New to the game and I have a question
 

If you take the advance char Emotionless, does that makes your happiness stat null and void?

BTW, GREAT GAME!!
I Was heard about it on the MOO3 and the gal civ forums. I was reading a lot of It would be so much better if it just had 'X' like SE IV.

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

Taking Emotionless makes it so your population remains "Happy" at all times. Presence of enemy ships or losses in wars won't make your happiness level drop down; thus keeping your planets building and those ships pumping out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But it isn't worth the 3000 points to take it. You can easily keep the population happy by building Police Troops on all your planets.

To find out more about Troops look at the Newbie FAQ stickyfied at the top of the forum; it also handles just about everything you can think of. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Oh, and welcome to the forums! You ask a question and it will be answered usually withen 20 minutes.

Edit: I took the liberty to look this up for you in the FAQ. It will tell you how you can keep your planets happy and free of Riots. (Which is basically what Emotionless does.)

12.1 Riots & Riot Control
12.1.1 The following things can increase happiness on a planet: ships in the system, ships in the sector, urban pacification centers, troops on the planet, winning a battle, colonizing a planet, capturing an enemy planet, (sometimes) new treaties, building ships or facilities.
12.1.2 Since the number of troops matters for happiness, not the strength, someone suggested making small troops with just a cockpit to use for use as “riot police.”
12.1.3 A homeworld will never riot.
Their anger will go up but it maxes out at 80% (where 100% is required to riot
But, if the HW is glassed, then recolonized, it can then be capable of rioting, as it is no longer a HW. (Slick, Imperator Fyron, Aaron)

[ May 22, 2003, 22:46: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">RATS! Rags beat me to the punch! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Welcome to the club. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[ May 22, 2003, 22:49: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

The reason I asked is I am already in the middle of my first game, and I took emotionless and an extra 5% in happiness, and I just wanted to know if that makes my 5% invalid. If so does the flipside apply? If I had -5% and taken emotionless would the -5% affect the gameplay at all?

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

No, it wouldn't. So if you go emotionless you might as well reduce your happyness as much as you can.

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

If you take Emotionless you can pretty much take your happiness trait all the way down to -50%. Adding any points into this area is nullified by Emotionless. Since you have emotionless then no % INcrease applies to your empire. Decreases only apply in saving you points in that area, as emotionless will keep you at "happy" no matter what your point are set to.

Hope that helps. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Edit: Got beat this time. I typed too much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 22, 2003, 23:03: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Somewhere on this forum there is a post that says how many troops have to be present to trigger the police effect. Wasn't it 11? I'm not sure though

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I forget what the number is. I'm sure Fyron or someone else that remembers will let it be known shortly. Once it is known then it should be added to the FAQ as it will prove to be useful in these situations.

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

I don't know for sure what the impact is but if you need it quick I belive 60 will take you from riotting to Happy in one turn.
In genearl I can go from Indifferant to Jubelant if I produce 16 units every turn for 3 turns.
Hope that helps

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

It also matters what else is going on to influence Happiness, and I say that from experience. With no negative effects applied, it takes very little to increase happiness. The effect, taken from happiness.txt, is this;
Our Troops on Planet := -2
It does not say exactly how many troops are required. Someone else can do the math, my brain hurts today.

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

This is what you are thinking of:

7.2.9 Captured population (by any means) loses all of its racial attributes and is identical to yours except they retain their atmosphere breathing so can be used to populate your colonies appropriately AND they slowly get unhappy over time so you need to account for that so they don’t riot (riot police, upc, etc.).The positive happiness effect of 10 troops of any type will exactly cancel out the negative happiness of having alien population on a planet.

Not really the answer to the question at hand. The key (as stated by Gandalph) is that each troop adds 2 happiness points. You can read through the happiness.txt file to find values for all (or at least most) of the happiness modifiers.

Slick.

Re: New to the game and I have a question
 

To make it explicit, a police troop is a small troop with only a cockpit (or filled with electric discharges for organic races). They are not for combat, only for being as cheap as possible so you can get as many as you need on a planet built in the shortest possible timeframe. Small troop with 3 electric discharge IIIs costs 120 min and 90 orgs, whereas a small troop with only a cockpit costs 120 mins. So for organic races, you might as well throw in the weapons as a backup measure. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I do not know how many troops you need exactly. 1 troop will give a happiness bonus, though not much of one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Generally, 30 troops are not enough to have an effect when real anger increasing events happen (planet glassings, lots and lots of ship losses, even when winning the war overall!). 60 sometimes help, but normally only on worlds deep within your territory where there is a lot of construction going on (mostly of ships by that point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) and when you are only suffering relatively minor losses. 90 will keep the planets jubilant most of the time, except in the face of grave losses. 120 will keep them jubliant in nearly all conditions that are not leading up to your absolute destruction. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I measure in Groups of 30 because that is the smallest number I am usually able to build per turn on planets with SYs when I end up paying attention to happiness (16 at planets with no SY). I rarely get into early wars, and that is only when I am the one attacking in a guaranteed victory, so I don't really pay much attention to police troops in the early stages of the games. It only takes at most 4 turns to get planets with a SY with enough troops to guarantee jubilant population, after all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Planets never riot in the span of only 4 turns (at least, I have never seen them go from jubilant to riots in just 4 turns). There is a maximum increase in anger levels per turn, after all.

You can not figure out exactly how many are necessary because there are too many variables to take into account. But, just keep in mind that over 100 usually seems to do the trick. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 23, 2003, 08:59: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]