one idea so far: Unhappiness caused by distance from Capital.
Just like maintenance, this could increase with the distance: the further the city is, the bigger the penalty is.
I think it's better to see my citizens saying:
The government does not care about us living far from the capital.

I think this would result in making the border cities more "rebellious". On the other hand core cities are usually bigger, so they have to deal with the unhappiness caused by its size only.

Opinions? Any other ideas?

 

[Nimek]

I like this idea

So wonders taht reduces maintiance form distance to capital could also reduce unhapiness

 

[Arakhor]

I think that's a reasonable idea. That way, people aren't unhappy that they live in Canada, only that they live in Newfoundland and the government doesn't care about them being so far away.

 

[Rezca]

Further you get, the harder it is to govern them properly. People start getting restless and... Yeah.

Pretty sure Revolutions already handles this though, if you're playing with it on anyway. So it'd be Instability and Unhappiness
I think it's better than global size though, although I'm not really against either implementation.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I think I can add unhappiness from distance easily although as said it's also a revolt factor already considered. But I'd prefer to keep both distance and size (same as in revolution), after all we've got plenty of happiness factors to balance

 

[<Nexus>]

I think I can add unhappiness from distance easily although as said it's also a revolt factor already considered. But I'd prefer to keep both distance and size (same as in revolution), after all we've got plenty of happiness factors to balance

Well, I'd like to completely get rid of the global factor, and replace it with other things. Distance is only the first idea to start with.

How about more civic specific penalties? Like in civs not running Republic (which is already designed for smaller civs).

EDIT:
Maybe we could also cut back on resource bonuses. The more resources you gather the less bonus they give:

1st +1
2nd +0,9
3rd +0,8
4th +0,7
5th +0,6
6th +0,5
7th +0,5
8th +0,5
9th +0,5
10th +0,5
Total: +6,5

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Way too complicated changing how bonus work. Also I'm really not sure I want to get rid of the size unhappiness. First, because Afforess introduced it, second because I feel it's a correct penalty, something like "this country is too big, it doesn't care about single person"; as I've said it's modeled to make bigger civs more difficult to manage as it is in real life too. In my view, it models all the little problems which cause unhappiness because the state can't manage them all because of its size

 

[Rezca]

Complex solutions for simple problems, I'm not sure is the right way to go about it.

With that in mind, Global Unhappiness would be the quickest and easiest way. As 45 said, it's just reflecting the many smaller things that accompany a large empire shoved under one umbrella term instead of having dozens of individual "We're unhappy about X/Y because of the large empire!"

Simple solution.

 

[dbkblk]

I also agree with 45 and Rezca. With a large empire, it's easy to have a lot of happyness resources and that simple solution is directly related to fix that. The game should not be easier because you're bigger!

 

[aggri1]

The game should not be easier because you're bigger!

Not sure I agree about that one! But it would make the game more interesting.

But if that's really a goal, then I'd suggest that the Free Support for N Units be increased so that even small Civs can have half-decent armies. As it is, income is proportional to empire size (among other things), and when you're small you can't afford a large army even if you have the resources (i.e. hammers, not special Resources) to build it.

 

[<Nexus>]

Way too complicated changing how bonus work. Also I'm really not sure I want to get rid of the size unhappiness. First, because Afforess introduced it, second because I feel it's a correct penalty, something like "this country is too big, it doesn't care about single person"; as I've said it's modeled to make bigger civs more difficult to manage as it is in real life too. In my view, it models all the little problems which cause unhappiness because the state can't manage them all because of its size

You are probably right about the resources (sure you are).

I am trying to accept your viewpoint but still not so comfortable with it

Just for nit-picking: I believe the best solution would be to check the total population of the civ and not the number of cities. Let me prove it by an example:

Case 1:
There are 2 cities A and B, both are of size 10, so total civ population is 20. Cities A and B suffer from the same city size penalty, but there is no civ size penalty.

Case 2:
There are 11 cities, A with a size of 10 and the rest of the cities are all of size 1; so total civ population is 20 again. This city A suffers from the normal city size penalty, plus from a civ size penalty too, although there are no more citizens in the empire than in Case1.

So I think the best solution would be to check the total population, instead of number of cities. This way civs with few but gigantopolis cities would be "punished" just as much as civs with smaller but many-many cities.

I admit, that it may be a complex solution for simple problem again. I don't know if you can make any use of my ideas, just brainstorming as usual

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

The whole point is making civs with many cities penalized because otherwise they get a huge advantage, so your solution is incorrect for our goal. Moreover it's very unlikely to have such a difference in city sizes as in your second example.

I'm almost done with coding unhappiness caused by distance from capital, but to make it better that unhappiness will decrease with eras. A city considered distant in classical era is not so distant in industrial and we'll account for that.

 

[<Nexus>]

The whole point is making civs with many cities penalized because otherwise they get a huge advantage, so your solution is incorrect for our goal. Moreover it's very unlikely to have such a difference in city sizes as in your second example.

As I said, it was rather nit-picking

I'm almost done with coding unhappiness caused by distance from capital, but to make it better that unhappiness will decrease with eras. A city considered distant in classical era is not so distant in industrial and we'll account for that.

Wow! Great!
BTW, are those two factors (penalty for city number and for distance) accessible in some xml file?

 

[Nimek]

Do we have unhapinnes penalty when city is not connected to capital (same trade network)?

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Do we have unhapinnes penalty when city is not connected to capital (same trade network)?

Yes, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

As I said, it was rather nit-picking

Wow! Great!
BTW, are those two factors (penalty for city number and for distance) accessible in some xml file?

There's an unhappiness divisor in worldinfo.xml

 

[Afforess]

I also agree with 45 and Rezca. With a large empire, it's easy to have a lot of happyness resources and that simple solution is directly related to fix that. The game should not be easier because you're bigger!

As mentioned by others, my reasons for adding the empire-size anger are clear. It was the simplest solution to a problem introduced by resources granting a larger effect to larger empires than smaller ones. This is the only purpose it has, and for its purpose, it works very well.

An additional happy coincidence is that it was extremely cheap & easy to calculate, as the number of cities in a civilization was already available.

I still think happiness is still too easy, so I am glad 45°38'N-13°47'E has decided to add anger due to distance as well.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Also I'm thinking about reducing bonus happiness in handicapinfo. 4 happy citizens on noble straight away look too much to me. I think I'll cut in half that happiness bonus, but I'm still testing it.

 

[Nimek]

Dont you think that airport should reduce unhapiness from distance to capital or simply add +1 happy.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

Dont you think that airport should reduce unhapiness from distance to capital or simply add +1 happy.

By the time you reach airport, there's plenty of other happiness sources and unhappiness from distance is much weaker in industrial/modern era, so no, I don't see any need for that especially since we're trying to reduce happiness which is (or was, before last update) overabundant.