Unhappy with Unhappiness

[Kushluk]

Another note.... these unhappiness penalties are extremely harsh. I was playing on a small map, and even at 8 cities, they really slap the penalization on you.

And simply from a game design perspective, punishment for winning wars? WTH? SOMETIMES it can and should be difficult to expand if you are already a gigantic empire, but if you just have 4 cities, and you take 2 more... what´s the problem?

Seems like these occupied cities should just spawn lots of rebels. That is the sensible and logical way to express the idea of "expansion is difficult" rather than asinine happiness penalties, making my citizens unhappy whereas in reality they would be dancing in the street that they just conquered the guy who attacked us 20 turns ago.

 

[Razzlesnaff]

if you just have 4 cities, and you take 2 more... what´s the problem?

Well, considering you just increased the size of your empire by 50% I would think would have to take some kind of mechanic to stop you from destroying the whole world before turn 50. Unhappiness/Happiness if fine if you know how to manage it. Another thing it does is all the Happiness buildings are in a different tech path from the Warmongering techs.

So you need to tech properly and not beeline for the end of warmongering side of tech tree. People just don't like anything that limits they're ability to win the game as early as possible whilst complaining that the game is too easy.

 

[JeffNebraska]

Can someone point me to a thread with a simple summary of the ICS strategy? I take it the strategy has to do with building lots of cities fairly close together, but I don't understand it too well so far.

Sorry to be so clueless.

 

[Kushluk]

I would complain less if I were swamped by hordes of rebels or dealing with a civil war - that makes sense.

The people of Athens being unhappy because they just sacked their greatest enemy's city... is idiotic though.

My point is these "happiness penalties" begin in earnest. It is possible, you are right, to manage this, however I think the whole system is simply ideologically flawed, makes no sense, and should be dropped.

The best answer to this is to ignore the rules of the game totally and just ICS. Which sucks. There should be a middle way.

 

[kaibayashi]

Well, as you noticed they didn't conquer very large parts of the entire world, but only of the world known to them.

Lack of an expansion limiter is bad for game balance, because if you get rewarded (or at least not penalized) for conquering other civs, there is nothing that prevents you from conquering even more of them (the same applies to the AI civs). The game is more interesting when there are several strong competing civs in the late game instead of just 1 or 2.

Well isn't that the job of the AI and difficulty levels? That some of the other civs in the game should be expandign also to rival you??

Between 0 and -10 you only get a -75% growth penalty. Below -10 you get zero growth, penalties to production and combat strength, and you can't build settlers.

Ah cool. Well luckily I have never had it drop that low. The penalty for >-10 happiness is not that much of a major pain in the ass imo, in the games ive played so far.

 

[PawelS]

Well isn't that the job of the AI and difficulty levels? That some of the other civs in the game should be expandign also to rival you??

Yes, but if both you and the AI expand without limits, soon there will be only you and one big AI civ that conquered other AI civs in the game. I think it's better when the world is divided between more civs, especially in earlier stages of the game.

 

[Kyroshill]

People just don't like anything that limits they're ability to win the game as early as possible whilst complaining that the game is too easy.

This.

 

[PanicX]

People just don't like anything that limits they're ability to win the game as early as possible whilst complaining that the game is too easy.

This +

The weekend before thanksgiving I was playing as China/Emperor and ended up conquering Arabia & Japan in a sweep thanks to the crazy general bonus. I had only 4 unhappiness, which seemed odd. Anyway I saved and loaded the game a few hours later. I had 65 unhappiness!!! Good ol' CiV and it's bugs Frankly this number did make more sense, but I don't know why it didn't appear as I was conquering to start with.

Anyway it took me ~30 turns to go from -65 to +8. So yes, it is possible to undo your mistakes without reloading, which is good. And it has so far stopped me from going for India & Egypt, so yes, it did curb my 'bloodthirsty' enthusiasm, which is also good. I don't see an issue here..

 

[Kushluk]

Let's pretend your subjects are super sad that you are conquering half the world.

Sure. It makes sense.

That.

 

[SuperJay]

Well, considering you just increased the size of your empire by 50% I would think would have to take some kind of mechanic to stop you from destroying the whole world before turn 50.

And that's precisely what the "Global Happiness" is - a limiting game mechanic that doesn't even try to be anything but a limiting game mechanic. It's counter-intuitive, it's fairly heavy-handed in the implementation, and because it's the only mechanic used to curtail growth and expansion, the player has few options for managing it. Social policies and happiness buildings... yay?

So you need to tech properly and not beeline for the end of warmongering side of tech tree. People just don't like anything that limits they're ability to win the game as early as possible whilst complaining that the game is too easy.

People also like to oversimplify and mischaracterize the points they disagree with in order to pretend they've refuted them. (I believe that's called a "straw man" but I never took debate in school.)

In this thread, you've got a new player asking for some help learning the ropes. Can you contribute some assistance or are you limited to just insulting him?

 

[migkillertwo]

It's frustrating when you're militarily superior to an opponent and can take over their entire civilization, but need to resist the urge because of the unhappiness that the increased population will inflict on you.

I'm on my first real Civ V game (Mac user) on Warlord (which is far too easy, but seemed like a good place to have my first game). At about turn 190, I have every luxury resource on my continent and just eliminated the second to last civ that shares the land with me (the Arabians). However, despite making puppet states of his four cities, taking him out brought me from +3 happiness to -10.

I now think I need to reload before I annexed my last puppet state, which appears to be causing 7 unhappiness points. I also think I need to choose the social policy that gives one point of happiness for every garrisoned soldier, just to have greater control over my happiness.

I like the concept and do think it's far more streamlined than managing unhappiness on a city-by-city basis, but I think it goes too far with the new population problem. When I finish with the Arabians, I can't see how I'll get enough surplus happiness to feel comfortable overrunning the Ottomans (who also have four cities). In this particular game, happiness is the scarcest resource in the world.

like others have said, Infinite city sprawl is a problem with Civ and needs to be prevented. I actually think unhappiness does a good job of defeating it in the early game. I find a lot that when I build a large empire (as in lots of conquered cities that I have as puppet governments), my governors prioritize money-making buildings, then cultural, then science, and then happiness, and once the happiness buildings are built, it becomes a null issue. In my last game on Prince, I had at least 2 dozen cities as puppet governments and had over 50 happiness.

 

[Me_Myself_I]

Some people just don't like anything that limits they're ability to win the game as early as possible whilst complaining that the game is too easy.

Fixed.

Some people also like to mischaracterize criticism for various reasons.

 

[ImperialGuard]

Next time, I will probably get the Liberty policy right off the bat.

If I read correctly, with the new patch, you won't be able to save up your culture, you'll be forced to make SP choices the turn you are eligible.

Best to start developing a strategy based on this upcoming change...

 

[PawelS]

Liberty can be taken from the start, so the patch change isn't a problem here.