Base Election Results on Average Morale

That would make a lot more sense from a playability perspective.

I agree, although people often have short memories. IMO a better, and only slightly harder to implement, approach would to be to weight the happiness of the preceding 26 weeks, so that the current week mattered the most, but all the weeks still mattered.

Have this weeks morale be worth 26/351
Have last weeks morale be worth 25/351
Have morale from two weeks ago be worth 24/351
...
Have morale from 26 weeks ago be worth 1/351


This way, you can still effect elections by changing tax rates near an election, but a one week spike doesn't have the same effect it does now. And if things are good today, people are going to be less upset about problems from six months ago.

- Wyndstar

I like this idea, Wyndstar, although I can't remember losing an election. Question: why 351?

1+2+3....+26
I like the idea to

That'so obvious. (slaps forehead)

I like this idea. Or alternatively, make the AI capable of exploiting the current political system just as good as humans can

Basing election results on the average approval already is a good idea, but I think wyndstar has the ideal solution. It is both realistic and balances out the current flaws in the system.

Wyndstar's ideal is not a very good one IMO. It would encourage even more micromanagement of the tax slider. You don't want to add game mechanics that add to micromanagement without dire need. It makes the game take longer to play optimally, and makes it generally more tedious, and less fun.

Frankly the only real cause to enact it over just the average is either a selfish desire to maitain part of the old exploits, or a rather tenuous argument about realism.

First off, assuming "weeks' in Galciv are in fact weeks (which seems frankly rediculous to me from a realism standpoint) people are not going to care you passed a bill to lower taxes a week before the election. Most of them probably wouldn't even know yet. People don't generally care too much about tax cuts until after they recieve them. Thus if we were going to be really realistic it might be best to have the morale change a year or six months later (or whatever tax schedule these fictional citizens are supposedly on (see its already getting rediculous)). These are incredibly abrstract mechanics symbolizing a lot of different things. Moreover what government in history is changing taxes week to week anyway?

And while it has been shown people have fairly short political memories in some senses, they also aren't completely stupid and a government which raised taxes immediately after every election would become very unpopular. People don't like to be made fools of.

The only real reason to opt for Wydstar's system over just using the the average morale value is so that people can continue to "game" the morale and not pay the full electoral costs of their tax settings. I don't see that as a virtue at all.

You should have to pay the cost of your tax settings. PERIOD.

This isn't a game about micromanaging a political campaign, its a 4X strategy game. One that already has a full case of micromanagementitis. You could take out probably 50% of the clicking in this game and keep 95% of the gameplay if you put a little effort into it. It would also take 2/3s as long to play too.

Personally I don't see why you should be able to adjust the tax slider at all except once per election. It would be more realistic (not that that matters greatly as I mentioned, gameplay rules all in a game like this), and more importantly, it would make players plan ahead. Do you plan on extra needed population growth, is there anything that might adversely effect morale? You would have more realistic tradeoffs between running a very tight moale status and losing the next election. It would encourage people to leave a surplus margin for the unforseen. Kind of like real life.

At this point msot anything which reduces play power is going to make the game more fun and more challenging for people.

Sorry, Becephalus, I disagree with your pov, and agree with Wyndstar's approach.

This is a single player game - you have the choice whether or not to mess with the Tax Slider. You can choose to set it once and leave it that way the entire game. Or you can choose to micromanage and tweak it every single turn. Your choice. This is a good thing.

Too many choices have been removed or nerfed from the game already IMO.

You know, I kind of like Becephalus's idea (if not his/her tone). It is more strategic to have to make a choice and then plan around it.

I don't care one whit how the problem is solved, just that it gets solved in a semi-meaningful way. I will not micromanage my tax slider to cheese a victory by getting a better economy than I deserve. I'd be very happy with a simple fix that just averages the morale. More thought than that would be neat (though probably be a waste given stardock's in-progress projects), but I do think this issue needs fixing - it's an amazingly cheesy tactic.

Devs - any word if GC2 2.0 will address any of the cheese-factor?