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Morale too easy to manage now?

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Morale too easy to manage now?

from Stardock Forums
What a difference one update makes. With the population cutoff set at I believe 56-58% now instead of 50, an empire just practically runs itself. Destabilization is now much less useful (but not useless). You can basically forget about losing elections, other than the odd fluke here and there.

Personally, I'd like 3 things to happen:

1. Take the Morale/population cutoff point back to where it was.
2. Make election victory/defeat depend on what your AVERAGE support rating was over the previous 2 years, to eliminate one month Propoganda blitz/Tax rate manipulation cheese. Winning elections should be a bit more challenging.
3. Most good players know that you can deal with overpopulation by building Colony Ships/Transports and selling/trading/disbanding them. The problem is this is the only real permanent way to deal with overpopulation (Tax rate/social projects/Propoganda only go so far), and many people have a role playing issue with selling/trading/killing their own people. Perhaps when you disband a transport or colony ship, a pop-up message could come up saying that they've set course for another galaxy, in hope of starting a new life there (anything really, just so it doesn't feel like you've sentenced them to death). Perhaps for every X number of citizens eliminated in this way you increase the chances of some kind of positive random event where some of your people return to aid you from another galaxy (you get few free attack ships appear).

Just some thoughts....I really think the Morale nerf was too much. Bring the challenge back, and let people learn to deal.
1,236 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm really liking the suggestion to be able to manually set the default morale level. Sure-fire way to make everyone happy, and the AI has to play by the same rules as you. Those that liked 50 as the cutoff can have 50, those that like 58 can keep it.
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
For my part, I just played a Huge map in which I finished the game with 1 trillion people. I had approval greater than 90 at the end of the game, and I never had to space a single citizen. I think I'm now justified in saying I don't have a clue what all the fuss about morale and population is about; it seems perfectly manageable to me, without having to resort to such unpleasantness as spacing people.

- Ash

~SDC~
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
"Make election victory/defeat depend on what your AVERAGE support rating was over the previous 2 years, to eliminate one month Propoganda blitz/Tax rate manipulation cheese."

Dude, how else to you think 2 George Bushes have gotten themselves "elected". Seems perfectly realistic to me. :)

Read My Lips: No New Patches!
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top
My average over those two years is likely to be 70%+ even with 50%+ taxes. It's just too easy I think.

~SDC~
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
I liked the old way too. It made the choice between morale enhancing social construction and some other social construction more meaningful. Now, the morale enhancing social construction can almost always wait until later.

Also, I think I've lost one election in the last twenty, and that's only because I got so used to winning elections that I got sloppy monitoring morale.

Morale, as it stands now, is more of a minor micromanagement annoyance than it is a strategic element of gameplay.

I can understand people not liking the old system, but it seemed there were ways to solve the problem of overpopulation in the game without shipping off your population.

Having said that, in an ideal world, it would be nice to have a way to make everyone happy: a slider bar or an option to set morale difficulty would be a wonderful addition, IMHO.
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
I have to agree with Godzilla & Dearmad. Now it does seem a little too easy. Although I'm not a very experienced player, in my first games I really had some difficulties keeping morale up. That made me carefully choose beetwin social productions, and event tech research since I was often in need of new morale-improving-buildings. And even with them and low taxes I would have, from time to time, lots of red angry faces all over the place.
In my current game, first since 042, I didn't even bother building these morale improving social projects. I started building them only in the midgame, where I had nothing left to build in these planets, and was just wasting money there constructing "nothing". ANd when I did, it was not to keep moral over 50% but rather around 70-90%, so that the populations in these planets would grow faster (I'm the less populated species in game, so I cannot really invaded, and have to keep doing a defensive war for now -- the problem is my enemy The Yor had the random event where they just keep growing stronger every turn :sniff!: )

A last word about the elections: before I had to keep an eye on the date, so 2 to 3 months before I begin my "political campaign" (low taxes + propaganda ;) ). Now I don't have to bother, still haven't lost any in this game, and my taxes haven't changed since the start: around 50%.

So I guess, Yes, it does seem a little too easy now.
Maybe, as it was suggested in other threads, linking moral to other things would be a nice way of making it hader to manage without undoing the 042 upgrade changes. It could be linked to the duration of war, number of victories over defeats, etc. Also, when a morale construction is build, maybe the improvement in planet's moral should take longer and be progressive. However, a drop due to a war of aggression or a rise in taxes should remain immediate, like it is for tazxes now.

And a do agree that a slide bar or option would make this mora adjustable by everyone. However it should be taken into account when submetting results to the metaverse.

~SDC~