The peasants are revolting.

[Navigator]

These are my thoughts about getting the most (up to 20 "things" for +10 mood) of decorating the houses to shore up attitudes.

TLDR: having a proper place to poo and bathe doesn't actually make them feel any better.

One thing I did to test what items work to enhance mood is to move someone into an entirely un-decorated house, wait for their attitude to plummet and for them to start whining, Then add one item at a time, each time looking at the shingle on the house or the population management screen, to see if they become less grumpy.

Decorations on inside walls all appear to improve the mood, including animal skulls, candles, paint, motives, shelves, racks, etc.

Window curtains help, as do rugs, though as near as I can tell different types of curtains or rugs don't seem to make a difference, cheap badger rug makes them just as happy as a giant bear skin. Same with stuff you can hang from the rafters, weird thing made of straw pleases them just as much as a lantern.

Outside the house, improving the doors (edit: doors don't improve mood) and windows (shutters) help, again better stuff doesn't help more. Window boxes help, I plan to test if putting anything in them helps further, or if just empty window boxes are good enough for mood.

Improved beds, chests and fire places appear to not improve mood at all. Which is unfortunate, because those use a lot of resources, so make them sleep in crappy beds, store their crap in ugly chests and make them cook in crummy fire pits, until you have so many resources available that you want to decorate just to free up storage space.

Other outdoor decorations that can enhance the look of your village such as a privy, washtubs, clothes lines, etc also have no effect on the mood of your villagers. I made mine poop in the woods, until I realized I had thousands of planks stored for no good reason and only then did every hut get it's own privy and washtub.

[barbaraclubb]

Everything you said looks correct to me, except for changing the door. Changing the door does nothing because you are not adding anything. Adding shutters and window boxes does add happiness points. Someone else will have to confirm if adding flowers to the boxes adds more points. I think it does, but I am not sure.

[Not MrBallen]

'The peasants are revolting'
Yes the are! OH you mean they are revolting....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0iAcQVIokg

[Navigator]

Originally posted by barbaraclubb:

Everything you said looks correct to me, except for changing the door. Changing the door does nothing because you are not adding anything. Adding shutters and window boxes does add happiness points. Someone else will have to confirm if adding flowers to the boxes adds more points. I think it does, but I am not sure.

Thanks for the correction, why nicer doors don't help makes sense. Irksome, though.

[jeroenla]

Thank you for doing the research, and sharing the results.

[Foxglovez]

You noted paint on inside walls - is that for sure? How about outside walls? I have an active thread going on this subject but more is always better. And yours is much more. Thanks.

[Navigator]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

You noted paint on inside walls - is that for sure? How about outside walls? I have an active thread going on this subject but more is always better. And yours is much more. Thanks.

I've done a bit more testing since I posted. Painting walls does improve mood, both inside and outside.

Sidenote: Jeeze, painting just one segment of wall takes a lot of paint. Too much, imo.

What I haven't been able to pin down is whether flowers in flower boxes help. Flower boxes, empty ones, definitely help but I have't yet seen that planting flowers in the flower boxes results in an added uptick in mood. Haven't tested it enough though.

[Foxglovez]

It took me 5 in game years to paint all my buildings inside and out with 3 day seasons, finally finishing at year 36. That's 62 buildings. I can't even tell you how much money I threw at it though I only allowed myself to buy dyes when I had trade goods for them so I wouldn't go in the hole, just to keep it interesting.

I made an extra onion field, hired a couple more kids to dig clay for red and forge masters for iron ingots for the black, added a second building and 2 for berry blue. It was quite the drill. Town looks a bit of an Easter egg but at least it's cheerful. Now that I've wrapped that project up, finally gotten my heir to 10 hunter I need something new to do. Fun times. I have found this game to be very different by the time I am playing the heir. It's actually much more interesting than early game but maybe that's just me.

My folks have very high mood. Married couples mostly 90s and they like to say how well organized the village is. It's pretty fun. I have a bad king though and my level is tragic so hopefully he will die before he strings me up for abandoning all his quests. I digress. LOL

[TemplarGFX]

I was really disappointed to find out that village decorations and walls/fences/paths have no effect on your villagers

[Foxglovez]

Too hard to keep track of. If it's stuck on the house then it's reasonable.

[OctoberSky]

Excellent information as I am just getting started and have no idea - with my limited purse - what would improve their mood. Could I suggest (beg) that this information be put into a Guide? That way the thread will be readily available when need arrives. Many thanks.

[leonie214]

It is also important to note that there is a cap on mood improvement gained by decorations... I stand under correction, but I think it is 10 mood points for decorations. Once you have gained the 10 points no amount of decorations will help it further. I think it is 1 point per decoration, so the 4 rugs and 4 ceiling plus two walls should get you there in a small house.

[*Morri*]

Originally posted by leonie214:

It is also important to note that there is a cap on mood improvement gained by decorations... I stand under correction, but I think it is 10 mood points for decorations. Once you have gained the 10 points no amount of decorations will help it further. I think it is 1 point per decoration, so the 4 rugs and 4 ceiling plus two walls should get you there in a small house.

That was changed recently. 20 decorations max; each for 0.5 mood.

[leonie214]

Originally posted by *Morri*:

Originally posted by leonie214:

It is also important to note that there is a cap on mood improvement gained by decorations... I stand under correction, but I think it is 10 mood points for decorations. Once you have gained the 10 points no amount of decorations will help it further. I think it is 1 point per decoration, so the 4 rugs and 4 ceiling plus two walls should get you there in a small house.

That was changed recently. 20 decorations max; each for 0.5 mood.

Thanks

[sallyparker237]

All my villagers are 70-80 percent mood. I put decorated window boxes on every window.

[Yetti]

Not sure why people have issues like this. Never once have I had a problem with villagers being unhappy and I haven't even upgraded their houses from base level and I'm on game year 21 with a massive village. As long as they have a job, house, food and water they are good to go.