How do you cope with unhappiness in Civilization 5?

Does anyone else have a problem with an insane lack of happiness in their empires?

It's so bad for me that I looked at social policies solely based on their happiness, but the few that do add happiness are tacked on things like resources and universities and trade lanes, which are slow to come by early in game (and even later, the population grows way faster than they do).

In war the AI sometimes gives up and hands over like 12 cities at once for peace (which I'd be stupid not to take), and even kept as puppets my unhappiness plummeted to -81 at one point (big map....) and I had to spend a lot of gold to quickly build the few happiness structures in the few towns that I didn't have them in.

So how do you do it? Do you limit your settling? What about conquering civilizations? Is there a trick to it or all I can do is speed-research coliseums and theaters and that other building?

Solution 1:

In war the AI sometimes gives up and hands over like 12 cities at once for peace (which I'd be stupid not to take)

I think your conclusion here may be false. If those cities are going to drive your happiness into the ground, it may not be in your best interests to take all of them at once. There is no magical wellspring of happiness that will allow you to absorb an unlimited number of enemy cities into your empire without repercussions.

Use the following methods to increase happiness:

• Build courthouses in captured cities. This negates unhappiness from occupation.
• Get as many luxury resources as possible (by building the appropriate improvements on their tiles or through city-state allies). Look for resources just outside your borders and consider purchasing those tiles. Plan new city locations with an eye toward where you can get the most luxury resources.
• Build happiness-producing structures: Circus, Colosseum, Theatre, Stadium, and Burial Tomb if you're Egyptian.
• Build happiness-producing wonders like Hanging Gardens and Eiffel Tower.
• Get social policies (there are many) that work with your existing empire to increase happiness. Look at how they generate happiness, and find the ones that match your style of rule. Don't try to change your whole empire just to eke a little more happiness out of a social policy.

In addition, use puppet cities to your advantage, and don't overextend yourself. If taking all those cities is going to cripple you, it may not be worth it. Is a vast, dysfunctional empire better off than a slightly smaller, functional one?

Solution 2:

Have you considered leaving cities as puppets for a while?

Unfortunately, you will have take the cities with your military rather than taking them in a trade for peace. However, if a Civ is giving you a dozen cities for peace, chances are you have them beat and taking the cities will not be a problem. And for your trouble you get:

• Puppet cities do not cause nearly as bad of unhappiness as an annexed city.
• Since you have to take the cities with units, you'll get the cities a lot slower, and spread out the impact on your happiness. Thus more time to react.
• If you really want to control each city, you can annex them later. However, you can spread out the effect even more by annexing them one at a time, building a courthouse, then annexing the next AFTER the first is happy and useful.

Solution 3:

Managing happiness is one of the biggest challenges in Civ. V.

Step 1) Realize that unhappiness is inevitable. Cities will grow until unhappiness stunts their growth. Therefore, always be on the look out for ways to increase happiness.

Step 2) Luxuries are a major source of Happiness, especially during the early to mid-game. Be sure to mine, quarry, or build a plantation on every luxury within your empire's borders, and choose new city locations based on their proximity to new luxuries.

Step 3) Explore and meet your neighbors. Each individual type of luxury only gives your civilization the same +4 happiness, i.e. having 2 sources of silk does not give anymore Happiness than just having 1 source. However, if your neighbors have excess luxuries of their own, you can swap different luxuries giving each nation an extra +4 happiness. Word of warning, if the luxury listed has a one in the parentheses like this "(1)", then it is the nation's last bit of that particular luxury. AI civs will be very loathe to part with it and their price will go up.

Also, I have never seen the AI iniate an offer to exchange luxuries. The player needs to routinely check the diplomacy menu to see if any nation's have excess luxuries you might trade. Sometimes, you can pay several hundred gold in lieu of offerring a luxury of your own.

Step 4) Save your pennies to bribe City-States. Bribing city states have a lot of benefits, including extra food and culture. Now, if that city state is an ally, then also share their strategic resources and luxuries with you. So, browse the Diplomacy menu to see which City-States have luxuries you do not. This is a great way to pick up extra happiness.

Step 5) Build Coliseums, Circuses, and Theaters. These buildings take a long time to build, but are ultimately one of the few ways to garnish happiness on a widespread level. I mention these buildings for their economy, they give the best amount of happiness for the gpt maintenance.

Step 6) Control expansion. If your Happiness is already at 2 or 3, there is no room for another city until Happiness goes up (an exception might be made for a city that adds a new luxury to your empire). This also means do not acquire enemy cities when your happiness is already low. Since there is a Happiness ceiling on expansion, a player should only acquire enemy cities that are worth keeping in the long run. Otherwise, they should just be razed without ceremony. If necessary, a settler can always be dispatched to reclaim the location under more advantageous circumstances.

Step 7) Annex cities 1 at a time, and immediately build a court house. Puppet cities can be annoying with their tendency to build Barracks and Arsenals when they cannot build military units. Yet, an Annexed city will provide more than double than unhappiness as a normal city (at least 6 unhappiness plus population*1.2). Keep in mind that is on top of unhappiness it creates as a normal city. There are a lot of benefits to annexation, the process just needs to be planned out so as to not stifle the nation.

I did not discuss any nation specific buildings or strategies, but there are out there. India in particular gets a significant reduction to unhappiness caused by population.

Solution 4:

Concerning the empire becoming too large, you have to adapt yourself to the situation. Here's an example from a game I played:

In 220 BC I had 27 towns. I was playing on a huge continent, with 18 empires, on the longest time rate.

My continent was huge, the biggest of all three and I'd attacked and conquered all 5 civilizations that were on my continent. I had 5-6 cities on my own, with 21 puppets. You can't know how large this is without seeing it. As I'd captured lots of workers, I built lots of roads: when you have 20 workers and your Roman legion building roads, this is fast and your cities become much easier to defend. Since I knew I was now alone now on this devastated continent, I didn't need much defense. I could just work on my town.

It's worth mentioning that the game's happiness balance is a bit wonky, which is probably the cause of your "insane lack of happiness". Puppet cities don't produce much unhappiness: it's the people in your other cities that are the cause. For example, in my case, I had lots of gold tiles and all the possible luxury resources besides three(whale, pearls and ivory). I had 5 cotton tiles and 3 silver tiles, but they don't contribute any happiness after the first tile. It would be nice if they at least provided something.

With all six of my cities, I bought or made a Colosseum and a circus if I was able to.

Actually, I'm now at 1720 AD in the timeline and the only thing I did so far is work on happiness. I'm at 40+ town's (I made a new one to cover all land space) but the basic problem is that as soon as I got few happiness points, the town grew up another tier and I went back to negative. All my research and social branches are concentrating on happiness.

When I got the +20% happiness bonus, I had a huge jump from -3 to +12. Then when I made the Forbidden Palace, I went to +30 or so. This is when I started to annex all my puppets. Now that these cities are no longer puppets, they are mine and I'm producing buildings all across the continent. This is hard to keep up: one turn my income is +60 gold, the next it's -20 (this is an exaggeration, but you get the idea), but overall this is worth it. This is especially true during a Golden Age, where I go to +350 gold per turn.

Also, as a result of having all the maritime neutral allies, my food bonus is awesome, meaning my town grew up pretty fast. I see the other empire's best town has nine people; for me, nine is the average of all my towns, including my latest.

My army is still composed of legions and cavalry. I haven't ever needed to create a new one since the last two empires are far away and I only need to kill barbarians moving around. As for tech, I'm about to discover Tanks! In the year 1750, I'll be producing tanks, and I don't think their little gunmen will be of any match.

So overall, it depends on your surroundings. Can you balance lots of towns over short periods of time? If so, you're going to be pretty powerful. I'm about to reach 1500 points. I don't know how good that is, but if I look at the best computer with his 25 towns, he doesn't even have half of this.