Morale question (help)

[Boygor]

Hello,

I just bought this today and i'm quite enjoying it so far. I have a question with regards to morale though.

How on earth do you get more morale? My capital seems to grow exponentially and then I get some kind of city revolt pop-up. I then tried to expand rapidly to 'spread the load' so to speak but that didn't seem to help either.
Any advice on how to make my people happy? They hate me at the moment...

[jdmillard]

Inside the city control window, hover your cursor over the city's morale. It will break down all the things contributing to it. Off the top of my head these are the main ones:
-Habitation: as the city grows, if there isn't more room it creates a morale penalty. Depending on the city, I don't worry too much about this too much. You can increase this by constructing special buildings such as "Wendo Apartments."
-Tax: You have direct control over tax.
-Pollution: Pretty much everything you do creates pollution. Some things more than others like mining and farming. The main things that decrease pollution are forests and special buildings you can produce like "Pollution Processor."
-Special Buildings themselves: A "Holo Theater" will give you a flat morale boost (I forgot how much exactly because I don't build them often).

Also, poor morale isn't the end of the world... in fact it can help you manipulate migration among cities. If it's really bad, then you'll want to do something about it because it will start affecting your production, food, mineral, and research output each turn.

[fortydayweekend]

As jdmillard said, the hovertext will tell you what's contributing to morale.

I disagree on morale not being too important though - good morale gives you bonuses as well as bad morale giving penalties. I think it's worth beelining for Holo Theaters and building them early in every city - each morale point is a 5% increase to everything (food, minerals, tax and tech) so happiness is very profitable. A couple of minuses of habitation or pollution isn't the end of the world but if you can fix it easily (e.g. building a forest to remove 1 pollution) it's worth doing.

[jdmillard]

As jdmillard said, the hovertext will tell you what's contributing to morale.

I disagree on morale not being too important though - good morale gives you bonuses as well as bad morale giving penalties. I think it's worth beelining for Holo Theaters and building them early in every city - each morale point is a 5% increase to everything (food, minerals, tax and tech) so happiness is very profitable. A couple of minuses of habitation or pollution isn't the end of the world but if you can fix it easily (e.g. building a forest to remove 1 pollution) it's worth doing.

I was particularly referring to the "city unrest" notification. It makes it sound like the city will revolt and you will lose control of it, when it's really not that bid a deal. Should it be fixed? Yes. But it's not like you lose if you don't take care of it next turn.

[Boygor]

Thanks guys, I had already found the pollution, habitation and tax options although they haven't made a dent in my morale issue. My capital had grown to size 20 and when I founded my second city the growth (due to migration) was something like 24.

The second city grew so rapidly that I found the same issue repeating itself. Food production was taking up all my resources to the extent that I couldn't actually build new cities. A vicious cycle. Research stopped too so I couldn't even advance to sort out the issue.

I feel like i'm missing something...

[boulugre]

You are not missing anything. The game doesn't allow the city to grow tall for ever. Sooner or later you will hit a cap and you will suffer losses from low morale.

Waiting for your city to grow to its max before planting a new city is a mistake, it's better to spread your growth between several cities and launch a new batch of colonization where you are approaching your morale levels.

This might not be true at the very beginning of the game as spreading too much cities result in medium size cities that will struggle to build the later era buildings and units. Actually I have not figured out yet what was the most efficient balance between growing tall and growing large, especially at the begining of the game. I don't know if the AI tactic is the best and should be copied or if better growth strategy would work.

[player1]

I think it's worth beelining for Holo Theaters and building them early in every city - each morale point is a 5% increase to everything (food, minerals, tax and tech) so happiness is very profitable.

Actually, that is not completely true. It's 5% per what is produced by workforce. Free resources produced by buildings themselves are not boosted by morale (those +2, +4, +8 bonuses). This is why I think those buildings are overpowered (at least +4 and +8 versions), since they are always worth to be present in city, even if having no workforce for particular type.

Also it's 5% per base value of worker, so after getting all those production boosting building (+25%, +50%, +75%), actual effect of +1 morale point is less then 5%.

Of course, moral also boosts credit gain too. But it is still more effective, most of the time, to boost taxes if wanting to get more credits.

[fortydayweekend]

I was particularly referring to the "city unrest" notification. It makes it sound like the city will revolt and you will lose control of it, when it's really not that bid a deal. Should it be fixed? Yes. But it's not like you lose if you don't take care of it next turn.

True, that had me worried the first time I saw it too!

This might not be true at the very beginning of the game as spreading too much cities result in medium size cities that will struggle to build the later era buildings and units. Actually I have not figured out yet what was the most efficient balance between growing tall and growing large, especially at the begining of the game. I don't know if the AI tactic is the best and should be copied or if better growth strategy would work.

The key things are to build fewer buildings - i.e. specialise and have fewer, large cities... and to only work high-yield tiles - so have more cities to capture enough special squares, mountains and grassland plains.

Basically if you're building factories or laboratories in more than one city in the early game, you have too many cities (all the scientists should be in one city ideally next to an observatory, and that city might not produce anything else). Food and minerals might come from 2 or even 3 cities early on as you usually only have a few good tiles next to each. So you might have a couple of refining arrays and cultivation things, but not one in every city until later on. Workers depend on how big your army needs to be, you may have 1, 2 or 3 cities churning out units with as many workers as your mineral supply can handle. There can be overlap e.g. a food/worker city, a minerals/food/worker city as they grow and the new tiles aren't productive in that first specialisation. Workers and scientists should almost always be in different cities though (barring a couple of workers to build buildings if you don't have enough cash to rush them). So you want to build as few of each production building as possible by having fewer, specialised cities, letting you build more units or research more tech instead.

On the other hand if you're working 2-yield tiles in the early game (or worse, 1-yield!) you don't have enough cities (or they're not in the right place). A new city next to some mountains or grassland would free up pop back in your capital for something more useful - science or production - instead of mining on plains or farming hills.

The exact number of cities is really dependent on the terrain, sometimes 2 is good for a while (one with observatory, one with mountains, both with a bit of food). Sometimes I feel like I need 4 straight away if there are xenite flowers to grab and poor food in the other cities - (one mountains, one observatory, one xenite flowers, one food) but 4 is a bit of a stretch to defend and not a good idea if the Ascension are anywhere nearby.

[fortydayweekend]

Actually, that is not completely true. It's 5% per what is produced by workforce. Free resources produced by buildings themselves are not boosted by morale (those +2, +4, +8 bonuses). This is why I think those buildings are overpowered, since they are always worth to be present in city, even if having no workforce for particular type.

Also it's 5% per base value of worker, so after getting all those production boosting building (+25%, +50%, +75%), actual effect of +1 morale point is less then 5%.

Of course, moral also boosts credit gain too. But it is still more effective, most of the time, to boost taxes if wanting to get more credits.

You're right, that wasn't totally clear - morale boosts the base workforce production, compounded with the building multiplier - but doesn't affect the building +x bonuses.

Each 10% fall in taxes is a 1 point morale gain (or 5% boost to tax revenue). So boosting taxes will always give more credits as tax income... unless it was a very high-production city with low morale and no stock exchange etc.

After wealth was cut back it makes less sense to build those free resource buildings, at least in the early game when there are other priorities - so it's kind of become a question of "when" to build them, so at least there's a bit of strategy behind it now instead of just "build them all as soon as you can". Still annoying having to build the same buildings in every city though.

[boulugre]

The key things are to build fewer buildings - i.e. specialise and have fewer, large cities... and to only work high-yield tiles - so have more cities to capture enough special squares, mountains and grassland plains.

Basically if you're building factories or laboratories in more than one city in the early game, you have too many cities (all the scientists should be in one city ideally next to an observatory, and that city might not produce anything else). Food and minerals might come from 2 or even 3 cities early on as you usually only have a few good tiles next to each. So you might have a couple of refining arrays and cultivation things, but not one in every city until later on. Workers depend on how big your army needs to be, you may have 1, 2 or 3 cities churning out units with as many workers as your mineral supply can handle. There can be overlap e.g. a food/worker city, a minerals/food/worker city as they grow and the new tiles aren't productive in that first specialisation. Workers and scientists should almost always be in different cities though (barring a couple of workers to build buildings if you don't have enough cash to rush them). So you want to build as few of each production building as possible by having fewer, specialised cities, letting you build more units or research more tech instead.

On the other hand if you're working 2-yield tiles in the early game (or worse, 1-yield!) you don't have enough cities (or they're not in the right place). A new city next to some mountains or grassland would free up pop back in your capital for something more useful - science or production - instead of mining on plains or farming hills.

The exact number of cities is really dependent on the terrain, sometimes 2 is good for a while (one with observatory, one with mountains, both with a bit of food). Sometimes I feel like I need 4 straight away if there are xenite flowers to grab and poor food in the other cities - (one mountains, one observatory, one xenite flowers, one food) but 4 is a bit of a stretch to defend and not a good idea if the Ascension are anywhere nearby.

Totally agreed terrains will dictate which cities are needed, and you actually described my usual opening strategy.

However this was not my point so please let me rephrase my questions " which strategy, between growing tall, growing large and every combination between, will actually give more population point on a short term, medium term, long term?" Will keeping let say 2 cities and let them grow, give me more pop than let say 4 cities after 100 turn? It's tricky to figure out as its quite a complex calculation between the migration effect, cost of colonizer and morale impact.

[player1]

^None of the above.
As long as you have positive food, you'll pretty much have same pop. growth regardless of number of cities.

Bad morale, and overcrowding in some cities will affect which cities will grow faster, due to migration, but total population will still be around the same.


Still, staying lets say with single city is recipe for disaster, due to large population in single city adding to overcrowding and pollution. So at one point of time there will be not enough food left to feed all those people (and farmers will be less effective due to morale penalties).

[boulugre]

^None of the above.
As long as you have positive food, you'll pretty much have same pop. growth regardless of number of cities.

Bad morale, and overcrowding in some cities will affect which cities will grow faster, due to migration, but total population will still be around the same.

I don't think the system balances itself whatever is the situation. Let me give one example :

Let say at one point you only have one city of 10 pop and consider 2 scenario:

- In the first scenario you keep your one city and will keep growing faster and faster.
- second scenario you produce 2 colonizers, temporary reducing your city at 8 pop (and thus slowing the growth of that city) however you create 2 one pop city, bringing back your total pop at 10. Migratory flow will reduce growth even further in your main cities while boosting your 2 new cities growth.

I very much doubt that the empire wide pop will be equal in both case 50 turns later. I suspect that short term scenario one will yield more pop but later on scenario 2 total pop will be far superior than scenario one. I guess this is a test worth doing to see what kind of result it would give.

[Apheirox]

The key things are to build fewer buildings - i.e. specialise and have fewer, large cities... and to only work high-yield tiles - so have more cities to capture enough special squares, mountains and grassland plains.

Basically if you're building factories or laboratories in more than one city in the early game, you have too many cities (all the scientists should be in one city ideally next to an observatory, and that city might not produce anything else). Food and minerals might come from 2 or even 3 cities early on as you usually only have a few good tiles next to each. So you might have a couple of refining arrays and cultivation things, but not one in every city until later on. Workers depend on how big your army needs to be, you may have 1, 2 or 3 cities churning out units with as many workers as your mineral supply can handle. There can be overlap e.g. a food/worker city, a minerals/food/worker city as they grow and the new tiles aren't productive in that first specialisation. Workers and scientists should almost always be in different cities though (barring a couple of workers to build buildings if you don't have enough cash to rush them). So you want to build as few of each production building as possible by having fewer, specialised cities, letting you build more units or research more tech instead.

On the other hand if you're working 2-yield tiles in the early game (or worse, 1-yield!) you don't have enough cities (or they're not in the right place). A new city next to some mountains or grassland would free up pop back in your capital for something more useful - science or production - instead of mining on plains or farming hills.

The exact number of cities is really dependent on the terrain, sometimes 2 is good for a while (one with observatory, one with mountains, both with a bit of food). Sometimes I feel like I need 4 straight away if there are xenite flowers to grab and poor food in the other cities - (one mountains, one observatory, one xenite flowers, one food) but 4 is a bit of a stretch to defend and not a good idea if the Ascension are anywhere nearby.

Totally agreed terrains will dictate which cities are needed, and you actually described my usual opening strategy.

However this was not my point so please let me rephrase my questions " which strategy, between growing tall, growing large and every combination between, will actually give more population point on a short term, medium term, long term?" Will keeping let say 2 cities and let them grow, give me more pop than let say 4 cities after 100 turn? It's tricky to figure out as its quite a complex calculation between the migration effect, cost of colonizer and morale impact.

This isn't how it works. Growth is completely locked in this game. The only way you have of impacting growth is to a) get the free colonizer's single pop point from 'Colonization Fervor' tech in the early game and b) the Cloning operation from the midgame onwards. It doesn't matter if you have 2, 12 or 23 cities - growth will happen at the exact same rate. The only way you can increase your rate of growth is to always have enough cities to expend all your cloning operations on, ie. you'll need more than two cities in the later game when you have several cloning operations available - but keep in mind that the cloning operation isn't that effective in the first place, it's typically better building city structures.

Keep in mind, though, that there's more to effective growth than the growth itself only - it's less useful to grow if those citizens are going to be entering a polluted and overcrowded city where their yields will be reduced. Boosting the economy involves a balance between direct growth control with city planning and cloning operations as well as happiness/habitat/pollution management.

[boulugre]

Ok, so I did those tests and Player1 and Apheirox you are right, number of cities do not change the total number of population, growth stays the same. I did however found a few interesting things I am happy to share :

I launched a small map game with Imperium (no growth bonus whatsoever), very easy AI and Very easy Alien so I would not be bothered by external factors. I played the game until turn 21 with one city until I hit colonization fervor. I then saved the game and played it twice up to turn 171. On the first game I sticked to 2 cities all along, while on second game I immediatly built a second colonizer after getting colonization fervor and settled a third city

I didn't touch the tax slider in order to be able to compare the 2 games and followed more or less the same tech path, although i prioritize the research depending on my most urgent requirement, and that ended up doing a difference.

My starting point was alone on an island, i had a research tower as starting bonus and very little land to expand so I ended up using exactly the same territory with the 2 games. I played the game normally, building an army along the way ( both beeing 4 dots on diplo screen at the end of the test) and cleared the only hive on the island.

Scenario with 2 cities

I hit Mech era on turn 131. At turn 171 both cities were at 22 pop, so 44 pop in total. I was however in a dead end, with massive pollution in my cities and a negative credit per turn and a research close to 0. The only way i could have kept on the game would have been by selling some of my military units, creating new colonizer and holding up for new tecs to improve my cities.

Scenario with 3 cities

Mech era hit on turn 120. At turn 171 my 3 cities where at 15, 14 and 13 pop for a total of 42 pop, so 2 pop less than the 2 city scenario. I was however in a much better shape, with no moral penalty in any cities, I researched much more tech, all the possible building built in each cities, had a better flow of minerals/food/production and more than 1000 credit in my bank account.

So basically this test shows that a 3 city start is way more powerful than a 2 city start, due to no morale problems and the benefits of having 3 set of resources building up instead of 2. This would have been even more true if I was on a map where extending my third city on other territory would have opened up better tiles to exploit.

Haven't tried a 4 four city scenario yet, guess it would be interesting to find an optimal opening strat!

[fortydayweekend]

This isn't how it works. Growth is completely locked in this game. The only way you have of impacting growth is to a) get the free colonizer's single pop point from 'Colonization Fervor' tech in the early game and b) the Cloning operation from the midgame onwards.

There's also the "growth" production option now (v 1.12) but it seems very weak (which it probably should be).

Also building a colonizer will take that pop out of contributing to growth until the new city is built, so there is a small hit from building a new city.

And of course if you run out of food.

[jdmillard]

This isn't how it works. Growth is completely locked in this game. The only way you have of impacting growth is to a) get the free colonizer's single pop point from 'Colonization Fervor' tech in the early game and b) the Cloning operation from the midgame onwards.

There's also the "growth" production option now (v 1.12) but it seems very weak (which it probably should be).

Also building a colonizer will take that pop out of contributing to growth until the new city is built, so there is a small hit from building a new city.

And of course if you run out of food.

And of course if you raze a city.

[Apheirox]

Haven't tried a 4 four city scenario yet, guess it would be interesting to find an optimal opening strat!

You should try running the scenario where you adjust the tax rate down as low as you can possibly go. That obviously rules out the possibility of any rushbuys or refits, but I'm pretty sure you'll run way ahead of the results you've gotten so far. As was pointed out, lowering tax rate even increases morale and therefore increases tax income from morale so the loss isn't even that big.

A significant factor that incites expansion is the special resources. If you have the 50% research alien tower you might want to just let it grow big once it has research infrastructure up and stuff it with scientists, but if you have the +mineral or +food bonuses lying around you definitely want to expand more so you can grab all of those since the bonus essentially serves as free population working an extra mine/farm.

[fortydayweekend]

You should try running the scenario where you adjust the tax rate down as low as you can possibly go. That obviously rules out the possibility of any rushbuys or refits, but I'm pretty sure you'll run way ahead of the results you've gotten so far. As was pointed out, lowering tax rate even increases morale and therefore increases tax income from morale so the loss isn't even that big.

Dropping from 50% at the beginning is definitely a good idea (0-35% is good, just enough to break even or run a ruins & hive-funded deficit). Higher tax rates (up to 100%) can be justified with a combination of bigger population, high morale, lots of credit-boosting buildings, gold veins, and if you're Noxium.

Also if you need some cash for refitting, and there's a few situations where rush-buying is especially beneficial - say to build a new science building the turn after you discover the tech, rather than having to divert scientists into production for a few turns. If a city is hugely specialised and productive in one area and has no workers the rush build is more valuable.

[boulugre]

You should try running the scenario where you adjust the tax rate down as low as you can possibly go. That obviously rules out the possibility of any rushbuys or refits, but I'm pretty sure you'll run way ahead of the results you've gotten so far. As was pointed out, lowering tax rate even increases morale and therefore increases tax income from morale so the loss isn't even that big.

Dropping from 50% at the beginning is definitely a good idea (0-35% is good, just enough to break even or run a ruins & hive-funded deficit). Higher tax rates (up to 100%) can be justified with a combination of bigger population, high morale, lots of credit-boosting buildings, gold veins, and if you're Noxium.

Also if you need some cash for refitting, and there's a few situations where rush-buying is especially beneficial - say to build a new science building the turn after you discover the tech, rather than having to divert scientists into production for a few turns. If a city is hugely specialised and productive in one area and has no workers the rush build is more valuable.

Well playing with the tax slider would clearly affect the progress of this game in term of ressource it would not change anything in term of population. I just made a test and the only thing that the tax sliders modify is the migration rate, low morale cities immigrating towards high moral city. The empire wide pop growth stays the same.

[cindya]

boosts the base workforce fifacoinsps production, compounded with the building multiplier - but doesn't affect the building +x bonuses.