Happiness...driving me to dispair

[tbontob]

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

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.

[Baron Munchausen]

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 ]

[Q]

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.

[Q]

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!

[DirectorTsaarx]

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...

[geoschmo]

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

[Q]

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 ]