Happiness Analysis

[vondrack]

With the deterioration of our relations with our main luxury provider, ND, I felt it's time to find out what our future options are in the happiness department were - this a revised and enhanced analysis I had once posted in the GA thread. My goal is to find out the maximum city population we can reasonably expect to satisfy with what seems to be pretty limited luxury imports.


Happiness Analysis

Game is being played on Chieftain. That's 4 citizens born content. All citizens beyond the fourth one are born unhappy. We have one luxury of our own (dyes). This luxury generates one happy face, making one of our content citizens happy:

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content
C03 ... born content
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01

J. S. Bach's Cathedral decreases the number of unhappy citizens on the continent by 2 per city (generates 2 content faces). Thus, we have:

C01 ... born content; made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content
C03 ... born content
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01

Every large city will undoubtedly have a temple, which generates 1 content face:

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content
C03 ... born content
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01

Sistine Chapel doubles the effect of our cathedrals - instead of just 3 content faces, they generate 6 content faces:

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content
C03 ... born content
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01

Fortunately, our cities are highly productive and we will be able to equip them with colloseums, which generate 2 content faces.

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content
C03 ... born content
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, made content by colloseum
C15 ... born unhappy, made content by colloseum
C16 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01

Means that a city equipped with a temple, a cathedral, and a colloseum can grow to pop 16 with no imported luxuries. That's a pretty good news - all we need is pop 20, as higher pop cities are not much more useful than pop 20 ones (no tiles to work for the extra citizens).

Now, as long as there is peace between us and the rest of the world, we can reasonably expect others (GoW, GS, and ND) to trade one of their luxuries for our dyes. That's 3 luxuries (2nd, 3rd, & 4th) undoubtedly benefitting from that the city is equipped with a marketplace - total of 1+2+2=5 happy faces:

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #1
C03 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C04 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, made content by colloseum
C15 ... born unhappy, made content by colloseum
C16 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01
C17 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C02
C18 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C03
C19 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C04
C20 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C05
C21 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C06

Now, is this not great news? Our cities shall be able to operate at their maximum fully usable population (20) even if we only get 3 imported luxuries from GoW, GS, and ND (one from each). I believe it's reasonably safe to assume they will keep trading, as our dyes bring them something like 3-4 happy faces, while their luxury only provides us with 1-2 happy faces.

We will not enjoy WLTKDs, but that's something we should be easily able to do without - it was much more important to have WLTKD everywhere when cities were producing under 20spt that it will be to have it once our cities generate 50+spt. It's worth pointing out, though, that with Sistine Chapel, our cities are able to grow up to pop 12 and still remain in WLTKD, provided they have a temple, marketplace, and cathedral.

So, what all this means - once our current plentiful luxury supplies from ND dry out, our cities will need the following structures (assuming we are still able to trade for three imported luxuries):

under pop 12 ... marketplace only

C01 ... born content; made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #1
C03 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C04 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C07 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01
C08 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C02
C09 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C03
C10 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C04
C11 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C05
C12 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C06

pop 13 ... temple, marketplace

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #1
C03 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C04 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01
C09 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C02
C10 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C03
C11 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C04
C12 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C05
C13 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C06

pop 14-19 ... temple, marketplace, cathedral

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #1
C03 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C04 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01
C15 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C02
C16 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C03
C17 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C04
C18 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C05
C19 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C06

pop 20 ... temple, marketplace, cathedral, colloseum

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #1
C03 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C04 ... born content, made happy by imported lux #2
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by imported lux #3
C07 ... born unhappy,. made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, made content by colloseum
C15 ... born unhappy, made content by colloseum
C16 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C01
C17 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C02
C18 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C03
C19 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C04
C20 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C05
C21 ... born unhappy, balanced by the happy C06 (RESERVE)

Obviously, once we are attacked and lose (probably all of) the imported luxuries, we will have to use the luxury slider - though early in the war, we will only need to get the maximum of 5 happy faces through the luxury slider - that will be more than covered by setting it to 10%.

[vondrack]

Now, what does all this mean for our build queues:

a) cities past pop 6 must have marketplaces
b) before building hospitals, cities need at least temples
c) cathedrals will allow cities to grow up to pop 19; they will be enough to keep them in WLTKD up to pop 12
d) colosseums are only needed to allow cities to grow past pop 19

So, our general build queue regarding population/happiness improvements should be:

a) no later than at pop 6 -> marketplace
b) at pop 6 -> aqueduct, where needed
c) no later than at pop 12 -> temple, cathedral
d) at pop 12 -> hospital
e) no earlier than at pop 18-19 -> colosseum

Basically, it does not matter whether we build a hospital before a cathedral or vice versa - works both ways, so the abovelisted order is more reflecting our inability to build hospitals yet than the real necessity to have those cathedrals everywhere.

[Jon Shafer]

Radek, I must say you make the bean counter in me happy I'm still watching this game.

[vondrack]

Does anyone know for sure what kind of WW-happiness we're going to benefit from after being attacked? Under what conditions?

I believe we should make careful arrangements to prevent our cities from rioting or not finishing their builds due to having to use specialists on the first turn of war... just that I am not sure about WW-happiness at all. I know it does exist, but that's just about it...

[vondrack]

BTW... if I am not mistaken, then even with no WW-happiness we'd be able to handle 1 lost luxury import easily - only Jackson would need a specialist. Two lost luxury imports would be worse, but still manageable with just specialists, it seems. Losing all imported luxuries would be a no-brainer: 10% lux slider.

[vondrack]

OK, so I went to Google and over to that site and searched for info on war weariness/happiness. Have a look at the linked article, it sums the issue quite nicely, I'd say.

Considering the info there, I believe we have little to fear in terms of unhappiness. As we have not been in a war (save some 1-turn fake wars) yet, we are going to start at -30 war weariness points after being attacked (-30 wwp per every civ that attacks us, that is). That should be enough to balance wwps from units being attacked on the first turn of war (2wwp per unit attacked).

Having negative war weariness, however, is going to make us enjoy war happiness, which means 25% of our population will become happy.

Now, let's have a look at the happiness in our cities. First, a table showing population and happiness improvements for all of them:



And now the happiness situation after the war breaks out and we lose all three luxury imports:

up to pop 7
assuming no happiness improvements at all

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by WH
C03 ... born content
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C01

up to pop 9
still assuming no happiness improvements at all

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by WH
C03 ... born content, made happy by WH
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C01
C08 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C02
C09 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C03

pop 10-11
assuming just a temple in the city (all our pop 10+ cities have temples)

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by WH
C03 ... born content, made happy by WH
C04 ... born content
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C01
C09 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C02
C10 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C03
C11 ... born unhappy

So... this shows we are going to have a problem with pop 11 cities that are having a temple only - Farmerville, Castlea, and Port Hammer. These would riot. Fortunately, Port Hammer comes first in the city sequence at the beginning of the turn... Port Hammer would riot, but we would be able to rearrange F'ville and Castlea, so that they would lose a wee bit of output, but would remain quiet.

Unless we run real tight with our research (and those ~20 lost beakers from Port Hammer make a difference), I believe this is something we could live with... and since we know this would be a problem if we planned our research too tight, then we just keep it in mind and better plan for a reasonable research overshot.

population 12-15
as shown in the table, all our pop 12+ cities have a temple and a cathedral

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by WH
C03 ... born content, made happy by WH
C04 ... born content, made happy by WH
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C01
C15 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C02

No problem there, we are even having one happy face in reserve.

population 16-19

C01 ... born content, made happy by dyes
C02 ... born content, made happy by WH
C03 ... born content, made happy by WH
C04 ... born content, made happy by WH
C05 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach, made happy by WH
C06 ... born unhappy, made content by Bach
C07 ... born unhappy, made content by temple
C08 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C09 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C10 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C11 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C12 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C13 ... born unhappy, made content by Sistine/cathedral
C14 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C01
C15 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C02
C16 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C03
C17 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C04
C18 ... born unhappy, countered by the happy C05
C19 ... born unhappy

So, we'd have a problem in pop 19+ cities (for pop 20, the situation would be the same: 1 extra happy face, but 1 extra unhappy citizen, so still 1 unhappy citizen not taken care of)... but that's only Legopolis and Red Bricks at the moment, and those both have a colosseum, turning 2 unhappies into contents. So - no problem here either.

Conclusion

As shown above, we can actually safely ignore the problem of lost luxuries, because save three rather unimportant cities, it will be sufficiently balanced by the war happiness boost. Thus, we do not use lux slider until we are attacked. (but we use it immediately afterwards, as on the second turn of the war we may easily suffer wwp enough to lose the war happiness bonus).