Very happy - a solution for Tall vs Wide

[svett89]

I have heard several people discuss the concept of a "very happy" bonus in Civ 5, just like you can get a "very unhappy" penalty. The main problem I see with this would be that it would still be a very useful perk for a wide empire as you could stop expansion for a while, gain a lot of happiness and then get all your cities into uber mode.

An idea I had the other day changes things a bit - what if there were to be a "very happy" bonus (say, over 10/15/20 happiness, whatever is balanced) that ONLY benefits your capital, but does so greatly. For instance, it could increase all the things generated in the capital (science, culture*, gold, production etc) by a balanced percentage (say 20-30 %). This could mean that a tall empire can be more competitive as their capital can turn into an amazing city. However, expanding or conquering cities will quickly throw your happiness back down again, thus eliminating this bonus.

I think this would fit the playstyle of tall quite well. A tall empire already has the bonus of more golden ages, but that is not enough to stay competitive, so why not throw in this as a bonus. A tall empire could then have at least one large city that generates a lot of everything, thus staying competitive with wide empires with specialized cities.

What do you think?

*considering tall is optimal for culture wins, this might cause some problems. So maybe culture should be excluded.

 

[qec]

I think this is a pretty good idea. As a player who likes going for tall empires I think this could definitely improve chances for victory on difficulties other than culture when going for a tall empire. I sometime find with tall empires you have a weak economy because there are less trade routes then wide play, modifiers could help offset this. I usually find that I have the most production per city when I am going for a tall empire because you have more population in a city to work production tiles and specialists, so i don't know if a production modifier would really be necessary. Science would be a worthwhile modifier though I would say because even with huge pops in 3 or 4 cities you can still easily be beaten on science by wide empires, even with the national wonder and proper wonders and that.

The other thing is its pretty easy to get 20-30 happiness even with a wide empire, even though you are unlikely to keep it steady. So maybe the happiness modifier should start at higher range? I would say the modifiers would have to start at the very least at +20, possibly even higher, or you could get a small modifier at +20 and an even bigger one at like +40 or something?

Anyway, i think this is definitely a good idea.

 

[civplay]

Personally I always thought it would be more interesting to replace national happiness with national pride. National Pride would be the acculmination of built wonders, military power, conquests, economic power, and happiness (which would be localized to the cities as in with the older civs). And if your national pride was over an X amount that would cause bonuses similiar to a golden age.

 

[mitsho]

I think the Very Happy Bonus is intended to be the Golden Age bonus which you get by accumulating happiness, ergo having lots of surplus happines. That however doesn't work quite as intended: Golden Ages are primarily picked up in other ways (Great Peoples, Wonders). Also, the AI is based around happiness, as they get many many many bonus happiness to make them better. They would now receive the bonus all the time, even non-tall empires of the AI. That might help them out and make them better though

But what bonus to give? Tall empires already go for culture, so that's not really helpful. Golden Ages give Production and Gold already, so why double it? Science is also not really where tall empires are lacking since Population = Science. Something with City States (as more competition helps the AI?), but that hasn't much to do with capitals. Maybe one really has to go back to Commerce as that is the point where tall empires seem to lack the most. (that and Units).

So what about each happiness gives one gold in the capital? Though that wouldn't help the AI much, as they tend to hoard money. Well, I don't know, but it should be easy to implement to test it out in a mod, not?

 

[CYZ]

How about instead of speeding up policies gained, it increase the effect of policies by 50%

For example:
Honor opener gives culture per barbarian killed, if your empire is very happy it is increased with 50%
In Tradition you can get four free culture buildings, this can be 6 if your empire is very happy (perhaps it should be scaled back to three and four five respectively)
By finishing the Order branch you get 1.5 culture, science, food, production and gold per city instead of 1.

This won't work with all policies but that isn't really a problem in my opinion.


Still, giving a specific capital bonus is a good idea, although it's hard to think of a bonus that's not too generic. How about:

For every policy branch you open when very happy you get a free new citizen in your capital. (you don't get it if you open a branch and only become very happy later). Like a one-time permanent bonus, just like the goody hut bonus.

For every policy branch you actually complete you may work one more tile in your capital for free (you dont get a citizen but it doesn't cost you anything to work 1 extra tile). This one is active for every completed branch when you're very happy but it has no effect when you aren't very happy.

So this will have a very synchrony with tall cultural empires.