How the hell does happiness work?

[Bendak]

Okay, so let's assume that happiness in-game is not a bizarre European concept of butterflies and rainbows.

Can someone explain to me how happiness works in game? It is completely and totally unintelligible to me.

[facciola007]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/5tks32/happiness/

Other sites....

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Happiness[www.stellariswiki.com], also that first line made be lol.

[Bendak]

The site you linked to me is incoherent and makes no sense within my current level of knowledge about the game.

The site literally says "JUST TURN ON THE HAPPIES AND MAKE THEM GOOD".

This doesn't tell me how the happiness mechanic works, nor how to satisfy my populace (which seems to regularly revolt).

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Originally posted by Bendak:

The site you linked to me is incoherent and makes no sense within my current level of knowledge about the game.

The site literally says "JUST TURN ON THE HAPPIES AND MAKE THEM GOOD".

This doesn't tell me how the happiness mechanic works, nor how to satisfy my populace (which seems to regularly revolt).

I presume you're talking to the first poster? Because my link clearly explains it (even if it's technically out of date).

[discodog]

Not a expert on this game.

But a few things, a planets habbitability is the max happiness any pop on that planet can have.

Pops belong to factions, the things that make factions happy can be seen on the faction screen.

As your tech goes up the number of options for increasing happiness increase. Buildings, options on the species screen, edicts, even some aliens (the artists) can increase hap.

Generally though don't grow to fast, more pops and distance from your home world increase the amount of change in your empire which makes it harder to keep people happy.

[Bendak]

Okay, so let's take this faction. They're currently red for INDIRECT XENOLOGY (Legislating a Passive Study stance on Native Interference will please...)

1) "Legislating a Passive Study Stance" might as well be Latin to me. What the hell does this mean? There is no mention of any of those words outside of the tooltip.

2) "No Species-Wide Slavery" is also red, but under my Species list, I only have two options, and they both have Full Citizenship. How does this work?

[DohItAgain]

1) It means in your policys, set your Native Interference to Passive.

2) The second one may be caused due to non-synth Robots or Un-uplifted species counting as slaves.

[Xgpmcnp]

Happiness is a pretty simple mechanic, here's how it works

A planet's habitability defines max happiness. Base happiness is 50% if faction-less, or depends on the faction's if the pop belongs to one. You can see what a faction needs to be pleased in the faction menu by hovering your mouse over their requirements.

High levels of happiness reduces Unrest on your planets and increases production by a great percentage. A 100% happy population will see productivity increase by 12,50% which means a lot in places like your capital world where things can produce over 20 of energy/metal each if you set things up right

Low levels of Happiness generates unrest, and unrest causes a lot of nasty events. Basic ones involve your pops being attracted to certain ethics that your empire is not owning. AKA If you're a militarist empire, then unrest pops would most likely start being attracted to pacifist ethos. This means they're more likely to join pacifist factions, and that makes them even less happy by default (Assuming the pacifist factions hate your military ass).

Common ways to increase happiness? I'd say invest in Harmony Unity tree, I found it very good. The Paradise Domes are god-sends, as they generate happiness, unity AND food, but only 1 per planet. I know the Artisan troupe can organise a festival to increase happiness world-wide at a cost and for a certain time, too.

A good way to increase happiness is to set the specie's rights differently. I'm not sure what setting it is exactly, I'd need to check in-game, but I know that if your species are under impoverished conditions it decreases happiness, and making them live under social welfare raises it. Although that increases consumer goods stuff and blablabla.

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Originally posted by Cash.net Xgpmcnp:

Happiness is a pretty simple mechanic, here's how it works

A planet's habitability defines max happiness. Base happiness is 50% if faction-less, or depends on the faction's if the pop belongs to one. You can see what a faction needs to be pleased in the faction menu by hovering your mouse over their requirements.

High levels of happiness reduces Unrest on your planets and increases production by a great percentage. A 100% happy population will see productivity increase by 12,50% which means a lot in places like your capital world where things can produce over 20 of energy/metal each if you set things up right

Low levels of Happiness generates unrest, and unrest causes a lot of nasty events. Basic ones involve your pops being attracted to certain ethics that your empire is not owning. AKA If you're a militarist empire, then unrest pops would most likely start being attracted to pacifist ethos. This means they're more likely to join pacifist factions, and that makes them even less happy by default (Assuming the pacifist factions hate your military ass).

Common ways to increase happiness? I'd say invest in Harmony Unity tree, I found it very good. The Paradise Domes are god-sends, as they generate happiness, unity AND food, but only 1 per planet. I know the Artisan troupe can organise a festival to increase happiness world-wide at a cost and for a certain time, too.

A good way to increase happiness is to set the specie's rights differently. I'm not sure what setting it is exactly, I'd need to check in-game, but I know that if your species are under impoverished conditions it decreases happiness, and making them live under social welfare raises it. Although that increases consumer goods stuff and blablabla.

/thread

[Exarch_Alpha]

Yes, consumer goods are the way to go, specially if you aren´t authoritarian as their faction hates giving cheap goods to the peasants and slaves.

In general, happiness is a good thing to have always. Buy it from merchants, do festivals etc etc.

Now, factions are an entirely different matter, and should be discussed in their thread.

[King Swangar (at home)]

♥♥♥♥ happiness completely, go Hive mind. Never worry about that petty ♥♥♥♥ again.

[Xgpmcnp]

Originally posted by King Swagnar (Soulja Boi):

♥♥♥♥ happiness completely, go Hive mind. Never worry about that petty ♥♥♥♥ again.

Sure, you can do that. But Hive minds suffer diplomatically, so don't just use Hive Minds without knowing what you get into :p

[galadon3]

Originally posted by Bendak:

Okay, so let's take this faction. They're currently red for INDIRECT XENOLOGY (Legislating a Passive Study stance on Native Interference will please...)

1) "Legislating a Passive Study Stance" might as well be Latin to me. What the hell does this mean? There is no mention of any of those words outside of the tooltip.

In your policies and edicts screen there is a point how far you are willing to go in respect to study small FTL-Civs. They want that set to "Passive Study"

2) "No Species-Wide Slavery" is also red, but under my Species list, I only have two options, and they both have Full Citizenship. How does this work?

Guess you have some kind of Robots? Under 1.6 and above there is a bug in that factions treat having robots as having slaves. Its a bug.

For what Factions exist and what makes them tick:
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Factions

Hope that helps

[Bendak]

Thanks, guys. I grasp the concept a little better after spending a few hours experimenting.

My problem is that 'core game concepts' like happiness are so very poorly explained in-game. You have to experiment for hours, alt-tab and watch Youtube video, and browse at least 17 different threads before you understand how the devs created the system.

Conversely, a simple in-game suggestion box "Hey, The Peacenik Faction is unhappy and will start causing trouble" or "Planet Temnoplik is pretty low on happiness and here's an immediate reason why" would help a lot!

[galadon3]

Originally posted by Bendak:

Thanks, guys. I grasp the concept a little better after spending a few hours experimenting.

My problem is that 'core game concepts' like happiness are so very poorly explained in-game. You have to experiment for hours, alt-tab and watch Youtube video, and browse at least 17 different threads before you understand how the devs created the system.

Welcome to the wonderfull world of Paradox-Games^^
Actually its kinda the same with most of their big strategy-titles. Spent quite a bit time in several Threads and the wiki for the Europe Universalis Games.
I really recommend the wiki, its mostly pretty good at explaining the basic concepts.