Unhappiness from captured cities?

[insaneweasel]

When you capture a city, and you decide to do a full takeover (no puppet state) you get massive unhappiness. How long does this last?

 

[Schuesseled]

Until you build a courthouse. (and i wouldn't call it massive)

 

[Bad Brett]

I don't get this. If someone declares war against me and I capture one of their cities, will that make my entire people angry so that my for example capital city grows slower?

 

[warpstorm]

The people in the captured city are now part of your empire and count for the happiness. One could imagine that they are real happy about the takeover.

 

[Auncien]

I don't get this. If someone declares war against me and I capture one of their cities, will that make my entire people angry so that my for example capital city grows slower?

Yeah its a really contrived, poorly-implemented happiness system. It may 'work' during gameplay but it could be a lot better.

 

[Bad Brett]

Yeah its a really contrived, poorly-implemented happiness system. It may 'work' during gameplay but it could be a lot better.

It all seems very simplified. I always enjoyed how the people at border cities got angry because the wanted to join another country. Instead we get:

"Who cares if we have plenty of food, entertainment and luxuries in the capital? Our colony on the other side of the world doesn't have a temple and the city we captured 1000 years ago from the attacking russians still doesn't have a Courthouse".

It seems as they are trying hard to remove micromanagement, which is a shame, because that's exactly what the game originally was about.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

It seems as they are trying hard to remove micromanagement, which is a shame, because that's exactly what the game originally was about.

I don't agree. Most of the micromanagement in Civ 4 was completely pointless and basically just existed of the player repeating the same task over and over again until the whole empire had its orders every turn. It was a slow and a boring process and I am glad that they have removed some of it in Civ 5.

 

[haphazard1]

Until you build a courthouse. (and i wouldn't call it massive)

I keep seeing people saying this -- that the effect is not "massive". But say the city is size 12 -- sizable but not huge. If I am understanding the happiness mechanics correctly, that is 14 additional unhappiness. With the difference between full happiness and "very unhappy" being 11 points (if you were right at the happiness limit), that would mean a huge shift for your entire empire from one city.

Yes, yes, obviously you should not run your happiness that close to the limit, or should take the city as a puppet, or should not conquer it in the first place, etc, etc, etc. (Just getting all the usual objections out of the way.) The fact remains that conquering one city can have immense effects.

And even if you do keep a sizable happiness buffer, a successful war would quickly consume it with just a few cities being added to your empire. I saw a review (sorry, do not recall which one specifically) where the player conquered a city, then took a peace deal where the AI gave up two more large-ish cities. A nice, successful little war -- and about 40 additional unhappiness added to the player's civ. Is it going to be common to have that much spare happiness, or would such a deal plunge your civ into extreme unhappiness -- massive unhappiness for winning the war?

I do find it interesting that I have seen several reviews where players obtained cities as part of peace deals. This was almost impossible in Civ IV, unless you were utterly steam-rolling through an AI. And even then they almost never gave away anything but minor cities or cities which had not originally been theirs. This is an interesting change, and I wonder if it will also go the other way -- to get peace from an AI, will the human have to give up cities?

 

[Bad Brett]

I do find it interesting that I have seen several reviews where players obtained cities as part of peace deals. This was almost impossible in Civ IV, unless you were utterly steam-rolling through an AI. And even then they almost never gave away anything but minor cities or cities which had not originally been theirs. This is an interesting change, and I wonder if it will also go the other way -- to get peace from an AI, will the human have to give up cities?

Maybe they play on low difficulty levels?

 

[haphazard1]

I don't agree. Most of the micromanagement in Civ 4 was completely pointless and basically just existed of the player repeating the same task over and over again until the whole empire had its orders every turn. It was a slow and a boring process and I am glad that they have removed some of it in Civ 5.

I worry that they are removing too much micro-management.

It is good to simplify things that are tedious and repetitive -- this improves gameplay. But it is not good to over-simplify and remove things from the player's control. Some players (including me) enjoy micro-management when it adds to the feel of controlling and overseeing your growing civilization. I hope the designers do not move too many things "under the hood" where the player can not get at them even if you want to do so.

I worry about puppet states for this exact reason. Letting the AI manage your cities (either by choice or because the happiness system makes that the only approach for larger empires) presumably means they are run as the AI would run them. And you will never beat the AI by running all your cities as the AI runs them.

Also, unless Firaxis has managed huge breakthroughs in AI, we know that AI-run cities will be managed sub-optimally at best, downright idiotically at worst. I hope the city governor routines will be improved in Civ V, but I strongly doubt they will be able to match a human player of even average skill.

 

[Auncien]

I don't agree. Most of the micromanagement in Civ 4 was completely pointless and basically just existed of the player repeating the same task over and over again until the whole empire had its orders every turn. It was a slow and a boring process and I am glad that they have removed some of it in Civ 5.

I acknowledge your right to your opinion and I mean you no disrespect by this comment:

Opinions like this may eventually bring the Civilization franchise to ruin.

 

[Scaramanga]

The way I see it, annexing a city is giving the people the privilege to be citizens of your empire. This allows them to move to any city you own to seek opportunities. Their longing for their brethren of their former empire and the prejudice the native people of your empire show them create unhappiness until law and "equal opportunities" are applied. Annexing is supposed to imply "win-win" for conqueror and conqueree, otherwise, you might feel razing or puppeteering is more appropriate. Global unhappiness makes sense because you're supposed to be a united empire with a common history and goal, it also balances conquest with war-weariness.

Opinions like this may eventually bring the Civilization franchise to ruin.

There should be a smilie for melodrama.

 

[Earthling]

I don't think that's a fair criticism either, he wasn't just saying all micro is bad.

There was a lot of terrible micromanagement in civ4, less so than in previous civs, but still a lot to clean up on. Besides obvious stuff, there were still things a lot of people would claim as micromanagement as a good thing yet this is still wrong, they really could have gotten rid of unnecessary micro. Examples:

-slavery
-forest chopping

Nothing suggests civ5 has actually gotten better with random micromanagement though, individual tile purchasing and unit micro for instance will be more examples of the "time-consuming" part of things. I'm a little unsure on the happiness mechanics too for the record, and especially if they are not balanced regarding mapsize and difficulty, which I could see it being VERY easy for them to get wrong at release and not be fixed for a while.

 

[Schuesseled]

I don't get this. If someone declares war against me and I capture one of their cities, will that make my entire people angry so that my for example capital city grows slower?

Only if you exceed your happiness limit.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

A nice, successful little war -- and about 40 additional unhappiness added to the player's civ. Is it going to be common to have that much spare happiness, or would such a deal plunge your civ into extreme unhappiness -- massive unhappiness for winning the war?

Well, if it is of any comfort somebody will probably use the supposedly awesome modding tools to create a "less war unhappiness Mod!" fairly quickly after release.

I acknowledge your right to your opinion and I mean you no disrespect by this comment:

Opinions like this may eventually bring the Civilization franchise to ruin.

How does spending 10 min every couple of turns selecting each and every worker and telling them to repeat the same task over and over in any way fun? What does it add to the game?

 

[Bad Brett]

Only if you exceed your happiness limit.

Yes, but it's still incredbly stupid. Should I be unhappy just because another city doesn't have a courthouse? And the removal of the slider makes this even more stupid. It seemed very realistic when you could spend your money on culture, to increase the happiness from your theatres. I often felt as a politician when I played the game:

"I'm going to war, should I switch to theocracy and increase the culture slider with 10%? Should I set the science slider to 0% for a few years and save money for unit upgrades?"

"I just build the Statue of Liberty, should I switch to mercantilism or switch to free market?"

As someone stated earlier, the bad kind of micromanagement is the one that is repetive and boring. Such as in Civ II, when you had to check you cities growth every turn to prevent them from getting civil disorder.

I'm beginning to fear that this game will focus too much on battle tactics and too little on economy. My opinion is that the battles should work as a "test" of how well you've played the game. You shouldn't be able to neglect the economy part and still be able to beat the opponent by having superior battle tactics.

I'm afraid that the same thing that happened to The Settlers will happen to Civ.

Settlers I was a great game
Settlers II was even better (possible the greatest RTS game of all times)
Settlers III was okay, but they ruined the battle part
Settlers IV was not as good as Settlers III
Settlers V/VI/VII etc. Incredibly boring

But if you think about, Settlers II contained A LOT of micromanagement compared to later versions. You had to construct a working road network, replace your mines, find new stone sources, raze and build new catapult buildings and you had to look after all your barracks so that your settlers wouldn't deliver coins to the wrong places. The game took many hours to play. But it was fun. And I know that it's not just nostalgia, because when they released the exact same game 10 years later with upgraded graphics, my girlfriend at that time absolutely loved it.

So, what I'm basicly saying is, that even though micromanagement can be really boring at times, it's often much more fun if you felt that you had to work hard for it. A cold beer will taste a lot better if you've worked hard the entire week instead of just lying on the couch and watching television.

 

[Schuesseled]

It's just a game, the happiness mechanic has been simplified and creates a very different effect than civ 4 did, deal with it, learn to love the new system.

The slider isn't in civ 5, because civ 5 doesn't need it.

And the settlers isn't at all like the civ series. I agree that the newest settlers all suck, and that the older ones were better, but civ isn't like that.

Civ has become more awesome every time they make a new game (excluding civ rev, which was for a diffferent market than the staple civ series.)

 

[12agnar0k]

The new hapiness mechanic isn't simplified, its different, and it actually does the job of Civ4's Hapiness / Health and I believe Civ3's Corruption Mechanics, it replaces them all with 1 big mechanic, if anything this mechanic is 3 mechanics in one, making it vastly more complicated, and the fact that you will have to pay great attention to micomanaging so capturing a new pop 12 city won't throw you into unhappiness will actually need you to plan ahead for the take over, anything but simplified. They have designed a new system, that looks streamlined, and for the most part, if you ignored its micromanagement you won't fail the game, if you dip into unhappiness you will only get growth limits placed on you, so like with inside the city micro management, if you don't want to perfect everything, you don't have to, as apposed to Civ4, where if you went unhappy, you would lose like two workers and still be feeding them. Ruining your city basically.

The new happiness mechanic will work so much better than the old one and the old heath mechanic its not even funny, its all a matter of getting used to it. Sure, a city on the otherside of the world can cause your home cities to become unhappy, deal with it.

 

[Bad Brett]

But it IS simplified. The "plan" you're talking about is just looking at some number before taking over a city. It's not my definition of logic and it's definitely not my definition of fun. The new happiness system is just the corruption system from Civ 4 (More cities = more upkeep, build courthouses to counter this).

It's simplified in many ways that won't improve gameplay. In Civ IV, if you found an inland city on a new continent, it wouldn't have access to your resources. You had to make sure that it was connected to the ocean, and sometimes, you were even forced to sign open border agreements with AI's to get access to your luxuries. You could blockade enemy ports to prevent them from getting resources. You asked yourself "Should I go for Astronomy so I can deliver Ivory I found without signing an open borders agreement?" etc.

What I dislike the most with this change is that it removes the feeling of every city being unique. Yeah sure, there will be buildings that only can be build in certain cities, but it's not the same. You had to ask yourself "Is it necessary to build aqueduct here, will the city ever grow that big?" and "The corruption in this city is -2,20 gold every turn... Should I build a courthouse now or wait?"

All these decisions have been removed. Building a temple can never be a bad thing now, since it will increase the total happiness.

 

[Schuesseled]

Your sense of fun is clearly the result of warped reasonings, but lets move past that.

So global happiness system = corruption system from civ 4? Civ 4 didn't have corruption. It had city distance maintenance, which isn't the same thing as civ 3 corruption, and civ 4's maintenance was seperate from the happiness system that controlled population. Civ 5's happiness system is a reworking of civ 4's health, happiness and maintenance systems.

It's different but just as complex, it's easy to understand and read, but that just means it's been done better, not that its some how been stupified.