Struggling with keeping people happy

[ChoopChoopMyMorningWood]

I am building my very first town, after finishing the tutorial. It's very inefficient, etc. Just trying to play around and see what I can achieve.

The population amounts to roughly 150, right now.

I read a lot online about how to keep peoples in general and Cretonians specifically happy, in early game.

I have plenty of Hearths, Wells, etc... I even have plenty of Stages, which requires Science.

All these things are either 100% Quality etc. or nearly 100%. Yet, people are constantly unhappy. I barely let in immigrants and do my best in general for keeping the people happy, but it's never enough.

I don't know what to do, because all other services are locked behind science and I cannot comfortably put more people into science, when the people is always between 50 and 70% happiness.

As for the other happiness factors, like decorations and building structure... I put some work into it, the city is not fully designed in the way the Cretonians prefer it, but even when I reach like 30% on those bars, like Harmony, it barely makes them happier. They are always unhappy.

Needless to say, when checking out individuals' wishes, they all wish for stuff I cannot afford, because I lack the science and people to. However, I obviously cannot really get more people, if happiness is low.

[MOK]

at ~150, you wouldn't really need more than one each of hearths, wells, stages, speakers. Maybe a second after 200. So you can free those workers up, perhaps.

But since it's Cretonians, then the very likely biggest factor is, of course, food. If it's stockpiled, then you should be doing pretty decent. And you can push it up further by going into the "access" submenu, and allow them to consume resources like wood, furniture, clay, and pottery. With that, they ought to be pretty happy.

[MOK]

Wether or not the above is correct though, the key to troubleshooting this will be by examining the Plebs menu and it's graphs, in the upper left corner of the screen.

[Subak]

One of the biggest things I had that would cause my progress to stagnate?

Employment rate.

Click Occupation and up toward the top is a %. This isn't "true" (or only incidentally) but, basically, your Loyalty will cap at your Employment rate.

Again, that's not "true", but you might benefit from pretending it is a useful lie for the moment.

[icedude94]

Cretonians are like the only race I feel is too easy to keep happy.

Some other things to consider.
- They hate doing some jobs and that will lower their fulfillment.
- Having many days of food stockpiled and a good amount of money in reserves also boosts happiness.
- You didn't mention religious satisfaction. Get a nice big shrine to Crator.
- Build food stalls and markets. I didn't see you talk about those.
- Might be time to get nurseries.

[SteelForge]

For the longest time i thought i just needed more of a service. No, you need to upgrade them. One heart, one well, one lavatory upgraded is providing for my 120 people with 100% enjoyment. Not upgraded? You lose half of that fulfillment, its crazy

[Joe]

more bench

[ChoopChoopMyMorningWood]

I'm just generally going into some of the points made here. Thank you.

* I built tons of benches at every road. Trees, flowerbeds, as well.
* The city has food days often on max bar in the top left corner on the screen. However, it fluctuates sometimes. Does this have a huge effect?
* The city has plenty of food stalls and markets. They are happy with them.
* I cannot build a big shrine to anything, since I lack the science for it.
* The city has a Cretonian Breeder since long.


@Subak
What do you mean?

You mean, there always needs to be a surplus of oddjobers? I have a huge issue of keeping oddjobers, as people sometimes emigrate or die or whatever.

[Subak]

It's more that too big a surplus of oddjobbers ticks your people off because their fellow citizens are standing around kicking rocks.

[annie]

Originally posted by ChoopChoopMyMorningWood:

I'm just generally going into some of the points made here. Thank you.

* I built tons of benches at every road. Trees, flowerbeds, as well.
* The city has food days often on max bar in the top left corner on the screen. However, it fluctuates sometimes. Does this have a huge effect?
* The city has plenty of food stalls and markets. They are happy with them.
* I cannot build a big shrine to anything, since I lack the science for it.
* The city has a Cretonian Breeder since long.


@Subak
What do you mean?

You mean, there always needs to be a surplus of oddjobers? I have a huge issue of keeping oddjobers, as people sometimes emigrate or die or whatever.

temples and shrines are different, you start with shrines unlocked and they just cost wood and stone. they are absolutely required to keep people happy since there are no atheists in syxtopia. the first upgrade for the shrine of crator, the god of the cretonians, only costs furniture, so you can get that too and hit 75% religious satisfaction quickly. if you have no shrines as is, then that will be enough to put you at 70%+ happiness consistently

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

You can cheese it a little by giving them some retirement age benefits. Also make sure there's no unburied corpses, even a mass grave is better than letting your people rot in the streets.

[ChoopChoopMyMorningWood]

Originally posted by annie:

Originally posted by ChoopChoopMyMorningWood:

I'm just generally going into some of the points made here. Thank you.

* I built tons of benches at every road. Trees, flowerbeds, as well.
* The city has food days often on max bar in the top left corner on the screen. However, it fluctuates sometimes. Does this have a huge effect?
* The city has plenty of food stalls and markets. They are happy with them.
* I cannot build a big shrine to anything, since I lack the science for it.
* The city has a Cretonian Breeder since long.


@Subak
What do you mean?

You mean, there always needs to be a surplus of oddjobers? I have a huge issue of keeping oddjobers, as people sometimes emigrate or die or whatever.

temples and shrines are different, you start with shrines unlocked and they just cost wood and stone. they are absolutely required to keep people happy since there are no atheists in syxtopia. the first upgrade for the shrine of crator, the god of the cretonians, only costs furniture, so you can get that too and hit 75% religious satisfaction quickly. if you have no shrines as is, then that will be enough to put you at 70%+ happiness consistently

Ah, okay. I built the small shrine already a long while ago, but it doesn't really give any religious satisfaction.

[ChoopChoopMyMorningWood]

Originally posted by ⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞:

You can cheese it a little by giving them some retirement age benefits. Also make sure there's no unburied corpses, even a mass grave is better than letting your people rot in the streets.

I have a mass grave since basically having a people of 15 or something.

[ChoopChoopMyMorningWood]

I think, putting a vegetable exclusive warehouse near the breeder seems to help. The only time I noticed some form of starvation, was when the warehouse had only little to none vegetables in it.

[Vanguard]

The msot important thing is: TO NOT FREAK OUT.

You do not need a prison and temples the moment you start a game. You do not even need much science before you reach 200 people.

As an immediate solution to boost satisfaction, just bribe your people. Get a large tailor, set your people to be allowed to have up to 4 set of clothes and allow them all the clay, wood, textiles, whatever it is they want.

This will immediately boost migration, allowing you to set up all the stuff you need. Make sure to not starve.

Once you are done, reduce the bribes to an amount you can actually sustain. Allowing your population to consume your crafting materials is usually unsustainable, unless you have the production boosts for it later.

Also, one of the cheapest morale boosters are decorations, such as trees, flowers and benches. Use them plenty.