How to manage happiness without piety?

[salilsurendran]

Hey Friends,
Had a couple of questions:
1. How do you manage happiness without going down the route of piety and forsaking rationalism? I am always struggling for happiness inspite of having almost every other resource in the world. I do usually build happiness buildings real fast but still during a war I capture about 3 cities and lo and behold I am down in unhappiness and since I puppet these cities I can't build any happiness building in them. Makes me wonder if it is better to annex these cities and build a courthouse in them?
2. I usually notice that even though all the time CS declare war against me when I capture two of them I end up getting a chain denunciation. Is this still the case after the patch too? I am about to capture my 2nd CS in the next turn in the current game I am playing?
3. Is there a pre-move option? The problem I have is that sometimes I click on a target for artillery before setting it up and lo and behold the artillery decides to move to that unit and attack it physically instead of doing a range attack. Is there a way to prevent this? Also sometimes I give a command to a unit to move to a particular tile which is just 2 hexes away and it decides to move half around the world since it is blocked by some entities? I usually do right click and then check the path before releasing the mouse issuing the command but if I find the path is not right how do I cancel it?

[Sunrunner]

3. Is there a pre-move option? The problem I have is that sometimes I click on a target for artillery before setting it up and lo and behold the artillery decides to move to that unit and attack it physically instead of doing a range attack.
When using artillery, I got into the habit of pressing the setup button then using the ranged attack button to execute the attack instead of trying to drag the unit's circle onto the enemy unit.

[cjvannette]

Happiness in a science game is challenging. I've never played a science game where I was NEVER unhappy, and I usually dip into "very unhappy" for at least a few turns. I just pray it's not during a war. I try to lean on social policies and wonders to get me through. Look at Monarchy, Meritocracy, Military Caste, Cultural Diplomacy, Planned Economy, the Freedom opener, and Protectionism. I will say that the danger in relying on Military Caste is that your happiness will drop during wars, and unless you hilariously out-gun your rival (which will NOT happen on difficulty 5+, even against a cultural civ thanks to the Tradition buffs), it seems that you can't let yourself become Very Unhappy during a war. Meanwhile, the Forbidden Palace, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower should be high on your wonder priority list.

I do not recommend annexing too many conquered cities, because social policies matter in a science game. I might annex one or two large-population cities in strategic locations, but only when I have a gold glut, so I can instantly buy them a courthouse, happiness buildings, and at least a monument and temple to soften the policy-cost increase.

Regarding conquering city-states, the other civs hate it when you do that. Either they want to do it themselves (Askia and Genghis Khan will basically always do it), or they want to keep the CS's up for their own benefit. You can initiate the conquest of one city-state without too much diplomatic repercussions. Two or more and people get pissed.

Regarding movement, always check the pathing the game is giving you before committing. You can do this one of two ways. You can either click the "move" button and then hover your mouse over various tiles, or you can hold down the right mouse button and drag it -- but DO NOT let go of the button until you drag your cursor back to the unit's current tile or to a tile that's blocked.

[SignalNoise]

Admittedly, I usually favor Piety over Rationalism in most of my games. However, in a game where my civilization was unhappy prior to me even being able to get the social policy that reduces unhappiness, I discovered the key to keeping it in check: Population control.

In short: Don't build any food-producing buildings, or have your population work any food-rich tiles (set the city to emphasize production and build stuff that adds happiness) until you're sure you have a good amount of happiness to grow (I'd say maybe +10). Then let loose with anything that encourages growth.

Now admittedly, I'm a guy who likes to build "tall" empires as opposed to "wide" empires, so this method works if you limit yourself to around 6 cities you try to build up all the way, as opposed to spamming as many settlements as you possibly can across the map - I haven't tested the latter yet.

As for conquest and happiness: Simply put, if you don't have the happiness to support global domination, you simply can't. End of story. I know it's sometimes necessary to conquer everybody else's city because they decided to pick a fight with you, but unfortunately if those extra cities you just snatched is making your population unhappy you have to ditch them ASAP. This means either razing them to the ground, or trading them to the highest bidding civilization. Don't get rid of them right away, though, because it helps to have your borders extended just long enough for all your units to heal up. After that, do with those problematic cities as you wish.

So, basically, if you ever do go to war and you have low happiness, you have to limit your objective to pounding the other guy until he asks or accepts a peace treaty, as opposed to gobbling up every city he's made and keeping them for yourself. They'll usually get the message if you wipe all their units off the map and maybe take a city or two.

Also, on the subject of city states: If they declare war on you then your objective should simply be to make peace with them as soon as you can (as someone mentioned above, though, conquering 1 is okay. 2 or more is not). A sure way to do this is to get a peace treaty with whatever civilization they are allied to. Then you can immediately click on the city-state they are allied to and make peace with them on the same turn. Of course, getting a peace treaty from their sponsoring civilization is the main problem (see above).

[Skunkone]

Happiness in a science game is challenging. I've never played a science game where I was NEVER unhappy, and I usually dip into "very unhappy" for at least a few turns. I just pray it's not during a war. I try to lean on social policies and wonders to get me through. Look at Monarchy, Meritocracy, Military Caste, Cultural Diplomacy, Planned Economy, the Freedom opener, and Protectionism. I will say that the danger in relying on Military Caste is that your happiness will drop during wars, and unless you hilariously out-gun your rival (which will NOT happen on difficulty 5+, even against a cultural civ thanks to the Tradition buffs), it seems that you can't let yourself become Very Unhappy during a war. Meanwhile, the Forbidden Palace, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower should be high on your wonder priority list.

I do not recommend annexing too many conquered cities, because social policies matter in a science game. I might annex one or two large-population cities in strategic locations, but only when I have a gold glut, so I can instantly buy them a courthouse, happiness buildings, and at least a monument and temple to soften the policy-cost increase.

Regarding conquering city-states, the other civs hate it when you do that. Either they want to do it themselves (Askia and Genghis Khan will basically always do it), or they want to keep the CS's up for their own benefit. You can initiate the conquest of one city-state without too much diplomatic repercussions. Two or more and people get pissed.

Regarding movement, always check the pathing the game is giving you before committing. You can do this one of two ways. You can either click the "move" button and then hover your mouse over various tiles, or you can hold down the right mouse button and drag it -- but DO NOT let go of the button until you drag your cursor back to the unit's current tile or to a tile that's blocked.

Really? every game I have played for a culture or science win are the games I keep happiness high and never have a problem with it. However I play in small empires and idk why everyone else seems to have a problem with it but 3 cities is enough to keep me on pace on everything but immortal...

[salilsurendran]

I took my 2nd CS Warsaw and then my ally Arabia denounced me and then a string of 4-5 civs denounced me. I had research agreements with all of them. After some time Gandhi declares war on me cancelling their research agreement. My financial and research center is very close to the indian empire and a little far from my main empire thought well connected and well defended and supported by a great general.. Gandhi attacks me with about 25 units, 7 of them artillery. I fend them off though the city came very close to falling, I barely kept it in my hands with artillery units. The city is surrounded by 5-6 units of infantry and cavalry all badly wounded and in red. I don't kill them because unless they move new units can't directly attack my city and I keep attacking new units with artillery fire reducing them to red. On the other side I take back a city that the chinese empire had take a 100 turns ago. It had two happiness resources keeping my happiness at about 7. So I am thinking I might do well here if I can keep my financial city. Lo and behold the civs that previously denouce me declare war against me cancelling their research agreements and trade agreements. All of a sudden I am at -10 happiness surrounded by enemies against whom I am fighting with a -33% penalty. I buy a circus in the newly captured town to remove the penalty. After a couple of turns of fighting Gandhi's artillery attack manages to bring my cities defences to yellow. Still there is no infantry unit that can take the city because all units surrounding me are red. One of those units heals completely and takes my city. This is one tactic that the AI uses quite often it keeps a low red unit near the city and then heals it completely. In this game both the chinese and the indians took cities from me this way. I wonder if this is some kind of cheating which they are doing or it is just a clever strategy to take the city. Most human player would immediately reheal the unit fearing that city bombardment might kill the unit in the next turn. On the other side China launches an air and artillery attack on my newly captures city and I lose the city and the great general in the process. On the other hand I get two free technologies via rationalism social policy in the next turn and I can select 'Flight' and 'Combustion' giving me powerful fighting units, but I am so f****** frustrated that I quit the game. The AI definitely ganged up on me after I captured Warsaw. Warsaw and Singapore declared war on me what am I supposed to do bribe them gold to defend myself? This is just not fair, if one empire declares war on the other there should be no diplomatic penalties on the defending empire. Is there a mod that changes this stupid denouncements for defending myself or is there a way to make this change? I wish there was an option to turn off these f**** up denouncements.

[cjvannette]

Also, on the subject of city states: If they declare war on you then your objective should simply be to make peace with them as soon as you can (as someone mentioned above, though, conquering 1 is okay. 2 or more is not). A sure way to do this is to get a peace treaty with whatever civilization they are allied to. Then you can immediately click on the city-state they are allied to and make peace with them on the same turn. Of course, getting a peace treaty from their sponsoring civilization is the main problem (see above).
You can INITIATE the conquest of one CS without significant consequences. However, if a CS attacks YOU (because their allied civ attacks you), you can conquer them freely. At least that's how it's worked in my games.


Really? every game I have played for a culture or science win are the games I keep happiness high and never have a problem with it. However I play in small empires and idk why everyone else seems to have a problem with it but 3 cities is enough to keep me on pace on everything but immortal...
I tend to go for a medium-sized nation when playing science. I build 4-5 cities and then take 4-5 more from my neighbors. Never tried science with a small empire. I'll have to give it a go.

[salilsurendran]

I never ever initiate an attack on anybody not on CS or on other civs. No what you are saying that you are penalized only if you initiate an attack is untrue. My problem is that irrespective of whoever initiates the attack after you takeover the 2nd CS there is chain denunciation. The funny thing is that I was fighting a war against China and Warsaw with my ally Arabia and at some point Arabia sues for peace and pledges to protect Warsaw. So I have really good relationships with Arabia having a common enemy, trade and research agreements. But he is the first one to denounce me followed by others? Is there mod to fix this broken diplomacy.