Help?! -newbie; I can't keep my approval rating up or afford ships : (

from Stardock Forums
For the first part of the game I'm able to keep approval high by keeping the taxes low enough. That kept my population growth high and I followed the suggestions posted on the thread called:
"is this game REALLY hard or is it just me?"
But then once I had about 13 planets on a medium map on beginner level no matter how low I made taxes, even 0%, my approbal got lower and lower, at 10% taxes I think my approbal was becoming 50% and I was looking to lose a majority of the senate seats in the republic. I don't see how in the world I could afford any military ships with this going on. I have minimal maintanence costs. I've built a banking center, soil improvement, habitat improvement, and entertainment center on each planet and that is about all except for the trading center (one per race) on earth. All of these have zero maintanence. I am by far the most populace race. Luckily no one has attacked me though there in unrest probably stirred up by my neighbor that I'm not sure how to deal with (I'm building a news center there hoping it'll help). I have the max trade routes with a +1 route bonus. The tech tree generally just confuses me though I've looked at the tech tree map.
So what do I do. It doesn't make any sense to me. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with the approval ratings. And because of this there seems no way for me to support a military or buildings that would cost maintanence. If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it. Thank you. -Nathan :sniff!:
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
For the first part of the game I'm able to keep approval high by keeping the taxes low enough.
End of quote


Don't.

Your citizens grow accustomed to the tax-free lifestyle, and become quite upset when you need to bring the taxes up in cases of emergancy.



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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
So what do you suggest for a tax rate. Someone said 50% another 70% worked for him. You just don't worry about the approval? BTW can I raise the taxes and people will then also get used to that after having low taxes for a long time?
Also I don't see where the initial cost of building something gets calculated into the economy and it seems strange that even if I'm only constructing one building that I'm still using the same amount of money for "social" in that months costs.
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Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
I think it may be possible your taxes are *too* low early. I understand you want to keep morale at 100 on Earth at the start, but don't set them any lower than you have too, and don't be afraid to let morale drop after the start.

Here's why:
Morale drop is more or less inevitable. As population on a given planet increases, morale decreases. If you lower the tax rate, morale rises, but this leads to increased population, and---wait for it---lower morale!

See what I'm saying? Morale/Population Growth is like a treadmill....you can keep running, but you will *never* escape. I think you may be catering too much to the populous (by keeping morale up) which is great for production, until you get to a point where you can't keep them happy...at that point it is like your planets are super-saturated with people.

Now you could try some other things, like mining morale resources with starbases or building more +morale improvements, but I think that might only make your problem worse in the long run.

Oh! Are you taking bouses to population when you start the game? If so, you might drop that for something else...like an econ boost for instance to help keep all those people happy :)

Good luck!
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
you can do quite a few things to keep morale higher:



-build more morale boosting improvements

-build morale boosting trade goods (frictionless clothing, ultra spices, etc.)

-research morale boosting techs (organic piecing, cure for depression, etc.

-seize morale boosting resources and exploit them

-build transports on low PQ systems and ferry people to higher PQ systems ... or just load the disgruntled people onto transports and have them wait in space till you need soldiers.



You definitely should not put your tax rate to 0%. About 30-35% is generally good. Also, when morale sinks below 50%, it generally doesn't drop any lower, you just don't get any more population growth.
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Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
to be honest I didn't see anywhere in the game setup to take bonuses. I'll look again. Ah, I see where you can modify the bonuses now. So far I've gone with the default Federalist bonuses Economy, Social, Military, and Luck. I'm on my 3rd attempt at a game now with the Star Wars mod which I like pretty well.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
You choose a party (which provides some bonuses) then you get 10 points to spend on other bonuses as you choose. Just double checking you've seen both (since I don't recall the stats for the Federalists).
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
In the setup it says 0 points to spend. I will raise my taxes to about 33% and see if they get used to it in this game. Next time I won't pamper too much, less the further the game progresses.
Is building a news station a good way to deal with a possible uprising and are there more forceable ways to deal with it if necessary?
And where is the cost of buildings factored into the economy (when do you pay for them? -over time?). It does seem strange that even while just constructing one building one one planet that a lot of money can be spent on social programs but I guess that is the way the game is set up.
Thank you guys for the quick response and all the help. :)

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Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
To get those ability points back, select modify abilities then either uncheck things or select the reset button.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
i'm still a newbie (only played about 5 or 6 games & 3 to completion) but i found that if i keep taxes & spending at 100% from the start of the game untill you first have a negative amount of money you can then lower the tax rate to around 50% and have 70 to 100 moral for most of the game. it's also a good way to pump out colony ships if you play with the military spending slider. it's worked for the last 2 games of the 5 games i have played so far anyway :)

~SDC~
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
I tend to start off by raising Taxes to about 50% and shisting around spending so that i got about 40% on Military so i can pump out colony ships and constructors faster. I tend to do as much trading and dimplomacy as possible in order to keep the money flowing and even with the approval rating dropping i tend to keep the Senate throughout the entire game. Normally i come really close to losing the senate a handfull of times but even when i do lose it I gain it back next time. All the money i make through trade and diplomacy i alos tend to use to lease out or buy social projects in order to raise their morale and my economy. For the most part this gives me a strong economy but i usually have weak research (but i can buy/trade it from other races with the strong economy i have). This has been a good pattern for me when i go for cultural victories... i may be leaving small details out but i can't think of what... lots of starbases too.... i like starbases...

~SDC~