Solitair said:

"You would think that in reality people would be upset if their loved ones were all carted onto huge transports to invade other system (or even worse, to be killed by being disbanded)."

Then Razqon said:

"That depends of course, on who you are taking


Now I say:

I have only seen this tactic used in one place (other then this game). It involved a planet sending all its middle men, hair-dressers and telephone sanitisers into space, commanded by a wackey retarded Captain, hoping that they would never be seen again.

For 2 points and a 3 free techs, where did I see this?

Elrikk

PS I beleive that they re-colonised some planet called Urth or somesuch.

Elrikk,

I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW, can I tell it please?

hehe, loved that scene, it's from "Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy" of course

Urth? Urth? EARTH? Why, that us? hehe - and here I thought we descended from Apes

/Flemming Madsen
VP Lidium
www.lidiumonline.com

2 points for you and your techs are in the mail

Elrikk

PS 42

Magus, (and Jack)
I would not consider moral between 50-60 as under control. Is that at max populstion for a planet? With all the improvements built?

50-60% is just at the point where you are always having to build moral improtvements as the population increases wnough to drop to 50% by the time your improvement is built.

I would consider 70%+ as under control. Where I can happily spend 30 turns building something else without having to worry about the moral being 50% by the end. I would assume that with MOST improvements, MAX population, Star Democracy, 33% tax rate, NO moral resourses you should have a moral around 80%. I don't think that's possible at the moment. 50% is more like the current situation. Once you add Star Federation you're screwed!

Paul.

Solitair,

Lately I haven't managed to get too far down the tech tree, with all the later morale improving techs and projects, as influence wins keep ending the game.

In most of my games the Terran race putters along with an average morale between 50% - 58%. Until late game, tech-wise, which I rarely reach nowadays, I can't seem to get morale much above that level.

Conversely I don't have much problem sustaining the 50% - 58% morale level, even under Star Democracy or Star Federation (if I get to Star Federation in the tech tree that is).

Paul,

I don't see individual planets at 50% morale as a problem. They don't grow so their morale doesn't drop. At the beginning of a game I will even settle for some planets with 40% morale, these being planets that have not built their first social project. These are class 15 planets, so the higher class planets fare better in morale when I colonize them, and that helps my overall morale. As the game progresses and I get more social projects built, increase my production capability, get my economy going better, get the planets improved, etc., the morale of those planets goes up and they start growing. My overall morale might start below 60%, but by the time I research the first government switch this has improved to about 60%. I do not worry about loosing control of the senate as long as my overall morale doesn't drop below 57%.

In my current game (near to end game), my overall morale has grown to near 80% and I have many planets with morale that is constantly at 100%, and they have not yet reached max population that I can see. I also have star bases with mining upgrades built on many morale resources, which is helping as well by allowing me to colonize lower class planets. I have colonized just about every planet I can get of class 12 and up (I am now starting on class 11 planets, and it looks like I will be able to start on class 10s soon without much impacct on my overall morale).

I think the key here is to be willing to lower your standards at the start of a game in order to plan for the future. Don't try to keep a high morale value at the start. It detracts from your ability to expand and grow horizontally (that is, the number of colonies). This is a balancing act. You don't want to let your morale get dangerously low once your senate is established, but you want to keep your expansion rate as high as possible. Once you have colonized as many class 15+ planets as you can get you can put more effort into vertical growth and the big ticket morale improvers.

Speaking of this being a balancing act, don't forget that there are other factors to balance into this as well. One of them is military, and military defence is a difficult one to figure out. Most of my games I have been able to avoid building any ships to defend most of my planets. It all depends on where your empire starts in relation to other empires. Those where I started near the edge of the galaxy required less plenates defended than my current one where I started in the middle of the galaxy. It is possible to avoid war (until you are ready to initiate war) if you build defenders for only the planets within range of another race. Of course, this also requires that you are stronger in other areas as well, such as total population, techs researched, etc.. As I said, it is a balancing act. A VAST balancing act. And it takes a lot of study of how the AI reacts to what you do.

Perhaps rather than completely ending the game after a cultural win and so on, it could be announced that you have achieved that milestone, but give you an option to continue the game so you can reach the conclusion you desire.

Lucky Jack

With the a.i. constantly being tweaked There are more ways for us to get into trouble. Have you ever gone to war with one a.i. later you meet another, and the first word out of his mouth aren't welcome to the galaxy, it's "since you're hurting my trade routes with (your name here) i've decided to exterminate you, have a nice day"

has your ambassador to an a.i. done his thing yet?

(don't want to give away all the goodies)

There's so much more now, i've haven't even scratched the surface. But you're right about the balancing act being vast. I've been trying all sorts of things playing good as the war party, playing evil as the peace party(lose you morale and win the war bug). And the tech party as both good and evil. I'm sure in the 1.x releases that we'll see more and more variety.

Jack,
I'm glad to find that your moral under control is similar to what my moral normally is. I usually have many planets in the 50-60% moral range. It worries me that this is WITH moral mining upgrades!
Perhaps the problem is the complexity of balancing things for beginner and moderate players. Maybe it should be easier at easy levels. Some way of letting players decide at the start of a game 'I want it easier'.
One idea would be to reduce the negative effect of overcrowding depending on the level of expertise you're playing at. Maybe this could be set at the start?

Paul.

Yes, with all the comments I have seen, it looks like making morale and spending easier for beginning players would be a good idea.

What about it Brad? Don't we want to make it more enjoyable for the new players while they are learning the game?