Tiny thoughts

[Denis de la Rive]

If I may comment on happiness, I think you are on to something here. I've played Tropico and can say that this is a worthy problem to add to the game. This might be a way of making the game more difficult for those who need a challenge. I think that modifying the buildings is not the best choice, it involves so many mods.

I think that some of the buildings happiness functions can still be justified if examined carefully, the TP for instance can be seen as a giving access to the larger world, and breaking the sense of isolation. I also think that some of the vanilla features are justified by the limited number of buildings available in that version, (there has not been any new structures added to the basic game). Think of it as a sort of vestigial function of the un-modded game.

I haven't seen the code but modifying that rsc is most likely easier, and can provide the best results with the possibility of customizing the values accordingly, and having it applied to the whole as a consistent system. Its also better since it gives a clear choice to the player, rather than messing with their favorite buildings, imagine it as something like climate choice.

Modifying happiness, and making it relevant is something worth looking into. 

[kid1293]

Posting the numbers from vanilla citizen.src for the discussion.

   float _maxHappiness = 10.0;
   int _minFoodForHappiness = 4;
   int _maxFoodForHappiness = 12;
   float _happinessUpdateInMonths = 3.0;
   int _workForHappiness = 10;
   float _unhappyLevel = 0.6;
   float _depressedLevel = 0.25;
   int _idleRange = 25;

min-max food can be changed, if they are as Tom suggests -
number of different sorts of food.

workforHappiness could be made cruel. Set it to 20 and let the slavery begin!

unhappyLevel - ? is this number absolute or percentage ?
depressedLevel - same
both could be rised to make it harder to stay happy.

I'm sure idleRange can be useful but right now I don't understand it.

[Nilla]

I like the thought of making happiness (and health and clothing) a more important thing in the game.

My oppinion is that, the large number of buildings, that brings happiness is not the real problem; it´s the impact of happines/health/clothes on the gameplay.

It´s such a small difference in efficiency between a person with 5 stars and no stars at all. The unhappy person idles a little bit more, but you hardly notice the difference.

The same with health; The only thing that´s different about an healthy person and a very unhealthy one, is that the one with the poor heath, makes an occational brake from work to visit the herbalist. It takes a while and of cause he doesn´t produce in this time. If you have no herbalist, he just makes a brake of a few seconds, than back to business as usual (so if you play strictly on efficiency; never build an herbalist).

A third thing, that have no big impact are clothes. As long as the temperature is above ~3 C ther´s no difference at all between warm clothes and no clothes at all. In winter there´s just a small differens. If I remember it right. A person with warm clothes doesn´t need to get home to get warm at all, a person with wool coats once each winter and a person without clothes 2 or 3 times. I studied it in a normal temperature. In the cold Nordic winter it will probably make a little more difference, but still not enough to my taste.

I blogged my investigations, if you want to take a look. http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=1021.0

[kid1293]

I might as well give the first answer I have. (I've read the blog. Very good!)

It seems as those 3 (happiness, health, clothing) are put there for some minor
impact on the game, without being too demanding to the player.

It should be interesting to know the mechanics in the game files that Luke made.

I wonder if changing the values in Citizen.src really can change the game very much.
It is certainly worth a try. I'm busy modeling right now so I leave for now but
I will return to this as it is something we live with in the game, but we don't have control.

[Tom Sawyer]

Yes, Nillas experiments on living people are very exciting.^^

I don't understand all these numbers, too. I try it...

Min and max food defines a range of the required food diversity. I have no clue how it works exactly in the game but I suspect that higher values will decrease the happiness a bit. Needs testing. If we can push down this level to about 3 stars, churches and the tavern or more food diversity would have a more noticeable effect. To say: Yes... I build this impressive church for impressive building costs and my people are really happy because of it.

UpdateInMonth could be changed to 1. Just to have the effect more promptly and noticeable.

WorkForHappiness sounds like an idling "worktime" when unhappy. Then it could be increased to have more impact.

UnhappyLevel. I also think it is 0.6 of maxHappiness (3 stars). DepressedLevel is between 1 and 1,5 stars. I think it's right if they are unhappy on 3 and depressed on 1 star. I don't know if unhappy is on 3 stars or below.

IdleRange could be the radius for idling in tiles. Probably no need to change this.

With these different types of happiness (I count 5)... I don't know what an effect they have. It seems that not all types are necessary to reach 5 stars.

To health. There is another important effect of unhealthy. The chance of sickness is increased. Maybe it could be more significant.

These coldness level values in the citizen.rsc I don't understand. It needs testing with different values but probably there is not really a need to change coldness.
At least not in the North.

I would like to make some tests with more required food diversity and with this work penalty. To find a balance for more usable happiness buildings.  I want a crayfish party with a real effect.^^

[Denis de la Rive]

Some ideas:

float _maxHappiness = 10.0; This could refer to what appears as stars, so if changed could add a greater gradation in the numbers, at present appears to be .5 star. So if increased could be counted at .33,(15), or .25 (20) adding greater depth to the system.

   int _minFoodForHappiness = 4;
   int _maxFoodForHappiness = 12; These have to be linked in some way with the flags used to define types in goods rsc. 4 must refer to the usual groups protein, grain, fruit, vegetables, the rest to luxuries and/or health.

   float _happinessUpdateInMonths = 3.0; I agree this refers to time between checks, changing it will increase the impact of buildings and shortages. Probably a good thing to start with.

   int _workForHappiness = 10; This could be like maxHappyness and refer to the amount of time they work if happy. I'm not sure how this can be changed, its difficult to see what more could do, except lead to problems staying alive?

   float _unhappyLevel = 0.6;
   float _depressedLevel = 0.25; I think this has to refer to the number of stars that define these states, ie 3 and 1.5.

   int _idleRange = 25; Could this be an amount of time the idle last in absolute days?

Mostly in agreement with Tom.

Too bad Luke has not documented what these numbers mean.

[Nilla]

I read the latest entries of this thread this morning and some things puzzles me: I don't understand anything from modding, the codes, and how they are written, but I'm not sure you are right, assuming that food variety has an impact in the happines. I have never seen that; not even in the game, as they had only proteins to eat. If it has any effect, it's very minor.

I decided to make a little test. It turned out to be much more interesting than I thought and I have a load of screenshots I want to share.

I have noticed, that if you start a Nordic game on impossible, the happines goes down at the beginning. I wasn't really sure why, you can't see it in other games, so I supposed it had to do with having no house/ no clothings/ bad food in the cold, a combination of one or more of these influences.

I started a Nordic game and decided to give my people only meat (and maybe fish) to eat and see.

Protein1

Of cause the health gets down. A little faster by the people without homes. On some people (with or without homes) the happies gets down a little bit (½ or 1 star) I've marked the people in the house with X.

Protein2

Here I've built a small city hall and you can see the graph. Everyone was happy after they got clothes. You can see these time periods very clear. The steps and the time are set. The same for happines and health.

Next experiment. Back to an early save. This time they also get fruit and vegetables from the woods, but no clothes the first years.

Clothes1

Happiness and health gets down in the same steps as in the first game. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the temperature. If they freeze or not in their rags; the reduction of happiness is the same the whole year. The health of the people in the houses is way better, than if they live in the woods. Like in the first experiment; house or no house doesn't influence the happines.


More to come.

[Nilla]

Back again.

This time they all get a house as soon as possible, no clothes, fruit, vegetables and proteins to eat.

Longexp1

In 2 of the 3 houses a baby is born. (the first family already had 3 children). No big surprise if you think of life, but in this game I really was; the parents of the baby were happy!

Longexp2

The new parents regained all their stars, the others adults and all children became only unhappier and unhappier......

Longexp3

.....until there were only ½ star left. But time went on and here the next surprise; children who became adults regained some of their stars. And remember; there never was a clothing in this settlement.

I decided to improve the health. Herbalist and trading port built.


more to come....

[Denis de la Rive]

Thanks, very interesting indeed, only adds to the mystery of how happiness works. It does show that items other than food must be referred to in the FoodforHappiness formula. 

Saw your second post, (while writing this), even more interesting and a clear demonstration of what 4 refers to, 3 foods = unhappy since no clothing. I suspect the increase is adulthood is due to having a functioning tool, which means 3 food + tool = 4! I assume you have tools, but no herbs or ale, these should also have an impact. With this we can start to see how increasing the value of minFoodforHappiness can definitely make the game harder. 

Nilla, you don't need to understand code to make interesting comments, I can only read it, more or less, after a while you end up understanding the language. 

We are in the dark because of Luke's choice not to explain these technical aspects of the game.

[Nilla]

Here I have reordered the menus; the families together.

Longexp4

I decided to build one big house and see if there's a difference, if  many babies are born. I also let one of the young adults move into the spare house, in order to see what happens to young people, when they move out. And surprise, surprise; he became a very happy young single man.

Longexp5

Now, almost everyone is very healthy. Can anyone see how happiness and health could be related to eachother? I can't.

I was pleased to see that the daughter of the unhappy couple moved out. They will soon have a baby. I guess, that they will be happy, too.

Longexp6

Yes, I was right. Now, every parent of new born babies are happy. But also the youngest children. Can anyone explain why the youngest: Alle, Danning, Wintoney are happy. Their siblings Migdalen and Nett both born into a house are not. The original children are most unhappy. The one in the first house the most.

And remember; still no clothes.

More experiments to come....

[Tom Sawyer]

Testing Queen! Have not studied all details of your experiment but there are some interesting things. Events in their lives have the biggest impact and they love good clothing. I think, the min max food for happiness means the foods (apple and pears...), not the types (grain and fruits...). 12 makes no sense for the hard coded 4 types. I made a test too, but I'm a bad tester. No patience. In the first years with only 1 food (potatoes) in the barn and modded minFoodForHappiness = 12 instead of 4 there was no effect. 5 stars. Of course the health dropped down and I gave them herbs to stay healthy and to eliminate an impact to happiness. To early to say whats happen with this food for happiness but probably it is not a way to simply press down the happiness level. Look forward to more results of your tests. It seems you have fun with these methods of torture.

[Nilla]

I let the game run most of the day. It's a good "self runner". I really didn't plan such a long game, and since my last game, I have the proper time mod activated. Maybe this wasn't the best choice to investigate things fast, but I have a lot of time and nothing really unpleasant happened in the time I wasn't at my computer.

I decided to test foodvariety.

Longtest 7

Now they feed on only fish and a little reindeer meat. Health drops, happiness steady. Definitely not related to eachother.

Longtest8

I decided to finally give them some clothes. I have enough furs, so it should be a coat for everyone. But we all know the affinity to the professions of tailors and blacksmiths that uneducated have! Of cause, here, without attendance, they needed two furs for one reindeer coat, not enough for everyone. But as I saw the result, it's not so bad. We might see if there's a difference between those who had a coat and those who hadn't, when we change something else.

Anyhow. All unhappy who got a coat became happy.

trade3
A couple of years went by, all new reindeer coats went old and ragged. What happened? Will they turn unhappy again? No! None of them became unhappy! I was even mean and threw one family out in the woods to see if the house matters. It didn't. The only one that's unhappy is the guy who was unhappy before and didn't get any coat.

I discovered a strange bug (?) in the trade. I will tell about it in the Nordic mod thread, I think it belongs better there. It's the reason the menu from trade is open and the picture has another name.

[Denis de la Rive]

Nice testing, I'm so confused by this, I can't understand how the game can measure numbers for food if its not using flags. A simple number check? Other factors are at play, like clothing, or tools, but which and how? It also seems that age, (child/adult, student?) and family composition play a role. It could be that the publish code is only partial, and only refers to food. 

Again, more information as I write. 

This is even more confusing, which also means useful, so food is a factor, how, are the others also? Could the happiness of structures be a major factor, we know death without a graveyard is something that changes happiness.

I going to examine my current population, ( a well developed town), and see if I can find any differences. 

[Nilla]

There might be a point that they become more happy, if they have a lot of different food. I haven't tested it here, but the night is long........

@Tom Sawyer if you make some changes in numbers and want some tests, send it to me and I can test it. I think I have an analytical mind and as I said a lot of time, so if there's something to find out, I'll find it. I will not try to get into the codes and change things myself. I'm too old to learn such things. Even if I learned a little programming in the 1970s, as the programs had names like Fortran and Turbo Pascal. This is something completely different and I have no disire to get more familiar with modern stuff.

On with torturing my poor people and now really mean. Something more to confuse you @Denis de la Rive?

Longexp9

I now think this is wrong, but I thought this food parameter might have something to do with the amount of food. If they are short on food, they might get unhappy, even if they don't starve. Besides if some really starves to death (and we all know how hard it is to have little food without anyone starving to death) it might be interesting to study unhappiness and recovery again.

I changed the homeless family, because I guess that the homeless will starve first and if I want to continue this game, the young girls in the former homeless family might save the settlement.

Longexp10

I could keep the settlement close to starvation for quite some time without any deaths. I can say for sure; low food has no influence on happiness. After some time everyone of the homeless people died of starvation except one young man. As expected, he became very unhappy losing his whole family. He married a 15 year elder woman. Maybe it wasn't such a joy. Even if they became 3 babies, he hasn't shown any sign of improvement yet, still only ½ star.

There has been one accident; a falling tree. One of the younger men died. His mother became very unhappy. Here she has 2 stars but it fell to ½. The father wasn't unhappy at all. How do we explain this?

[Gatherer]

There has been one accident; a falling tree. One of the younger men died. His mother became very unhappy. Here she has 2 stars but it fell to ½. The father wasn't unhappy at all. How do we explain this?

Perhaps he was not the child's real father...