Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

I have a question for the veterans of SE4

I am trying to figure out how happiness is calculated in SE4 Gold

The CD has a file called "Happiness.txt" which sets out the parameters for the increase/decrease of happiness on a empire wide, system wide and planet basis.

Basically it addresses the effects of the actions of the players on happiness

The problem is it does not establish a starting point. For example, I am sure the type of climate has an effect on happiness, yet it is not addressed in the file.

Can anyone help to direct me where I can get this info?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Climate affects Reproduction, not happiness. I _think_ that Deadly Climate might make the people riot, but that can only be attained by editing a planet in the map editor to have a deadly climate.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Hi Fyron:

I've put the results of my search in the form of a spreadsheet. Don't know how it will appear in this message...as the gridlines do not show up. I hope you will be able to see that the effects depend upon whether the race is "peaceful", "bloodthirsty" or "neutral". Anyways here itis:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">POPULATION HAPPINESS LEVELS
% Pop Anger Description Res Mod - % Population Happiness effects:
75 - 100 Riotiing 0% - Riot prevents any point generationfrom that planet
60 - 74.9 Angry 60 - If a planet riots for a sufficient time, it may rebel
45 - 59.9 Unhappy 80 - Rebellion changes the planet to a new owner
30- 44.9 Indifferent 100 - Happiness level modifies output of the planet
15-29.9 Happy 120 All values below are in 1/10 of a percent
0-14.9 Jubilant 140 Maximum positive or negative anger change is +-200

PEACEFUL RACE ; BLOOD THIRSTY RACE ; NEUTRAL RACE ;
DESCRIPTION EMPIRE SYSTEM PLANET EMPIRE SYSTEM PLANET EMPIRE SYSTEM PLANET
Positive
Natural decrease - Own Empire -20 -2 -50
Planet colonized -10 10 20
Ship - own in system/planet -3 -10 -5 -1 ----- -----
Troops - own - on planet -2 -2 -2
Planet captured - enemy -30 -50 20
Battle - Win -20 -50 -100 -150 20 20
Ship Constructed ----- -5 ----- -50 1 -----
Facility Constructed -5 ----- -----
New treaty - Trade -20 50 100
New treaty - Trade &amp; Research -30 50 100
New treaty - Military Alliance -50 100 100
New treaty - Partnership -100 150 100

New Treaty - None ----- ----- -100
Neutral New treaty - Non-aggression ----- ----- 100
New treaty - Protectorate (Dom) ----- ----- 100
New treaty - Subjugated (Dom) ----- ----- 100

Negative Homeworld - lost 100 100 20
Planet lost - own 50 1 20
Planet captured - own 50 50 20
Ship lost - own 1 2 2 2 2 1
New Treaty - War 100 -100 100
New Treaty - Non intercourse 50 ----- -100
New Treaty - Protectorate (Sub) 150 150 100
New Treaty - Subjugated (Sub) 200 200 100
Battle - Stalemate ----- 10 ----- 50 20 20
Battle - Loss 20 50 50 100 20 20
Ship - enemy in system/planet 5 8 2 5 1 1
Troops - enemy on planet 200 150 20
Population killed - 1 million 1 1 1
Plagued - planet 200 200 20
Natural decrease - Others 20 20 20 </pre><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I hope it is clear that there is no starting point, and I would like to determine that. Like... you have a planet, it is given a starting value, then it is modified by (and I still think I am right here) such things as climate. When we have a value for the planet, then the above factors in the spreadsheet come into play.

Hoping to find an answer...........

Yuck... it doesn't show up well...

This is a bit better. you can probably clean it up a bit more with another edit.
I'm not sure exactly where all the columns are supposed to be, but this looks right.

[ August 25, 2002, 20:57: Message edited by: tbontob ]

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Well I am far from completely understanding all about the happiness in SE IV, but I believe the starting point for a new colony is "happy" and I have never seen an influence of the planet condition.
Also I am very uncertain which events are acting only on one planet, which on a system and which on the entire empire. E.g. I believe the loss of population decreases the happiness of all colonies in the system where it happened.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

On PBW, losing colonies has an empire wide effect on happiness and I beleive that's the way it should be. If an alien race starts killing off millions of people, the general population is not going to be to thrilled with their leaders lack of protection.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Hmmmmmm.....
I don't think I am making myself very clear.

This is what I think is happening in the game...
1) The computer assigns a base "happiness" depending upon certain factors (which is what I want to know). I believe climate to be one of them.
2) The computer modifies this base to reflect the players actions. So, if population is being killed off, then the planets happiness will be affect by 1 point per million killed. Empire-wide happiness and-system wide happiness are not affected in this case.

Now, let us say we start a new game...

Our home planet is given a starting "happiness" by the computer.

This starting happiness (1 above) is modified by the game depending upon what the players do (2 above). The factors that determine what modifies the happiness in later turns (2 above) is shown in my spreadsheet which was obtained from "Happiness.txt" on the SE4 Gold CD.

So, what I would like to know...is how is the base determined (1 above). Everything else follows once that is determined (2 above)

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

I do not believe that planetary conditions have any effect on happiness. It is not listed anywhere and in experiments it does not seem to be occuring. You can start several games and the homewolrd conditions will vary, but as Q says the pop always starts out happy. Conditions do effect reproduction rates though.

That being said there are some things going on that are not obvious from the happiness.txt file. Because if the only things affecting happiness were listed in the text file then if you had a defualt race they should start and stay happy forever, unless something happens that is listed in the file. That is not the case. A default race will start happy and go to indiferent on turn 3 every time if you don't build any ships in the first two turns.

You can raise your empires happines characteristic and delay the change to indiferent, and I assume if you raise it high enough you may be able to get your empire to go jubilant without doing anything.

What's wierd is there is supposed to be a natural decrease over time that should make your race happier, it's listed in teh text file, but that doesn't seem to be working.

As far as a base, I guess it would be in the range of happy, cause that's how your race always starts.

Geoschmo

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

I always thought the natural decrease was a tendancy to become unhappy over time. Isn't this what drives the planet to indifferent on turn 3 with no other events ?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not if the values in the text file are consistant. Negative numbers make your population happy, and positive ones make your population unhappy. The natural decrease is a negative number, hence it should make you happy. It's almost like there is another hard code number that is atually a gradual increase that is being factored by the natural decrease. Because as I said you can raise your races happiness characteristic and cause the indifferent stage to be delayed. Noramlly it takes three turns, but when I raised happiness to 5% it takes 7 or 8 turns to turn indifferent.

Geoschmo

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

BING! Lightbulb moment!

The natural decrease is exactly that, a decrease. It is subtracted from your current happiness level, instead of being added like all the other happiness factors. So a negative number for natural decrease makes populations unhappy(because subtacting a negative is adding), while a negative number for everything else makes your populations happy (because adding a negative is subtracting). Kind of a goofy way to do it. But it reminds me of the combat to hit defense values that were so confusing to me before too.

Thanks for triggering taht little thought process Gravey.

Geoschmo

[ August 12, 2002, 18:59: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

I agree with what you say, but the term natural decrease makes me wary. Is it a double negative? I.e. if the natural decrease is the amount that is taken away from the happiness level each turn then a negative natural decrease will raise the hapiness score and thus lower the happiness level. Who knows? That was the only explanation I could give to why starting planets went to indifferent with nothing apparantly happening.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

heh heh

you were just ahead of me there!

:-)

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Yep, I tested it. Made the natural decrease a positive number and homeworlds stays happy for about 8 turns and then goes jubilant. Dang, no wonder it's been so confusing trying to figure this happiness stuff out.

Geoschmo

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Very interesting Geoschmo. Thank you for this explanation.
Did you test what happens if the colony starts angry? Because the negative natural decrease lowers as far as I observed the happiness level only to indifferent and I have the impression, that if you start at angry then it will improve the happiness until again indifferent is reached. But I might be completely wrong about this. However if you use your test model with a positive natural decrease the happiness should go to riot when you start at angry if I am right.
And have you any idea what the "Natural Decrease for Other Races" does??

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

I don't know of any way to start a race at angry. But regardless of starting point the change in happiness should always go one direction, either up or down. As far as I know it's a number between 0 and 100, and things that make it go up alwyas make it go up and things that make it go down always make it go down.

The natural decrease for other races is, I have always been told, supposed to be the natural progression for any populations you have that are not of your own. They are on your planet, but they are group of captured, or traded for people. I was always under the impression they got agry over time and your own pop got happy, but I am not so sure about that now. I need to test that some.

Geoschmo

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

I've always wondered what

Res Mod - %

means ?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

That is the modifier to resource production for that range of happiness.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

ah yes, of course it is. Thanks.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

It is not necessary that you have a new colony that is angry to test the effect. Just make any colony angry, remove all causes for the anger, don't do anything to improve the happiness and see what happens.
I modified some happiness types and gave them rather high (negative) values for the natural decrease (up to -60).
The effect was that I had most colonies in the indifferent state, but not angry or rioting as you would expect if the effect was the same all over the entire happiness scale.
What you say about the "Natural Decrease for Other Races" makes sense. Apparently the value of 20 is too small to give a clear effect, or my empire management is so good that it compensates more than enough: I have always many foreign races in my empire and they are jubiliant all the time! But as you said if we test it with higher values (and/or negative values) we should see the effect.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

The consensus appears to be that climate does not affect happiness.

If that is so... then why when I improve the climate of a planet, the people are much happier?

I think climate has at least 2 effects:
1) Population growth
2) Happiness, which in turn affects production (but not construction).

What do you guys think?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Climate does not affect happiness. The act of improving the climate might have an effect upon happiness, but the actual value of the climate does not.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Keep in mind the values in the text file are in tenths of a percent. So a -60 is only -6%. That's still a biug change mind you, but it is possible you are overcoming it with other stuff.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, the reason I am disagreeing with you is that I am not seeing what you are seeing. By "Climate" are you refering to planetary conditions? I have seen many different planetary conditions and the happiness does not appear to be affected by it at all. They always start happy and go to indiferent after a couple turns, regardless of conditions. The only affect the conditions has in my experience is that planets with poor conditions have a lower reproductive rate.

Geoschmo

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Yes... I use climate and planetary conditions to mean the same thing.

I guess what I have concluded from my games is that a change in climate (planetary conditions), does have an effect on the happiness of that planet.

However, this group, has had a different experience which is probably correct. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif If so, then it probably answers my question which started this thread...and that is that there are no factors which impact on the initial happiness of a planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

But then... here is another question

We start the game with a "happy" planet

Within a few turns, it turns "Indifferent"

The planet has not been affected by anything, except the 20 point or 2% natural increase in happiness.

So the question is http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif "Why the drop from the state of "happy" to "indifferent"?

Is something else going on?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

well, it is assigned happy but not necessaily a value at the top of the happiness range. Maybe 25%, so that 3 turns of 2% increases the number to 31% and an indifferent rating.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

on a related note, has anyone ever figured out how much the Urban Pac III gives you per turn ??

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It's in the Facility.txt file. 1 percent for level I, 2 percent for level 2, and 3 percent for level 3.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Gravey says:
----------------------------------------
well, it is assigned happy but not necessaily a value at the top of the happiness range. Maybe 25%, so that 3 turns of 2% increases the number to 31% and an indifferent rating.
------------------------------------------
Yes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Going to the "Happiness File"

The lower the "happiness number", the greater the happiness.

The natural decrease is -20 points

But this really translates into the statement "A natural increase of 20 points"

So all other things being equal, the state of happiness will decline with the increasing value of the "happiness number".

SE4 has a rather screwy way of doing things.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

No, it's not odd. 'Happiness' on a mass scale is lack of reasons for UNhappiness, that is, anger or fear. As the AI_anger file shows, what is really being measured is anger. The lower the anger, the better the 'happiness' of your population. It just sounds better to call it 'happiness' rather than 'anger' most of the time.

[ August 13, 2002, 01:27: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Did some tests about the "natural decrease" effect on happiness:
It seems indeed that a negative value drags the happiness to the indifferent state. If I plague a planet, the happiness level goes to angry but if I have a "natural decrease" of -200 it returns within one or two turns to indifferent and stays there. With a value of 0 however the happiness level remains angry.
What's odd is that I see no effect of a positive value for the "natural decrease" even at a value of 200.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Some more tests:
1.) I finally did see an effect with a value of 100 for the "natural decrease": An unhappy colony got angry and a happy one got jubiliant (all other values in the happiness file were 0!).
2) The "decrease to other races" does what Geoschmo has told us: a positive value (as in the unmodded happines file) makes foreign races in your empire angrier. However the value of 20 seems quite low and has little effect at least in the games I have played. A value of 100 gives drastic results and a value of -100 makes the foreign races jubiliant when your native race is at the edge of a riot!

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Just a quick thought: since the "Emotionless" trait keeps your population Indifferent, I think the "Anger decrease over time" is set up to move your population's happiness to Indifferent; in other words, the value is "subtracted" if your happiness is happy or jubilant and "added" if your happiness is angry or rioting. And nothing happens if you're indifferent...

I think this was addressed in another thread a long time ago, during a discussion of the emotionless trait...

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

That's an interesting thought Director, but it doesn't seem to jive with what I have seen, or what Q's detailed analysis shows. I think it's as we ahve already said, simply a move in one direction all the time regardless of starting point.

Emotionless races are simply emotionless all the time. They don't change either way. If you look at their planets, they say "Emotionless", not indifferent. It's not that they are nailed to a spot on the happiness chart, they are simply not on the chart.

Geoschmo

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

No Geoschmo in fact my result confirm what DirectorTsaarx said: the (standard negative value of the) natural decrease moves the happiness towards indifferent. If starting at happy or jubiliant a negative value will decrease the happiness, but if starting from angry or unhappy it will increase the happiness.
Sorry if my previous post was not clear enough but it is complicated!

[ August 15, 2002, 17:56: Message edited by: Q ]

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Hi guys:

I said this earlier in this thread:

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So I bowed to the massed opinion that climate has no effect on happiness, but wondered where I got this impression.

I found this in the game...the path being Help/Manual/Planets...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So is this an error or misprint?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Sorry guys...I did it again! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

I use climate and planetary conditions interchangeably. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

I should use the phrase "planetary conditions" rather than "climate" to describe the issue.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

But my question still stands...is there an error or misprint?

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have actually seen Deadly climate happen *randomly* once.

It was an asteroid belt (if we can't colonise them, WHY do they have conditions at all?). But it clearly had "deadly" conditions, and I hadn't used the map editor (at the time I didn't know there WAS one!)

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think that if you build a planet out of an asteroid belt, it will "inherit" the same conditions, but I could easily be wrong.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Hmmmmmmmmm....

So what I hear Q telling us about the natural increase/decrease in happpiness is:

If your planet is
a) Indifferent
no change in the happiness state of the planet.
b) Happy or Jubilant
-2% change in the happiness of the planet.
c) Rioting, Angry or Unhappy
+2% change in the happiness of the planet.

The above is based on how we mortals view happiness (i.e. the greater the percentage, the greater the happiness)

Using MM's viewpoint where sublime happiness is 0%, the arithmetic signs above would have to be reversed.

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I think that if you build a planet out of an asteroid belt, it will "inherit" the same conditions, but I could easily be wrong.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nah, created planets have random conditions. I've seen good and optimal.

You could colonize asteroids in SE3, and they were always harsh conditions, I guess this is just a holdover

[ August 19, 2002, 21:23: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

At the beginning of this thread I published a spreadsheet about the effect certain events have upon happiness. In particular upon an Empires happiness, system happiness and a planets happiness.

Being a green grasshopper, I had no idea how to set up the columns to ensure the figures would line up properly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Suicide Junkie was kind enough to edit my spreadsheet and line up the columns. He did a very credible job except for
Battle win
Facility constructed
Battle - stalemate
Battle - loss
Plagued - planet

Having learned how to edit, I have re-edited the spreadsheet to reflect the correct placing of the columns for the rows described above.

I think an explanation of the spreadsheet may be in order
1) I tried to arrange the factors in categories for a Peaceful Race in the following order:
-Positive effects on happiness
-Neutral effects on happiness
-Negative effects on happiness

2) I then added columns for Bloodthirsty races and Neutral races for comparison purposes only. So for these races, while the figures given should be accurate, they may be in the wrong Category. For example, a "Battle - win" for a neutral race is not positive effect but a negative one.

3) The Natural decrease - Own Empire is probably not strictly correct. Q did some extensive testing (see the end of this thread) and it would appear that there is a
-20 natural decrease for the planets which have a rioting/angry/unhappy population
0 (no change) if the population is indifferent
+20 natural increase for the planets which have a happy/jubilant population.
So, if you use the spreadsheet, you may wish to make these changes to it.

[Edit] Some of the cells have lines in them. These denote that one of the other races has an event which affects it's column. It was intended to act as a beacon or indicator.

Weeks ago, Suicide Junkie sent me an e-mail about the work he did on lining up the columns. I was very new and didn't realize he had actually corrected my posting.

My apologies to those who may have relied upon this spreadsheet to plan their strategy in their games.

[ August 25, 2002, 22:23: Message edited by: tbontob ]

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

ugh...this discussion makes my haid hert. That anger file STILL putzez with mah hed....oooooo

negative makes positive? positive makes negative......wheres the "in-flight illness bag"?

*Da path passes out*

Re: Happiness...driving me to dispair
 

Well... this chapter of my modding tutorial might help a little with understanding the happiness files: http://galileo.spaceports.com/~kazha...l#Chapter%2013