How to increase Happiness in Civilization 7

Happiness in Civilization 7 is a yield you’ll get from your settlements that works on both a city and civilization level. Globally, Happiness determines how often your civilization holds celebrations. Locally, each of your settlements uses its Happiness yield for building and specialist upkeep and to prevent unrest and riots. Our Civilization 7 guide will tell you how to increase your Happiness and some of the things that will buff it. Table of Contents How Happiness works in Civilization 7 Happiness is a weird yield in Civilization 7. It has a lot of invisible effects that only really matter sometimes. On the local level, Happiness is a yield you’ll need to build up as you expand your settlement. Some buildings have an upkeep cost in Happiness that you’ll spend every turn. Specialists also have a Happiness upkeep. Anything beyond what you spend in upkeep contributes to your civilization’s global Happiness. Your civilization’s Happiness determines how often you hold Celebrations and get to slot new social policies. Happiness becomes a lot more important when your settlement’s Happiness yield dips below zero (like if you have too many specialists or buildings with Happiness upkeep) or if your civilization starts to experience War Weariness. When Happiness becomes Unhappiness, all of your town’s other yields — like Gold, Production, and Food — start decreasing. If it goes on long enough, you’ll get unrest and riots will start damaging structures. So keeping Happiness high (or, at least, above zero) is important to your civilization’s success. Let’s talk about how you increase it. How to increase Happiness in Civilization 7 There are a lot of factors that affect Happiness. Everything from your leader to your civilization to Civic research and building adjacencies will give you boosts to Happiness. Choosing Himiko as your leader, for example, gets you an extra +2 Happiness on Happiness Buildings. The best way to manage the Happiness yield in your settlements and civilization is to make sure you don’t have to think about it in the first place. There are lots of little things you can do as you grow your civilization. By choosing the right yields, buildings, and civics and policies, you can increase your Happiness. Happiness tile yields Growing your Happiness starts with tile yields as you grow your settlements. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Civ-7-Happiness-4.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] When you first set up a town or city, Food and Production are the most important yields, but by the time you start building things like monuments or placing specialists, you’ll need to have surplus Happiness to manage the upkeep. Make sure you’ve expanded your settlement into tiles that have a Happiness yield by default. Happiness Buildings [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Civ-7-Happiness-5.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] Certain buildings — Happiness Buildings — generate Happiness as well. Things like altars (unlocked by researching the Mysticism Civic) and villas (unlocked by researching the Wheel Tech) generate happiness on their own. They also benefit from adjacency bonuses, so pick tiles that maximize Happiness when you place them. The problem is that they take time to build — and Unhappiness slows down your production. If you’ve got the cash, you can purchase these buildings outright for a quick Happiness fix. Happiness Civics and Policies Beyond the physical layout of your settlement, you can also boost Happiness with certain Civics and the Policies they unlock. [Image: https://platform.polygon.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/02/Civ-7-Happiness-6.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] Most of the Civic tree nodes unlock Happiness Buildings (above) that you can build. Certain ones, though, also unlock Policies that you can slot in after each Celebration. Researching Entertainment in the Antiquity Age, for example, gives you the Rites and Rituals Policy that increases Happiness by 2 in all settlements. Policies (and Celebrations) take even more time to enact, though, so for immediate solutions, you only have one other option. Happiness army units Having an army commander in your settlement (meaning that they’re inside your settlement’s limits) raises Happiness. Per the Civilopedia, they reduce Unhappiness by 10%, which is fine if you’re trying to avert a riot. But our testing shows that they also increase Happiness if your town is functioning normally. The only caveat is that you can’t just train or buy an army commander and wait for them to spawn. They have to come in from outside of your settlement’s limits. If you train or buy one in the settlement you’re trying to enhappify(?), move them out and then back in to gain the benefit. For more Civilization 7 guides, here’s a list of all yields, plus guides on how to increase Production and Food.