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Happiness is a new yield and mechanic introduced in Civilization 7 that 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.
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Civilization 7: Resources, Explained
Here’s a complete guide to resources in Civilization 7, broken down for each age.
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 resource in 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.
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Happiness Level |
Details |
|---|---|
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Global Level |
As you earn happiness across your empire, you’ll hit a certain happiness threshold. Once you do this, you’ll earn a Celebration, which can grant you certain boons. |
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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 that each 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 icon in the top left-hand corner of your screen.
Ultimately, your goal is, of course, to keep your happiness yield positive and reduce low happiness in 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 yield across your settlements and empire, click on the happiness icon in the top left-hand corner of your screen.
Here’s a breakdown of how happiness works across various gameplay mechanics. You can find additional details about these processes in the Civopedia in-game.
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Gameplay Mechanic |
Details |
|---|---|
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Production & Construction |
In settlements, constructing buildings, tile improvements, and more can increase or decrease your happiness output. Introducing Specialists into settlements costs happiness, but will earn you other buffs to certain yields depending on which tile they’re placed on. |
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Resources |
As you begin to use Merchants to trade, and create tile improvements, you’ll earn access to certain resources that can boost happiness as well. |
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Army Commanders |
Producing and stationing Army Commanders in settlements can also affect the settlement’s overall happiness yield. |
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Tech & Civics |
Researching different tech and civics in your respective trees can unlock new structures, buildings, units, and more that can affect happiness. |
How To Increase Happiness
As mentioned in the above table, there are many different ways to increase happiness levels in settlements. Here are a handful of the fastest, most efficient ways to boost your happiness yield.
- Station Army Commanders – Producing Army Commanders and placing them in your settlement can reduce unhappiness by 10% when stationed in a City Center.
- Produce Buildings – Buildings like Altars, City Parks, Arenas, and even some Wonders can increase happiness in a given settlement.
- Fresh Water Access – Placing a settlement near a source of Fresh Water will provide an immediate buff to happiness yield.
- Slot In Resources – Slotting in resources to settlements like Dyes, Dates, Wine, and more can increase happiness.
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, if your 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.
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Unhappiness Level |
Details |
|---|---|
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Local Level |
If a settlement has a negative happiness yield, each point of net local unhappiness will incur a -2 percent penalty to any other yields in that settlement. This negative happiness does not get added to your global happiness yield when it comes to earning Celebrations. However, you’ll want to avoid this debuff to your yields at all costs. Additionally, settlements whose unhappiness gets high enough will begin to feel unrest, and potentially riot and damage structures. |
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Global Level |
If your happiness is low globally, you won’t earn as many Celebrations. Because earning a Celebration is key to unlocking more Social Policy slots, this will severely hinder your empire as you won’t get access to as many policies that 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 to make sure you’re taking some time every few turns to either allocate resources, put happiness buildings in the construction pipeline, or station an Army Commander nearby to prevent the consequences of unhappiness.
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Looking to get the drop on your enemies? You’ll need to make use of Espionage in Civilization 7.