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Happiness is a new yield and mechanic introduced inCivilization 7that can have serious stakes for the success of your empire, depending on how you use it. Whether you’re new to the franchise as a whole or just to Civilization 7, it’s important to keep your population happy so that they can remain productive.
But, how exactly does happiness work? If you want to build an empire that’s sure to stand the test of time, you’ll need to understand how this yield works. This guide has everything you need to know to understand how happiness works and how to use it to your advantage.
What Is Happiness?
As mentioned above,happiness is a new resourcein Civilization 7 that can affect many things in your empire. Like many other resources available in Civ,happiness functions as both a local and a global resource.
Details
Global Level
As you earn happinessacross your empire, you’ll hit a certain happiness threshold. Once you do this,you’ll earn a Celebration, which can grant you certain boons.
Local Level
At the settlement level,happiness is used as a resource to maintain specialists and buildings, which can be affected by war weariness and other debuffs.
This means thateach settlement generates happiness, which contributes to your global yield. Additionally,certain aspects of your empire cost happiness.
To see how many turns it will take for you to earn another Celebration, based on your overall happiness yield,click the Social Policies iconin the top left-hand corner of your screen.
Ultimately, your goal is, of course, tokeep your happiness yield positive and reduce low happinessin individual settlements.
How Does Happiness Work?
Though, on its face, happiness is a relatively simple resource,happiness can affect a lot of different aspects of your empire, so you’ll need to manage it carefully to keep things running smoothly.
To see a full breakdown of your happiness yieldacross your settlements and empire,click on the happiness iconin the top left-hand corner of your screen.
Here’s a breakdown of how happiness worksacross various gameplay mechanics. you’re able to find additional details about these processes in the Civopedia in-game.
Production & Construction
In settlements,constructing buildings, tile improvements, and more can increase or decrease your happinessoutput.
Introducing Specialists into settlements costs happiness, but will earn you other buffs to certain yields depending on which tile they’re placed on.
Resources
As you begin to use Merchants to trade, and create tile improvements, you’ll earn access tocertain resources that can boost happinessas well.
Army Commanders
Producing andstationing Army Commandersin settlements can also affect the settlement’s overall happiness yield.
Tech & Civics
Researching different tech and civicsin your respective trees can unlock new structures, buildings, units, and more thatcan affect happiness.
How To Increase Happiness
As mentioned in the above table,there are many different ways to increase happiness levelsin settlements. Here are a handful of the fastest, most efficient ways to boost your happiness yield.
Different resources and buildings have different effects on happiness across each age. Head to the Civopedia in-game to see how these effects might change across your campaign.
How Does Unhappiness Work?
At any point in your campaign,ifyour local or global happiness yield slips below zero, your empire will begin to suffer consequences. Here’s a breakdown of these consequences for each level of play.
If a settlement has a negative happiness yield,each point of net local unhappiness will incur a -2 percent penalty to any other yieldsin that settlement.
This negative happiness does not get added to your global happiness yieldwhen it comes to earning Celebrations. However,you’ll want to avoid this debuff to your yields at all costs.
Additionally,settlements whose unhappiness gets highenough will begin to feel unrest, and potentially riot and damage structures.
If your happiness is low globally,you won’t earn as many Celebrations.
Becauseearning a Celebration is key to unlocking more Social Policy slots, this will severely hinder your empire asyou won’t get access to as many policiesthat can buff or boost other yields, like Science, Production, and more.
If you have tutorials toggled on, or at least have your Advisors toggled on, they will alert you when certain settlements have sunk below your target happiness threshold.
Ultimately, when it comes to happiness and mitigating unhappiness, you’ll want tomake sure you’re taking some time every few turnsto either allocate resources, put happiness buildings in the construction pipeline, or station an Army Commander nearbyto prevent the consequences of unhappiness.
