How To Increase Happiness in Civ 5 FandomSpot

To increase your civilization’s happiness, you want to acquire sources of happiness and reduce causes of unhappiness. We’ll cover all of your best options below with details on each source & how you should handle them in-game:

Types of Happiness

Happiness comes in two types: Global and Local.

  • Global happiness always applies to your entire civ. It doesn’t have any restrictions.
  • Local happiness is generated by your cities, which mostly comes from their buildings. Each city’s contribution is restricted by their population.

This means that even if they produce a lot of happiness, the actual amount that reaches you can’t be higher than the city’s population (pop) size.

Sources of Happiness

1. Difficulty Setting

You start with a fixed amount of happiness depending on your difficulty:

DifficultyStarting Happiness
Settler15
Chieftain12
Warlord12
Prince9
King9
Emperor9
Immortal9
Deity9

For Settler and Chieftain, they gain an additional 1 happiness per luxury.

2. Luxuries

Each unique luxury provides 4 global happiness. You only need one supply of the resource.

Surplus luxuries can be traded to other nations for other luxuries and/or gold.

Allied city-states provide one luxury. Mercantile city-states give you two luxuries, one of which is available only to them.

3. Happiness Buildings

These buildings produce local happiness in their cities:

BuildingHappinessTech and EraRequirements
Circus2Trapping
(Ancient Era)
The city needs horses or ivory within its influence.
Stone Works1Calendar
(Ancient Era)
The city needs stone or marble within its influence.

The city must not be on a plain.

Colosseum2Construction
(Classical Era)
N/A
Zoo2Printing Press
(Renaissance Era)
The city must have a colosseum.

Happiness from zoos can’t exceed its city’s population.

Stadium2Refrigeration
(Modern Era)
The city must have a zoo.

Happiness from stadiums can’t exceed its city’s population.

4. World and National Wonders

Wonders can either provide global happiness or local happiness depending on their effect.

WonderRequirementsHappiness Effect
Circus MaximusConstruction (Classical Tech)

Must have built colosseums in all your cities

5 global happiness
Chichen ItzaCivil Service (Medieval Tech)4 global happiness
Notre DamePhysics (Medieval Tech)10 global happiness
Taj MahalArchitecture (Renaissance Tech)4 global happiness
Forbidden PalaceBanking (Renaissance Tech)

Patronage (Social Policy Tree)

10% reduction of unhappiness caused by pop size of cities
Eiffel TowerRadio (Modern Tech)5 global happiness
NeuschwansteinRailroad (Modern Tech)

Must be built within 2 tiles of a mountain inside your territory

1 global happiness per castle
ProraFlight (Modern Tech)

Autocracy (Ideology)

Must be built on a coastal city

2 global happiness

1 global happiness for every 2 social policies unlocked

CN TowerTelecommunications (Information Tech)1global happiness per city

5. Natural Wonders

You get 1 global happiness for every Natural Wonder discovered. This is a permanent boost.

Some Natural Wonders also provide local happiness if they’re worked by a citizen in a city.

WonderHappiness
Fountain of Youth10
Old Faithful3
Mt. Kailash2
Sri Pada2

6. Social Policies

Almost every social policy tree has one policy that affects happiness.

Social Policy TreeSocial PolicyHappiness Effect
TraditionAristocracy1 global happiness for every 10 citizens in a city
LibertyMeritocracy1 global happiness per city connected to the capital

5% reduction of unhappiness caused by pop size of cities

HonorMilitary Caste1 local happiness for every garrisoned city
PatronageCultural Diplomacy50% additional global happiness gained from luxuries gifted by city-states
CommerceProtectionism1 additional global happiness from each luxury

7. Ideologies

All three ideologies have tenets which generate happiness.

IdeologyTenet and LevelHappiness Effect
FreedomCapitalism (Level 1)1 local happiness per mint, bank, and stock exchange
FreedomUniversal Healthcare (Level 1)1 local happiness per national wonder
FreedomUrbanization (Level 2)1 local happiness per water mill, hospital, and medical lab
FreedomUniversal Suffrage (Level 2)Halves unhappiness created by specialist pops
OrderSocialist Realism (Level 1)2 local happiness per monument
OrderYoung Pioneers (Level 1)1 local happiness per workshop, factory, and power plant (solar, nuclear, or hydro)
OrderUniversal Healthcare (Level 1)1 local happiness per national wonder
OrderAcademy of Sciences (Level 2)1 local happiness per observatory, public school, and research lab
AutocracyFortified Borders (Level 1)1 local happiness per castle, arsenal, and military base
AutocracyUniversal Healthcare (Level 1)1 local happiness per national wonder
AutocracyMilitarism (Level 2)2 local happiness per barracks, armory, and military academy
AutocracyPolice State (Level 2)3 local happiness per courthouse

Causes of Unhappiness

1. Number of Cities

Each city starting with your first creates unhappiness. The amount scales with your map size:

Map SizeUnhappiness per City
Duel3
Tiny3
Small3
Standard3
Large2.4
Huge1.8

2. Annexed or Razed Cities

Occupied cities have higher unhappiness than normal cities depending on your map size:

Map SizeUnhappiness per Occupied City
Duel5
Tiny5
Small5
Standard5
Large4
Huge3

This increased unhappiness can be normalized by building courthouses.

In cities being razed, their unhappiness decreases every turn until they’re completely demolished.

3. Population Size of Cities

Every pop (citizen or specialist) generates 1 unhappiness in cities that you own or have puppetted.

For occupied cities, they create 1.34 unhappiness instead.

4. Influence from Opposing Ideologies

When ideologies come into play, your civ’s happiness will start getting affected by other civs of opposing ideologies.

Your outgoing influence (based on your tourism stat) will be compared to the incoming influence from other civs with different ideologies. Whoever has the higher influence burdens the other with ideological pressure.

This pressure gets stronger as the gap between your influences gets larger.

Ideological pressure causes discontent in your civ. It affects the public opinion on your chosen ideology.

As your public opinion decreases, it eventually creates unhappiness. This gets more severe the lower your public opinion drops.

The best way to counter this is to increase your culture output. Culture acts as your shield against influence. By reinforcing your culture, you’re preventing ideological pressure from attacking your public opinion.

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