It is mainly because population is tied in with income. So in order to make income harder to manage, morale has to be made very potent.

I have said it before, and i will say it again, finances in galciv are tighter than Microsofts copyrwight philosophy!

The amount of VR building's one needs to accomodate a high pop of say 19b or more is counter productive. You will make more money with 1 farm (stage 3) and 1 vr centre.

Your pop will be about 13b for a non-capital planet, with about a 75-80% morale rate depending on tax level. You will make more money here with all the extra Stock Exchanges than with 20B pop and 4 or 5 VR buildings.

The exceptions are of course if you have a morale bonus on a planet. If so add a Food Centre, should give about 16b pop and you will still only need the 1 vr on the bonus tile.

I never use the 300% food tiles, except as Popcorn said, on those planets used for Troop Transports. I only use the 100% early in the game, but once i have all the farming techs i change it around. This is all in DA, for DL you can have a 18b pop with just 2 VR's and have morale about 80% with a 50% tax rate.

Right, so at least I'm not the only one. I still find this system strange and counter-intuitive.

So does anyone have the formula for DA's? Anywhere I can find them? I'd go for GC2 wiki but they all seem to be DL data.

I do like the way morale works, but I think a 300% farming tile is pretty much useless. If you have a class 12 world, there is no way to use the 300% tile without a MASSIVE hit to the planet's morale. A 20B planet needs a third of the morale buildings a 34B planet needs, and with two fertility clinics it can function rather well as an invasion training world, and can even make money with the rest of the tiles as stock markets.
What I'd REALLY love is a 300% morale tile. I think that would just about make me sing with glee. Economic bonus tiles wouldn't work, since economic bonuses are already percentile values, and building an Econimic Capitol on a 100% Econ Bonus tile would be pretty much overpowered. It's not OPed for Influence, because Influence isn't nearly as important, and the Capitol doesn't give as much of a bonus.

I said Fertility Clinic, not a Food Distribution Center. 100% approval is a given on any of my worlds with below 20B, and that's when both bonuses work

The great thing about this game is that there is no formula. And it should stays like this. There is not a single way to beat this game, like in Civ for example.

LEAVE the 300% food titles there. Just because most people wont use it, doesnt take it out of the game. Its still a option, and that is good.

the farming is excellent (as are the 300% bonus tiles) for one really important thing: fighting invasions. You take a hit in morale, but certain planets (like 12 billion pop and higher) are VERY hard to take if you have researched all techs which contribute to soldering.

Your population * 100% = the # of soldiers you have.

Oh, are you asking what exactly is the formula that determines the odds in a battle? That I don't know. And it's random, anyway. What I do is just get a general feel for it, and it depends on your soldiering. Like when attacking the Drengin with only Planetary Invasion researched, Traditional Warfare, you usually need a 1:1 soldier to defending-planet ratio to win. But if you've got Tir Quan, Stellar Marine, and Tidal Disruption, you can go 1:5 using Traditional Warfare and still win. And if I'm using invasion tactics, I just figure in the percentages--it tells you what they are.

I wouldn't say "easily". At least, not if you're behind in soldering. I get 8-to-5 all the time against Drengin if I haven't picked up any soldiering bonuses.

No, I'd like to know how many troops I can expect a planet to have if I invade it. That would help me determine how many of my troops I'd have to bring along. I've been caught by surprise a few times now, there being many more soldiers than I expected. It would be nice to know how large my ground forces should be when I come "visiting". I'm just sort of guessing now, and not always correctly. I realize that it depends alot on the odds, but it would be nice to at least have a general idea.

If you have a planet with high population growth, keep building transports on that planet and take away the excess population on a regular basis. And don't build farms, they're just not necessary.