Let us talk about Population happiness

[zgrssd]

I think I finally got a handle on managing Population happiness. I thought I write it down for a tripple reason:
- make sure I got it righjt
- make sure I do not miss anything
- as help for everyone else that strugles with it

Managing the Penalties
There are 3 penalties to Happiness: Danger, Unrest and Fear. And they could not be more different in how they work. Note one ground rule here:
"The higher the Civilisation Score the quicker Unrest and Danger are reduced. However, the reverse is true for Fear."

Danger is worst of the lot, because there is no active way to fight it. Natural decay is the only way to get rid of it. And the only way to buff that, is via Civilisation Score.
Do not get it from cards or choices.
Avoid it at all costs!
If it is caused by a enemy nearby, get troops into position now and drive them away next turn, once you got enough AP to do so. You can even let them escape, main thing is that they are somewhere else, farther away.


Unrest is fightable, but also should be fought quickly. If you do not fight it, you will just increase the overall happiness damage you receive!
Troops in the city, security points and Fear all 3 combat it.
- Troops: It is totally worth it to gather and keep your conquering brigade in the city for 3 turns or raise a temporary formation of Infantry. Of course the cheapest way is to just place militia there, as you got them anyway and they are propably to outdated to use in combat.
- Security Points are primarily sourced from the Public Barracks asset. But the Private Assets "Police Station", "Customs" and "Scout Station" also provide some. Those also double as "security Force" for "send in the troops" choices. Investigation Govenror skill also provides some, howeveer.
If you do not have them when the trouble start, do not wait - use troops.
- Fear. Fear of your Regime. Usually caused by the Autocractic "Send in the troops" choice. If your profile supports taking it, take it. Sometimes even when it does not support it.

Fear of your Regime. This is somewhere between the "least dangerous" and "a very usefull tool". It acts as a cap on Happiness. While there is fear, Happiness can not exceed 100-Fear. Workers- being part of your Regime- are not affected by it either. It also reduces unrest and finally you also have total control over when and how it will be applied.
It is a tool of Autocracts, not a problem!

QOL is not the way!
To make it clear: Qualtiy of Life (QOL) will not permanently increase population happiness!
There is some effect on Happiness if QOL is higher or lower then Civilisation score. However, civilisation score will always try to match QOL. So sooner or later, it becomes a +/-0. And it can happen literally after 1-2 turn.

Strategem QOL may be a way
While the QOL part of Private assets does not bump Happinesess, a lot of Strategem based QOL Infrastucture have a happiness or other usefull effects applied to them.

Do those actually work? I tell you when I figured that out myself. The previews of the assets are currently slighty broken, so you have to build and wait for next turns production.

Unincorporated Zone
Setting a Zone to "Unincorporated" has a rats tail of effects. The one that maters for this discussion, is that Pop Happiness will increase quickly, up to 75.
The main downside is, that it no longe produces tax, recurits or colonists. But you can hire/have to still pay for the workers.
You only realy use it on freshly conquered Zone, until the Happiness reaches 75 and Loyalty is high enough you can start the Culture Adaptation process. Then they should just basic Incorporated/Regular zone.

Loyalty
I can not tell if Loyalty just trails the Happiness, or has an actuall interaction - excess Loyalty trying to pull happiness up. But if you got happiness problem, that means it is not doing nearly enough either way.
So not a solution either, more a sign of a Symptomatic issue.

What actually works
After all those things that do not work or may only be usefull in very special cases, there is one thing that does work:
"Luxury products and services", is what it is called on the Happiness Tooltip. Unfortunately it is not directly under your control, so getting them high is complicated.

You propably know that the Private Citizens want private Food? Well, that is only where the needs start!
Depending on your tech level they may also want: Food (as Luxury Good), Water, Fuel, more Fuel, Metal, Rare Metals, Machinery, Hi-Tech Ttems and even Atomics. See 5.3.20.1 for details.

But you can not just give those goods to them! With the minor exception of Food if "Emergency Food" is togelled, they have to spend private credits to buy them from the Trade Market.
You can see what they bought and sold under Reports -> Trade Reports. They are actually a main factor for driving prices on the market back up!
I asume that if they got a private mining asset, that private production part will be used on this bonus and the rest sold (for more Private Credits). But there is no real way to get them to get one. It does not seem to work that wa with "Luxury Food", however.

So the only real options are:
1. Make sure they got enough private credits. Do not overtax them. Maybe get a Public Budget (wich also has a small happiness effect itself sometimes). Make sure they got emergency Food togelled, if Food is the issue.
2. Make sure the prices on the Market are low. By selling any excess you got high.
3. If the good has limited storage, any excess will be sold. So a bit of overproduction is perfectly healthy. Just do not waste any precious resources this way.
- Do keep in mind that 2+3 work for everyone on the planet.

[GodwinW]

Sorry, no. It is not a problem when Civilisation becomes identical to QOL because:

QOL >= Civilisation: Increase Pop Happiness and Civilisation

(manual page 182)

Note the '=' sign.

Besides, it can even keep trailing (you keep building up continuously).

Loyalty is defense against bad things (rebellions for example).

A bigger Private Budget also increases happiness and QOL plays a major role.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: GodwinW

Sorry, no. It is not a problem when Civilisation becomes identical to QOL because:

QOL >= Civilisation: Increase Pop Happiness and Civilisation

(manual page 182)

Note the '=' sign.

Besides, it can even keep trailing (you keep building up continuously).

Loyalty is defense against bad things (rebellions for example).

A bigger Private Budget also increases happiness and QOL plays a major role.

I never had a bonus of any kinda when they matched. Wich is what they do most of the time, as that is how they work.
And there was already a off-by-one-error in the Movement Modifier calculation, so I do not trust the Manual here. As the old saying goes:
"There are two kinds of big problems in Programming: Naming Things, Cache Invalidations and Off-by-one errors!"


"Continually building up" will cost you incredible amounts of IP, Metal and Workers - that you got to pay every turn - and sooner or later you run out of buildings.
Just spend a fraction of that money on Public Budget to have an actuall, permanent effect. Without wasting IP, Metal, and dragging your Civ score up if you do not want to.

[zgrssd]

I want to do the math, to show just how bad the idea of building QoL for Happiness is:
T1 QOL buildings all cost about the same:
2 Turns of: 500 Workers, 200 Metal, 100 IP
Maintenance: 100 Workers
Production cost: 500 Workers
So running cost: 600 Workers
(I ignored power)

Starting worker Salary is 5/100. So I would spend 2 Turns of 25 Credits + 30 Credits/Turn for the rest of the game. Plus 400 Metal, 200 IP
For +100 QOL Points wich will not even translate to 100 QOL Score in any city past T1 City! Maybe a +1 for 5 turns, if I am a lucky.

I could have spend those 30 Credits on the Public budget. Between the spending itself and the extra Luxury goods, I expect a easy +5 for the rest of the game. Plus the overall boost to private Economy, so they will build more QOL Buildings quicker.

That is just how incredibly bad buffing QOL to buff Happiness is. I expect a Total +5 vs +5 per Turn, for a fraction of the cost.

[Thomas8]

Basic wage is not 5/100 its 5/1000 (and I still think its too big - you can easily have 3/1000 and still have it working). Compared to that you need +25 CR per turn in private assets for +1 happines (+75 for +3).

But yes, building QoL by yourself is not something you want to do everywhere - only in cities where you were forced to increase City Level for extra assets.

+Universities and Barracks give extra Bonus Points to Research% and Training XP percent.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Thomas8

Basic wage is not 5/100 its 5/1000 (and I still think its too big - you can easily have 3/1000 and still have it working). Compared to that you need +25 CR per turn in private assets for +1 happines (+75 for +3).

But yes, building QoL by yourself is not something you want to do everywhere - only in cities where you were forced to increase City Level for extra assets.

+Universities and Barracks give extra Bonus Points to Research% and Training XP percent.

My mistake on the Salaries. I wish it would just tell me Credits/100 Workers in the Zone Orders.

Are you certain about those PB/Happiness figures?
Because I have seen a +1 for a mere 10 Public Budget. Of course the bonus effect may depend on the Population or size of the Private Economy.

You only need to build QoL Buildings if you want to keep the Civilisation level. And thus far I found no compelling reason to get that one high. Except unlocking Buearocrat offices, maybe.
Keeping it below 10, even keeps your Militia working.

As for those other effects for QOL Buildings:
Of course there are other reasons to build them. Just for happiness, they do not really provide it.

[Kamelpov]

I agree with uncorporated zone. But usually when loyalty is near 50 you can go regular or wait more if you throw some danger card because why not for fate point. Personally I use the disease killer after i have a lot of people in excess compared to the amount of job.

[Thomas8]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Are you certain about those PB/Happiness figures?
Because I have seen a +1 for a mere 10 Public Budget. Of course the bonus effect may depend on the Population or size of the Private Economy.

Well, I didnt tested it with city of other size. But my starting city received 50 CR and got +2 happiness bonus, I have boosted it to 80CR and it changed to +3. For all my 4 cities I have set 76 to 80CR and it always was +3 happiness - but they were between 70k to 100k population. Maybe there is population included in happines formula from CRs.

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
QOL is not the way!
To make it clear: Qualtiy of Life (QOL) will not permanently increase population happiness!
There is some effect on Happiness if QOL is higher or lower then Civilisation score. However, civilisation score will always try to match QOL. So sooner or later, it becomes a +/-0. And it can happen literally after 1-2 turn.

Maybe it can, but in practice it seems to take much longer.
So I guess that the goal is to keep QOL score always slightly higher than Civilisation score and to reap the happiness rewards (at least for population) until you get to 100 on both ?

Strategem QOL may be a way
While the QOL part of Private assets does not bump Happinesess, a lot of Strategem based QOL Infrastucture have a happiness or other usefull effects applied to them.

Do those actually work? I tell you when I figured that out myself. The previews of the assets are currently slighty broken, so you have to build and wait for next turns production.

I'm pretty sure they do, I believe that I checked it for at least that "happy beamz" artifact ?

Unincorporated Zone
Setting a Zone to "Unincorporated" has a rats tail of effects. The one that maters for this discussion, is that Pop Happiness will increase quickly, up to 75.

Yeah, in theory, according to the manual :

Unincorporated Zones have double the Happiness growth up to 75
points, compared to Regular Zones.

However, in practice ..?
Running into the "your public regime coffers get emptied if your capital zone is unincorporated" bug and rolling my game back has prompted me to try to compare the happiness gain of Regular vs Unincorporated.
The result (tested by switching the capital to unincorporated or not just before clicking end round) is so underwhelming that I'm suspecting a bug :
- No change for Population.
+1 Happiness for Workers.

The main downside is, that it no longe produces tax, recurits or colonists. But you can hire/have to still pay for the workers.
You only realy use it on freshly conquered Zone, until the Happiness reaches 75 and Loyalty is high enough you can start the Culture Adaptation process. Then they should just basic Incorporated/Regular zone.

You still receive Service Tax from the Zone.

Also, the Population button and the Treasury cashflow Report (under Revenue for sales tax) still lists for some reason 10cr of Sales Tax, even though Zone news doesn't seem to have a mention of it and treasury cashflow report lists "Uninc." for Sales Tax ??
EDIT : It went up to 11 next turn, same comments.

Loyalty
I can not tell if Loyalty just trails the Happiness, or has an actuall interaction - excess Loyalty trying to pull happiness up. But if you got happiness problem, that means it is not doing nearly enough either way.
So not a solution either, more a sign of a Symptomatic issue.

Yeah, I think Loyalty does trail Happiness on the downward direction too.
In fact in my Zone I see :
"Loyalty decreased with -1 points [shouldn't this mean +1 Loyalty, presented this way ??] due to lower happiness than loyalty."
However for this round the Loyalty went up by 2, go figure...
EDIT : The same next turn.

What actually works
After all those things that do not work or may only be usefull in very special cases, there is one thing that does work:
"Luxury products and services", is what it is called on the Happiness Tooltip. Unfortunately it is not directly under your control, so getting them high is complicated.

You propably know that the Private Citizens want private Food? Well, that is only where the needs start!
Depending on your tech level they may also want: Food (as Luxury Good), Water, Fuel, more Fuel, Metal, Rare Metals, Machinery, Hi-Tech Ttems and even Atomics. See 5.3.20.1 for details.

But you can not just give those goods to them! With the minor exception of Food if "Emergency Food" is togelled, they have to spend private credits to buy them from the Trade Market.
You can see what they bought and sold under Reports -> Trade Reports. They are actually a main factor for driving prices on the market back up!

Yeah, and here's where the way how an Unincorporated Zone & Private Asset (not-)"Tax"/"Due" *actually* works gets annoying.
You would expect that the items not taxed would go to the Private economy and hopefully would be sold for credits and/or converted to luxury products and services, therefore boosting population happiness ?
Well, no, public items are a completely separate "line" in asset production.
Those 15 Fuel and 40 Metal from the Scavenging Community are simply not extracted (hmm, should check sometimes if the resources in the ground correspond...) - if the Zone is set to Unincorporated, the population only gets the 25 privateMetal, 25 privateOil and 10 popCredits !
It's even worse for Light Industry, where no IP are generated, only popCredits (the population wouldn't know what to do with IPs anyway !)

I asume that if they got a private mining asset, that private production part will be used on this bonus and the rest sold (for more Private Credits). But there is no real way to get them to get one. It does not seem to work that wa with "Luxury Food", however.

The selling of private items seems to be happening before the remainder is converted to luxury products and services ?
(And the ratios seem to be half for each ?)
However, there might be some minimum thresholds involved,
in my example my population is converting 19 metal and 13 oil to luxury products and services... but with no seeming benefit in return !
(There's a "Population happiness increased with 7 points." later, but I'm *pretty* sure that population happiness from luxury gets a separate line when it happens, including in the Population Happinness Zone button popup ?)
EDIT : Next turn they also spent 4 credits on buying luxury products and services (buying 4 special Items total), and converted 497 food as well as 19 metal and 13 oil to luxury products and services, resulting in a +1 point of Population Happiness.
(However this still doesn't mean that the previous turn investment wasn't wasted...)

"Continually building up" will cost you incredible amounts of IP, Metal and Workers - that you got to pay every turn - and sooner or later you run out of buildings.
Just spend a fraction of that money on Public Budget to have an actuall, permanent effect. Without wasting IP, Metal, and dragging your Civ score up if you do not want to.

Well, building up QoLs has other positive (and negative, especially Worker Happiness) effects, not just Population Happiness !

and I still think its too big - you can easily have 3/1000 and still have it working

Oh yeah, I even have a city where I have it at 1 millicredit and Worker Happinness is still 80+ and growing - I even have to remember to not decrease it lower - I assume that at 0 millicredit salary the Worker Happinness not only drops to 0, but *stays* there ?
(But we're not discussing Worker Happiness, sorry for the distraction.)

You only need to build QoL Buildings if you want to keep the Civilisation level. And thus far I found no compelling reason to get that one high. Except unlocking Buearocrat offices, maybe.

What about getting Fate Points and Fate Stratagems for reaching a new Regime Civilisation Level?
And getting new Leaders better in their Interpersonal Skill Family ?

[zgrssd]

However, in practice ..?
Running into the "your public regime coffers get emptied if your capital zone is unincorporated" bug and rolling my game back has prompted me to try to compare the happiness gain of Regular vs Unincorporated.
The result (tested by switching the capital to unincorporated or not just before clicking end round) is so underwhelming that I'm suspecting a bug :
- No change for Population.
+1 Happiness for Workers.

The Happiness increase from Unincorporated seems to be primarily by buffing the heck out of Loyalty (gain).

Yeah, I think Loyalty does trail Happiness on the downward direction too.
In fact in my Zone I see :
"Loyalty decreased with -1 points [shouldn't this mean +1 Loyalty, presented this way ??] due to lower happiness than loyalty."
However for this round the Loyalty went up by 2, go figure...
EDIT : The same next turn.

I am now convinced that Happiness pulls up loyalty and loyalty pulls up happiness - at cost to themself - if the other is lower.
That means having to build happiness or loyalty can actually negatively impact the improovement of the opposite value.

(There's a "Population happiness increased with 7 points." later, but I'm *pretty* sure that population happiness from luxury gets a separate line when it happens, including in the Population Happinness Zone button popup ?)
EDIT : Next turn they also spent 4 credits on buying luxury products and services (buying 4 special Items total), and converted 497 food as well as 19 metal and 13 oil to luxury products and services, resulting in a +1 point of Population Happiness.
(However this still doesn't mean that the previous turn investment wasn't wasted...)

If you are already near 100, any step that would bring you above 100 is omitted in the log. But it might still happen.
So you need a low enough value to even get a full log.

I also saw a entry in population "Luxury Goods and Services attracted Free Folk". I am not sure if that is actually based on LG&S, or just a part of the whole "can buy free folk" thing.

[jimwinsor]

Because I have seen a +1 for a mere 10 Public Budget.

As far as I know, the minimum threshold for +1 happiness from the Public Budget is always 1 Cr. In fact the first thing I do when giving order to a new Zone Governor is to set Public Budget slider from 0 to 1.

The interesting question is what's the threshold for +2 (seems to be about 30? IOW, probably not worth it unless you are wallowing in Cr's).

[BlueTemplar]

The Happiness increase from Unincorporated seems to be primarily by buffing the heck out of Loyalty (gain).

It was (-1) +2 in both cases.

I am now convinced that Happiness pulls up loyalty and loyalty pulls up happiness - at cost to themself - if the other is lower.

Why at a cost ?

That means having to build happiness or loyalty can actually negatively impact the improovement of the opposite value.

What do you mean by "opposite value" ?

If you are already near 100, any step that would bring you above 100 is omitted in the log. But it might still happen.
So you need a low enough value to even get a full log.

Yeah, no, I'm under 50. (And as you can see, there was an improvement due to luxuries next turn.)

I also saw a entry in population "Luxury Goods and Services attracted Free Folk". I am not sure if that is actually based on LG&S, or just a part of the whole "can buy free folk" thing.

Yeah, got that one too next turn, probably should have mentioned it.

[zgrssd]

quote:

The Happiness increase from Unincorporated seems to be primarily by buffing the heck out of Loyalty (gain).


It was (-1) +2 in both cases.

quote:

I am now convinced that Happiness pulls up loyalty and loyalty pulls up happiness - at cost to themself - if the other is lower.


Why at a cost ?

quote:

That means having to build happiness or loyalty can actually negatively impact the improovement of the opposite value.


What do you mean by "opposite value" ?

Loyalty gives Happiness a sort of - "innertia" is the best term I can think off. You need a serious reduction or long times of reductions. But Loyalty takes damage, so it will not keep the Happiness up indefinitely even against small, lasting penalties.

Loyalty pulls up lower Happiness, meaning temporary reductions do not have excessive effect. You need a massive impact over the short term - or a longterm penalty - to have relevant effect.

The same way building happiness is not 1:1. If you dropped (or started at) low loyalty, it takes a lot of happiness to pull it up. Or lack of Happiness means Loyalty takes longer to build.

I think Loyalty on Leaders works similar.

[BlueTemplar]

try to compare the happiness gain of Regular vs Unincorporated.
The result (tested by switching the capital to unincorporated or not just before clicking end round) is so underwhelming that I'm suspecting a bug :
- No change for Population.
+1 Happiness for Workers.

(Sadly, I don't remember whether I was looking at the actual happiness values or making a difference of the detailed displayed changes, but I *think* it was the first one ?)

Ok, same game, now with 2 cities :

Round 97, "Previous, Unincorporated" :
Capital Zone, Regular :
Civ Score 100 (=0)
QoL Score 100 (=0)
Loyalty 92 (+6)
Population Happiness 79 : +2 investment, -4 unrest, -1 danger, -1 corp = total -4 ; displayed (=0)
Worker Happiness 72 : +3 bonus, -2 unrest = total +1 ; displayed (+1)

Conquered Zone, Unincorporated :
Civ Score 30 (=0)
QoL Score 50 (+5)
Loyalty 13 (+6)
Population Happiness 24 : +2 luxury, +11 no reason given, +3 QoL, +2 investment, -6 unrest, -6 danger = total +6 ; displayed (+9)
Worker Happiness 29 : -2 QoL, +1 food, +2 salary, -3 unrest, -3 danger, +2 Syndic = total -3 ; displayed (-3)

Regime :
Average Civ Score 100 ; sqrt(100)-1 = 9
Civilisation Level 9.00

Leading to :

Round 98, "Next, Unincorporated" :
Capital Zone, Regular :
Civ Score 100 (=0)
QoL Score 100 (=0)
Loyalty 98 (+6)
Population Happiness 83 : +3 luxury, +2 investment, -3 unrest, -1 corp = total +1 ; displayed (+4) ; effective +4
Worker Happiness 75 : +3 bonus, -1 unrest, +1 Syndic = total +3 ; displayed (+3) ; effective +3

Conquered Zone, Unincorporated :
Civ Score 34 (+4)
QoL Score 60 (+10)
Loyalty 19 (+6)
Population Happiness 33 : +1 luxury, +10 no reason given, +4 QoL, +2 investment, -6 unrest, -5 danger = total +6 ; displayed (+9) ; effective +9
Worker Happiness 26 : -2 QoL, +2 food, +2 salary, -3 unrest, -2 danger = total -3 ; displayed (-3) ; effective -3

Regime :
Average Civ Score 100 ; sqrt(100)-1 = 9
Civilisation Level 9.00

Or :

Round 98, "Next, Regular" :
Capital Zone, Regular :
Civ Score 100 (=0)
QoL Score 100 (=0)
Loyalty 97 (+5)
Population Happiness 81 : +2 luxury, +2 investment, -3 unrest, -1 danger, -1 corp = total -1 ; displayed (+2) ; effective +2
Worker Happiness 75 : +3 bonus, -1 unrest, +1 Syndic = total +3 ; displayed (+3) ; effective +3

Conquered Zone, Regular :
Civ Score 36 (+6)
QoL Score 60 (+10)
Loyalty 19 (+6)
Population Happiness 28 : +3 luxury, +3 no reason given, +4 QoL, +2 investment, -6 unrest, -6 danger = total 0 ; displayed (+4) ; effective +4
Worker Happiness 31 : +2 QoL, +7 bonus, +1 food, +1 salary, -3 unrest, -2 danger = total +6 ; displayed (+2) ; effective +2

Regime :
Average Civ Score (100 + 36)/2 = 68 ; sqrt(68)-1 = 7.25
Civilisation Level 7.77 ?? (-123 : Actually that's -1.23)

----

Conclusions :

Unlike what I expected, the aggregated changes from turn to turn *can* be trusted !
But this is in a way even worse, because it means that the details can NOT.
Maybe some of the effects are staggered over different rounds ?

The only regularity I notice is that the Worker Happiness total was only wrong when Happiness from relative QoL went up ?

As could have been expected (if trusting the manual at least), making the Conquered Zone Regular was bad (-5 delta) for Population Happiness, but good (+5 delta) for Worker Happiness (partially because the significantly lowered Average Civ Score of 68 ? It's still higher than the Conquered Zone QoL score of 60 though, so why would it display +2 QoL happiness for workers ? But it's not like this +2 seems to be properly taken into account anyway...)

[BlueTemplar]

Oh, I forgot to check the deltas for the Capital :
Making the Conquered Zone Regular was bad (-2) for Population Happiness in it (Why ?? random effects unrelated to this ?),
and didn't change anything (=0) for the Worker Happiness (even though I would have expected it to get *better*, with the Capital QoL score now better than the Average Civ Score ?!?)

[zgrssd]

That the tooltip does not give the full breakdown of changes is known. There is no news here.
If you want something closer to a compelte breakdown, look at the Zone Reports for a turn.

Regime :
Average Civ Score (100 + 36)/2 = 68 ; sqrt(68)-1 = 7.25
Civilisation Level 7.77 ?? (-123 : Actually that's -1.23)

Regime Civilisation level is the Average Civilisation level of all Incorporated Zones.

Unincorporated Zones:
- do not pay taxes, not even Public Yields from private assets
- do not recruit Military or Colonists. I am unsure about workers, those might actually need to migrate over from other cities (wich can then recruit to replace them)
- are not affected by casualty tresholds
- do not convert their culture
- are not considered for "Regime" scores
- build happiness and loyalty rather quickly

[BlueTemplar]

Last time I checked Zone news gave exactly the same information that what's on the tooltip.
(EDIT : Hadn't checked for these though, quickly checked now - Round 98, Conquered, Regular - exactly the same information... except for loyalty where Zone news says it went up by 2, while it went up by 6 !)

Yeah, I know, hence I average over 1 or 2 Zones depending whether the second one is Unincorporated or not.

Unincorporated Zones *do* pay Service Tax & Due.
They can recruit Workers, and seem to do it exactly the same way as Regular Zones ?
I'm still not convinced about building happiness quicker - my first try has shown hardly any effect. In this case there was one (but probably for Population only ?)

Right, Loyalty is another thing that I forgot to analyze, though the manual doesn't say anything about it in the Unincorporated section :
Making the Conquered Zone Regular :
Conquered : (=0 delta) on Loyalty
Capital : (-1 delta) on Loyalty... but might be caused by random effects, and/or indirectly via Population Happiness ?