[Suggestion/Gameplay] I Miss Unhappiness

Ugh.  Good Riddance.  The constant need to build more and more "happy-buildings" which have less and less effect of appeasing the whiny populace is my least favorite part of Gal Civ, Civilization, etc.  Having planets go from happy to rioting because the population crossed some arbitrary threshold drove me crazy in GC2 - researching the next tier food tech could send half your planets into riots!

I'm OK in general with the idea of influece conversion of cities - that doesn't bother me (except that it's generally tied to the whole stinky happiness system.)   But in Elemental's post-apocalyptic world, culture and influence having such an effect doesn't really seem to fit.

I can't say I love the way happiness has been dealt with in the past, but it seems strange to me that your populace is perpetually subservient to you. Is there some other city maintenance/approval system in the game to simulate domestic issues? This isn't starcraft, we need at least something to represent the opinions of your populace. 

edit: by in the game I mean planned to be in the game. 

The idea of 'morale' for cities is interesting.  Losing battles as you say or say, or being sieged or the like should have an effect on your population's morale.  It seems to be inline with the idea of meaningful consequences.  We might have morale in tactical battles so it may not be that much of a stretch to add it to cities.  Like LintMan, the idea of happy-buildings/resources doesn't interest me but if city morale is done in ways organic to the other parts of the game (for example -- get sieged and lose morale with morale loss increasing as siege continues, if siege is lifted without much damage then a net morale increase for surviving, siege the enemy and all cities gain morale, relief force arrives then gain morale, etc.).

I always disliked the idea of city influence/borders and city flipping (a la civ4) when it was done to me, but I appreciate it being in the game and wouldn't mind something like it in Elemental as another option for 'conquest'.  Frogboy said this won't be implemented?

If it weren't by the fact that Elemental offers us a lot of other options, that would be certaintly a very serious and negative thing for me. Now, where do I find a modder that adds "a must have" feature like that?

*adds another casualty to the list*

I'm not against unhappiness in itself, but in civilization and partly in galciv2 the reasons happiness changed were just ridiculous. It was like reach city/planet lvl x and build happiness generator y z number of times. Quite boring and unimmersive.

I like the happiness in Empire:TW the most of all the games I've played. Where the mayor and stationed troops mattered more than some inns and brothels. If an enemy invaded the country it was nationality that mattered. So when I invade Russia they won't have to worry about happiness but that slowly drains over the years you are in Russia. The same thing goes for liberation, so if someone captures a city and the original nation comes along, the population gets the courage to revolt in the city. Winning wars and losing wars has a global change on the homeland only, which I find a bit weird.

I thought that whats prestige for?!

Positive prestige = people are happy = city grows

Negative prestige = people hate the city = people look for greener pastures.

It is much more streamlined, but i like it much more then Civ convulted mess.

It's not exactly it, Osiris, and, anyway, when in the current version do you have negative prestige? No one feels like building slums, really.

I would, however, have prestige be the "happiness" factor, too. Lower prestige = Easier to flip cities etc?

I think a morale system would be a good thing. You can call it prestige if you like, whatever.

It could be something as simple as higher prestige reduces recruitment costs of units and buildings as the people are more civic minded.

A happiness system is only good if it's implemented well. The only game I can think of that did it decently well is Dawn of Discovery. In it, the people only complain and leave your city if their basic essentials aren't met, like food and drink. But if you wanted the houses to upgrade, you had to make sure everything they wanted was in abundant supply (usually 90%+ satisfied for most things). This gave you a pretty big huge window where everything was okay. Arbitrary "this building adds 2 happiness" is unimaginative and boring. The "happiness" buildings in Dawn of Discovery were churches and taverns, and all houses in their range of influence were always 100% satisfied. Thus, you never had to had to build tons of churches because you had to add more happy faces since for whatever reason a large population gives you too many unhappy faces. You just had to make sure you had enough to be in range of all your houses, which makes much more sense.

This is the only kind of morale/happiness system I can see being okay in Elemental. None of this happy faces junk. Only things like "Well, a good church will help us grow and upgrade houses, so I'll build a church in this city and now I'm good" - which of course has much less of an impact in Elemental given that it's not a heavy city builder like Dawn of Discovery.

Conclusion? Population morale systems are most often poorly and artibtrarily implemented, make very little sense, and exist to provide more aggravation and "things to do for the sake of having things to do" without adding any fun to the game.

In this, they'd just be an extension of current game mechanics to allow peaceful resolutions to conflicts. It'd also mean that any outposts that you build along an enemy's influence (which can currently slowly eat into his influence unless he builds right next to them) will flip quickly and become his.

This was my take on something Frogboy said in the past. Think of Prestige as the "Standard of Living Index"

0-1 = Poor L0 Usually only exists in Hamlets that are just underway.

2-5 = Not bad. L1-L2 Enough Food and Housing. Perhaps some Pubs and Educational Institutes may be in place.

5-10 = Now were talking! L3-L4 Street parties, coin abounds, with places to spend it. Huge Festivities on honored days and Mansions and Villa's abound. (in the South end of Town at least)

10+ = Good Times Baby! L5 Golden streets, no taxes, all politicians have been eradictaed. Life is just too good to be true... LOL

Now if a L5 City somehow gets down to 2-5 levels, folks may start looking elsewhere, even to the cities of your neighbors.

Learn something new every (beta)day...

I sort of like this idea, as long as getting to these stages is somehow meaningful and not just building enough happy face structures. Beyond just faster population increase, though, there should probably be some incentive to try and achieve and maintain those higher levels (such as a production bonus of everything in the city, following the old cliche of happy people are more productive). I don't necessarily agree that people should start leaving at 2-5, since having enough food and housing and pubs and schools is a comfortable enough life, even if a bit basic. Might not attract hordes of new folk, but nothing that would make people leave in droves either.

The general principle of the idea, though, I can agree with if they decide to put in population morale. Still not really convinced that it's a needed mechanic, but that's more personal taste.

Streamlined?

Yeah, the personality has been streamlined right out the damn window from what I've seen so far. My cities in Civ, and my planets in GalCiv felt like things that needed to be taken care of. And it wasn't very hard to do so. My cities in Elemental have been feeling more like factories with each iteration of the beta.

Prestige -IS- only related to population growth. However, I like the idea that prestige suffers a penalty at each city level. If you don't have any prestige buildings in a level 2 city it won't grow (It gets -1 prestige, cancelling out the base +1). L4 and L5 cities could have much harsher penalties because of all the estates and mansions you can plop down.  And fyi it is possible to have a negative prestige from having an insane soverien sitting in one of your cities. Just try marrying someone and leaving all your kids in town. Har.

There was/is talk of having cities in close proximity between players that have vastly differing Prestige levels causing Population to move from one to the other.

That still keeps it in a relationship to Pop growth, it just may not be your City that grows, if folks like what they see across the river better. LOL!

Guys, i agree that prestige, as it is, is useless and boring. Thats because no negative modifications to it are in the game (ok, slums are in as proof of concept i guess) atm.

But we know buildings are able to give boni and mali to it and we know the sum can be negative. I believe that the gameparts that introduve negative numbers are just not in yet.

Buildings, spells, roaming monsters, quests, negative treasury etc. could all modify prestige in cities.

Also we are dealing with an Edn-of-the-World scenario here. As Joe Peasent even the worst city offers more security and comfort then the big wilds. So treashold should be pretty high.

jm2c

I miss taxes. Not my rl taxes, mind you, but in game taxes. To treat citizens as cows to be milked to the last drop of gold... It'd have impact in local prestige too!

In B2B was a building called Tax Office, which should include a negative prestige hit.

I personally can live with the existing implementation of Prestige without a happiness measure. I think it may be a little simplistic, and I'd have gone a different route if left to my devices; but a well understood simple system is better than an overly complex kludge.

That said, I would have made Prestige and Happiness separate but related constructs. Something along the lines of:

Prestige:

• Controls the population flow to/from your settlements the same way it does now.
• Impacts number of NPCs that "show up" at your door step and associated hiring costs.
• Is affected by 4 things:
  • Sovereign's reputation and charisma
  • City Population's happiness
  • City's facilities and famous NPCs stationed in the city (Still have people, buildings and achievements that drawn in spectators)
  • City's accessibility & infrastructure (number of roads, caravans, rivers, trade routes, etc.)

Happiness:

• Four Three basic things would affect denizens happiness.
  • Taxes: Change most income producing buildings/improvements from producing a fixed number of gildars to adding a % to city revenue. Then allow an over-all tax setting to be levied on your population (or by city). Over taxing adversely affects happiness...you are after all providing protection from a ravaged and dangerous world.
  • Sufficient Food & Drink
  • Sufficient Housing
  • City Safety: A city that is routinely attacked or where the local mod-squad frequently kidnaps and carries off your children in the middle of the night would suffer lower morale/happiness.
• Lower happiness (< 25% approval) adversely affects Prestige, but not vice-versa (low prestige doesn't impact happiness).
• High happiness (> 75% approval) positively affects Prestige, but again, not vice-versa.

EDIT: Better idea me thinks would be to have content citizens (> 50% approval) auto-build/upgrade their own housing.

I like your recommendations on how prestige works (more NPCs is a good idea - is that already in?). I would HAPPILY live without happiness though 

The current system works for me, and makes sense in-game as far as I'm concerned.  If people get unhappy and leave, fine.  If people get unhappy and start rioting, then my sov is gonna show up with a pair of ebbenwolves and two fistfuls of fireballs, and he's gonna be pissed.  Sort of a large incentive not to riot, in my opinion.

EDIT: How come we don't have prestige NPCs?  Wouldn't that make sense?  Like, a popular bard or artist or such.

I enjoyed happiness meters.

Like it in total war and liked it in MoM. Really got to try Civ game for once.

Basically build churches, good defense building, stationed soldiers, and entertainment to make everyone feel loyal/protective/happy/whatever

And when you do you can raise taxes without them causing a revolt. get more money that way.

Or you can risk raising taxes just for a few turns before they get angry and turn around and destroy a building or two. Whats wrong with this simple productive strategy?

Maybe this game can be different and use a different method to deliver this. But i think there should be negative impacts to what you do with your city, as OsirisDawn said.

Strategy FTW!!