Why are the people less content? They are getting everything!(almost)

[vaalen]

As France, I am having trouble keeping my people happy.

At this point, I am providing them with all the food and all the goods they can buy, and about half the luxuries they can buy. According to the messages, their contentment should be going up .51% a turn. But it is decreasing. three percentage points in the last turn. The only thing that seems to get contentment up is the enactment of a reform, but I have run out of reforms.

I have been in colonial wars for several years straight, am still at war, and I wonder if this could be the reason.

Does anyone actually know why contentment is decreasing despite the provision of so many goods and food to the people, and does anybody have a solution?

I am using the latest patch.

[James D Burns]

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Does anyone actually know why contentment is decreasing despite the provision of so many goods and food to the people, and does anybody have a solution?

Check your national morale level, it may have fallen due to your long wars. I'd also take a look at your tax sliders, could be you inadvertently set one or more above 2/3rds or something.

If your population’s happiness is falling, the game should definitely be telling you why it’s happening. This is an oversight in the design if there are no messages in the text scroll area. Look it over carefully and see if there isn’t something in there describing the effect that is hurting your happiness levels. If there is nothing in there, then this is definitely something for the wish list.

Jim

[montgomeryjlion]

It's the wars.
War exhaustion starts slow but multiple wars for long periods will absolutely kill you.
Make peace, keep your population well supplied with food and other goods and the contentment will go back up again.

[Sir Garnet]

NM is still around 125 after years of war in Russia, and bountiful sales to the domestic economy. The odd thing is that Russian morale seems boosted by temporary recovery of cities, hovering from high 70s to 80s. Petersburg is unblockadable so will hold indefinitely.

[vaalen]

Check your national morale level, it may have fallen due to your long wars. I'd also take a look at your tax sliders, could be you inadvertently set one or more above 2/3rds or something.

If your population’s happiness is falling, the game should definitely be telling you why it’s happening. This is an oversight in the design if there are no messages in the text scroll area. Look it over carefully and see if there isn’t something in there describing the effect that is hurting your happiness levels. If there is nothing in there, then this is definitely something for the wish list.

Jim

I looked everywhere, but could not find anything. National morale is staying at 100, but it was 199 at the beginning of the wars. I think it must be the long wars, as no other explanation presents itself.

[vaalen]

It's the wars.
War exhaustion starts slow but multiple wars for long periods will absolutely kill you.
Make peace, keep your population well supplied with food and other goods and the contentment will go back up again.

This makes sense. Thank you. By the way, your superb AAR was a terrific guide for playing France, and helped me greatly.

[Pocus]

Check your militancy, before anything. If it is high in some regions, don't be surprised contentment lower, even if your market is fully stocked.

[louseb]

I had a similar issue with France.

As i see it, there may be two problems :

1/ I am at war with 2 african tribal nations (Trarza and Casamance i think) for 10 years. War exhaustion is perhaps too high.

2/ Reforms (plebiscites, reduce aristocrats privileges) are not decreasing my militancy anymore (perhaps a bug, there was not such a problem before 1.1i)

What can i do to increase contentment?

[yellow ribbon]

cannot say whether this is truly a bug, but i observed similar problems with a GC playing USA.

known from change log for 1.01i is following:

" Militancy will have higher impact than before on the long term."

As Pocus explained it to you, this does have a tremendous impact over long time.

in my game, militancy is increasing every year even in peace time, i do mean to speak in terms of the GUI: green goes red...

in 1860 my rate of education was higher than my militancy value
(kind of an insider joke, for ever falling rate of education is a problem only solved by funding universities later in game)

and i remember, the lower the education, the higher the militancy.

after the ACW which took me not even TWO years, i had a militancy rate below 50% and thus military uprisings in Washinton DC, Ohio, Arizona, California,... labour strikes, social disorder in the whole south...

i even had top post troops there, ordering aggressive (orange) status

As James D Burns said for his game, i also had no single reform left, but in the 1850s i used all fired (and it happened many times) reform options

i had no war, i had covered the complete demand but 20 luxury goods (from about 67). moral at 100,
i ponder if the happiness went up, but militancy was not effected by reforms

took me very long time even to get a steady state, and i cant tell, what of my actions and research made this

may happen, that happiness, education, moral / war are mounting numbers and militancy, even with a well balanced effect at all, is "dropping" too fast

[vaalen]

Check your militancy, before anything. If it is high in some regions, don't be surprised contentment lower, even if your market is fully stocked.

I have enacted every single available reform. There are none left to enact, though I expect more will be available, in time.
Is there anything else I can do to reduce militancy?

[montgomeryjlion]

Make peace.

Sell lots of goods to your population.

Lower taxes.

Kind of like Real life

[vaalen]

Make peace.

Sell lots of goods to your population.

Lower taxes.

Kind of like Real life

I have done all those things, except make peace. I will do my best to do that.

[louseb]

Ok,

I understand that i have to make peace rapidly with tribal nations to avoid problems with militancy and contentment.

But it leads me to another question :
how can i make their (the tribal nations) territories mine ?

- I can't ask for their territories or annex them in peace deals (not possible in the peace offers window, except if you activate the game options which allows you to ask for territories next to your actual territories)
- I can't occupy their territories forever while being at war with them because of militancy/contentment
- I can't occupy their territories while not being at war with them (except if the relations are lower than 0 but there is no diplomatic option to decrease relations, and yes it can happen with one of your unit in their territory but it's rare)
- I can't use some of the colonial options when the territory is not mine. My colonial penetration will not be high enough to transform their territory into a colony

I really enjoy the colonial game (PON is a great game :winner but with the beta patches it seems to be difficult (or near impossible) to conquer tribal nations (or maybe i don't understand one of the mechanism of the game).


Thanks for your answers

[vaalen]

Ok,

I understand that i have to make peace rapidly with tribal nations to avoid problems with militancy and contentment.

But it leads me to another question :
how can i make their (the tribal nations) territories mine ?

- I can't ask for their territories or annex them in peace deals (not possible in the peace offers window, except if you activate the game options which allows you to ask for territories next to your actual territories)
- I can't occupy their territories forever while being at war with them because of militancy/contentment
- I can't occupy their territories while not being at war with them (except if the relations are lower than 0 but there is no diplomatic option to decrease relations, and yes it can happen with one of your unit in their territory but it's rare)
- I can't use some of the colonial options when the territory is not mine. My colonial penetration will not be high enough to transform their territory into a colony

I really enjoy the colonial game (PON is a great game :winner but with the beta patches it seems to be difficult (or near impossible) to conquer tribal nations (or maybe i don't understand one of the mechanism of the game).


Thanks for your answers

The best way is to provoke them into fighting you without declaring war, after you have raised your colonial penetration of all their provinces to at least 35%. You can do this by using merchants, bribes, and treaty cards, naval demonstrations, even if you have no military control.

You can provoke them into fighting you by moving a force into their capital. A small force provoked Tunisia and Tonkin into attacking me, it took a large force to get Annam to attack. This way, there is no declaration of war that needs a peace treaty to stop. It is almost impossible to get a high enough war score to take their land with a formal treaty, and you cannot even ask for the land unless you have a claim.

Once they start fighting you, you are at war, but it is undeclared. If you are at war long enough, even this kind of war, your contentment will eventually go down.

Now you have to take their capital, and develop it with colonial cards until you can declare a protectorate. Once you have military control, you will be able to play cards that will bring your cp up far beyond 35 %. After you play the protectorate card, It will take eight turns for the card to be effective.

Then you have to develop the capital further until you can declare a colony. They you wait another eight turns. At that point, you will become the actual owner of all their lands, and all their surviving troops will be yours.

If for some reason you cannot provoke them into attacking you, you can declare war, fight for awhile, then make a white peace. You will lose all your colonial buildings, but the relationship will be so bad that they will attack you and start an undeclared war if any of their troops are in the same area as yours.

My problem is that I did not space out my colonial wars out. I have been at war for over five years. I am four turns from having my colony card become effective in Annam, which should bring me peace. Hopefully my contentment will recover.

Hope this helps.

[Pocus]

Make peace.

Sell lots of goods to your population.

Lower taxes.

Kind of like Real life

Not exactly, militancy is not lowered by that. Contentment is raised by the actions you speak about.

To reduce militancy, you have to enact reforms.

Normally, there are ample numbers of reforms that should reduce militancy to low level. If you have a save where you still have at least one reform to pass and significant militancy, please send it to me so I can check they remove correctly militancy points: phmalacher@ageod.net

please refer to this thread.

[montgomeryjlion]

Ok,

I understand that i have to make peace rapidly with tribal nations to avoid problems with militancy and contentment.

But it leads me to another question :
how can i make their (the tribal nations) territories mine ?

- I can't ask for their territories or annex them in peace deals (not possible in the peace offers window, except if you activate the game options which allows you to ask for territories next to your actual territories)
- I can't occupy their territories forever while being at war with them because of militancy/contentment
- I can't occupy their territories while not being at war with them (except if the relations are lower than 0 but there is no diplomatic option to decrease relations, and yes it can happen with one of your unit in their territory but it's rare)
- I can't use some of the colonial options when the territory is not mine. My colonial penetration will not be high enough to transform their territory into a colony

I really enjoy the colonial game (PON is a great game :winner but with the beta patches it seems to be difficult (or near impossible) to conquer tribal nations (or maybe i don't understand one of the mechanism of the game).


Thanks for your answers

It is important to remember the differences between the different types of enemies.

Tribal enemies: DOWing them does NOT cause war exhaustion. Conquer them by taking over their territories. Often, you'll spend years chasing that last little native force and enduring rebellions. Just like in RL

Unorganized: DOW does cause war exhaustion. May be taken over by colonial decisions, i.e. protectorate or colony.

Minor Organized: DOW causes war exhaustion. No colonial decisions can be played.

On the other matter, as I understand it, militancy is lowered both by playing decisions, and by gradual lowering per turn.
So none of the things I spoke of per se lowers militancy, but overall just being quiet and peaceful does.

[vaalen]

Not exactly, militancy is not lowered by that. Contentment is raised by the actions you speak about.

To reduce militancy, you have to enact reforms.

Normally, there are ample numbers of reforms that should reduce militancy to low level. If you have a save where you still have at least one reform to pass and significant militancy, please send it to me so I can check they remove correctly militancy points: phmalacher@ageod.net

please refer to this thread.

Militancy in my provinces ranges from 23-35. Most provinces range from 29-35. Is this high?

Unfortunately, I do not have the save you requested. I have done the ini adjustment to have only one savegame.
This has resulted in a huge decrease in the time between turns, but I enacted my last available reform several turns ago.

[vaalen]

It is important to remember the differences between the different types of enemies.

Tribal enemies: DOWing them does NOT cause war exhaustion. Conquer them by taking over their territories. Often, you'll spend years chasing that last little native force and enduring rebellions. Just like in RL

Unorganized: DOW does cause war exhaustion. May be taken over by colonial decisions, i.e. protectorate or colony.

Minor Organized: DOW causes war exhaustion. No colonial decisions can be played.

On the other matter, as I understand it, militancy is lowered both by playing decisions, and by gradual lowering per turn.
So none of the things I spoke of per se lowers militancy, but overall just being quiet and peaceful does.

In my game as the USA, DOWing the tribal nations caused my national morale to go down steadily, but did not effect contentment. When I tried to make peace, I found that I did not have claims on some areas and could not even ask for them.

But if I fought them without declaring war, my national morale was not affected. Could not tell if there was war exhaustion, because the fighting did not last that long. once I was able to take their capital and eventually make it a colony, I got all their lands and troops.

[montgomeryjlion]

In my game as the USA, DOWing the tribal nations caused my national morale to go down steadily, but did not effect contentment. When I tried to make peace, I found that I did not have claims on some areas and could not even ask for them.

But if I fought them without declaring war, my national morale was not affected. Could not tell if there was war exhaustion, because the fighting did not last that long. once I was able to take their capital and eventually make it a colony, I got all their lands and troops.

I admit that I haven't played the US.
The hows and wherefores do seem quite different from what I've seen on forum posts than what happens elsewhere.

[vaalen]

I admit that I haven't played the US.
The hows and wherefores do seem quite different from what I've seen on forum posts than what happens elsewhere.

That is one of the things I love about this game, that different areas of the world are unique, and the same conditions do not seem to apply everywhere.

But you have fought the tribal nations in Africa without getting war exhaustion?

I hope you can confirm this, because I really enjoy fighting wars in this game.

Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible, else we get too fond of it". I would say that war in PON is so fascinating and enjoyable that I HAVE become too fond of it, to the detriment of France. But If I can strike the Tukulors without WE, I will!

[montgomeryjlion]

That is one of the things I love about this game, that different areas of the world are unique, and the same conditions do not seem to apply everywhere.

But you have fought the tribal nations in Africa without getting war exhaustion?

I hope you can confirm this, because I really enjoy fighting wars in this game.

Lee said, "It is well that war is so terrible, else we get too fond of it". I would say that war in PON is so fascinating and enjoyable that I HAVE become too fond of it, to the detriment of France. But If I can strike the Tukulors without WE, I will!

In my (temporarily halted) game as France, I was at war with France with multiple African tribes (Tukulor, etc.) for 10+ years with no negative effect other than fighting them little bastards with Spears on their own turf is damned tough....

[vaalen]

In my (temporarily halted) game as France, I was at war with France with multiple African tribes (Tukulor, etc.) for 10+ years with no negative effect other than fighting them little bastards with Spears on their own turf is damned tough....

Yes fighting the less advanced nations on their own turf is tough. The Annamese defeated me in 5 battles. I won one battle, and one siege. But in four turns, I will have a colony in their capital.

But thank you for your prompt answer, you have just signed the doom of the Tukulors, though it will not be easy.

[vaalen]

Okay, now I have been at peace for three turns, and contentment continues to dwindle.

My people are getting all the food and goods they could want, except only half of the luxury goods. The message says that contentment is increasing from the purchase of goods, at least.44 per turn.

I still do not have a single reform left to enact.

And contentment is now in the red, at 48% and still dwindling.

Taxes are so low that nobody complains about them.

I literally have no idea of what to do next.

[montgomeryjlion]

Well, if you want to zip up the game and PM it to me, I can look at it, or just post it here, and maybe one of the devs can look at it.

[von Sachsen]

I actually have a thread on the PI forums with a turn and the turn before it with this issue, no replies though.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?553370-1.01i-militancy-decrease-not-working

[vaalen]

Well, if you want to zip up the game and PM it to me, I can look at it, or just post it here, and maybe one of the devs can look at it.

That is most kind of you. I was unable to figure out how to send you the file as an attachment to a PM, so I have attached it here.

Thank you for your help, it is very much appreciated.

[vaalen]

I actually have a thread on the PI forums with a turn and the turn before it with this issue, no replies though.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?553370-1.01i-militancy-decrease-not-working

I looked at your thread. It does not seem like reforms are reducing militancy, and I am also wondering if the increases in contentment shown in the messages are actually taking place. Earlier in my game though, I did see definite increases in happiness when I enacted reforms, though it did not seem to work once I was seven years into the game.

[Pocus]

That is most kind of you. I was unable to figure out how to send you the file as an attachment to a PM, so I have attached it here.

Thank you for your help, it is very much appreciated.

This is the save I analyzed, which was also sent by mail. There is indeed a very big militancy and no more reform to issue to fight it, so logically, contentment will be low.

I'm still determining if new reforms should not appear though, and if when enacted, they do their work (of reducing militancy).

If someone has a save with significant militancy plus some reforms to act on, I would gladly check the save: phmalacher@ageod.net

thanks.

[Schattensand]

Is this contentment thing a typical french one? As Prussia I have only Alsace with 0 contentment and it seems that will never end. Some other regions go down from 100 to 99% and that repeats after 3 month or so. My taxation is on the very right since the beginning of the game. My colonial wars never stop even after this lands have colony status the minors still exist (on the paper) and in my war folder. Denmark I have occupied for 25 years now, that too seems not to cause contentment decline. The game seems to be very different for different countries.
Slowly slowly my education level goes down, the only tool I have seems to be universities. I have 3 cards and that is not enough to keep the level at 60%. May be other countries dont have this phenomenon at all.

[yellow ribbon]

nay, its not a problem for French GC...

I played a couple of games with US since patch 1.01i

answer a.)

educations is going down far below 80% till about 1865, leading to increasing militancy

education is decreasing with growth of cities population, isnt it. As more levels, as more people are even dumber than a common "great famine peasant".

answer b.)

I made some lab-experiment games for observing the variable of militancy and reforms with restored games

in my game running last Friday at work, i had militancy of 50% within NINE YEARS !!!!

Educations was about 83%.

Plenty of reforms given and used, all research running (thus high taxes / tariffs) and contentment increase by techs

demand nearly completely covered

no war at all, even not with Hawaii.

happiness goes up !!!

sometimes there is a clear positive effect of a reform decreasing the militancy for 1% !!!

but what helps it if i loose (get an increase of) more than 8% per annum...

i still have to guess, the effect of reforms is outnumbered by gameplays effect of liberal governments, wars, uncovered demand, militancy etc

Pocus already got my backup, will have a look for it.

best to advise, send him files if reforms are available and you have a high level of militancy (what looks like the most important variable in this riddle) as he asked for