Systems Defecting

Were there any other events like a fundamentalist minor appearance who may have flipped your planets? As I recall when the Independant or I-League flip my planets they are very low and have the frown you describe. Maybe they can flip at higher levels too. Otherwise my flipped planets are due to a nearby major, particularly when they have high influence (like maso). Good luck.

PQ also seems to affect them wanting to break away

~SDC~

As far as recall there are 3 things that will make your planets defect:
1) Low morale (i think its planet with moral less than 32). Planets can defect to the I-League, unless the I-league has already been killed earlier in the game

2) Culture flipping. If the AI influence in a sector is more than 200 points higher than yours, there is a risk your planet will flip

3) Fundamentalist. If you have an evil Alignment (this can be seen on your domestic screen by clicking on society in the upper left corner) and the Fundamentalist event occurs you could loose systems to the Fundies

Merry Christmas

The major issue is moral points, if any of your planets is under 50% morale, they tender to get weary and if the cultural influence of other AI is prevalent in that particular sector they will flip to the other race, also low PQ (planet quality, usualyy below 15PQ) will cause them to flip if there is another culture close to them.

If you are looking for an empire to join come and check the Empire of The LIght, only neutral/good are allowed.

Hey NovaGuy --

My overall approval rating was about 50% +-.[\quote]

This is a problem. Your worst planet should be above 50% morale. Morale is directly tied to population growth, which is directly tied to tax revenue. I think the game creaters are republican, because lowering taxes creates more revenue in the long run (couldn't resist!)

So lower your taxes, sort the planet display on morale and keep an eye on the bottom of the list.

I usually don't have problems with defection unless the PQ is really bad. My tax rate and thus revenue fluctuates depending on events. If my revenue is negative (during ecomonic downtime events) then I increase taxes but cut spending. If my revenue is high then I cut taxes and increase spending. Eventually my approval rating goes through the roof and I can do anything I want. I had almost 76% tax rate with on overall approval of 80%. Which is nice because I could do no wrong. The only major event that causes me to lost planets is low PQ or low moral within the confines of colonization, also those damn fundamentalists always ruin it for me, maybe its because I'm pure evil but hey everybody has to have a quest in life, right?

To sum up:

I find it is best to fluctuate spending and tax rates because in the long run doing so will allow your ecomony to go through the roof.

Note:

I had one month where my revenue was over $1000 with the economic boom but when that stopped it was about $750 (Which is excellent for intergalactic domination). Also when you go to war with the majors, be sure to keep a minor around because as soon as those trade routes disappear your economy can go down the toilets.

I know I got a little off topic.

The guy is probably sending colony ships out with HALF the pop from the origin world. Why the game even does that, I have no idea. It's AWFUL. One of the the things we all seem to have to learn the hard way.

Send 30-50 mil to anything under PQ15. Send 100 mil to PQ15, add up to another 100 max for each additional PQ value. Of course, you can't always know in advance if you are sending colony ships out into the fog, but do the best you can.

Don't ever EVER autolaunch a colony ship.

Sure would be nice if Brad or Cari could change colony ships to stop working like transports. Have them to default to 200mil colonists, OR half, whichever is SMALLER. Then the poor n00bz would stop suffering so much when they first get started.


- Sirian

Cari has said the next build will have a field to enter the number of people to board ships. This will eliminate most problems. I totally agree with your assessment. Autolaunching colony ships is not really helpful at any time.

Unless you plan on spacing the poor souls...

Kelly

I used to space people pretty often, but I find it much better to get people off planets by building Combat Transports. You're still taking the excess population off a planet, but you're also getting a large invasion force! Of course, Combat Transports only hold 5000 troops while Colony Ships can space the entire population, but it's still a better solution in my eyes. Waste not, want not! And since I have a bad addiction to invading the enemy, I try not to waste good troops!

I usually move them to a high PQ planet in my own empire that has morale to spare. And if I get a multiplanet system, I'll just move them to the other planets in the same system (since only the first planet is ever stripped).

I agree it's better not to space them. They can also be used as a culture bomb. Since they will be 1 morale on any planet, land them on any planet, if you've got the influence resources to back them up. Plop them down, flip a bunch of planets, pick them back up in a new colony ship and abandon the temporary outpost. Only danger is you need to eliminate the I-League first.


- Sirian