The Health system of Civ: Beyond Earth

[sisko]

The Health system is a new game mechanic that aims to slow down vertical as well as horizontal growth. Cities and, to some extent factions, will not be able to grow too large too fast without spending time and resources developing infrastructure.
This new feature is meant to improve upon Civ V's sometimes-punishing Happiness system.
Looking further back, at Alpha Centauri, you will remember the b-drones and inefficiency, which tried the same but were just minor annoyances when using ICS (infinite city sprawl) strategy.

Here is how this system works:
Population and cities cause 'unhealth' (1 pop only costs 0.75 unhealth) that needs to be balanced out somehow by the player. So, you have to build different facilities within your cities to increase the overall Health of your faction. Also, you can pick up different bonuses, whether through Virtues or quests, that might also be able to increase Health. In the mid-game, you may even build terrain improvements to essentially 'farm health' (see Biowell - available with Bionics tech).

Like the system that came before it, negative Health has a detrimental effect on factions in Beyond Earth. These detriments are tiered:
- A small amount of negative health will cause a civ to take a percentage hit to science and culture. At this level, your faction still produces, grows, and fights the same as a healthy faction!
- Falling to -10 Health will hinder production in your cities and make them much more vulnerable to enemy spies.
- Finally, a civ with -20 Health will have their growth cut in half.

These negative effects seem much more forgiving than Civ V's Happiness, where merely getting into negative values severely held back a civ's growth. Also, the tiered system means anything bellow -21 unhealth will have the same effects as -21 unhealth!
Further, it looks like negative Health won't affect a civ's military strength or cause citizens to stage an armed revolt like it did in Civ V.

Also new to Beyond Earth are bonuses for reaching excessive amounts of Health, finally incentivizing the production of more than just the bare minimum of the resource. Simply staying above negative values of Health will grant players increased Outpost growth. Reaching 10 Health will speed up cities' production and make enemy covert operations more likely to fail. Finally, reaching 20 Health will grant players boosts to both science and culture. Still, +21 health will be the same as +1000 health, for example, (unless you choose the health->culture virtue).


Conclusion:
In Civ V, early-game Happiness is fairly easy to hoard if you start out near plenty of resources.
Since Health seems to only be generated by buildings and special bonuses in Beyond Earth, it'll likely be more difficult to gather up a bunch of Health really early on. Being able to cultivate this resource over time, though, will be more beneficial to the player.

Round-up:
The Health thresholds and their associated positive and negative modifiers*:
- Utopian (+20 Health or higher): +10% Science, +10% Culture
- Prosperous (+10 Health or higher): +10% Production in Cities, -50% intrigue in your Cities from hostile Covert Ops
- Stable (+0 Health or higher): +20% speed towards outpost growth
- Shaky (-1 Health or lower): -10% Science, -10% Culture
- Troubled (-10 Health or lower): -10% production, +100% intrigue for opponent spies in your city
- Panicked (-20 Health or lower): -50% growth, -50% outpost growth
*Note: that the above modifiers are cumulative.

[Green1]

I reserve my final thoughts, but compared to Civ 5, this is an improvement. In Civ 5, you almost did not want to start conquering wars because even with the reduced penalties of making something a puppet state instead of annexing, you took a HUGE hit to happiness. And, as you said, too much unhappiness, fairly powerful partisan units spawned and could mess you up. Was not really realistic, either. If I capured a city of an enemy, why would an army of partisans appear in some far flung place in my empire?

[Geo]

If I capured a city of an enemy, why would an army of partisans appear in some far flung place in my empire?

They're that ethnic minority of your population you never recognized taking advantage of the fact the bulk of your army is struggling at some far flung frontline.

[Green1]

If I capured a city of an enemy, why would an army of partisans appear in some far flung place in my empire?

They're that ethnic minority of your population you never recognized taking advantage of the fact the bulk of your army is struggling at some far flung frontline.

Still, I preferred local happiness (Civ 4) as opposed to empire wide happiness. If I took the time to build infrastructure to keep my populace happy (er... distracted from my evil designs), I should have that benefit at least in that city area. However, if I have bored people just sitting around unemployed or no culture like watching "Scout Patrol Dude 3" in theatres, yeah...

[Geo]

I don't remember that well how happiness worked in Civ4. Weren't happiness resources like gold and silver global?
I reckon happiness buildings/national wonders in cities were the source of local happiness.

[Green1]

I don't remember that well how happiness worked in Civ4. Weren't happiness resources like gold and silver global?
I reckon happiness buildings/national wonders in cities were the source of local happiness.

Each city had it's own happiness based on buildings and access to luxury resources. You could share luxury recourses as long as there was a road there (or harbor) to any city or cities that could be reached by road, river, or harbor. And, the city benefited from it, too.

Of course, some wonders helped and some late wonders like Rock and Roll produced luxury resources like hit singles which could be traded.

Civ 5 though, even if the city has developed that resource tile, it does not count towards happiness unless it is connected to the capital. Even then, it is only a straight + to global happiness ONCE. Cities can produce happiness buildings, but the happiness is capped. So, if I do have a lot of unhappiness in one city, I can not invest in infrastructure in that city to overcome it past a certain point. I would have to produce the buildings in cities throughout the empire who are already happy and not capped to overcome I which makes little sense to me,

[Geo]

I don't remember that well how happiness worked in Civ4. Weren't happiness resources like gold and silver global?
I reckon happiness buildings/national wonders in cities were the source of local happiness.

Each city had it's own happiness based on buildings and access to luxury resources. You could share luxury recourses as long as there was a road there (or harbor) to any city or cities that could be reached by road, river, or harbor. And, the city benefited from it, too.

I remember the mechanics now. Thanks for reminding me.

Civ 5 though, even if the city has developed that resource tile, it does not count towards happiness unless it is connected to the capital. Even then, it is only a straight + to global happiness ONCE. Cities can produce happiness buildings, but the happiness is capped. So, if I do have a lot of unhappiness in one city, I can not invest in infrastructure in that city to overcome it past a certain point. I would have to produce the buildings in cities throughout the empire who are already happy and not capped to overcome I which makes little sense to me,

Dunno. In an age of easy information flow (radio, tv, internet,...), it could be argued that some sports match or broadcasted live concert generates happiness all over the civ.
Of course, that would imply that (in a CiV game), other civilizations would receive happiness from too.

[Green1]

Yeah, I have always scratched my head at the way the Civs handled resources.

Like the corn resource or cotton resource. Why did it have to be right there? I can understand your early civ discovering it, but once you get Agriculture, you should be able to plant it! Why can't you plant corn in any spot that's climate and soil would handle corn?

Why must I only be able to get stone from a quarry when there is a mountain right there?

I understand stuff like uranium, copper, iron, gold, silver, etc. Deposits are only in certain places.

But still...