Happiness

Colonist and native population have a certain happiness level, ranging from perfectly happy to a sate of civil war. The exact happiness level is measured in points, ranging from 100 (perfectly happy) to rates below zero. The lowest possible happiness level is -300. The level of happiness has an influence on the growth of the populations (there is no growth when natives or colonists are unhappy), and if natives or colonists are really unhappy they won't pay any taxes.

The amount of happiness points of a population can be translated to the mood they are in:

Happiness change
Colonist and native happiness are influenced by a number of factors: the size of their respective populations, the taxlevel and the number of factories and mines on the planet. Apart from these, for native populations their government type plays an important role and for colonists the temperature of the planet is of influence.

When you set the taxlevel in Winplan it does not show you the exact predicted happiness change, but describes how the natives or colonists feel about you. This feeling is used to categorise the happiness change:

• Love you: +5 and better
• Like your leadership: +1 to +4
• Are undecided about you: 0 (no change)
• Are angry at you: -1 to -5
• Hate you: -6 and worse

Avian natives are very happy and very forgiving, their happiness will grow much faster than other natives and they don't become quite as upset as other natives when being taxed.

Without getting into the details of happiness change too much, happiness drops considerably when a population is taxed. With taxes set to zero, happiness will roughly grow by 2 to 5 points per turn up to the maximum of 100. How fast happiness grows depends on the above-mentioned factors. In some cases, for really large native populations with a really poor government on a planet with a lot of mines and factories, happiness will not grow even if natives are not taxed.

(Exact formulas for calculating the happiness change are on the details page)

There are a couple of numbers to take into account when considering the happiness of your natives:

• the amount of natives only grows if happiness is 70 points or higher.
• below 40 points, natives start rioting. They'll destroy mines and factories.
• at 30 points or lower, natives won't pay any taxes.
• below 0 points, the natives are in civil war. They will now also start to kill your colonists and eachother.

Apart from the factors listed above native happiness is also influenced by other factors, although in other stages of the hostorder:

• A Rebel Ground Attack will add 30 happiness points to a native population and deduct 60 points off a colonist population.
• Whenever a planet fights a ship-to-planet combat and doesn't change hands (i.e. it wins), colonist happiness drops 10 points. Natives have no problems with the planet being in combat.
• When a planet is taken over in ship-to-planet combat, the native happiness drops 20 points.
• Pillaging will deduct 10 happiness points.
• Lizards can use their hiss mission to increase happiness.
• A large meteor impact decreases happiness, by how much seems to be a random event.
• Various addons introduce buildings or special missions to influence both the native happiness as well as their government type

Riots
When the happiness of colonists or natives is (or falls) below 40 points, they will be rioting. When rioting, they destroy a number of factories and mineral mines. Defenseposts will not be destroyed.

Rioting natives will destroy 3 factories and 5 mineral mines per turn.
Rioting colonists will destroy 8 factories and 10 minerals mines per turn.

If native or colonists happiness is below 0 points, they are officially in a state of civil war. In that case they will destroy structures both while rioting and while in civil war; the destruction will be cumulative so technically they are both rioting and in civil war.

It is often documented that rioting natives or colonists do not pay taxes. This is not exactly true: as long as happiness is higher than 30 (both before and after happiness change is computed), taxes will be paid. The limit for riots is at 40 happiness points. So between 31 and 40 points colonists or natives can be rioting as well as pay taxes.

A little undocumented feature, which is probably a bug: natives will not riot if there is no fuel on a planet. True op to and including 3.22.026, don't know if it's considered important enough to fix in future versions.

Civil War
When the happiness of colonists or natives is (or falls) below 0 points, they will be in civil war. In Civil war natives and colonists kill eachother, and additionally they burn down factories and mineral mines. Defenseposts will not be destroyed.

Clans killed
A number of colonists and natives are killed when either natives or colonists are at civil war. This means that if colonists are in civil war they kill both colonists and natives; when natives are in civil war they kill both natives and colonists. For each turn that natives and/or colonists are in civil war, 30% of the population plus an additional 100 clans (of both the native and the colonist population) are killed. Amorphous natives are not killed during civil wars.

Structures destroyed
As a result of the civil wars, eight factories and ten minerals mines are burned down.
This destruction is cumulative with the destruction from riots: the Host program  first checks if natives and/or colonists are "rioting" (happiness < 40), and destroys structures accordingly. Then it checks if there are any civil wars going on (happiness < 0) and destroys more structures accordingly.