Playing for a Diplomatic Victory, Part 2

So, how do you solve a Happiness problem? For a full discussion, you can check out this section of the Civilization Wiki. In Civilization V you have these options:

• Trade for luxuries – Luxury resources are the best way to get a quick hit of Happiness, and trade is the best way to do this quickly. But to trade you have to have met the other civ, so my drive to explore pays off here. Every luxury resource I can obtain adds +4 Global Happiness to my Empire. Note that only the first unit of the resources adds happiness. So if you have multiple copies of a luxury resource you should keep one and trade the others if you can.
• Buildings – Buildings like the Circus (+2), Colosseum (+2), Zoo (+2), and Stadium (+4) provide local happiness in the city that builds them. That still gets added to your total happiness number, but local happiness can never exceed the size of the population. So if you have a city with 5 population, building a Circus and a Colosseum might make sense, but building a Circus and a Stadium would not since 2 of the Happiness would not count. Buildings take longer than Trade deals, so if you need a quick hit start with trading for Luxuries.
• Wonders – Chichen Itza (+4), Notre Dame (+10), Taj Mahal (+4), Eiffel Tower (+5), Neuschwanstein (+1 for every Castle you have), Prora (+1, plus +1 for every 2 Social Policies you have adopted), and CN Tower (+1 per city). Wonders are even harder to build, and you may not get them since you are competing with other players. But there is a National Wonder worth getting, the Circus Maximus (+5)
• Social Policies – Every policy tree has policies that can add to Happiness or decrease Unhappiness, which is just as good.
• Natural Wonders – Each Natural Wonder grants +1 Global Happiness to each empire that has discovered it. So again exploration is key.
• Mercantile City States grant +3 Global Happiness to each Empire that is at least Friends with it.

So you have a lot of options here, and they are listed in order of how you should pursue them. Trading for Luxury Resources can be done quickly and provide an immediate boost, so you should be actively trading all along. Buildings and Wonders should definitely be pursued, but here you will probably be balancing demands for other investments as well. Natural Wonders are nice, but you need to explore the whole map to max that out. I was able to trade one of my Whales to Patchacuti for one of his Ivory, which helped push my happiness up. Then with Askia I traded one Spice for one Copper. I also made a small gift to the City-State of Manila to make them my ally. Once 5 turns have elapsed, I can take them over via Diplomatic Marriage. And I have started on Colosseums in several of my cities to push up my Happiness further.

Meanwhile I continued my exporations, and became the first to discover all of the the other Empires in the game. This makes me the host for the World Council, which is good for one additional vote. I will keep exploring since there are probably some Natural Wonders out there worth finding yet. And indeed on the next turn I found Mount Fuji, pushing my Happiness to 24. Then I Puppeted Manilaa, and over a couple of turns it dropped to 18. But a Colosseum got built, and I found a Natural Wonder,so I am back to 21. I am not the leader in this game, and I think I can afford to Puppet another City-State. For now I am avoiding doing this to Mercantile City-States since they can add to my Happiness. But there’s lots of City-States in this game. I picked Kathmandu for my next target, but also dropped 250 on Ragusa to become Friends with them. You have to look to the future sometimes. I am currently pulling in 144 Gold per turn, so I can afford it.

At turn 267 my Happiness was up to 30, but as soon as I puppeted Kathmandu it dropped to 22. This is why you need to manage your Happiness carefully. This pushed me another 100 points up on the Leader board, so I am in good shape. But with 22 Happiness, I can probably afford to start on puppeting Ragusa. At turn 272 I have 5766 Gold, and I am earninig 163 Gold per turn. My Happiness is at 27, so I am in good shape. I puppet Ragusa, and my Happiness falls to 18, but my status on the leader board goes up another 100 points, putting me 200 ahead of my nearest competitor. But a few turns later and my Happiness is back up to 24, so I am starting the process to puppet Bucharest. At turn 280 I have 6584 Gold, I am earning 179 per turn, and my Happiness is 26. Then I puppet Bucharest, and my Happiness drops to 16. But I am nearly 300 ahead of my nearest competitor on the leader board, so not bad.

Also, we are getting near to the first World Council, where I am the host. I have put a proposal on the agenda to enact a World’s Fair. The number 2 player has put a proposal on the ban Whales as a luxury resource, and I have a lot of whale resources. I suspect the World’s Fair will pass without my votes since many other players supported it, so I will put my votes into denying the Whale ban. We’ll see how it goes. I have the most votes, but if everyone else gangs up on me they can get it passed.

And as I expected, the World’s Fair passed without my votes, and the Whale ban was defeated. I tabled a proposal to enact Arts Funding for the next Council. It looks to be very popular. Right now I starting to snowball. On turn 287 I now have 6476 Gold, and I am earning 231 each turn. I have puppeted 6 City-States, and my Happiness is at 31. I can now start to puppet another. In the World Council I have 4 votes, and every other player has 1. My main strategy right now is to keep on friendly terms with the other players since everything is going well. But I am also starting to build factories to improve my Production capacity, which in turn wil let me update my Military. I picked up a Great Scientist, and used him to construct an Academy to boost my Science output. And every city next to a mountain has gotten an Observatory for added science . And then I constructed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and got one free Great Person of my choice, and I chose a Great Scientist and constructed another academy. And I hit a Golden Age good for 10 turns.

My Golden Age ended, but on the next turn I finished the Taj Mahal which gave me another 10 turn Golden Age, in addition to =4 Global Happiness. And I used some of my big cash balance to upgrade my military units, because in this game the best way to keep the peace is to have a strong military. Then on the next turn I was able to choose an ideology, so I picked Freedom, and for my two policies I chose Universal Healthcare and Capitalism, each of which added Happiness. I have earned a couple of Great Artists, and I plan to use them to create more Golden Ages since accumulating Culture is not part of my strategy. On turn 309 I puppeted Bratislava and started on Wittenberg. And now that I have expxlored the entire map I don’t need my Caravels any longer, so I deleted them. then on turn 314 my closest competitor, Japan, denounced me, and was in turn denounced by Brazil. I have been building up my military, so I am not worried. Basically, Japan has realized I am opening up a bigger lead, and that is why they denounced me. I’d like to win without going to war, but if he attacks me I can handle it. Meanwhile, I am also building up my Science to open up a lead there.

On the next turn I built the Red Fort, which improves my defensive strength. Brazil approached me to join in a war on Japan, but I declined. I am not seeking a military victory in this game, so I don’t want to be distracted. However I just puppeted two more cities, and looking at the map I now have 3 cities on the border of Japan. So maybe there will be a war in my future. I got another policy to choose, and picked Universal Suffrage, which increases the length of Golden Ages, since I plan a few. And I am starting to build more military units, starting with riflemen which are good for defending cities. If I am given time I will ship them to my puppeted cities near Japan. But if he attackes me before then, they are still worth having.