Colony Morale

The most significant factor influencing morale is population.
At 20% morale, immediately build a colony ship, go in debt even.
You only have one shot at this, as the colony is one way.
Load up the colony ship with a many colonist that are needed to bring you morale to at least 50%.

Here is an exemple.
a PQ (planet quality) 17 planet, created in 2188, with revenue of 9 will support a population of 103, at a morale of 77%, and, a tax rate of 56%.
Colony ships can be returned to the planet, once production will have increased.
Meanwhile, keep you tas rate around or above 50%, to keep your population in check.
(IT's only a game!)
Have fun


~SDC~

Hmmmm. I thought a high tax rate would reduce morale. I always try to lower my tax rate if I have morale problems.

confusion between a universal fantasy (low tax) with winning a game? LOL

~SDC~

I have my tax rate at 0 and have sold alot of tech to
have lots of money..but even so....my morale is only
at 51 % ..with 0 tax..no money coming in from the colonies.

So the low morale is a factor of population eh? So i should ship out my colonists to raise my morale and allow myself to generate some sort of tax?

Doug

Thanks Everyone for your comments.

Shipping out colonists does help.

I found something else out that seems (so far) to also help. If you go to the planet screen (up close picture of planet with military and social projects options) there is in the low right hand corner until the military section a button/icon titled: Details

This opens another window that gives you more details on
the planet. You can select a govenor, it shows you what you have built on the planet, etc. In the middle
bottom of this window, there is a slider until propoganda. This allows you to spend a percentage of your planets revenue toward increasing propoganda, which directly impacts the planet's morale. Each planet is controlled separately, so what you do on one planet doesn't effect another.

This may be the solution to planet morale issues.

Thanks for all your comments,

James.

be carfull with the propaganda, as it cost every turn and does not add to production. You have to consider what is the opportunity cost of it.

~SDC~

Higher morale results in higer production and also higher tax returns, so even buildings that cost money and boost moraly may be economically viable.

~SDC~

some good advice, especial the propaganda slider which I didnt realize was there. BUT...whats with the colony ship solution? How do you continue to siphon off population when there are NO MORE PLANETS to colonize? Do you just leave em out in space? Bring em back when morale goes up which will (theoretically) just lower morale again?
Hoestly, this, for me, is the most frustrating part of the game.

The relationship between taxes, population, and morale seems a bit convoluted to me. I can understand as the manual says that the population number is only those people who contribute taxes, so increasing taxes decreases that number becuase there's fewer weathly folks. But the actual # of people on the planet shouldn't be affected by changing taxes. And increasing taxes shouldn't increase morale because suddenly there are fewer people. I haven't played around with this myself much... maybe I'll try a few things out.

I'm sorry, I am still very confused. How does shipping out colonists increase morale? How do I know many to ship out? Thanks.

OK, I played around a bit with taxes. I set taxes to 0% and got 100% morale, then population grew and morale dropped to about 50%. Then I set taxes to 100%, morale goes to 0 and population drops, and eventually morale rises somewhat (to say 20%) as the population drops. So population is certainly a major factor as has been stated above. But taxes also have an effect, and from my quick test it looks like lower taxes are always better in the long run. Shipping folks off the planet would increase morale, but I just see that as too much of a micromanagement hassle to deal with so I just do the best I can otherwise by lowering taxes and building morale-improving structures.

this morale thing is a bigger issue than I thought. Many threads (including mine) have raised questions and asked for help but nobody has a good answer. Great AI is something we've all been looking for but I am afraid there are some other issues...not bugs but questionable gameplay designs that are making the game too frustrating...the ever popular "this just came out of nowhere and screwed me so I might as well quit and start a new game" random event.
We need more difficulty options...random events off/on; space sharks off/on (or their strength adjustable); level of morale penalties to name a few. You know, just for us less talented strategy players. Clowns like ME, for instance, who've only been playing turn based strategy games on the PC since 1991, including almost every 4x space game ever produced and who just are good enough to handle GalCiv..........

edit:
...and who just are NOT good enough to handle GalCiv. (sorry, defective keyboard.)

Population plays the biggest role in morale, from what I have seen. Assuming you have a reasonable tax rate that is.

It is annoying as shit, I agree. What I do is jack propaganda up on planets that dont have the morale improvements built yet. I also run a tax rate of about 25%. I can do this because every so often I pick a tech that I dont really care about the AI having and sell it to all of them for as much as I can get.

If you dont want to, or cant do that, you might build a colony ship, launch it and then disband it. I think the people on it...'disappear'.

olaf

I'd prefer a quicker option than building ships to jetison colonists...SOYLENT GREEN.
Stardock should include that "improvement" in a bonus pack. Too many people? Morale got you down? "Retire" some of the old folks...kill two birds with one stone....lower population and food for the rest. Or sell the product to others. Makes as much sense as building colony ships when there are no more planets to colonize or packing folks up on transports just to get your population down. All the other morale improvements really dont matter. yeah, build one and its good for awhile. Ten to twenty turns later and your back in deep ahit again. And what do you do when every improvement in the tech treeis built? What next?
Soylent green is the WAY!