Morale really getting my goat

A planet's morale is based on the number of people living there and population grows when morale is greater than 54%. This means that all planets slowly move toward 54% morale. Morale improvements essentially increase the planet's maximum population.

If you have built morale and PQ improvements(which increase max population and therefore morale), there is nothing wrong with planets at 54% morale.

Live with the 54%. A tax cut spiral is not worth it. You just cause more problems in the end. Sure, if your empire wide morale is at 54% you might be in trouble around election time, but setting taxes very low is like opening the flood gates to trouble. The people will be happy for a while, but like drugs, you only get a temporary high. You got to come back down eventually! The after effect is that now you no longer have the extra tax income to support social services and that fleet of yours. If trade and/or tribute dry up, guess whose economy plummets? And now you are no longer in a position for a massive tax hike after taking on all that excess population baggage that the massive tax cut caused. So keep taxes at a reasonable level. My reasonable level tends to be between 35 to 40% after the initial land grab.

It all went down the sink (for the aliens at least)a few turns later. Teleporters came on line and everyone got very happy. Are you saying that if I start out at 35 to 40 percent tax then my people won't mind, but if I try to raise it from 0 to 30% later then they will get very pissed off? I tried raising it to 30% but then morale dropped to the low 20's on most of the planets.

Yes.

The more people you have, the lower your morale, due to crowding.
Higher morale means population growth.

So a high morale situation is inherently unstable--it leads to population growth, which leads to the morale going down. 54% is where is stabilizes.

However, having high morale, even if it's just temporary, is a good thing, because it inceases population, which means more taxpayers and more soldiers.
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In larger universes with plenty of resources it's not hard to maintain 100% morale. My current game I have all my core worlds at 100% and they have been there for a *LONG* time other than during one experiment with taxes that I deemed counter-productive. I own *EVERY* resource in the galaxy, though. The AI is too willing to sell resource starbases. Most of them I bought with dreadnaughts--and we are currently in the overlord era. Also, I send a constructor to *EVERY* resource I find, even if it's owned by the enemy. If there's already a starbase there I just park next door--most of the starbases get destroyed at some point and the constructor is sitting there ready to pounce. Obviously you have to stay out of the wars for the constructors to survive.

"The AI is too willing to sell resource starbases."

That's a good observation, Loren. That had been pointed out previously by some of our top players who found that too exploitable, especially on bigger maps where the human has more money, tech or ships to throw at the AI. The AI doesn't yet understand the humongous value of the resource SBs.

I think the problem is that the starbases really are worth more on larger maps, because the bonuses affect more planets. The AI doesn't seem to adjust the trade value of starbases (or anything else for that matter) based on map size.

Yeah the game is very very different based on Map size. In a big galaxy, by the time the game comes to a climax, I've got stadiums and teleporters on every planet and am starting to work on teraforming.

My morale is typically 100% on every planet with a tax rate that rarely goes below 80%. I'm basically Sweden

How in the heck do you manage that? When I'm playing huge maps even with 100% morale I can rarely keep the tax rate over 35% without people getting pissed.

I've had the tax rate in the high 80%'s before while keeping 100% morale on most worlds. The biggest thing is morale resources. Max those starbases! GRRRR---the stats section has no line for morale modifier. It's probably +300% or more in my current game.

Well, first I never take the "Speed Boost" advantage that so many players here live on. Starting the game with 3 times more planets than your closest opponent makes the game boring for me. I prefer big epic zillion turn galaxy conquering huge maps with wars that last decades and involve conquering a dozen planets (still leaving the enemy with a sizeable viable empire). Maps big enough that there are actually individual "sectors". It gets almost like playing 3 or 4 games simultaneously.

By avoiding the heinous cost of the Speed boost I can afford to take Morale boosting and occassionally the morale boosting government too.

I don't know what the morale algorithms are but in my experience it seems to be that once a people are pissed off they are likely to continue to be pissed off. Therefor doing things that piss people off in the short term seem to make manageing morale in the future that much harder. Conversely making people happy with artificially low taxes simply builds in them the expectation of low taxes making raising them difficult. By starting off with high taxes right from the beginning, the game seems to accept that as a "normal" level.

But the REAL key to high morale regardless of anything else is the economy. Morale resource bases are a good sledgehammer approach, but on a big map the single most important resource is Econ. Build every econ building you can. Trade, alot. Some people like to build a trade starbase in every sector along a freighters route. I find its MUCH easier to make sure all of your routes originate from the same sector, travel as short a distance as possible (a nearby minor is ideal) and then concentrate all of your Trade modules in that origin sector...piggybacking on the production and Mining starbases you'll have already built there.

Why a high econ...because then you can build ALL of the morale enhancing social projects, including things like medical centers and embassies and such.

Also key to this strategy is making sure you have 1 starbase with maxed out production enhancers in EVERY sector having at least 2 planets (and all if you can afford it). The production boost is necessary because building alot of social projects (all of the econ and all of the morale) requires alot of building. By maxing out production boosters you can build everything quickly and still keep Social Spending modest relative to Research and Military.

Morale trade goods are also helpful. Managing population is another important facet. Build alot of combat transports and load up 5 billion people any time the planetary morale starts to drop below 80. The impact on tax income is marginal, and in a big galaxy you'll have plenty of uses for invasion fleets.

CTs also make excellent defense ships to park on Starbases, so after loading them up, I always muster my forces on a starbase.

So to summarize. My keys to 100 100% happy planets.

1) don't waste points on Speed or Military civilization choices. Buy Production, Econ, and Morale boosting options and governments.

2) Use Econ resources, Trade, Trade Starbases, and econ boosting buildings to generate beau coup money (I'm NEVER short of cash past the early game).

3) Use Production starbases and Production Boosting buildings to give you a huge edge to building social projects so you can keep your spending in Military and Research up.

4) Keep building morale increasing buildings on your planets starting with PQ improvements (or sometimes the Entertainment Center is better for planetary growth to buy after Soil and before Habitat). Stadiums and Teleporters and Stock Markets on every planet. Multimedia and the lesser 5% boosters as needed.

5) Build ALOT of Combat Transports and use them to keep your population at decent levels. I generally avoid just "spacing" people...I consider this to be a draft where soldiers are held in stassis aboard troop carriers until needed.

The REALLY great thing about this is that its a synergistic circle. Morale has a HUGE impact on tax revenue. 100% gives you more money, which you can then use to keep 100% morale...which gives you more money.

During the game where I went for Tech victory, it took so long to get there that I had virtually every building on every planet, heinous amounts of maintainence and was still rolling in more cash than I knew what to do with...and that was without selling tech for cash.