Morale = way too powerful in 1.1

from GalCiv2 Forums
With the population changes in 1.1, morale is waaaaaaay too good right now. Keeping your morale at 100% on a colony doubles your growth rate, and taking morale +20% and populists gives you +40% morale, and this lets you crank up the taxes to about 45% and keep all your planets at 100% morale. I think the best thing would be to remove the morale bonus on population growth, let morale strictly influence taxes. Having it effect both your population AND your economy is just way too much for one stat to do IMO.

In the mean time, if your not taking as much morale as you can get, your really shooting yourself in the foot. That 40% morale is like +50% econ and +50% pop growth rolled into one. Of course, go for the morale resources asap as well. The AI on intelligent knows this as well. In one game it built one colony ship and then grabbed a morale resource by its home planet.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Populists are definitely the way forward, +20% morale and +20% diplomacy (which is also a supreme AI bashing weapon) is just too good to pass up
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Having it effect both your population AND your economy is just way too much for one stat to do IMO.

Well, it was already that setting in GC1. You are just forgetting the catch: maintaining 100% morale, which means getting less income that what you would have with higher tax rates So this will translate in more turns to complete any project if you aren't at 100% spending or in a bigger deficit per turn.

And don't forget that population has no direct influence on production
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Except that population will indirectly limit production of colony ships or troop transports. Population grows very slowly at low levels, if you strip a planet too low from building troopers it'll talke a long time to recover.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Peace Pheonix:

This is true but now that population growth rates are lower (the dev's post suggested around 3%) maintaining 100% morale when a planet is first colonized seems essential. This is because if a population starts at 0.5 billion then after 20 turns with 3% growth it will be 0.9 billion, with 6% growth it'll be 1.6 billion. That's a big difference in tax take
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
This is true but now that population growth rates are lower (the dev's post suggested around 3%) maintaining 100% morale when a planet is first colonized seems essential. This is because if a population starts at 0.5 billion then after 20 turns with 3% growth it will be 0.9 billion, with 6% growth it'll be 1.6 billion. That's a big difference in tax take

True. But you are choosing between developping new colony and producing more on your more developped planets. Sometimes, 1 turn may be critical to grab a planet right under AI nose
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
True. But you are choosing between developping new colony and producing more on your more developped planets. Sometimes, 1 turn may be critical to grab a planet right under AI nose


it's very easy to make all your colonies so low in population that they just flip to the AI as soon as they start getting some influence nearby in 1.1. 100% morale and slower expansion is pretty much a requirement but the AI still expands quickly on a lot of map settings.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This could be mitigated by implementing a sliding scale instead of the 3%/6% thing. If growth increases based on morale, instead of being either 3% or 6%, having the 'magic 100' won't be as imporant, and players can tweak the population vs tax they desire for the current situation.

Frankly, I think sliding scales and derived functions are always the way to go.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Populist is definitely the way to go, but I wouldn't waste the custom points on morale, a single morale miner more than make up for that benefit the later game. IMO, there are a lot better pick choices... like speed and population growth or diplomacy if you want to be really cheap. Right now pop growth is much more powerful than morale. Just be a little patient and endure a little lost at first (lower tax), and you will be richly rewarded when your population grow several times that of the AI. About the only ones who has any real chance against you would be the Torians and Thalans, and that's only because they have pop growth bonuses as well.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yep I've played my last 4 game as populists with additional morale bonuses and economic bonuses and I can say you can easily win over the rest of the AI in less than a hundred turns on the money front. I usually aim for 70% morale rather than 100% since it gives you insane tax returns. Having a double pop growth is only good till you hit that magic population ceiling, then its morale hell from there on up. I once had a population at 20 billion and believe me they were incredibly difficult to keep happy. Having a nice pop of 8-10 bill is ok with 70% morale and a general style colony will save you a lot of headaches and allow you plenty of space for specialising on later worlds. Personally I think specialised worlds are well overrated. They leave you open to a devasting loss if conquered, you know the old saving about having too many eggs in one basket.

J
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well there is a moral bug i found that makes all your planets have 1% approval. I think i foound the even that causes it but forgot the name.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This could be mitigated by implementing a sliding scale instead of the 3%/6% thing. If growth increases based on morale, instead of being either 3% or 6%, having the 'magic 100' won't be as imporant, and players can tweak the population vs tax they desire for the current situation.


You also get a bonus of 25% population increase at 75% approval.