Morale

What am I missing?

from GalCiv2 Forums

One thing throughout the GC series I have never been able to sort out is Morale.  Using my current game as an example: Through research, events, Super Projects, Morale Resource mining, and anomalies, my race's Morale stat is about 150%.  Most of my planets are at 100% Morale, but the older ones -- especially the homeworld, just can't seem to get their Morale into comfortable numbers.  Like, even if I drop taxes to 0%, I still have a half-dozen colonies with Morale below 40%.  I'll grant that being older colonies, they have populations in the 15-20 billion range, BUT their planetary qualities are in the 20-40 range, and because of excess food production the ceiling caps are up around 40-50 billion.

Now, here's the kicker that has me puzzled the most: So, with all of those factors, I build a Morale-boosting structure that is supposed to raise planetary Morale 10-20% -- but which at most will raise Morale on that planet by only 1%.  Building multiple Morale-boosting structures doesn't change anything either.  [I'm wondering what the effect of building multiple structures of the same kind (like 2 or more Entertainment Centers) provides _any_ benefit for the units beyond the first.]

It's getting annoying as hell.  It seems like _nothing_ is able to boost Morale on my core worlds.  For over half of my 50+ planets, I could jack taxes up to 60% and their Morale would stay at 100%.  But if I tax beyond 10%, those half-dozen planets would dip to below 20%.  (And, again, if I set taxes to 0%, the best I'll get from them is about 40%.)

For fear of having my most developed planets (with at least 5 empty tiles left to develop on PQ 20+) rebelling, I have to run the economy at a huge deficit.  (About -1900 B.C per turn.  I float the Treasury by selling older tech to all the other races ever 10 turns or so.)

So, what is it that I'm missing?  Why does it seem that there is _nothing_ that can be done to get my people's morale over 50% on some well-developed planets?  Why is it that it seems that there is just no pleasing some people?

9,269 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Build less farms.

Morale falls off VERY quickly above 16B in populations. As you saw, the effectiveness of all morale buildings and your global +morale bonus is reduced for high populations - the wiki has more information if you're interested in the formula.

Typically you want your planets to be either 16B (a homeworld), 15B (a colony + farm), or 8B (a colony without farm). It's not cost-effective to get much bigger than that. You will need morale buildings on the 15B-16B worlds to sustain a decent rate of taxes
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is another thread, i will have to look for it, but someone explained how it works. It goes something along the lines of the moral structures, although porporting to provide an +X% lift, actually only provide X% lift "Of the amount that it can". So +20% is actually +20% OF a max of 35% or some such.

I also read somewhere that, for populations over 20 billion, the deminishing return is such that you will NEVER get a positive moral. Not sure how accurate that is, but the poster was basically saying that Farming is the worst thing you can do for moral.

Basically what I do is I keep on farming people off of the homeworld to the outer planets as pretty much a steady stream. That seems to do some good, but it never seems to be enough.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The dropoff for morale in TA is a little steeper than DA. Where I can usually run two farms and two VRCs for 20B with 69% taxes, now I hit about 18B with 59% and that's it for growth.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So +20% is actually +20% OF a max of 35% or some such.
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True. Population directly affects your base morale, and afterwards the morale bonus is applied to that base morale. So, if your base morale is very low due to overpopulation then even a %150 bonus may not raise it by much (%20 base morale would become %50- and then the tax penalty to morale is added!). Mouse over the approval number on your planet screen, it will tell you how the numbers break down.

Also, here is a link to the wiki that has some info applicable to DA 1.8. As mentioned, TA is a bit rougher in this regard and I tend to keep lower population in TA.

Approval caluclation
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the explanation.

Hmm. I can see population pushing Morale down. But I would think that that would be mitigated by the overall environment. That is, yeah, the planet has a huge number of people on it, but if the planet is a PQ 30 (practically a Garden of Eden), with lots of space to spread out over, it wouldn't be like living in a sardine can. Furthermore, I would think that if you hit your population ceiling where people aren't allowed to have as many children as they like, that would be a MUCH more severe Morale hit. Like, looking at people in general, which is worse: having a planet with 20 billion people, but room for another 30 billion? Or having a planet with only 8 billion people, but zero room for population growth?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It may or may not be that easy. Having 20 Billion people, but with room for 30 Billion more may not be as ideal as you think. The average Joe saying "They are building MORE High Rises? It's bad enough that I have to wait ever loven hours at the till now." Whereas a population of 8 Billion might be enforced due to architectureal or geological boundaries that leave a relative paradise for the inhabitants.

Just because you CAN do a thing, it doesn't always follow that you SHOULD do a thing.

Also, thanks for Capn_Danger for the link and the explaination.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It may or may not be that easy. Having 20 Billion people, but with room for 30 Billion more may not be as ideal as you think. The average Joe saying "They are building MORE High Rises? It's bad enough that I have to wait ever loven hours at the till now." Whereas a population of 8 Billion might be enforced due to architectureal or geological boundaries that leave a relative paradise for the inhabitants.Just because you CAN do a thing, it doesn't always follow that you SHOULD do a thing.
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Your 20 billion people version left out the Garden of Eden aspect. The idea was that the sardine can effect would not be fully in effect until another 30 billion people were added to the 20 billion that were already there.

But consider what it is that creates the population limit: food supplies. The implication is that food rationing is to the point where people are limited to a subsistence diet. Population increase is tightly managed to match population attrition. How nice is it to live amongst fantastic scenery when your diet is __just__ enough to get by? Conversely, how much more (or less) tolerable is it to be constantly rubbing elbows, but you can eat as much as you like AND make babies to your heart's content?

I really think that between the two scenarios, being up against your population limit should generate more negative Morale than having a large population, while still having room for a LOT more people. [However, having a large population AND being up against your population limit would be a worst case scenario.]

Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I actually game to ask pretty much the same question as CaptainPatch...which you've partly answered.

However, I've got a slightly different but related question, which is how exactly does morale tie into approval (aside from in the aforementioned equations)? Specifically, I'm currently playing as Vor and they don't appear to have any buildings that boost approval (as opposed to morale). It's been a good whle since I last played GalCiv, so I've not played with any more conventional races recently. So, I've left a few (okay most) planetary slots with approval bonuses blank. Would I gain any bonuses by building morale-boosting building there, or does it specifically have to be approval buildings (I guess the latter)?

Edit: Nevermind on this bit; further reading around the site (and learning high population = bad mostly!) and some experimentation proved you do get the effect of approvement bonus slots with morale buildings. (It's freaking amazing what difference ditching chargeing stalks for stolen Advanced economic differences; I went from -200/turn to +50 odd in about 3 turns after re-organising!)

Also, from glancing at the wiki, it seems to suggest that loyalty bonuses have practically no effect. Is this still true? If so, is it completely pointless to build loyalty-based buildings?
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yeah, unless you trade or steal econ and morale techs the Yor have it pretty rough. A lot of people who play Yor with tech trading off just leave a lot of tiles blank!

Loyalty makes your planets more resistant to being culture-flipped.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To build on Capn_Danger's point: I usually only bother with loyalty buildings when I see one of my planets is getting close to flipping (Influence Points of the AI close to reaching 4.00 or higher).
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the explanation.Hmm. I can see population pushing Morale down. But I would think that that would be mitigated by the overall environment. That is, yeah, the planet has a huge number of people on it, but if the planet is a PQ 30 (practically a Garden of Eden), with lots of space to spread out over, it wouldn't be like living in a sardine can. Furthermore, I would think that if you hit your population ceiling where people aren't allowed to have as many children as they like, that would be a MUCH more severe Morale hit. Like, looking at people in general, which is worse: having a planet with 20 billion people, but room for another 30 billion? Or having a planet with only 8 billion people, but zero room for population growth?
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yeah it's pretty illogical but I assume it's for balance reasons and as far as realism goes there are far worse offenders in this game.