14 with any tree that isn't Terran/Arcean/minor race.  20 in DA.  15 is fine in TA but I don't like adv farms and due to intensive farming having been left in at its current place (which it shouldn't be, and I already bug reported it...) I never research adv.

You can just tech trade for everything you're missing, but the above is a good rule of thumb regardless.

22 is too much in any version, including DL.

It also depends on your race.  The Torians get hot springs (+50% morale).  The Yor have Charging Stalks which grant you extra food plus a morale bonus, so it is not as big a deal to grow the pop when you are one of these races.

Otherwise you can build the Secret Police Center on a particularly populous planet (+20% to base approval) after you research Good and Evil.  If you have Harmony crystals  built somewhere else or have managed to mine some morale resources, these may also inform your decision.

In DA (i assume the same is true for ToA) 13B is the optimum point of population V income V morale. You use 2 tiles to achieve the best balance, using one VR centre and one ADV farm. But morale is also directly affected by your resources as well. If you can manage to have 4~6 morale resources then a 20B planet becomes very viable on PQ15 worlds or higher. You can go to 20B on as little as a PQ9 if you wanted to but the trade off of tile usage to maintain the morale Vs potential income makes this unfeasable.

PQ15 and higher would need two ADV Farms and two VR centres to maintain your 20B and you could push your taxes to around 69% or 79% very easily. This all depends on what other racial bonuses you may have or the like.

Your morale will affect your score in that it is directly linked to your income and population. Obviously early game you want to maintain 100% morale for the 100% bonus to pop growth. (even more so if you play as Torians) I always research morale improvments before farms to ensure i can always maintain that 100% for the first 12 months. Later in the game once your planets have reached maximum capacity then push your morale down with higher taxes, morale matters only for voting by this point in the game and for countering culture flipping, both easily accounted for.

Keeping morale above 41% will ensure that your planet will grow, given enough food but without bonuses. Above 75% you get 25% bonus...IIRC.

Always try to minimise the amount of VR centers you have to build. Two per PQ15+ planets along with the two ADV farms and the rest of the tiles econ will give you the best balance you could hope for between income Vs morale, of course getting those morale resources is the key.

In gigantic abundant all games i have had enough morale resources that i was able to run at 79% with only 1 VR centre on a 20B world and keep very high approval.

Like Noct said it all depends on what style of game your playing and what map. On smaller maps you are going to be limited to a smaller number of galactic resources so the 20B planets may have to be reserved for your PQ 18+ worlds.

Leave your 20B worlds to later in the game...keep your morale high for the growing phase then expand and let morale drop to ~45%.

Green approval on a planet means your probably not pushing that planet to it's income and population potential.

The ASC is meant to give you +50% x your total production output..IIRC. So if you are early game you may not see much of an affect as of yet.

To be honest though i would not be surprised if the ASC was nerfed in ToA or 2.0. Perhaps it's bonus has been reduced.

Edit - Just checked the Wiki..there is no additional info or anything about a nerf. Perhaps a mechanic like Sole Soul may drop back in and answer that one for ya.....

Still works as an overall multiplier of 1.5 in TA 2.x.

"Overall" you mean Civ wide? Or just the planet?

No it's a civ wide bonus. It's factored in after all other production and bonuses has been applied so it becomes a very powerful center late in game.

Wowzer.  I built it around the time I started building medium sized ships, but barking up the beam weapons tree was very long and slow.  So maybe a bit early in the game.

My fault for not catching that-Neilo's for typing it.

Nope, still military only.

PQ20+ (and, these in my case can go as high as 32) are there for a very simple reason - a steady flow of Invading Troops made *from* population.

For everything else, profitable planets can only get you so far in balancing your economy IF the Morale issues start to get outa hands (considering a huge number of variable conditions can impact the optimal values consistantly) and these will most likely stand as stabilizing assets for the overall figures.

Grab the PQ4s, they can rapidly become full blast Sixteens steady enough to compensate for Core planets (HW, early rush acquisitions, etc) high-er maintenance situations.

Keep a close watch on Food Bonuses, a single 300% can certainly negate pop growth beyond your choice of optimal levels (this standing at a maximum of 20 or more, btw)... but on specific PQ?xx?, the "temporarily" maintained Food input can stretch out the usual delay to make it cost effficient within less gameplay turns. Switch over to another PI once your desired level of Pop has been obtained and watch it all thumble -- for awhile or until you'd need to turn it on again. Hint; Fertility Clinic & Invasion troops supply.

Tax for maintenance, raise morale to scale up productivity - through effective slider variations.

In fact, either the population is KEPT happy enough to pay or they revolt. Incremental "activities" are balancing issues on empire scale rather than planetary.