Where did I go wrong? Diagnose my problems

[salty mud]

I've attached a picture of my first real game in VP: Babylon, Pangaea map, chieften difficulty. I sailed through the early and mid games, beat Japan in a war, took two of their cities and I led, and continue to lead, the world by a massive tech gap. Most of my focus was on science, building libraries, councils and universities. It seems, however, that this has come back to haunt me, as now my empire is bored, destitute and in distress. It seems my efforts to rectify my problems are too little, too late; building banks, markets etc to rectify poverty means people just become bored instead.

I'm close to giving up on this game since I can barely keep my happiness above 35%. Is this retrievable? Should I start anew? And if so, how can I prevent this from happening again?

Grateful for any suggestions.

 

[CppMaster]

You have most unhappiness from lack of production or food, so make building to fix that. You could also import luxuries or ally City-States to recieive them.
Besides, it's not a lost game. Your empire doesn't need to be happy for you to win. It's just harder to do so.

 

[andersw]

Trade for lux even if you need to pay a LOT, focus hard on happiness buildings and/or public works.
Probably should stop producing gold, it can be useful for short term solution vs poverty.
When I go really wide, I dont expect to be above 50 and more often working around 35-40%, (but there are exceptions).
Edit: and a few barb uprisings are annoying but not the end of the world.

 

[Marviellac]

You're good, tech lead is a huge advantage and happiness issues are definitely solvable.

You were rushing science and also fighting so it's quite likely you're behind in buildings. Technology also increases your people's happiness expectations (not a lot, but it does) so does empire size (number of cities).
Build buildings that increase yields (stables in Nippur, forges where you're using mines) and buildings that reduce unhappiness directly. Use trade routes to support cities with happiness problems (so these cities can generate some more income), trade routes passing through villages also boost their yields. Policies choices and religion design also have big impact on your happiness.

In general, it's not always good to have big cities - if pops work crap tiles, it's better not to have them (regarding happiness). Farms that generate 4 food are crap I rarely build farms without fresh water. Building triangles of farms is also better. Generating food is not a goal itself, you want a lot of food in specialists cities though.

If all of that is not enough, you can build public works, they do help Good luck!

 

[Stalker0]

Also agree it’s salvageable. More workers to terraform faster, and keep building to address happiness.

And then if you don’t have many buildings left to address happiness, build public works in ever city until things calm down.

your far enough ahead that I think you have time to correct and still win

 

[Favorius]

Your science is 3 times your culture. That is a huge gap and probably you are missing several policies which could generate happiness or fight unhappiness compared to your science level.

Your city sizes are not very big, just lock growth, get rid of specialists for a while as they give urbanization unhappiness and build basic buildings. For example barracks and armories in cities that do not build units are still mandatory as those buildings reduce distress by 2. You are Babylon, when you invest in building you get a bigger discount so you can quickly build your cities.