Morale - what am I doing wrong?

You've just stated part of your problem: The more democratic forms of government let you build and research morale boosters faster.

-Robert

Man, I can't research them any faster - I'm leaps and bounds above anyone else...I'm coming up with new discoveries every 6 turns.

"build and research". You get productivity gains for democratizing. Better productivity means you build morale boosters *and* influence projects faster. Influence projects counter alien influence which acts negatively on your morale.

I will admit that starting about the time I switched to "Star Federation" in my last game, my morale started to plummet, but I think the main reason is that I was not paying attention to the Drengin Empire's influence levels.

-Robert

I find the best way to keep your people happy is to tweek your economy stuff at least every 5 turns... I must be doing something right... as long as I keep my monetary situation under control I can keep my people happy. If they start to drop too much, start a war! Send those people off of the highly populated planets to die for the glory or the Human species!
Then the population is again distributed and people are happy and I got to kick some ass.

I'm not sure why people think they should be able to keep morale easily at over 50%.

I'm happy if I can keep morale on a planet from falling below 40%. Anything else is gravy.

This is a great debate and its one of the most difficult and frustrating - yet challenging aspects of this game for me. I think this set of interdependencies is one of the unique and best game elements and make this game potentially a bit special.

However it is mond blowing, and in a separate thread I have suggested adding some filter tools to the planetary development cdhoices so that you can filter in/out developments that impact on the different key areas - such as morale, influence, finance, technology etc and also have these sorted by the amount they help and what they cost. One must however bear in mind that they interact and you don't always get one without the impact on another!

HOWEVER I think this type of simplification (even though I suggested it!) is a trade-off as to simplify in this way potentially losses some of the 'magic' of managing the critical relationship balance between morale, influence(approval?), income, tech development, trade costs, risk of war etc etc...

I personally still quite like the idea of enhancement of planet projects with filters of this nature as success still relies on you getting the balance right without giving you the calculations 'in your face' it may even enhance the gameplay by bringing this unique design aspect to the fore?

By the way I never have a domestic policy approval rating over 60% and usually it's down around 50 to 55 as I like to milk my population for all they're worth! I also take the government change as soon as it is available. As a result keeping my planets happy (morale) is a real challenge - some planets (remote? culturally alien? poorly developed planet quality/development infrastructure? adjacent to high influence aliens?) go down as low as at worst morale 34 to 40 (dangerously low!) and up to 100 at the top end.

I have to tweak the developments on each at risk planet to keep their 'peckers up' and stop them from revolting on me!! (by building Stadia, etc). When you conquor a planet sometimes they are VERY low morale (20+) sometimes very high (80+) which I assume is due to cultural or political differences between the old race and my new system - or maybe even the effects of war.

In short its a micromanagement challenge but not one I resent performing as it is core to the game and delivers gameplay rewards - unlike some micromanagement aspects of other strategy games that are mind numbing repetitious, add nothing, but the game collapses without them being performed.

steevo

Why shouldn't it be easy? If the focus of my government is to keep people happy, shouldn't that be reflected in the morale of my people? The way it is now, it seems it's just as effective to set it as a secondary or tertiary priority as it is to set it the primary one - my morale still stays at around 50.

How many leaders have an approval rating of over 60%?

Bush is considered to be incredibly popular with an approval rating of around 60%.

True, that, but this is the future, with [Reverb]Incredible Scientific Advances[/Reverb]. I personally would expect that it's be possible to keep more of the people happy in that case.

jpub said (in effect) that more tech makes it easier to keep people happy.

I suspect a history buff like Brad would dissagree with you. I know I do.

jpub, said:

Why shouldn't it be easy? If the focus of my government is to keep people happy, shouldn't that be reflected in the morale of my people?

I suspect managing public satisfaction and expectation is the hardest job in the world for any Government past present or in the future. However the pay-off's are immense. In life as it is in games, the bigger the challenge the bigger the prize. I accept that this a matter of opinion, but I personally wouldn't want this aspect to be any 'easier' - but a few tools to make it more 'satisfying' would be nice.

If any gov ever develops a magic formula we are all in deep trouble (ref Steptford wives, 1984, Brazil, The Running Man, Logans Run.. etc)

Re: magic formula

Read the first Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. Not necessarily happyness but being able to predict with a resonable amount of certainty what events will take place and when in a society.

magus - i have! isnt it fantastic. I must read it again, and a bit of Simak (Waystation) again

I see what you're saying. Hmm. Some good points to think about.

Would you all consider it a reasonable alternative to making it "easier" to make people happy to instead allow more means to do so? As it is now I see three paths:

1) Technological advancement (improvement X increases morale by +10%)
2) Reducing tax rate
3) Social improvements

Is there some way we could perhaps feed resources directly into morale? For example, throwing celebrations and the like.

Hmm, to take that to a rather more invasive extreme, I could see more uses for 'spare' money:

-"carrot" and "stick" approaches to promote/limit population growth
-"publicity blitzes" to massively increase influence for a short period temporarily (like before a Senate vote)

Hmm.

Details screen: Propaganda.

Re propaganda slider,

I dont think I use this new feature properly, or as much as i should Brad, as i don't yet 'trust it', What I mean is i don't understand what it does exactly and thefore I havn't a clue if its a sledgehammer to crack a nut as they say or what the implications of sliding it about are..
s

Brad,
perhaps adding a reminder message from an 'advisor' 2-3 months before an election warning you if you popularity is low and 'suggesting' you spend some money on the people (use the propaganda slider) would be a simple yet useful addition.
Similarly, when moral falls very low on a planet maybe an advisor mesage giving you a breakdown of WHY (with suggested responses) would be useful. Do you need to build moral improvements? Do you need to build quality improvements? Do you need to build influence improvements? Should you consider reducing the influence of another civilization (destroy their starbase)?

I love the balance at the moment, but more assistance for those who are having difficulty would not go amiss.

Paul.