Population Happiness

[Richmond]

Is this the right place for this? I think so, speculation on the model and all that.

I was looking at a nation at the top of the happiness table. They have 20% more happiness than me. Most of our numbers are pretty similar, except they have much higher taxes. The only real difference is law and order and urban development. These therefore seem to be major happiness factors. Tax doesnt really appear to be very important.

Out of interest, can each happiness providing area (welfare, healthcare etc) only provide so many % (eg max (or say a certain % investment into the area) welfare = 10%, education = 10% etc etc). Can one therefore only get 100% happiness by putting all of the budget into these areas and non into non-happiness producing areas (such as industry)? Or is 100% happiness possible without putting 100% of budget into happiness areas?

This post has been edited by Richmond on Aug 14 2006, 10:26 AM

[zilko]

Each factor is weighted to provide a different modifier to happiness. I'm not even sure if it is possible to achieve 100% happiness. While working up the model, I tried to make it so no single factor was able to push a nation's happiness up to 100%.

Happiness is one of the most complex values I calculate, using far more factors than any of the others. Most of those factors are applied using a logorythmic scale so adding a little at the low end can actually have a fairly profound effect, while adding a lot higher up on the scale has very little effect (i.e. the curve plateaus).

There will be some mods as the v2 code starts to get rolled in (especially production and consumption of consumer goods).