Warmongers and Happiness

[CharlieM]

Forbidden Palace and the Planned Economy social policy each reduce unhapiness from number of cities by 50% and both together they completly eliminate unhapiness from number of cities (except if you are playing India). And they work for normal, puppet, and occupied cities. That makes Planned Economy + Police State a very powerful combination for a warmonger. You can annex cities, never build a Courthouse and you still have less unhapiness than if you settled those cities yourself.

I offer these wise words from Nunya as a starting point.

I generally use Warmonger strategies, and on King level, I am finding it hard to keep happiness over about 5 by mid-game. I am clearly doing something wrong, and I have not adopted to the Ways of Civ V.

Please share general strategies about how to march around beating the snot out of your opponents, while not seeing your Happiness plummet. I generally puppet; I generally prioritize taking cities with Luxury Resources. I raze cities that have nothing much going on.

 

[dubrown]

As long as I don't fall below -9 in unhappiness I'm happy. In my warmonger games I really don't care about ++ happiness, I tend to aim at having improved the happiness quite a bit before war to have a margin so that the war can continue without focusing too much on happiness.

Also, with the current patch I don't annex cities, I puppet them all (with few exceptions), there's no big hit in happiness that way, with luck, the AI has built a colisseum that survives the battle and if so, the puppet is fairly happiness neutral, else the puppet governor usually focuses on gaining happiness for you if there's need for it.

Sure, if I can claim a fresh luxury resource I aim at taking and puppeting those cities first.

Another tip, avoid growth, normally there's no need for a puppet to grow large, all they need is some production, enough food not to starve and trade posts.

 

[CharlieM]

I am probably too obsessed with making sure my Cities continue to grow. I have this mantra in my head that Growth Is Good. But every point of growth cuts my Happiness....

I have never hit the "Avoid Growth" button in this game, in over 50 hours of play.

I also dislike micromanaging my cities or workers. But I probably need to. Again, I'm liking King level so far.

I am throwing out thoughts as to my problems, please feel free to corroborate my theories or rip them to shreads.

(Typical game so far .... I play on Continents, I slowly take over my continent, with Happiness dropping as I mow down the opposition. If I raze the cities, someone like Aztecs will come and re-settle the area, so I tend to Puppet, taking Happiness hits with each city I capture. I conquer the Continent; in the meantime, I have been preparing my Naval Fleet to explore. When I find the other large continent, there is someone there (usually Siam!) who dominates that Continent, and is much more powerful than I am. Then I try to take down Siam a peg or two, they beat the crap out of me, and I quit and vow to never play again!)

 

[alpaca]

I am probably too obsessed with making sure my Cities continue to grow. I have this mantra in my head that Growth Is Good. But every point of growth cuts my Happiness....

Looks like you just answered your own question. If you want excess happiness, don't let your cities grow continuously. Control growth. In fact, I feel that the avoid growth button now allows a too high measure of control because you can decide exactly when and how much your cities grow, unless they are puppets.

Puppets are usually another thing that eats into your happiness but you can trick them by creating TP on hills which they will work due to their money focus.

 

[CharlieM]

But if cities don't grow ... .then production, gold and culture stay low. Especially if you only have a small number of cities.

So, no, I'm not clear yet.

If I grow my cities, I get unhappy..... if I don't grow my cities, my output stay low.

Seems like a conundrum to me.

 

[elthrasher]

• Grab all the luxuries you can.
• Get Construction early so your puppets will build coliseums. Buy them in your controlled cities as needed.
• Never annex unless you absolutely must.
• Don't worry if you dip into unhappiness as long as you won't drop to -10.
• Trade for or buy luxuries if you must.
• After you have the military techs you need, prioritize Banking to get the Forbidden Palace.

Social policy choices can also bring a lot of extra happiness. Early on you can get Meritocracy off the Liberty tree which will give you +1 happy per city with a trade route to your capital. If you have large cities with lots of specialist buildings, opening the Freedom tree is just huge. You get half unhappiness from specialists per city and it rounds down. So if you have three specialists in a city, they'll only give you one unhappiness instead of the normal three. Get Freedom and have an odd number of specialists in every city and your happiness will climb to new heights.

Piety can also help as can Planned Economy (I think) on the Order tree. There are a couple more wonders that bring happiness, but they tend not to be cost-effective.

If you have soaring unhappiness and no way to curb it, raze a city or two. For some reason your cities actually get happier when you downsize your empire.

Imagine: "Mr. President, I don't see how we can win this election. The people are just too unhappy!"

"Relax, we'll just set fire to Toledo."

 

[Scarpa]

Police State under Autocracy can be really helpful. There's a certain population threshold where it's better to annex than puppet for happiness reasons (no courthouse required).

In one game I unlocked the policy, converted all my puppets to annex and gained nearly 20 happiness.

 

[Paeanblack]

But if cities don't grow ... .then production, gold and culture stay low. Especially if you only have a small number of cities.

So, no, I'm not clear yet.

If I grow my cities, I get unhappy..... if I don't grow my cities, my output stay low.

Seems like a conundrum to me.

Add more cities. Early in the game, there is nothing better to spend your happiness on.

If you have 3 happiness to use, you can spend it on:

1) 3 more population in existing cities. You can work 2 farms and a mine and be food-neutral. This requires 20 worker turns for the tile improvements. If you have available river tiles, you also get up to 3 gold.

Net yield: 3 hammers, 0-3 gold, 3 science

2) 1 new city. You can work 1 mine and be food neutral. This requires 15 worker turns for the tile improvement and the road connection. A river hill will give 1 extra gold

Net yield: 5 hammers, 3.25-4.25 gold, 1 science, 1 free road tile, 7 free territory tiles

This does not even account for the benefits of infrastructure, per-city SPs, maritimes, etc, which just make option 2 stronger. Also, a new city is much more likely to be able to work a new resource tile than an existing city that grows. Later on, you get to take advantage of having more scientist slots and more colosseums. Adding Meritocracy to the mix just makes it obscene.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Until Colosseums start going up, you're going to be in the red on Happiness. This is why Construction is such a priority tech.

If you're using puppets, you want to 'persuade' them to build Colosseums by controlling the available build options. If you avoid Philosophy and Currency early on, they will build Colosseums right after the Monuments if you are in the red on Happiness. Once your puppets are locked in on the Colosseums, you can start teching normally.

It's generally a good idea to raze anything that doesn't have a new luxury until the Colosseums start going up. If you're playing a heavy SP game on Deity, you can leave your victim a city or three. The AI will resettle, and you can take and keep the resettlement (without real resistance) once your Happiness cap can absorb it. If you don't care about SPs, just resettle tasty spots once you have the Happiness.

One thing to consider when settling another city early on is the time invested in producing the Settler. I find that if Happiness will keep a city from growing to size 2 in a timely fashion, it's best not to settle it. The investment you made in a Settler takes too long to pay dividends in a size 1 city.

 

[CharlieM]

Thanks for all the tips everyone!

I understand that Happiness-In-The-Red-But-Under-Negative-Ten is not necessarily a crisis.

But it feels like one to me, because of the hit that your cities take in Food Production/Growth.

And -6 is only a small step from -10.

And at -10, going to war is suicidal in most cases.

 

[G Viceroy]

One reason I've been using Egypt when moving up in difficulty is because of the Burial Tomb. No maintenance and +2 happiness is a really nice addition to coliseums, not to mention the little bit of culture.

There's much better civs to warmonger with, of course, but I guess at the end of the day anyone can do anything, really.

 

[lloxdg]

"Forbidden Palace and the Planned Economy social policy each reduce unhapiness from number of cities by 50% and both together they completly eliminate unhapiness from number of cities. ....."

Are you sure it removes unhappiness from number of cities completely? Maybe the Forbidden Palace makes it one per city instead of two and then Planned Economy makes it 0.5 instead of 1?

 

[Paeanblack]

I understand that Happiness-In-The-Red-But-Under-Negative-Ten is not necessarily a crisis.

But it feels like one to me, because of the hit that your cities take in Food Production/Growth.

Small cities that are working mines or running specialists, or any city producing a settler incur zero penalty for single-digit unhappiness.

If you are operating under these conditions with 0 happiness, you can settle another 3 cities with no downside. With optimal packing, you can connect 3 additional cities to your empire with a measly 4 road segments. That's a net gain of 15 hammers, 8.75 gold, and 3 science for the cost of 3 settlers and 27 worker-turns.

 

[Paeanblack]

And -6 is only a small step from -10.

And at -10, going to war is suicidal in most cases.

Yes, you dance with the devil in the -6 to -9 range. You need to keep a very close eye on your cities' growth, and you need to be very careful about capturing cities that have a pop >= 4, because you can't raze them in one turn.

However, because of the exponential growth, pushing yourself right to the -9 line early on reaps great rewards later. Once those cities build colosseums, they become either 10.5 beakers GS factories, 8-hammer war factories, or yet another settler-pump, and they don't need to grow beyond size 3.

 

[ApocalypseMao]

If you have soaring unhappiness and no way to curb it, raze a city or two. For some reason your cities actually get happier when you downsize your empire.

Imagine: "Mr. President, I don't see how we can win this election. The people are just too unhappy!"

"Relax, we'll just set fire to Toledo."

Actually, since the population is lost and not transferred to your other cities, it's really kill everyone in Toledo and then burn down the city. Fewer angry people = less unhappiness; assuming the people in your other cities are ok with mass murder your way to happiness and they are for some reason...

 

[bryanw1995]

if you're going all-out warmonger, focus on all-out economy. depending on how the game is going, you can probably get into -10 or worse and still come out just fine at king level. ie, when you have longswords fighting pikes -33% isn't all that bad. there are plenty of threads about just completely ignoring happiness and steamrollering the opposition.

 

[elthrasher]

"Forbidden Palace and the Planned Economy social policy each reduce unhapiness from number of cities by 50% and both together they completly eliminate unhapiness from number of cities. ....."

Are you sure it removes unhappiness from number of cities completely? Maybe the Forbidden Palace makes it one per city instead of two and then Planned Economy makes it 0.5 instead of 1?

The two together do indeed reduce the per city unhappiness (except for India) to 0. What they actually do is reduce the per city unhappiness by 1 so if India gets both of them, they still have 2 unhappiness per city.

 

[alpaca]

Yes, you dance with the devil in the -6 to -9 range. You need to keep a very close eye on your cities' growth, and you need to be very careful about capturing cities that have a pop >= 4, because you can't raze them in one turn.

However, because of the exponential growth, pushing yourself right to the -9 line early on reaps great rewards later. Once those cities build colosseums, they become either 10.5 beakers GS factories, 8-hammer war factories, or yet another settler-pump, and they don't need to grow beyond size 3.

Actually, cities that are being razed don't add unhappiness anymore, unless you reload (the reloading issue, I think, is a bug).

 

[timtofly]

You can be a warmonger, but leave the CS and Ally with them. They tend to add more benefits as allies as opposed to puppets. Look at them as your trading partners; and then go after the AI.

 

[timtofly]

Actually, cities that are being razed don't add unhappiness anymore, unless you reload (the reloading issue, I think, is a bug).

You should not save a game to reload right after razing a city. You need to wait a turn for all the re-calculations to be made.