Happiness vs Repression?

[MikkOwl]

Manual states: Public Order

Obedience to the rule of the daimyo is measured in public order. The factors that affect it are displayed on the province details panel, and include elements such as castle level, garrison size and the size of the tax burden placed on the populace. If unhappiness begins to outweigh happiness and repression at any point then the resultant unrest can lead to rebellion, if left unchecked. Keep taxes at reasonable levels, maintain sufficient food levels and ensure that castle towns are garrisoned to stop public order bubbling over into rioting or worse, full-scale rebellion.

Repression

Repression is the enforcement of your rule by the presence of garrison troops. The grey pips in the public order section of the province details panel represent repression through intimidation from garrisoned units. Whilst it is useful to keep the population in order, rebellion following a period of heavy repression can be difficult to suppress.

Happiness

The overall happiness of a population is influenced by a variety of different contributing factors, including tax levels, food shortages, the presence of entertainment and religious buildings, and repression through garrison size. Rebellion becomes a risk when the people are so unhappy that repression can no longer contain public order.


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Things in the game that suggests there is a difference between happiness boosts and repression:

1. The underlined part suggests there is a difference between repression vs happiness.
2. In the town management interface, repression effect icons have a different colour from happiness effects, as if there is a difference.
3. Metsuke have a retainer that lowers happiness by 1, while increasing repression by 2 - surely there must be a difference or it would just have said "increases repression by 1".


The underlined bit could just as well mean "More unhappiness for any reason will lead to more intense rebellions (maybe larger rebel armies?) if they at all were to occur". I don't know if there is a mechanic like this.

Or it could mean that increased happiness 'cancels out' unhappiness instead of just repressing it. Because if there is enough unhappiness in a province, there is a big penalty to growth called "Discontent" even if there is public order.

[crzyrndm]

A lot of the ingame descriptions of units are way off the mark (naginata samurai for example), so it could just be this popping up again. Or it could mean that extended periods of high repression lead to a rise in negative PO factors.

[Jace11]

I think this is generally correct. The metsuke retainer points to a difference and may suggest repression is preferable. Does happiness have any other function? It does not affect wealth or growth does it? Other than preventing discontent?

Though the way most people play the game, they effectively the same with any difference in rebel army being missed.

[MikkOwl]

I think this is generally correct. The metsuke retainer points to a difference and may suggest repression is preferable. Does happiness have any other function? It does not affect wealth or growth does it? Other than preventing discontent?

Though the way most people play the game, they effectively the same with any difference in rebel army being missed.

You mean happiness being preferable over repression, right? Repression is easier to come by because of the castles. Most of the information from the game suggests that repression has downsides, while happiness is never mentioned in a bad way.

The only thing I know for sure is that both repression and happiness keep public order equally well. But the hints point to repression having undesirable effects.

We know that at a certain level of unhappiness (even if public order exists), there is a large penalty to growth cited as "Discontent" in the province. The metsuke retainer (+2 repression -1 happiness) means it adds unhappiness even if there is more public order. Maybe it could make the province unhappy enough to be 'discontent'.

I have never seen anyone else bring any light to this in forums and it seems to be not talked about, so I guess people assume they are the one and same. For me they still are, since I can't spot a difference. I hope there is a difference, and I want to find out.

[crzyrndm]

I think the discontent penalty is if PO becomes negative(red face on summary window). I haven't seen it any other times

[Fuzzynut]

Although, this seems inconsequential to beating the campaign, it could help to add some much needed flavor for my LARPing sessions.

[pure2maestro]

Hey guys. I had this same question and I found your post. So, if you hover your mouse over the "net public order" icon in the Province details window (it's the one with the happy face that's colored either green, yellow, or red), it says:

"The population is either happy, or too scared to do anything! Although both will keep order in your province, a happy population will increase town growth."

Dunno if that completely answers the question, but atleast it gives us a start.

[Xcam901]

I think if you have a ton of repression and they do rebel it will be a massive army.