is there a happiness screen?

[lord of the mark]

Civ 2 had this nice little screen that told me WHY my pop was unhappy. It started with basic unhappiness - what the breakdown would be based on city size and number of cities - then added lines to show impact of troops acting as police (or away, for representive govts) effect of improvements, wonders, and lux.

Cant seem to find anything like that in SMAC. Did they really leave it out? Or have i just been sloppy in reading the manual and overlooked it? (Before anybody gets on my case about the manual, i have the shovelware version, so i have to use a PDF manual. which i find frustrating for a game of this complexity - and i dont care to spend more on paper and ink to print it out then i spent on the game )

[Archaic]

Open your base window and click on the Psych button. That simple.

[CEO Aaron]

The Psych display is immensely useful for judging when you'll need to build drone-control facilities, I recommend going through and checking it frequenly, especially early in the game when you're not allocating any revenue to psych. Also for a quick summary, you can toggle the base summary on 'F4' to show happiness for all your bases. This is often convenient to see the effects of changing psych levels in the SE screen 'E'.

Once I start spending money on psych, I'll try to keep as many bases in GA as possible, so I only check on the psych of a particular base when the drop out GA.

[Lazerus]

The little red guy a little to the bottom left of the minerals. Clicking on this guy implements happiness.

[Frankychan]

more like forces happiness in your cities.

[Static Universe]

Originally posted by CEO Aaron
The Psych display is immensely useful for judging when you'll need to build drone-control facilities, I recommend going through and checking it frequenly, especially early in the game when you're not allocating any revenue to psych. Also for a quick summary, you can toggle the base summary on 'F4' to show happiness for all your bases. This is often convenient to see the effects of changing psych levels in the SE screen 'E'.

Also, in SMACX, the psych screen is absolutely necessary to check due to a bug which misreports drones on the main base screen.

Notice the difference?

[Frankychan]

Bingo. Thanks Static.

This screen is probably the closest thing to a "happiness" screen in AC that you'll get. Basically, the more red guys you have, the worse off your base is. You can modify this by making your workers into special guys that will increase psych.

See in the pic above with the woman wearing the glasses? I'm not sure if you know, i assume you do, but that guy increases psych in your base. When you click on a worker (yellow framed) and want to change him, It'll say the new career you want them to do. Psych makes your population more happy and likewise, will reduce the chances of your workers from rioting in your base.

If your people do riot, it will stop production in your base. If the riots continue, they'll start tearing sh** up and destroying facilities. Furthermore, there's a chance that the whole base may change to a different faction.

It's good to check your psych screen every once in a while to make sure your population is at least tolerate of your policies.

Basic things to increase happiness:

Make some of your people Doctors, Empaths, anything that gives +(insert number) to Psych. This is probably the easiest way to prevent the dreaded Drone Riot.

Build Facilities to help with the drone problem. Hologram Theaters help as well as Recreation Commons (IIRC). There are other facilities that help with the Drones....but they escape me right now.

Make Police. Once you discover Non-Lethal Methods you can make police units. These units that are garrisoned in your bases will help out your Drone problem a lot. I tend to depend on these guys the most because (1)They are a unit (2)I like the idea of having tangible police to move around.

Nerve Stapling. That little blindfolded guy we were talking about? That guy gives out the order to your governor to round up all your rioters and just nerve staple them into submission. This is an atrocity so watch out. Unless you have repealed U.N. sanctions you don't want to do this. It also cuts your research productivity IIRC so that's a downer. I only use this when I can't manage the base no matter what I do and the sanctions are repealed......and only sparingly unless I'm fooling around.

Hope this helps and good luck with your Drone problems.

[Flare]

Also, there is a way to check the happyness of ALL your cities. Go to the base management screen & select population (?). (I am at work, so I am not quite sure where it is, but it exists. This ONLY displays what the base would show, so you may still have to check the base. Good luck.

[Mongoose]

That's slightly inaccurate, Flare. The Citizens panel on the F4 display shows the psych situation of your bases correctly. In effect, it is the summary of the bases' Psych displays, not the summary of the population panels on the main base screens.

[lord of the mark]

thanks to all - it should have been easy to find - i sometimes miss interface things like this. I will try it next time i play.

[Static Universe]

Is there any difference between the male and female citizens?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Nope but they sometimes change around if you mess with the readings.

I find that disturbing. But it probably makes sexual politics more flexible.

[Flare]

~Shrugs~ Hey, Mongoose. At least I was verring towards the correct area.