building approval?

new to this game, so im looking for help. I'm trying to build approval on a single planet, as it seems to be dropping rapidly. I have no more space to build on the planet, I already have 2 farms and 2 entertainment centers, and I am clueless as to what to do, besides decreasing taxes, but I do not want to keep doing this.

strangely enough, on my other planet, it has a 100% approval rating, and I had less places to build on it.

oh, and there seems to be an orange saturn-like circle surrounding my planet, that is dropping in approval, and I have no way of knowing what this means. never saw this before, and cannot find anything regarding it in my manual.

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ScottTykoski

Join Date 03/2001

+132

No, the rings simply give a slight boost to your research on that planet.

Is one of the farms on a "food production bonus" tile? Also, be sure to research Moral boosting techs before researching Farming techs....an overpopulated planet is a quick way to anger those citizens

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The general rule of thumb I use is one entertainment network per farm, with an extra one on my homeworld (due to the higher base population). They should be a similar level, with entertainment buildings slightly ahead of farms in general. With a lot of farms on one world, build an extra entertainment network to be on the safe side. And watch for bonus tiles, as they can double or even quadruple the number of ent networks needed for that farm.

What is your tax rate, by the way? And on your other world, is it around class 3-5, and have you built farms and ent networks there? If it is of a low class, this is pointless, as there is a basic limit to population due to planet class. So your ent networks will be unnecessary there, making the approval unecessarily high. Or is it just a newly colonised planet? The approval will drop as the population grows.

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Not trying to tell you how to play the game but I'll explain why this is happening and what you can do about it.

The more population on a planet, the lower the base morale. The two biggest factors in lowering morale are taxes and population, if only one of your planets is having morale problems, it's probably the population. The reason why Boogie asked if any farms were on 'food production bonus' tiles is that farm would be boosting the population by at least double, therefore pushing the population higher than you can keep happy.

Increasing population on a planet brings in more taxes and makes it harder to be captured by assault or culture, but that doesn't always mean it's worth while to plant farms. Until you get several moral-increasing techs you'll need to have 1 entertainment complex for each farm, tying up 2, 4 or more tiles. Generally I keep farms only for the bigger planets that can afford to spend tiles on it, the smaller (size 8 and lower) planets I keep at base population.

Hope that helps!

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I don't get it. Farms don't help in the speed of population growth right? I never build them until they reach the cap.

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Yes, that's right. What don't you follow?

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A planet's PQ gives an absolute pop cap. This cap is generally very high, except on very low PQ worlds (6 and lower).

Farms raise the usable pop cap, but do NOT increase growth rate (that's based on happiness levels & racial & cultural bonuses).

I agree with the poster who indicated that you need approx 1 entertainment center / farm (the base pop doesn't need an entertainment center). However, such things are guide-lines only- and vary according to circumstances (what tech's you've built, tax rate, PQ, etc.).

So, if you've got 2 farms, you should have 2 ent. centers (if your farms are on a bonus tile, then you need to look to see how many they actually count for, e.g. a 100% bonus means that one farm is really effectively 2 farms, and requires 2 ent. centers).

In general, you need to choose a number of farms according to the PQ of the world - e.g. I might use 1 farm + 1 ent. center for a PQ 11-14, and perhaps 2 of each for 15-19, and perhaps 3 of each for a 20+.

And yes, because the farm only effects usable pop cap, its inefficient to make farms b4 your pop nears the current food limit (as you're paying for a farm to produce food that your people aren't eating).

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I mean what does Farm built on a food production bonus tile have to do with low approval?

It just means you have a high pop limit without the need to build more farms. The greater problem is that you have a high population growth rate due to inherent bonuses or high approval...

I'm not a fan of entertainment centers, I don't think i build them at all. I usually just let my population grow naturally..(exception, sometimes I buy entertainment centers early in the game to grab the 100% approval bonus). I pick up morale bonus though by researching the tech sometimes but i dont build such improvements.

Also 99% of the time I have only 1 farm per planet, I don't understand why people are running around with 2.

I'm missing something here.. What size maps are you people playing on?

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just means you have a high pop limit without the need to build more farms. The greater problem is that you have a high population growth rate due to inherent bonuses or high approval...

Wrong. It's not the growth that's the problem: growth is good. The higher the pop, the lower the morale. Without farms you won't get higher than 5 bil pop, and the cap for anything 18+ is 100 bil. That's a lot of farms.

Without entertainment centers, you WILL have problems. I like having 74% taxes. If you don't thats fine. Let me just say, 74% taxes, 100% approval, and 12 farms a planet, means I earn up to 12k a turn on huge maps.

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Farm on food production tile=Higher maximum population
Higher maximum population =Lower approval (once your population has grown of course)

Approval penalties are imposed based on your current population, rather than the population growth rate. If you have a higher maximum population, the approval that you get when the population is maxed out will be lower. While the planet is still growing, the farms of course have no effect. But you'll need entertainment centres to counter the negative approval once these farms come into use.

There are no real rules as such. I'm sure that you can manage without entertainment, but then your taxes will have to be lower.

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There are also random events that can effect approval ratings per planet.

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