Morale sucks; and that SUCKS

Do not raise taxes lower taxes. This helps a little.

Improving the planet quality also increases morale.

~SDC~

Build combat transports instead, that's a good use of surplus population.

Combat transport have a limit of 5,000, and cost 5bc maintenace. Colony ship have no limit and cost no maintenance.
:notsure:

~SDC~

Combat transports have a use.

it will be interesting to see that if they update the AI based on Metaverse games, if this will be considered an "exploit". Developing Combat Transports for the SOLE purpose of enhanching morale and controlling population levels sounds cheesy. Creative granted, but cheesy.

~SDC~

I would hope that they curb this morale paradox at least a little in a patch. If you raise morale then population increases faster which in turn lowers morale do to over crowding. I don't really want to have to devote a whole fleet of colony ships or transports just to ferry people off planets. I understand the concept that the devs are trying to implement, but it really should be cut back at least a tiny bit.

~SDC~

Perhaps for every +10% morale from improvements, you should get +1% added to the morale point at which people stop breeding. This will shift the 'zero' point up so that although you don't get quite as many people, they are, on average, happier (as they should be).

~SDC~

I actually had a game where I set the tax rate lower and lower until it reached 0... so I tought, what the heck if they will vote my party of due to only 45% approval, then I will at least profit from it!
So i raised the tax to 14 and could start to build FAST. SO iraised it to 26 and all the building and the tech shot my graphs rocketing for the sky... and suddenly they LIKED ME!!!
Success makes friends I guess. Later I started a war with the top power in the universe (drengins), because I felt mighty with all my new ships.I am able to hold them off until now, so raising the taxes CAN be a valid way of raising approval (and hopefully win).

What do you DO with all the colony ships full of unwanted people WHEN THERE ARE NO MORE planets to colonize?? WHAT do you do with combat transports when you ARE NOT AT WAR?? Just hold onto them until they are needed? And in the meantime keep paying upkeep fees? (thats another bitch of a problem...keeping finances from dwindling.) Maybe great for warmongers but what about trying to play with out fighting unless really needed to survive? (the other ways to win??)
I really think the morale "engine" needs to be either tweaked or we need an option to adjust game difficulty...and I dont mean by making the aliens dumber or smarter, I mean making it easier to RUN YOUR OWN civilization (for us dumb-ass inexperienced players) while allowing the whiz-kids who have all the stategies perfected to ratch up the difficulty to suit them.
If there is anything that is hurting the game from my own perspective, its the morale issue. To the folks with the good advice to build morale building improvements...thanks. I kinda figured that out already, but they have to be RESEARCHED first and there are lots of years where you have already built every fricken thing that you CAN to improve morale and you have to wait for more tech.
Rant over.
Cheers.

Well it is one of the major problems in this game... but it is a game which generates problems for you to solve, how to repell the drengin, how to increase funding, how to get that new tech, etc.
I do not see the Morale problem to be that big compared to the drengin or such, for one there is only around 40% bonus atached with "your" party, so loosing it in the late game is not that extreme... but when these red faces start to show up
I think that it does NOT need fixing, but i never played on the top two map, so maybe it is a bigger problem with the bigger maps?
Finally I would think there are ways with wich you can work around it (altough maybe strange ones), opposed to the turn button beeing stuck, or when you get an early shark...

no argument that game ruining bugs need to be addressed first.
However i stand by my position that the ability to adjust game difficulty for your ouwn civilization...less morale headaches being one of them on the easier settings...would benefit the game.
I'm all for a good challange but if a game gets to difficult to deal with thats no longer a challange, its a chore and I have enough of those to deal with in daily life as it is. Remember, all gamers are not equal. Some are a whole lot better than others; unfortunately, I'm in the 'others" category. Give us a difficulty slider!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Morale is the biggest problem in my book to. I agree with everyone. I finished the tech tree and built all the upgrades and it still slides down. But get this, I was a tech researching machine, its what I did. Researched and sold tech. I always had the newest social projects at my bidding. I barely kept them satisfied. I can imagine how hard it must be for other people who aernt devoting so much money to research. But the problem really shows once Ive built everything the game has to offer and morale still drops. They are like bottomless pits where morale points go. An hour glass where every 20 so odd turns I refill it with sand, till I run out of sand and my points go down the drain. Oh, and all those social projects eat money up
(there maintanance). I dont think my planets make money, lol. I get my money from selling tech.

This sounds like a serious gameplay/balancing isse (if not a bug.) STARDOCK needs to LOOK INTO THIS. Its not one or two whining losers complaining here folks.

My first couple of games were like that, would trade all my tech for money to research more tech. Found that to be a very bad cycle if some of the AI manage to kill off 2-3 empires or they all go broke just when you badly need cash. Just didn't see how my empire would ever make enough money to support itself.

In my latest game, I put the tech to far better use, buying starbases from my opponents, then loading them with cultural enhancements. I also give enough away that I've never been in a war, but I'm always prepared for one (150-170 military rating). Some poor civ comes crying to me about being beat up on and I just give them 4-5 of my weakest ship class. That makes them like you, and helps keep slow down an overly agressive AI civ.

When things get going fairly well after the first 1/4 of the game or so I crank down the tax rate as low as I can to ramp up my population growth, then crank it back up when I run low of money. I keep moving it up, maxing my tax revenue, that keeps my population from going so high in the mid to end game stage that I have serious morale problems.

Since I've been making everyone like me I tend to get a more than fair proportion of the trade income.

On the last turn of my latest game (all AI set to normal, gigantic galaxy), I was getting 50% of the trade income, and my 1169b population was cranking out 9014 in taxes at a 60% tax rate, my approval rating was 61%.


~SDC~

Taxes...just work them like you would in the Sim City games. Adjust for the current situation and plan for the future.

taxes aint the answer to morale imbaleence issues with the game. There is a flaw in the engine there, just like with the game ending special events.

Yup

I have my tax level at 5% and a civ moral bonus of 60% and im still cripped by moral. Unless of course i make a coleny ship for each of my 40 worlds every 3 turns and disband half my population.

~SDC~

Perhaps with lower morale people could start emigrating from your planets? They don't have to actually go anywhere, just not be on your planet anymore. That would balance it out somewhat? :notsure:

~SDC~

Ah what a bunch of whiners! I went through similar morale problems as well, readjusted my research goals to more social projects, then BUILT those facilities (virtual reality machines, frictionless clothing trade good) and solved the problem. I was whoefully negligent on the social development front in both games where my morale seemed lower (like in the 30's!) than it ought to be. From the experience in my games, morale seems about right. The AI can handle it, so can I.

~SDC~

Dearmad-your so good. We all wish we had your expertise.

and--I DONT BELIEVE the AI is having the same problems and 'handles" it.

I still say bring on a euthanasia patch and let us make food out of unwanted population. It would be easier than building ships and sending out colonists every 10 turns. But of course, the experts who have no problem with morale can just not build that improvement

Propaganda helps.

But yeah, the whole population/morale thing really sucks. Why dont my people stop having babies, christ! The population growth in this game is astounding. The UP must have outlawed birth control in one the sessions I missed.

olaf

50% morale is not bad. (As a rough estimate, the average US president only has an approval rating of about 45%.)

That said, Morale bonuses of +60% are not really that good mid to late game. A single starbase on a morale resource can grant a +95% bonus by itself, techs can get another +80% (IIRC), and there are morale anomolies and events as well.

~SDC~

what is a morale resource?