Happiness

[Grandpa Kim]

Originally posted by couslee:
1. How many troops does it take to affect a mood change?
2. Do the same happiness rules apply to surrendered population types, if no. How many troops required to affect a change on those planets?
3. How often does the game check for happiness modifiers? (I thought it was each turn, but if only at #.0 that might explain a couple of things)

1. Several factors here. When building your empire, the default happiness (100%) will keep you at indifferent under peaceful circumstances. If you raise it to 110% (or even less than that I beilieve) you can keep your population at happy. Adding UPC 3 (or racial equivilent) will take either case to jubilant, but it will get there sooner if you start with the higher number. I have never dropped happiness below 100% but I surmise it will be harder to keep your population happy. With all that in mind, it follows that the number of troops needed to improve happiness is a variable. A good rule of thumb is 100 troops for a quick fix, 50 for steady growth.

2. Alien populations move toward angry if you don't do something about it. Merely increasing you happiness to 110% will be enough. And UPC's even better. Likely it takes more troops to get celebrating too.

3. I believe the game checks every turn. Once I start building UPC's, happiness improves at a regular pace. A few turns after it becomes operational, the happiness moves up a notch.

Kim

[Q]

The happiness reaction of the captured population is identical to your original population with one important difference as stated in the happiness file:

Natural Decrease := -20
Natural Decrease for Other Races := 20

While your own population tends to go to an indifferent happiness state if you do nothing, the other races go to extremes: either to angry or jubiliant depending of the starting happiness level. So once you get the captured population happy they will easily get jubiliant, but if they are angry they stay that way unless you do something to improve the happiness like troops.

[ January 11, 2003, 18:56: Message edited by: Q ]

[Slick]

Originally posted by couslee:
well, the game shows you to be incorrect on that. One of my angry planets just went rioting. I did have 10 police troops on the planet, and 1 combat ship sentried in orbit. there are also 2 colony ships, but they just arrived the previous turn and are only passing through. Based on what your saying, the happiness factor should not be heading in a negative direction.
(The surrendered race in question is the Bobroba States if any is curious).
The only thing I can think of that would send this planet in a negative direction is my trade treaty with another race. Since the race description states "warriors" I am assuming they are bloodthirsty.

I am correct on that. Check your .txt files and you will find that having alien population on your planet will cause a happiness addition of 20 (which is in the unhappy direction) and each of your troops on your planet will cause a happiness addition of -2 (which is in the good direction) so 10 troops exactly cancel out the effect of alien population on the planet. That is the answer to the question you asked.

Now, for the reason why you still are having happiness problems. There are several other happiness modifiers which can be found in the FAQ which I stated before or in the AI happiness text files. Change is not instantaneous either and there is a maximum amount it can change per turn.

I am not.... repeat NOT, going to re-read a 50 page thread every time I have a question. I didn't get this game to read and re-read a thread for hours, I got it to play the darn game.

If you choose not to read the faq's out there, expect to not understand what is going on. This is a game that is complex and is not learned quickly. There are a lot of people who put in lots of time and energy doing testing and writing these faq's. It is organized with a table of contents so that you don't have to read the whole thing every time. And it is not 50 pages (yet ) If you are too lazy to look up your answers in a stickified post with a table of contents, then you might find that we might be too lazy to answer your questions. For the number of hours I have done testing and adding to the FAQ, I find this attitude insulting. And I have done far less than most of the veterans here.

Slick.

[Fyron]

Here's a great tip:

Never take the Neutral happiness type unless you want a really challenging game. Just about everything you do makes the people angry. In fact, Bloodthirsty is also not a good choice. With Peaceful, it is easy to be a warmonger and still have the people be Jubilant. A small racial happiness bonus works wonders.

I am correct on that. Check your .txt files and you will find that having alien population on your planet will cause a happiness addition of 20 (which is in the unhappy direction) and each of your troops on your planet will cause a happiness addition of -2 (which is in the good direction) so 10 troops exactly cancel out the effect of alien population on the planet. That is the answer to the question you asked.

Actually, it causes an increas in Anger levels, not happiness.

[ January 11, 2003, 19:37: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[capnq]

And as for the stickyfied newbie questions, I tried the search function and got a mess of crap. Even with the newbie thread, I would get (example) reply 257... but the replies are not numbered!. and I am not.... repeat NOT, going to re-read a 50 page thread every time I have a question.

You're using the wrong search function.

Go to the sticky FAQ thread, and use your browser's "Find (on this page)" function (usually ctrl-F) to find the FAQ's Table of Contents, then search again for the topic you're interested in. If the keyword you're looking for is in the ToC, search for the "case number" listed on the ToC.

If the ToC isn't on the first page of the thread, try the second page, etc. I've never seen the main body of the FAQ drop back further than the third page of the thread; you can ignore all the other pages.

[couslee]

Originally posted by Slick:

quote:

---

Originally posted by couslee:
well, the game shows you to be incorrect on that. One of my angry planets just went rioting. I did have 10 police troops on the planet, and 1 combat ship sentried in orbit. there are also 2 colony ships, but they just arrived the previous turn and are only passing through. Based on what your saying, the happiness factor should not be heading in a negative direction.
(The surrendered race in question is the Bobroba States if any is curious).
The only thing I can think of that would send this planet in a negative direction is my trade treaty with another race. Since the race description states "warriors" I am assuming they are bloodthirsty.

I am correct on that. Check your .txt files and you will find that having alien population on your planet will cause a happiness addition of 20 (which is in the unhappy direction) and each of your troops on your planet will cause a happiness addition of -2 (which is in the good direction) so 10 troops exactly cancel out the effect of alien population on the planet. That is the answer to the question you asked.

Now, for the reason why you still are having happiness problems. There are several other happiness modifiers which can be found in the FAQ which I stated before or in the AI happiness text files. Change is not instantaneous either and there is a maximum amount it can change per turn.

I am not.... repeat NOT, going to re-read a 50 page thread every time I have a question. I didn't get this game to read and re-read a thread for hours, I got it to play the darn game.

If you choose not to read the faq's out there, expect to not understand what is going on. This is a game that is complex and is not learned quickly. There are a lot of people who put in lots of time and energy doing testing and writing these faq's. It is organized with a table of contents so that you don't have to read the whole thing every time. And it is not 50 pages (yet ) If you are too lazy to look up your answers in a stickified post with a table of contents, then you might find that we might be too lazy to answer your questions. For the number of hours I have done testing and adding to the FAQ, I find this attitude insulting. And I have done far less than most of the veterans here.

Slick.

---

First, I am sorry you take my frustration with the forum search engine personally. I am NOT lazy!. I HAVE read the newbie thread, a couple of times. I also do a search any damn way, in spite of my dislike of it, before I post a new thread asking a question. You try a search for "happiness" and see how far you get. The newbie thread did not even list (I guess since it stops at 300 hits). I DO have a great appreciation for those that have contributed to the FAQs. Also, I am not expecting to learn this game in a day, that is why I ask questions.
That being said.

Second, My question was not regarding the effects of MY race choices on happiness, but of the race choices of a captured race. It would make perfect sence that the captured race would retain certain elements, like disliking treaties, even if the victor race is "peacefull". I only asked if that applied.

But, since the conversation went a different direction, I continued with it. Based on MY race setting (and yes, I read modding 101 also to better understand the different factors in happiness) there should be NO reason that the captured planet went from angry to riot that I can figure out. I had:
10 troops on that planet
3 ships in orbit (two colony ships, one combat)
7 additional ships (3 of which were colony ships) in the same system.
The turn prior to rioting, I had won 1 battle, and had 2 others that could have been construed as a draw, but I was establishing blockades. One of the draws was a no shots fired battle, the other was a defensives obliteration and blockade establishment.
I lost no ships, and facilitated the surrender of that other race (not the same race that went riot). This meant I was no longer at war with any race (once they accepted)
I had a trade treaty in place with another race.

My Race:
Culture: Science
Racial:
125% intelligence
125% construction
all others at 100%
Advanced traits:
Propulsion experts
Storage experts
Hardy Industrialists
Happiness: Neutral

That is the scenario. go figure why they rioted.

Capnq, thanks for that advice, next time I do a search I will try that. Because the forum one really ..... sucks. lol

[Phoenix-D]

My Race:
Culture: Science
Racial:
125% intelligence
125% construction
all others at 100%
Advanced traits:
Propulsion experts
Storage experts
Hardy Industrialists
Happiness: Neutral

This is why your people rioted. Neutrals HATE pretty much everything. The only thing that makes them happy is no treaty, non-intercourse, troops.

Yes, this means they get angry even if you win.

Phoenix-D

[ January 11, 2003, 23:04: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Fyron]

Captured population becomes identical to your native population except in 2 regards:

1) It retains it's atmosphere type.

2) It gets an inherent increase in anger levels, as seen in the happiness.txt file.

Nothing else (sadly) is retained by them (well, except their pictures, but that has no game-effects).

10 troops on that planet
3 ships in orbit (two colony ships, one combat)
7 additional ships (3 of which were colony ships) in the same system.

Those small numbers do not affect anger levels in any significant way. Get 10x as much, and you will begin seeing a difference.

[ January 11, 2003, 23:04: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Phoenix-D]

Working it out as best I can, from the happyness file:

10 troops on that planet

20 happyness

3 ships in orbit (two colony ships, one combat)

No effect.

7 additional ships (3 of which were colony ships) in the same system.

No effect.

The turn prior to rioting, I had won 1 battle, and had 2 others that could have been construed as a draw, but I was establishing blockades. One of the draws was a no shots fired battle, the other was a defensives obliteration and blockade establishment.

-60 happyness. -20 for winning, -40 for the two draws.

"I lost no ships, and facilitated the surrender of that other race (not the same race that went riot). This meant I was no longer at war with any race (once they accepted)"

No effect.

"I had a trade treaty in place with another race."

No effect unless the treaty was new, at which point you take another 100 point hit.

So your total happyness? -40. -140 if that treaty was a new one. For reference, the -max- happyness variation from turn to turn is 200 either way.

Phoenix-D

[couslee]

Thank you.

I had started this game (my first) before reading the challanges associated with the neutral choice. And was trying to play on with it instead of restarting the game with a different choice. I feel that is the best way to learn a game.

"neutral" sure is a crappy description of that paticular choice. I also think there should be other choices, but am not going to look for mods yet. I just want to play the basic game for a while (I did make a couple of text changes, namely increasing starting storage to accomodate the 100K starting setting, and bumped the recycle returns to 50%)