Happiness and Discontent

Happiness is a value tracked independently for each city. Cities gain or lose Happiness each year from various sources, and can also experience one-time increases or decreases. A lose of Happiness is called Discontent .

A new city starts with a Happiness Level of 0 and a half-filled bar (50/100). It usually loses Happiness each turn based on the Difficulty setting and other modifiers, decreasing this bar (with the change indicated in lighter purple).

When the Happiness bar empties (0/100), the city gains its first Discontent Level with a nearly full bar (/110) which will continue to decrease while the Happiness is negative. Each time a city loses enough Happiness (100 + 10*level), it gains a Discontent Level . Each Discontent Level increases city Maintenance and reduces Science by 5%. It also decreases the opinion of the city's family by 20.

When the city starts to gain Happiness instead, the Happiness bar increases (with the change indicated in darker purple) and its Discontent Level goes down until being again a Happiness Level 0, then gaining Happiness Levels at the same rate as for Discontent Levels (100 + 10*level). Happiness Levels increases city Growth and reduces city Maintenance by 5%.

A positive change of Happiness is indicated as positive Happiness (e.g. +60 ) while a negative change of Happiness is indicated as negative Discontent (e.g. -10 ).

Yearly changes to Happiness

• +2 in cities with Cathedral improvement with the Inconography law

• +2 in the cities of the Cleric family

• +2 for a governor with the Righteous trait

• +1 in all cities for a leader with the Righteous trait

• +2 for the Hagia Sophia wonder (requires Legendary culture)

• +1 for having at least one military unit from the city's family within its borders per wall, moat and tower

• +1 if your state religion is present in the city

• +2 / +1 per Pleased (opinion 100 to 199) / Friendly (opinion 200 or higher) religion present in the city

• +2 per Luxury sent to the city (+1 if it's a prefered Luxury for this city's family)

• +2 with the Monetary Reform law

• +2 with the Tolerance law per non-state religion in the city

• +1 for the Archive IV, Forum IV, or Treasury IV one-time projects (require Legendary culture)

• +1 / +2 for the Theater / Amphitheater improvements (Tier 2 /3 of the Odeon class improvements)

• +1 / +2 / +3 for the Cold / Warm / Heated Baths improvements

• +1 per Luxury sent to the city if your empire contains the Via Recta Souk legendary wonder

• +1 if the city is connected to the trade network

• Some event options add a Project that affects Happiness yearly

Yearly changes to Discontent

• -1 per missing urban tile; a city ought to have at least 1 urban tile per Citizens

• -1 with the Slavery law

• -2 for a governor with the Debauched trait

• -1 in all cities for a Leader with the Debauched trait

• -2 / -1 per Angry (opinion -100 or lower) / Upset (opinion -1 to -99) religion present in the city

• -2 if the city was founded by a different empire

• -2 or more if the city has lost any amount of HP (caused by enemy attacks, fixable with the Repairs project)

• Difficulty modifier, from -3 at The Able up to -10 at The Great

• Some event options add a Project that affects Discontent yearly

One-time changes to Happiness and Discontent

• +20/+40/+60/+80 respectively for the repeatable projects Festival I/Festival II/Festival III/Festival IV (requires Weak/Developing/Strong/Legendary culture)

• -10 each time a city is attacked

• -??? for hurrying production, depending on the amount hurried [NEED EXACT VALUES], if you don't have the Monetary Reform law

• Some event options add Happiness (with a positive value) or Discontent (with a negative value)

• Some event options directly increase or decrease Happiness or Discontent Level