Happiness problems for large cities

[Nierik Twinten]

Hello fellow Civ players, we're Dutch twins playing Civ for quite a few years already (periodically), though we never progressed beyond Civ III. Anyway, we now run into a problem on Civ II MP Gold version, as we foresee our cities becoming too large and the happiness crashing. Cause somehow we cannot get more happy faces, whether luxury 70 or 125 or whatever... For example our capital Beijing: 102 luxury, 13 happy faces and 12 content. If we change the taxmen into Elvis, we go to 137 luxury, but still the same 13 happy people. And the same goes for luxury at 80%, which gives 200 luxury?! Or Hangzhou, with 122 luxury, only 10 happy people?! (and 8 content.) So why doesn't this luxury thingy work?? Can't we grow past 25 unless we give up the happiness bonus for the WL*D?
Sorry if this has been asked before, but when using the search option we get mostly Civ 5 threads and feel we could search for a week longer and still have not found the answer...

[Martin Gühmann]

In Civ2, I just changed everybody to entertainer or taxman or scientist who wasn't happy enough. Probably, that was dependent on the number of cities in the empire. Since in big empires a newly founded city started with a rioter. But changing that guy to whatever fixed this problem.

-Martin

[Egbert]

I have never had such a problem at any difficulty level for Civ2. I use the tax slider to set the luxuries rate across the empire. If I have one or two particularly large cities I might manually set an entertainer in such a city rather than increase the luxuries tax rate just for one or two cities. The slider seems more effective than manually setting entertainers in each city.

[Bloody Monk]

The Mercantile factor in Happiness

Hello fellow Civ players, we're Dutch twins playing Civ for quite a few years already (periodically), though we never progressed beyond Civ III. Anyway, we now run into a problem on Civ II MP Gold version, as we foresee our cities becoming too large and the happiness crashing. Cause somehow we cannot get more happy faces, whether luxury 70 or 125 or whatever... For example our capital Beijing: 102 luxury, 13 happy faces and 12 content. If we change the taxmen into Elvis, we go to 137 luxury, but still the same 13 happy people. And the same goes for luxury at 80%, which gives 200 luxury?! Or Hangzhou, with 122 luxury, only 10 happy people?! (and 8 content.) So why doesn't this luxury thingy work?? Can't we grow past 25 unless we give up the happiness bonus for the WL*D?
Sorry if this has been asked before, but when using the search option we get mostly Civ 5 threads and feel we could search for a week longer and still have not found the answer...

I'm sorry to respond so tardily...hope you are still hanging around. If yes, please reply and I will expand this answer. I have to assume that you are operating as a Democracy, yes?? If you are growing thru WL*D in Republic you are losing a ton of trade arrows to corruption...so, change to Dem. as soon as possible.

The main problem that most folk have with their game is in the area of trade. Do these 25-population cities each have 3 trade routes?? Do your cities have Markets, Banks, SuperHighways?? Do the city tiles you are "working" have roads?? Have you built the Cure for Cancer Wonder?? (Importance of CfC: The game usually needs this first citizen Happy Wonder to keep growing thru the odd number pop. points.)

Sometimes it is necessary to boost the Luxury slider above 60% to start the WL*D process. But it seldom has to be above 40% after that first turn to keep WL going.

Hope this helps,
Monk

[Egbert]

Further to my above post: I place a very high priority on the happiness wonders, sistine Chapel and Bach's Cathedral and later Cure for Cancer. Also, as set out in the Bloody Monk's post, 3 trade routes and roads for every large city are important for happiness via the luxury tax slider. Particularly at the highest difficulty level.

[debeest]

There are many tools for making your people happy and for keeping them from being unhappy, some of which are described above. You probably know most of them. But there are tricks to the game that are not explained anywhere, and here is the one that answers your question:

A city cannot use any luxuries beyond two per citizen.

The manual doesn't tell you that, and neither does the Civilopedia or anything else.

So, in your size-25 city, any luxuries beyond the first 50 have no effect. If you grow to size 26, then 52 luxuries can count; and so on.

This has many important implications. One is that your civilization (the nice one that you have going, where you have plenty of trade and Wonders and city improvements) is never going to crash out of unhappiness; your big city is never going to be unhappy unless you turn your luxuries down low. That's because every time you grow, introducing another initially-unhappy citizen, you will also gain useful access to two more luxuries, which will content that new citizen. No worries!

A second major implication is hinted at by Bloody Monk above, when he refers to "growing through the odd-number population points." If every citizen in a city starts out unhappy (which is typical if you're playing at the higher levels and you have a middling number of cities), then each citizen needs four luxuries in order to change from angry to content to happy. So, to make half of your citizens happy in order to celebrate and grow, you need 4 luxuries each, for half of your citizens. (4 * 1/2 Citizens) is equal to (2 * Citizens), which is exactly what the game allows you to use. So, if your city has an even-numbered population, your city can grow via WLTD. For example, a size-ten city needs 4 luxuries times 5 citizens, or 20 luxuries -- and a size-ten city is allowed to use 2 * 10 = 20 luxuries. BUT!! An odd-numbered-size city has a problem, because it actually needs majority happy, not just half happy. So, a size 11 city needs 6 happy citizens, for which it needs 24 luxuries -- but 11 * 2 = 22 maximum luxuries available, so the city cannot grow through WLTD. It's stymied unless it can grow via food -- at which point it becomes an even-numbered size and can then grow once more via WLTD.

There are several ways around this growth problem. One is happiness wonders -- Hanging Gardens or Cure for Cancer, which make an extra citizen happy, solving the odd-number problem. Another is a courthouse, under democracy, which again creates an extra happy citizen. But the powerful secret is outraged citizens -- blackfaces. This is another thing that is not explained anywhere in the manual or Civilopedia. Outraged citizens go directly from outraged to happy with just two luxuries. It makes no sense -- it takes multiple steps to alter their attitude via martial law, city improvements, or contentment wonders, so why can they be bought so cheaply with luxuries? -- but it works in your favor. If you build enough cities so that the first citizen in a city is outraged rather than just angry, then that citizen becomes happy with just two luxuries, not four, and the odd-numbered city glitch is solved.

One more implication of the usable-luxuries limit is that you can't use luxuries to convert the other half of your citizens from angry to content. You've already used all of your usable luxuries to make half the citizens happy, and there are no usable luxuries left to satisfy the malcontents. So, no matter how many luxuries you generate, you'll usually have to satisfy those other citizens with city improvements, contentment wonders, etc.

[Bloody Monk]

@debeest
Beautifully said, as usual!! It's great to see you again.
Monk

[defrancoj]

Best explanation of this phenomenon ever. After ten years I now finally get it .

[debeest]

Why thenkyew!