i find it very hard if not nearly impossible to get angry population and revolts.

[akinata]

hapiness you get from the first hapiness building is often enough. i never got into a situation where unhapiness was a problem. even after a negative spell on a city or managing a population who hate me because of some bad deeds against them. (minor malus of -6 happiness easily dealt with while being at -400 with the race.)

i often put some population working on happiness to get some free extra ressources anyway.
i feel like unhappiness malus via spells and bad reputation should be way more severe so it can be way more impactfull. right now it feel like a negligeable feature.

i could also see an event that reduce drasticly none mindless unit and city moral/hapiness. (like a psi wave covering the whole planet).

 

[Ericridge]

Good riddance to bs like that. I've played one map too many with two rogues spamming age of deception on enormous maps during aow3. It was torture. Until I killed those rogues. I don't want it if it means the ai won't suffer happiness penalities or know who to murder first. Emperor ai gets way too much happiness so they never cared about two age of deceptions running. They don't even notice it!

And anyone spamming age of deception should climb up to #1 on kos list for the ai.

Coincidentally that's why I never played as rogue. Their ultimate spell have no effect on ai lmao.

I refuse such happiness maluses if it means the ai gets the get out of jail free card.

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

While it is fun to be the one inciting revolts, it will be extremely frustrating to be on the receiving end. The bonus to operation strength from being allied is still in the game so you will be unable to do anything if an alliance of 3-4 extreme AIs decides to get your colony via happiness. The alliances are often seen in empire mode.
Like Ericridge, I still remember the pain of abandoning units when your city is targeted by -600 (rogue singe city spell) and -500 (warlords single city spell) happiness spells (we played 2 humans vs 3 teams of 2 AIs). Never again.

 

[akinata]

extreme is never a good thing. in aow3 it was sometime too much (diplomatic towers worldy debuff, insane rogue rituals.) but there was some cool effects to population unhappiness like being hated by a specific race, losing several battles or letting your leader dying.
but in planetfall it is nearly none existante. ("nearly", because you could still get some angry population in the case of capturing a city from a population who hates you without any happiness buildings. but thats quite rare and easy to fix.)
you could get rid of population unhappiness, you would not see the difference.

 

[Ethorin]

...how small are your cities? I regularly wind up needing to devote colonists to AVOID unhappiness.

 

[akinata]

between 12 to 22?
the thing is, i always put some population on hapiness making since the ressource bonus it gives each time they reach a new thresold is very good! it can even give free units.

 

[Melikat]

TLDR: Happiness shouldn't be a problem at any city size anymore with Residential Sectors.

(Assuming my math and information is correct)

Before Residential Districts (and without any outside sources of happiness) a city could support up to 49 citizens before the Happiness slots can no longer provide enough Happiness.

10 base happiness (and 2 base slots at 5 happiness per slot)
+6 from Recreational (+2 slots)
+6 from Botanical (+2 slots)

+2 per slot from Virtual Plaza (+5 slots)
+1 Slot from an Orbital Relay
+2 Slots from a Celestian Landmark (I'll ignore this)
+3 Slots from Elysium Parks (I'll ignore this for the most part)

For a total of 22 base happiness and 11 Happiness slots (12 with Orbital).

Which is 22+(11x7) for 99 Happiness (or 106 with an Orbital), 49.5 (or 53) respective citizens.

With Residential sectors at +3 each (+6 with 2) per slot that should increase from 22+(11x7) to 22+(11x13) for...
165 Happiness (82 citizens)
or 178 (89) with an Orbital relay
and 217 (108) with Elysium Parks.

I'm not even sure if it's possible to have that many worker slots!


Lets see... If things haven't changed since the last time I checked landmarks and exploitations...

18 starting slots (4-4-4-4-2)
+9 Happiness Slots (Buildings)
+5 Slots per standard Exploitation
+5 Slots per Orbital
+6 per Water exploitation
+6 slots for Lv3 Residential
+9 for a Gold landmark (on top of the Standard +5 for a total of +14)
+6 for Silver (^)
+2 for Bronze (^)
+3 for Bronze Water (^)

That suggests the absolute maximum with 4x Gold Landmarks would be...

18 (base) + 9 (Happiness) + (14x4) (4x Gold Landmarks) + 6 (Residential) = 89 Citizens or 178 Happiness.

Without any landmarks...
18 (base) + 9 (Happiness) + 10 (2x Standard Exploit) + 12 (2x Water) + 6 (Residential) = 55 pop (110 Happiness).

 

[akinata]

my point was that hapiness malus from spells and population hating you is too small to be a problem except in some very rare situation. but yeah residential sector makes hapiness management even easier.

 

[Melikat]

I agree. Unhappiness impact on cities is largely negligible and easy to avoid (while unhappiness on units is quite dangerous). I haven't actually had City Happiness issues since before the Tyrannosaurus Update (Feb-ish) where they rebalanced Pop growth and Happiness (and before then I'd sometimes cap my cities at 16 pop to avoid it anyway).

I don't know if City Happiness being a non-issue is a good or a bad thing. Having to search for a Heart of Blight in AoW3 to expand safely into Blight terrain was mildly annoying but there was also something charming about managing a blight-heavy start as a non-goblin/orc/Necro. Right now it feels way too easy and unimportant, but I agree with what has been said above that it would be worse if the AI were spamming ops every turn and crippling your cities.

"Incite Revolt" type spells could be interesting if they focused on spawning Marauders or converting some Militia instead of plummeting happiness? Or increase the effect but limit it to one instance per city?

 

[HousePet]

my point was that hapiness malus from spells and population hating you is too small to be a problem except in some very rare situation. but yeah residential sector makes hapiness management even easier.

Are you sure it isn't that the game is just auto-assigning citizens to Happiness slots, and therefore taking them away from being productive?

 

[akinata]

Are you sure it isn't that the game is just auto-assigning citizens to Happiness slots, and therefore taking them away from being productive?

no, i tend to manage my cities manually until i have too many cities to care for all of them.
also citizen in happiness slot are productive as they give extra stuff anyway. nothing is lost.

 

[HousePet]

also citizen in happiness slot are productive as they give extra stuff anyway. nothing is lost.

Only excess citizens in happiness slots give extra stuff. Be careful with that.

 

[Demonic Spoon]

I generally agree. Happiness in general feels like an unnecessary mechanic. I don't see what it adds to the game at this point.

 

[ufozhou]

with last update your city can fit more people which naturally ez to get angry. at same time DVAR have op to trade happiness to production and electricity. while your Opponents are able to cast op on your city

 

[akinata]

with last update your city can fit more people which naturally ez to get angry. at same time DVAR have op to trade happiness to production and electricity. while your Opponents are able to cast op on your city

never was an issue for me up to pop 24. i never have gone beyond that as game usually ends before.
yes i guess in a very big population city it can become a problem. but most of the time it isn't.