So I got the benevolent leader trophy today and I have to say it took a lot of grinding work. For those looking to get it I highly recommend getting it after you finished the game because it takes a lot of caps and resources.

But after I got it I was thinking other than getting this trophy what's the point in raising happiness? There seems to be no upside what so ever......

Also with regards to the shops. Other than the fact you can sell your gear to the shops I didn't see any income going into my inventory. What's the point in building shops?

it is there. something extra to do, i guess.

You can find the caps/income from the shops in your workbench under MISC. Just go into the "transfer" menu and either scroll down or scroll through the categories (aid, junk, misc. etc.)

Not sure yet exactly what happiness does. Are they more productive, spending more caps? Need to still figure that one out.

How does one raise happiness anyway? I have several shops at Sanctuary (and apparently not enough people to staff all of them - 20 is not enough!).
At Starlight I have one level 3 shop of each kind (again, still trying to staff them all - and then half the time the settler decides he can't be stuffed standing behind the counter all day...)
At both of these settlements I've never had higher than low 80s happiness, and most of the time it's mid to high 70s - I saw no improvement whatsoever from before I even built the stores. My Charisma is at 9 or 10, I have the relevant perks, and these settlements have enough beds, food, water, power (maybe not so much of this) and a crapload of defence - so why aren't they happier, damn it?!

I personally like the way my Bar looks in Tenpines.

Did I just plop down a level 3 bar just anywhere? Nope.

I built a rather large structure, about 4 story tall, placed the Bar in a big room with elevated ceiling. Placed pool tables, chairs, couches, and built a sizable connected outdoor patio with wood floors, Cooking Station, bbq grill, chairs, radio, beer cooler, placed some drinks, and because its fallout a guard post yup gotta have barb wire somewhere.

I spent a few afternoons on my Tenpines Build and I'm still not done placing items like I want Nuka Cola Quantums placed around cause they will glow at night.

Now I sure don't get achievements, income, bonuses, or some other modifier but I did enjoy doing this. The Bar does force the NPC's to come to this nice spot I built, relax, and they even use the cooking station!!!

I put pictures up at the Nexus, same profile name.

Cant answer whats the point cause if you didn't enjoy doing it why did you do it OP?

Completionists like you...otherwise it's pointless.

lv 3 clinics offer the most happiness. I built 16 in mine, 4 guys on food. I spammed decorations everywhere until I wasn't allowed to build anymore. The worst thing is you have to actually be at the settlement for happiness to keep going up, and ring a bell which brings settlers together once a day. So you build the bell under Misc resources, set up a chair. Ring the bell, get them together, sit down, wait 24 hours and repeat. It takes at least an hour real life time of this grinding to get 100. Go to youtube and search for benevolent leader.

That's why I say it's happiness is practically pointless unless you want to get the trophy.

I don't care about the achievement, so long as they're happy enough and things aren't broken it's good enough for them.

Any tips for getting the benevolent leader thingy? I still haven't managed it yet. 馃様

If they are happy, I'm happy and if they have nice loot to sell in my kingdom (especially rare stuff), I am extra happy.

Eek... but I will anyway, for the trophy. Thanks.
Btw, you know there's a workaround for the build limit, right...? I haven't blown up my console yet.

Overall I think they did a good job of integrating this settlement stuff into the game. It easily could have been very badly broken (instead of only mildly 'glitchy') and unbalanced.

Settlements are first and foremost a source of enjoyment. Just the sheer joy of building stuff, combined with the imagined experience of helping others is good enough for many of us. It also fits in with the general storyline of the game (not so much the MQ I mean, but just the general nature of the Commonwealth and Wasteland ). But on top of that, they give in game benefits:

1. place to store stuff and sleep

2. place that traders visit and place where you can set up traders

3. place with workbenches

4. Incredible source of caps and XP.

As far as I can tell, most of these 'in game benefits' (not to mention the more experiential ones) are all modified upward based on happiness. For example, I have observed that happier peeps can farm more crops, yield more scavenge, and return more caps to the workbench. They also gift the player from time to time and I believe this might increase in frequency or value with their happiness.

At some point down the road, I may do a 9 or 10 CHA build and focus inordinately on settlments and minimize questing outside of settlements just to see how much you can level and stockpile caps ONLY from settlement based activities.

Since my main story and most of my faction quests are bugged I decided to take on this trophy and I have to say that unless you really wan the platinum to go with your Fallout 3 and Fallout NV platinum's, like me I would leave this well alone.

It's the worst type of trophy, long, annoying, unrewarding, nonsensical and ultimately completely pointless.

But I followed the general tips that are going around about building shops and it definitely works. Rank 3 Medicine shops, and a load of them at that, will shoot you from 80 - 95 in no time. Be sure to have 20 or 21 settlers and make sure that you only have them assigned to food or shops, don't make more food than you need so that you have a settler or 2 assigned to nothing and use the bell to draw everyone near you.

It took a while to go from 98 to 99, I just ran around building paintings everywhere and steel chairs because I needed to get my size meter up at the same time, I've read that paintings increase the happiness but I'm not convinced about that, as long as you have the green up arrow it will eventually go but I also have 1 more tip that I haven't seen anywhere: Dismiss your companion! I had no arrow from 99 until I dismissed Piper and it suddenly appeared, I think because she then counted as my 22nd settler.

Making a save before you do all of this is probably a good idea but I didn't bother reloading it because of all the xp from the building and caps are so meaningless in this game that it didn't really hurt to spend the caps, plus you get some back when you scrap the shops. I now just have a level 3 of each shop in Sanctuary and it makes me more than enough caps - I barely ever spend any anyway.

Its all about the trophy, other than that its pointless

I have only built up 4 out of 5 settlements so far. I'm kinda neglecting Sanctuary because it is such a large area that I am not sure where to actually start fortifying the place... I also only got as far a getting Local Leader 1.

My question is how do I increase happiness short of building storefronts? I know building defenses can increase happiness, but not by much. Take for instance Tenpines... installing some defenses (64 points??) increased happiness from 50 to 60. I built up the settlement and install some decorations (including TVs, radios, jukebox), but happiness does not go beyond 60.

If your settlement has enough food, water and defence then it should be at least 70 up to 80 depending on number of settlers. To get any higher than that the only thing that reliably works at the moment is shops.

Just make sure you have 1 food and water for each settler and enough defence for food + water, and obviously enough beds

As far as fortifying sanctuary, you really don't have to worry too much about placement. If your defence is higher than food + water ten you will hardly ever be attacked anyway (once for me in 70 hours) and you are then given the notification to go and help defend anyway. From what I understand if you don't defend then the worst that will happen is a few crops or constructs will be damaged/destroyed so just put your turrets near anything you really don't want to be destroyed

My experience is that happiness has a lot to do with caps income from shops. When I kept happiness equal to or more than 80 at all times the shops generated substantials sums of money (500-1000 in few days).

And when happiness was lower than 80 shop didn't generate any profit. And for some reason settlers love bar/restaurant as I often see them hanging around one and eating noodles alot.

Okay, I only have the original 2 settlers at Tenpines. Food is at 12 and water is 6 and defenses is at least 64 so I guess I just need to recruit some settlers to increase happiness beyond 60.

As for Sanctuary... I generally go for the "fortified" look. My other 4 settlements that are in various stages of completion has concrete walls surrounding them. I want to do the same thing for Sanctuary, but due to the size of the settlement area I need more resources than I have already used to build up the other 4 settlements.

I know enemies can spawn within the Sanctuary itself, thus bypassing any outer wall perimeter defense, but I still want to build that outer perimeter. I believe there is a mod that forces enemy attacks to spawn outside of settlements, but I am waiting for a more "official" version that will be created using the GECK. I'll probably just put more machine gun turrets on top of the pre-existing houses to protect the path that leads up to my little 3 story "fortress" that was my 1st attempt at building... I plan on tearing it down. That and building a concrete wall by the river where I am gonna place a few industrial water purifiers.

The caps thing is definitely true but also linked to unassigned settlers. I kept my shops for a while and my happiness was 98 - 100 for maybe 5 to 10 hours gameplay and I netted 10k caps from that. Now I have destroyed the sops and my happiness is back around 80 I rarely have more that 500 caps waiting for me after a few hours exploring.

Just place a recruitment beacon in your Tenpines and power it up and you'll get some settlers in no time. May as well get that water up to at least 12 though and assuming you have beds you'll get 12 settles eventually.

Aesthetics have never been my strong point lol I should have took some screenshots of the mess of a town my sanctuary was when the trophy finally popped, literally paintings everywhere I could put them and the whole circular road was filled with statues, benches and chairs. But my people were happy so who cares right!

For the moment the plan is to build a settler recruitment beacon at Outpost Zimonja after I am satisfied with the settlement's construction. It is a necessary step to complete that particular Minuteman mission anyway. Having just one beacon will allow me to control population growth in all my settlements.

It's supposed to affect productivity all around, I thought. Not just with caps but with crops (if you have planted more than you need) and water (purifiers) too.

As for the achievement? I spent hours in Sanctuary Hills (stuck at 86%) only to have Graygarden (which I completely ignored) rise to 100% while I was turning in a main story quest. I visited the place once, long enough to set up a provisioner from Sanctuary Hills.

add misc stuff to the settlement's like radios that play music etc. I build a working bar for my food and drink vendor with dining tables chairs. lights jukebox and radios set to the 3 stations. keeps them happy. also happiness does matter if it drops to low your settlers with say fu and leave your settlement.

Fun.

I find there comes with it a certain sense of satisfaction that you, by your hand, have made a safe haven in the wasteland. It's something people have been wanting and trying to do since Fallout 3. I take a lot of pride in my settlements, these little places of refuge where people can live in as much happiness as the world affords them.

Afterall, anywhere can be heaven, so long as you try to live.