Any tips on Happiness?

[Reginleif]

I am really annoyed by how easy it is to rack up unhappiness in this game. I've gotten just about every upgrade and people are still miserably unhappy.

How do you deal with things like overpopulation and, oh, populations being total buttholes because, waaaah, their guys weren't selected? I really am starting to believe the curve for unhappiness toward elections is too high.

[Reginleif]

-210 for lack of representetives? Also, I don't understand. 90% of my population is miltiarist and I have a militarist regime. What the hell are they talking about?

[Gordolf The Bright]

Possible glitch? It's still in alpha so it's a possibility.

[Reginleif]

Maybe it is. I keep having anarchy in my empire. Dictatorship after dictatorship keeps taking over. Meanwhile all my worlds have the happiness upgrades and negative anomalies removed. The cravers I have are not on the same worlds as other populations. Aside from the cravers, I have huge militarist populations.

[Shrinkshooter]

Look around in these pages for how to change the unhappiness due to lack of reps. It's set at -5, things become more manageable when it's set to -2 or -3. That default value is incredibly bad if you're playing a dictatorship. Devs said they're going to patch it soon.

That issue aside, the system in general doesn't make much sense when you really look at things. I mean if I have a system that's 95% militarist, why THE HELL do I have 8 militarist reps and 6 scientist reps? WHY? What the f*** makes it so that I have a little under half my reps in one of my systems representing SIX PERCENT of my population? The metrics for who supports what and how much are just completely borked.

Side note, when playing cravers, keep in mind the slave driver mod. Slave Drivers gives you -5 per non-craver pop who lives on a planet alongside cravers. If you have a planet with 8 ameoba population, and your next pop growth gives you a craver on that planet, you instantly have -40 happiness in that system now. Once you have a mid to large size system population it's much better to keep the cravers apart from all other non-cravers, on their own planets, if you can.

[Satoru]

Dictatorship have hte biggest penalty for non representation. Its -15 per pop

The devs are aware of the issue. The mechanic is as intended, the value just needs balancing

[Prpich25]

Honestly this "Glitch" shows a big issue with population types mechanic, the government mechanic, and the happyness mechanic.

They're not working together.

With the population you have different types, and each type has a politcal party they are apart of from the start. But that some how changes, when you start building improvements. Now they still get the population bonus after X amount, thats always based on that Y poltical party?

Take sophons, they are science, they start with the political scientific party. But then I start building improvements in FIDS, which will start raising other political infulence, so then I start getting the reps for any of the other 5 political parties.

But yet they are not apart of that party. Now when I have a system that is 100% of the sophon race, which are geared towards science, I can even have the politcal scientific party, but yet because of the improvements, i magically have reps for other parties. It makes very little sense, and to me at least, seems broken.

I could see that building those FIDS improvements, and that raises the chance of a new pop type increasing in that system, that would correspond with the improvement. Like say i build a military type, so i get a military type pop, in turn that pop would want a rep in government.

If they dont have it, then that would make sense at that point, for that pop type to be un-happy.

Right now, it seems, at least to me very broken. Even with the "Glitch". Which is more than one to be honest. Its a few glitchs, within these three game mechanics. Or its something even bigger showing these mechanics, are not working together. We will see.

[Prpich25]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Dictatorship have hte biggest penalty for non representation. Its -15 per pop

The devs are aware of the issue. The mechanic is as intended, the value just needs balancing

Oh no its not. This starts in ever government type, doesnt matter.

Ive just played a new game, i have every moral boosting building possible, with friendly skies and make love not war polices in place. With fleets in every system, and 3 other factions, that im at peace with.

With all that, i also have my system level buildings with one of each moral boosting lux resource. Which if im not mistaken is -40% on both over pop and over con. With the +25 moral. Then add in sandbox mode and being democracy.

With all that, still im having system rebel.

And yes, the system are fully terraformed, with no negative anomalies.

And i also never went to war with anyone, or was war declare on me.

Heres the kicker....I wasnt watching this one system, they went full on rebel. This kicked in a non-stop 1 turn at a time anarchy. It just doesnt stop. It keeps going and going. I went straight to a dictatorship, but didnt matter cause this endless one turn anarchy just keeps going and going.

So i dont know what mechanic you are talking about here? But...This game ive got going...They're many mechanics, that are damn sure no working like they are intended to.

Not with this game ive got going. lol, i mean its turned into a train wreck. Its fun, but with the newer game ive started, i see the same thing happing again.

Oh another thing that happens. If you change governments, you go straight to a dictatorship. At least i did. I just wanted to see what would happen if i went to a republic, and it was just went to anarchy, then to dictatorship.

[Shrinkshooter]

Originally posted by Prpich25:

Oh no its not. This starts in ever government type, doesnt matter.

Yes, it is.

Don't get me wrong, there are several real problems with the government system. But the main core of your issues do come from that -5 happiness value per rep belonging to a party not in the senate.

If you don't believe me, go ahead and try to play Cravers. Just try it. I guarantee you that it will be a nightmare just to get to turn 40. Once I changed the rep value from -5 (which is -15 per representative) to -2, it was far more manageable, and I'm currently on turn 86 or something with Cravers, which are actually playable because of it.

I changed to democracy anyway, but I did it on my own time, when I WANTED to do it, just out of convenience. Right now, I have an empire happiness rating of 84 or 85. I can go to a Fed or Republic if I want, and with just a little bit of work I can go back to being a dictatorship. Changing the value from -5 to -2 makes things a lot better. If you are still having serious issues with government after doing that, then it might be that you're doing something wrong.

In any case, change the value. You shouldn't have any serious issues after that's done.

[Satoru]

The base penalty right now is -5 per pop. This applies to all government types.

For Dictatorships that penalty is multiplied by 3. Which means you get a -15 per pop penalty. So if you're playing the horatio this penalty is really really really bad

[Reginleif]

Originally posted by Shrinkshooter:

Originally posted by Prpich25:

Oh no its not. This starts in ever government type, doesnt matter.

Yes, it is.

Don't get me wrong, there are several real problems with the government system. But the main core of your issues do come from that -5 happiness value per rep belonging to a party not in the senate.

If you don't believe me, go ahead and try to play Cravers. Just try it. I guarantee you that it will be a nightmare just to get to turn 40. Once I changed the rep value from -5 (which is -15 per representative) to -2, it was far more manageable, and I'm currently on turn 86 or something with Cravers, which are actually playable because of it.

I changed to democracy anyway, but I did it on my own time, when I WANTED to do it, just out of convenience. Right now, I have an empire happiness rating of 84 or 85. I can go to a Fed or Republic if I want, and with just a little bit of work I can go back to being a dictatorship. Changing the value from -5 to -2 makes things a lot better. If you are still having serious issues with government after doing that, then it might be that you're doing something wrong.

In any case, change the value. You shouldn't have any serious issues after that's done.

Since we're all HERE, can someone explain how to do that so I don't have to do too much digging?

[Shrinkshooter]

Ask and ye shall receive, I guess.

1. Open the directory Steam\steamapps\common\Endless Space 2\Public\Simulation

2. Open this file: SimulationDescriptors[ColonizedStarSystem].xml with a text editor of your choice such as Notepad++

3. Find this line (I think it should be around line 94)

<Property Name="HappinessPenaltyPerRepresentative" BaseValue="15" MinValue="Negative"/>

4. Change the BaseValue to the number you see fit! (2 is a good one, seems fairly balanced, 3 seems to be an ok challenge if 2 is too easy)

5. The problem is in 

[[YOUR DRIVE]]:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Endless Space 2\Public\Simulation\SimulationDescriptors[Government].xml

line 26:

<Modifier TargetProperty="HappinessPenaltyPerRepresentative" Operation="Multiplication" Value="3" Path="./ClassEmpire/ClassStarSystem" />

[Reginleif]

Originally posted by Shrinkshooter:

Ask and ye shall receive, I guess.

1. Open the directory Steam\steamapps\common\Endless Space 2\Public\Simulation

2. Open this file: SimulationDescriptors[ColonizedStarSystem].xml with a text editor of your choice such as Notepad++

3. Find this line (I think it should be around line 94)

<Property Name="HappinessPenaltyPerRepresentative" BaseValue="15" MinValue="Negative"/>

4. Change the BaseValue to the number you see fit! (2 is a good one, seems fairly balanced, 3 seems to be an ok challenge if 2 is too easy)

5. The problem is in 

[[YOUR DRIVE]]:\SteamLibrary\SteamApps\common\Endless Space 2\Public\Simulation\SimulationDescriptors[Government].xml

line 26:

<Modifier TargetProperty="HappinessPenaltyPerRepresentative" Operation="Multiplication" Value="3" Path="./ClassEmpire/ClassStarSystem" />

Can I do this for saved games?

[FreezeNox]

There is 1 simply solution which is to disable happiness (sort of). Dictorship > Vote for Religion > Mass Happiness. No more Happiness buildings, settle any harsh worlds you want, and have as many population you want.

[Shrinkshooter]

Originally posted by Reginleif:

Can I do this for saved games?

I don't know, but I would try it anyway. If it screws up your save, who cares? It's not like that game was going to be fun with the anarchy cascades anyway :)

Originally posted by Prpich25:

snip

also i want to mention to you that i know what you're talking about, in regards to the anarchy constantly happening. Yes, that';s a bug, and it's created by having anarchy go on for too long. I'm not sure if the devs know about that one. Any time anarchy only lasts for maybe 5 or 6 turns, if you come out of it everything is stable, assuming you made the anarchy. However, if it lasts for longer than that, apparently the government is a Pacifist Dictatorship by default. You can't change it for 9 more turns, and because it's a dictatorship, it upsets a ton of people, which causes anarchy again, and if it AGAIN lasts longer than a few turns, the same thing happens over and over.

This stupid effect will occur even if you MADE the anarchy in the first place. For example if I try to change my government from democracy to republic, if the gov. change screen says "anarchy will last for 14 days," I'm screwed and I can't do it. If I try to change it to republic, anarchy will set in like it's supposed to, but instead of 14 days passing, a Pac. Dictator. gov. will be established on something like the 7th day.

So yeah, you're not wrong, anarchy is broken. You can only change gov. types if the anarchy period is only a few days.

[Rew]

Easy. This.... Horatio, (start as dicatatorship) select your first law as mass contentment. Basically the law that makes everyone content all the time, forever. Job done.

Their political situation is perhaps the Horatio's greatest asset. I might write up a full guide to them when I have time.