Worker happiness... again.

[mroyer]

My worker happiness has been plummeting for a while and I'm not sure where to look for a solution. Things are generally pretty favorable in the zone and the popup for happiness shows no signs of an issue (see figure below). Any thoughts what might be going on, or why even though all indicators are up the net effect is down?

Thanks for any ideas,
-Mark R.

[BlueTemplar]

I've noticed this for Population - I though that Loyalty might be involved ?
But Workers don't care about that...

Any events this turn ?
Check the Zone news ?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: mroyer

My worker happiness has been plummeting for a while and I'm not sure where to look for a solution. Things are generally pretty favorable in the zone and the popup for happiness shows no signs of an issue (see figure below). Any thoughts what might be going on, or why even though all indicators are up the net effect is down?

Thanks for any ideas,
-Mark R.

A reduction with no indication in the Tooltip?
You are propably out of money!

Remember the order of Economy:
Spending
Production
Retreival
It is trivial to drop to 0 in any resource, then get some income - and thus never noticed that you did indeed drop to 0!

Check the Zone reports. Should be something like "failed on your promises for pay".

[BlueTemplar]

Right, an Advisor *should* then pop up, but not if he *deleted* that one ?

[mroyer]

No, I have plenty of cash and paid workers fully.
I thought it was corporate crush at first, but that appears to affect population, not workers.

This has been going on turn after turn for a while and I haven't spotted the issue yet.

-Mark R.

[mroyer]

I do have a union organizer in another zone, but he seems to be helping worker happiness there. Could this zone's workers be angry they don't have a union?? I know, I'm grasping at straws...

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: mroyer

I do have a union organizer in another zone, but he seems to be helping worker happiness there. Could this zone's workers be angry they don't have a union?? I know, I'm grasping at straws...

I think the Union Chief is bugged in that he increases worker Happiness, rather then decreasing it.
And since he increases happyness, I never saw any reason to remove him. So I should have noticed any effect like that.

Maybe you could give us a screenshot of the Zone Report? There might be something that you overlooked in the more complete log.

[Zemke]

One thing I have learned is DO NOT upgrade the town/city unless the population is happy due to quality of life, (QoL). QoL seems to be the primary fix to many things, and upgrading towns makes it harder to maintain QoL, or at least that is what I seem to have learned. Not an expert at this game BTW, so I may be wrong.

[BlueTemplar]

Well, it's more like you shouldn't upgrade a city unless you need it, and if you do, probably don't let the lack of QoL to stop you...
But, anyway, that's not the issue here.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Zemke

One thing I have learned is DO NOT upgrade the town/city unless the population is happy due to quality of life, (QoL). QoL seems to be the primary fix to many things, and upgrading towns makes it harder to maintain QoL, or at least that is what I seem to have learned. Not an expert at this game BTW, so I may be wrong.

The rules for civilsiation/QOL are:
- sum up the Points for each QOL category
- divide the Points by the City level, to the get QOL category target
- the actuall QOl Category score will slowly grow towards that (based on Governor Skill rolls, IIRC).
- The overall QOL score is the average, with a strong weighting towards the lowest (so the lowest score will limit the overall value)
- The overall QOL score is the target for civilisation level
- As long as the QOL score is > Civilisation level, it will rise but you also get some positive Happiness. The inverse is true if it is lower

But in this case QOL is positive but there is a undocumented -10 to Worker Happiness
So yes, it is indeed harder to grow or even maintain the same Quality of life in a larger city.
However on the flip side, Free Folk Migration prefers Zones with a higher level city. So it will grow your population quicker, on top of allowing higher tier (more worker and upkeep efficient) buildings

[BlueTemplar]

Free Folk Migration prefers Zones with a higher level city

You're sure that's what they care about and not something related to it ?
Also, I thought that Free Folk only migrated inside zones from their settlements to the city (and back),
and not from one zone to another or from one zone to another city ?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Free Folk Migration prefers Zones with a higher level city

You're sure that's what they care about and not something related to it ?
Also, I thought that Free Folk only migrated inside zones from their settlements to the city (and back),
and not from one zone to another or from one zone to another city ?

It is what the Handbook says. So I am absolutely not sure, but I got a pretty good hint - with some indication for the logic:
"5.3.8.3. free folk mIGratIons
If there are more Free Folk in one Zone than a neighbouring Zone, a small percentage of the more populous Zone will move to the less populous Zone.
The City Level has a strong impact on Free Folk migrations. Free Folk will tend to move into Zones with higher City Levels since there is more opportunity to enjoy a higher standard of living, or for some opportunity for villainy, “bottom feeding” and trading.Having a high City Level (and a good Population Happiness and Loyalty) compared to the surrounding Zones is a good way to boost your Population levels.
Free Folk will flee Zones where they are suffering losses from Exposure."

[BlueTemplar]

Ah, thanks, I had forgotten about that bit !

[mroyer]

So, you guys seem to be on to something related to the salaries of the workers, but I'm still at a loss to explain it.

This turn, inexplicably the happiness turned around completely and went up the expected 6 points. I didn't do anything that I'm aware of to cause that.

If you'll notice the figure below, the salaries are identical this turn and last. Yet, last turn there is a complaint that I shorted the workers some 57% of their pay! I'm not sure what to think about this.


Edit: The zone in question is Thark.

[eddieballgame]

Make sure that the workers salaries are higher than the private sector folks.
Also, make sure they have something to do in their zones.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame

Make sure that the workers salaries are higher than the private sector folks.
Also, make sure they have something to do in their zones.

If it was that we could see it in the tooltip.
And would not see the "+2 for good pay".

Please, do not throw out ideas clearly falsified by the pictures.

ORIGINAL: mroyer

So, you guys seem to be on to something related to the salaries of the workers, but I'm still at a loss to explain it.

This turn, inexplicably the happiness turned around completely and went up the expected 6 points. I didn't do anything that I'm aware of to cause that.

If you'll notice the figure below, the salaries are identical this turn and last. Yet, last turn there is a complaint that I shorted the workers some 57% of their pay! I'm not sure what to think about this.


Edit: The zone in question is Thark.

I figured it was that. A unexplainded drop is usually that [:)]

So now the question becomes: Why?

If you can not figure it out, I think a bug report is in order. Some ideas I have:

Actually running out of credits during the turn resolution is the obvious explanation
Did you have enough credits stored when you hit "End Turn", to cover 100% of the expenses, across all expense categories?

If 323 are the 57% something, then 100% would be 566.66666 or 567. With this pay, equaling around 80857 workers.
I do not suppose you had ~34700 more workers the previous turn?

Is this a multiplayer game, where people might be using different game versions?
What is the savegame version vs game version?

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
It is what the Handbook says. So I am absolutely not sure, but I got a pretty good hint - with some indication for the logic:
"5.3.8.3. free folk mIGratIons
If there are more Free Folk in one Zone than a neighbouring Zone, a small percentage of the more populous Zone will move to the less populous Zone.
The City Level has a strong impact on Free Folk migrations. Free Folk will tend to move into Zones with higher City Levels since there is more opportunity to enjoy a higher standard of living, or for some opportunity for villainy, “bottom feeding” and trading.Having a high City Level (and a good Population Happiness and Loyalty) compared to the surrounding Zones is a good way to boost your Population levels.
Free Folk will flee Zones where they are suffering losses from Exposure."

Sorry for derailing the discussion again, but this (along with shifting borders) would explain why I keep having new Free Folk settlements popping up near my city in my current game - I'm probably leading worldwide in city level !

[mroyer]

Actually running out of credits during the turn resolution is the obvious explanation
Did you have enough credits stored when you hit "End Turn", to cover 100% of the expenses, across all expense categories?

Probably not. I never really pay much attention to that and would hope that isn't required by the game - it would be a great burden to players to have to project all their off-turn expenses and resource requirements and save enough every turn. Perhaps it's related to some multi-step off-turn sequencing like the taxes come in first, then some other big expense got paid (for the earlier turn, but not the latter), then the workers got paid.

That's a tough one to manage if that's how it works. If that is the case, it seems impossible to tell if one has a systematic cash flow problem that needs fixing or just a momentary blip. I do feel that what ever is going on, it happens repeatedly though, as my worker happiness has steadily declined from low 90's into the 40's.

Still perplexed!
Thanks for helping think this through.
-Mark R.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, as I said before :

fb.asp?m=4975099

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Maybe you are out of money to pay the workers?

The Economics System has consumption before production and then retreival. That means you can not enough in storage, be unable to afford all the expenses, receive the penalty, but then get >0 as income - hiding the fact that you indeed went bankrupt there for a second. And this cycle fully applies to Credits as well.
And AFAIK, there is currently no proper warning in the Tooltip for this happening. The Zone Log hoever does mention something like "Failed to fullfill promises about Salary".

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Yeah, I name this (and the corresponding issue with items) to be the absolute *worst* issue with SE.
(EDIT : And it's even worse for credits because you don't have the arrow for the turn-by-turn changes !)

I am personally thorough enough (due to being still in the phase where I'm very engrossed with the game) to check everything every turn, but this issue completely fails the professed claim that people that don't *want* to micromanage everything won't have to, because both the (non/)decisions taken for the player (usually) won't be so bad to utterly ruin his regime *and* the game is going to warn the player if there's an urgent issue that he *must* deal with !

(Hmm, and now that I have written this, I seem to remember that at least in case of salaries, there *is* going to be a "tutorial adviser" popping up and warning the player that some of the salaries weren't paid... as long as the player didn't delete that specific warning the first time he saw it ?)

Though now I'd say that once you get a second zone, this is worse for items :
at least for credits there *is* a centralized report that details these things.
No such thing even exists for items, you have to go look at all of the zone items zone per zone just to be able to figure out how much was produced and consumed in your regime this round !
(The SHQ numbers aren't reliable because of SHQ <=> Zones flows, including of storage points.
EDIT : Now that I think of it, mentally adding an extra round worth of items to asset costs for the first round (and getting them back once the asset is built) seems like a good rule of thumb ?)

Though at least items do have the Asset Preview Zone item statistics... (though it sometimes fails and shows garbage/nothing.)

[eddieballgame]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame

Make sure that the workers salaries are higher than the private sector folks.
Also, make sure they have something to do in their zones.

If it was that we could see it in the tooltip.
And would not see the "+2 for good pay".

Please, do not throw out ideas clearly falsified by the pictures.

First, I will note that the 'tooltip' does not show what is being paid to the private sector (unless I am missing something in the 'tooltip')...so the +2 is not telling the whole story here.
per the manual;

4.3.14. Workers

You can also improve the Workers’ salaries which will help a lot in improving their Happiness, as well as with their recruitment.
You should keep a special eye on what you are paying your Workers compared to the average revenue made by your Population in the Private Economy.
A lower pay might tempt Workers to quit and seek their fortune working in a Private Asset.

I will admit to not fully grasping all the mechanics of this great game, but don't presume I am just tossing out falsified ideas based on a screen shot.

Your 'idea' (again, based on a screen shot) was that Mark was out of money...he clearly stated he was not, had plenty & was paying plenty.

I will add...that 'idea' did not occur to me, based on a screen shot.
The point I am trying to make...having a civil discussion while trying to assist someone who asks a question does not require...a negative comment per anyone trying to help.