Happiness is a pathetic joke.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

How come one city's slight happiness or unhappiness affects the whole empire? Why can't we have a system like Civ III where the city is where the hapiness affects and not the empire? Is there a mod for that?

[gamename]

Originally posted by Gronmor:

Heck, I just went online, did some research, and I found out there is an ACTUAL, REAL LIFE "Happiness Index": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report And if you look it up, you can see that this one, too, is being ranked by countries, not by cities! So you can just tell yourself that the Civ V's happiness rating is an in-game representation of the World Happiness Report, and then the in-game system makes sense!

Bhutan monitors its Gross National Happiness, rather than GNP, so they say.


Maybe OP should play Civ3? Not trying to be snotty, just ... These games change. They make a very deliberate effort to keep them evolving. I kind of remember reading about some 'rule of thirds', where for each new iteration, they keep about a third of the features/mechanics, discard a third, and modify a third (I think that's how it went). Also, that the stuff they add in expansion/DLC tends to become core feature in the next version. All of which made kind of unsettling reading when I heard about it, what with the odds of throwing away the parts I like and adding parts I don't. But I guess the idea is to keep things fresh, and make sure each version is a new experience. Maybe would be cool if they'd remaster older versions, so people who liked older mechanics could play with newer graphics and civs. IDK

Personally, most of my experience is with V, and I like it. Happiness didn't bite me too much at first, but when I tried different play styles (and hardest difficulties) it was a challenge. Annoying sometimes, 'good challenge' others.


"My city has a problem with flooding and crime, but I'm glad I don't live in that other country that, I'm told, has repression and lines to buy bread."
"My city is doing well, but the country is being led by a fascist demagogue who is ruining our standing in the world, and will poison my grandkids."

People can have feelings about their whole country, regardless of how their city is doing. Individual happiness is a thing, too, but the game is called Civilization.

[GalloglassCA]

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

Originally posted by LaborT:

Civ 5 has universal happiness because that system is vastly superior for how Civ 5 works. All the most effective strategies, particularly in regards to the early game and the by far best two Social Policy trees for the early game, revolve around timing. Both in terms in when you place your cities so they have time to be effective cities later in the game and in terms of how many cities you have. A universal happiness mechanic is better for that than a system with individual city happiness.

For restricting the player, yes. But I don't like that restriction. If settling wide is dangerous for my empire then it needs to have a better reason than "Because I said so." For example, in Civ III if you settle near someone else's territory without improving the city there is a chance they will rebel and join their side, punishing you for going wide and neglecting it. There is also a "distance from capital" corruption system which also punishes wide players, but doesn't inhibit them like the current happiness and culture system does. All in all the modern Civs seem to be real trash.

Not really, timing mechanics are both restricting and freeing. Because any framework for game mechanics has upsides and downsides. "Because I said so." never even factours in. Arbitrary complaints about abstraction look really bad when talking about a game entirely built upon abstraction.

Also, I played Civ 3, in fact. I STARTED with civ 3. And guess what......the corruption mechanic and ICS and road spam was some of the most widely hated mechanics in the game. Which is why Civ 4 got different systems. But hey, I guess it's just easier to go. "But muh nostalgia glasses." when examing mechanics. There's nothing wrong with liking Civ 3. But the idea that Civ 3 didn't have mechanical flaws tied to the very mechanics being touted compared to latter games is suspect at best.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Originally posted by LaborT:

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

For restricting the player, yes. But I don't like that restriction. If settling wide is dangerous for my empire then it needs to have a better reason than "Because I said so." For example, in Civ III if you settle near someone else's territory without improving the city there is a chance they will rebel and join their side, punishing you for going wide and neglecting it. There is also a "distance from capital" corruption system which also punishes wide players, but doesn't inhibit them like the current happiness and culture system does. All in all the modern Civs seem to be real trash.

Not really, timing mechanics are both restricting and freeing. Because any framework for game mechanics has upsides and downsides. "Because I said so." never even factours in. Arbitrary complaints about abstraction look really bad when talking about a game entirely built upon abstraction.

Also, I played Civ 3, in fact. I STARTED with civ 3. And guess what......the corruption mechanic and ICS and road spam was some of the most widely hated mechanics in the game. Which is why Civ 4 got different systems. But hey, I guess it's just easier to go. "But muh nostalgia glasses." when examing mechanics. There's nothing wrong with liking Civ 3. But the idea that Civ 3 didn't have mechanical flaws tied to the very mechanics being touted compared to latter games is suspect at best.

The diplomacy in Civ III was sloppy and inconvenient, the movement of troops was slow, the progression of tech made little sense at times, the early siege weapons were pretty unhelpful, it was loaded with historical inaccuracies, it doesn't run well after too many turns have passed and so on. It's not nostalgia which is blinding me. In fact I was HOPING upgrading to Civ V would solve some of my issues with Civ III and much of what it did was make it different, not better.

I do prefer some things about Civ V. The ambient music is usually worse in my eyes but the music for each nation is awesome and there's plenty of variety. I MUCH prefer the addition of archery units over them acting as melee units. I like that the default range is two tiles instead of one, (except for Gatling guns, Bazookas and Hand-Axes) for ranged units and foot units move two instead of one. I like the open borders agreement where only one side needs to allow open borders instead of demanding both sides like in Civ III. I like the tile improvement system. I like being able to walk through an opponent unit if there's space behind them.

In short, there are a lot of things about Civ V I enjoy and Civ III I don't. If Civ V was all terrible to me i WOULD be playing CIv III, but that game is problematic too. I'm here explaining some of my issues with Civ V after 2000 hours.

One of them is the social policies. Firstly, being dictated by culture count and not legislation (sorta makes sense, actually) is wonky and is political with half of them and DEFNINITELY with the ideologies. Normally, though, I'd say that's okay, except the culture cost scales with city count and I don't think that's right. There aught to be an option to toggle that off or a mod which disables that. I've looked, there is one and it doesn't work. For this I MUCH prefer the government system Civ III uses. Granted, social policies is a lot more unique with regards to culture emulation. I have already expressed how much more satisfying the sounds and sprites for Civ III are in other threads so I won't rant about that here. I think that having transport boats is a good thing and should be a thing still, but was replaced by embarkation. I think the city-based happiness system is better than the minigames of happiness and culture in Civ V.

My point is, Civ III Isn't perfect and I am not suggesting it is, but there are things about Civ V I think could be improved if they kept some, but not all, of the features found in Civ III.

[Bandit]

Simply put happiness is a easy to understand game mechanic to control population and the number of cities in your empire whilst providing balance. The more cities you own then the more unhappiness will be generated; it will become more difficiult to grow these cities to a high population without encountering unhappiness penalties.

The player is required to think how many cities you can found with the land available and how best to utilise the land without becoming unhappy. There lies the skill of a good player.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Originally posted by Bandit (^-人-^):

Simply put happiness is a easy to understand game mechanic to control population and the number of cities in your empire whilst providing balance. The more cities you own then the more unhappiness will be generated; it will become more difficiult to grow these cities to a high population without encountering unhappiness penalties.

The player is required to think how many cities you can found with the land available and how best to utilise the land without becoming unhappy. There lies the skill of a good player.

Yes. But I don't want to be a very compact but economically powerful Germany, I want to be an unbelievably large and powerful China. There are wide countries IRL such as the USA, Canada, Russia, China and so on, but this game treats those situations like they're impossible. Look at the US for example. A lot of the cities here are alright and some are pretty nice, such as where I live in Utah. But Detroit isn't so nice in many areas. It's kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. The fact my city is pretty nice doesn't mean it is suddenly fixed. That is what my issue is. I want a system that makes different quality of cities not a flat number across the board.

[GalloglassCA]

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

Originally posted by Bandit (^-人-^):

Simply put happiness is a easy to understand game mechanic to control population and the number of cities in your empire whilst providing balance. The more cities you own then the more unhappiness will be generated; it will become more difficiult to grow these cities to a high population without encountering unhappiness penalties.

The player is required to think how many cities you can found with the land available and how best to utilise the land without becoming unhappy. There lies the skill of a good player.

Yes. But I don't want to be a very compact but economically powerful Germany, I want to be an unbelievably large and powerful China. There are wide countries IRL such as the USA, Canada, Russia, China and so on, but this game treats those situations like they're impossible. Look at the US for example. A lot of the cities here are alright and some are pretty nice, such as where I live in Utah. But Detroit isn't so nice in many areas. It's kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. The fact my city is pretty nice doesn't mean it is suddenly fixed. That is what my issue is. I want a system that makes different quality of cities not a flat number across the board.

Then go play Civ 3 or Civ 4 with mods.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Originally posted by LaborT:

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

Yes. But I don't want to be a very compact but economically powerful Germany, I want to be an unbelievably large and powerful China. There are wide countries IRL such as the USA, Canada, Russia, China and so on, but this game treats those situations like they're impossible. Look at the US for example. A lot of the cities here are alright and some are pretty nice, such as where I live in Utah. But Detroit isn't so nice in many areas. It's kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. The fact my city is pretty nice doesn't mean it is suddenly fixed. That is what my issue is. I want a system that makes different quality of cities not a flat number across the board.

Then go play Civ 3 or Civ 4 with mods.

I have. I don't have Civ IV. I hear it's good, but never got it. And I have been re-visiting Civ III. You think I didn't already think of that?

[Vengyr]

The main problem with Civ V is that it is not very immersive. Happiness is the prime example of that. You do not feel like a ruler of an empire, you feel more like a chess player. This is what earlier games did better.

Download civ IV (it's easy to find it on the internet) and try Realism Invictus. Makes game much more of a simulation and less of an abstract math game.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Originally posted by Vengyr:

The main problem with Civ V is that it is not very immersive. Happiness is the prime example of that. You do not feel like a ruler of an empire, you feel more like a chess player. This is what earlier games did better.

Download civ IV (it's easy to find it on the internet) and try Realism Invictus. Makes game much more of a simulation and less of an abstract math game.

I want to mark your answer as the topic answer, but it isn't quite. However, you described Civ V perfectly. An abstract math game. So there are no mods which brings the Civ III features to Civ V?

[Remeer]

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

Originally posted by Vengyr:

The main problem with Civ V is that it is not very immersive. Happiness is the prime example of that. You do not feel like a ruler of an empire, you feel more like a chess player. This is what earlier games did better.

Download civ IV (it's easy to find it on the internet) and try Realism Invictus. Makes game much more of a simulation and less of an abstract math game.

I want to mark your answer as the topic answer, but it isn't quite. However, you described Civ V perfectly. An abstract math game. So there are no mods which brings the Civ III features to Civ V?

I bet there is, Civ3 mods that exist in the workshop for Civ5. The real question is, can you find them. It might be hard, and much digging required, but I don't think the answer is a solid no. I think the answer is, if you search hard enough you will find what you are looking for, but it might take longer than most people have patience for.

I can't offer a solid solution, but I understand your frustration. My honest advice would be, maybe look up several youtube videos, and maybe look into and doing mods yourself. You might find your answers you are looking for by modding the game yourself. You might think it's hard doing mods, but there is so many tutorials available that with enough time, I can't see a reason why you woulndn't be successful.

Try it out and get back to us?

[DJ]

You're right, happiness is a pathetic joke, I much perfer depression

[Vengyr]

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

Originally posted by Vengyr:

The main problem with Civ V is that it is not very immersive. Happiness is the prime example of that. You do not feel like a ruler of an empire, you feel more like a chess player. This is what earlier games did better.

Download civ IV (it's easy to find it on the internet) and try Realism Invictus. Makes game much more of a simulation and less of an abstract math game.

I want to mark your answer as the topic answer, but it isn't quite. However, you described Civ V perfectly. An abstract math game. So there are no mods which brings the Civ III features to Civ V?

Not much, Civ V is not as moddable as previous games. You can go around and change numbers, but you won't be able to make happiness local, for instance.

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Originally posted by Vengyr:

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

I want to mark your answer as the topic answer, but it isn't quite. However, you described Civ V perfectly. An abstract math game. So there are no mods which brings the Civ III features to Civ V?

Not much, Civ V is not as moddable as previous games. You can go around and change numbers, but you won't be able to make happiness local, for instance.

What about Civ VI? Is it more or less moddable?

[SamBC]

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

Originally posted by Vengyr:

Not much, Civ V is not as moddable as previous games. You can go around and change numbers, but you won't be able to make happiness local, for instance.

What about Civ VI? Is it more or less moddable?

Well, some ways less, some ways more, though Civ5 has DLL modding which Civ6 doesn't (at least, not yet).

But for the purposes of your complaint, that may be moot - as happiness is largely local again (some global or regional elements as well).

[Yoda Nobunaga]

Originally posted by SamBC:

Originally posted by FiddleRiddle DiddleDiddle:

What about Civ VI? Is it more or less moddable?

Well, some ways less, some ways more, though Civ5 has DLL modding which Civ6 doesn't (at least, not yet).

But for the purposes of your complaint, that may be moot - as happiness is largely local again (some global or regional elements as well).

Some day I'm gonna get Civ VI, when I'm not poor. Did they come out with complete eddition yet or are they still adding stuff to take your money?