Approval rating in v.1.11

You need 100% morale to maximize your population growth. There are also production bonuses for high morale.

100% morale gives a 100% boost to population growth. There is also a bonus at 75% but I am not sure what it is. I find it almost impossible to be at 100%, and it certainly seems impractical except on your first planet, so I generally just strive for the 75% bonus. Here's the question though, is this 75% overall or is each planet's pop growth determined by it's own morale %?

Does the 100% bonus apply on a planet by planet basis, or does the whole Civ have to be at 100 % ?

It's on a planet by planet basis.

Any planet with 100% approval gets 100% bonus to pop growth
Any planet with 75% approval gets 25% bonus to pop growth
Any planet under 30% approval gets -100% to pop growth

The bonus is planet by planet. When the game starts lower the tax slider until approval is 100%. This will pay off big time later and only cost relatively few credits early. I suggest to try and keep it at 100% for 10 to 20 turns, depending on how much cash is found in anomalies.

There are times during the mid-game where it is again useful to lower the production and tax slider to get population growth up. If a player is chronically short of money, trade via freighters, selling techs, morale improvements and tech, better government are the remedies.

Thanks Seems a pity though that approval *only* affects population growth. Seems a missed opportunity.

It's not hard to achieve 100% approval, if you have access to morale resources. Once I got access to 2 of them on top of 1 research and 1 economic, needless to say the Genius/gifted? AI wer blown off the board.

Don't forget that if your approval is too low you have to worry about having a full scale rebellion.

Approval can also play a role when a player changes to a more advanced government (Republic on up). However, it is pass or fail, with 50% being the cut off. If the approval is under 50% empire wide, there will be production penalties. Also someone else mentioned the possibility of revolts if there are several planets below 50% even if the overall empire rating is well over 50%.

That said, the population boost is a big bonus. It means more money and more soldiers to load on transports, so it is extremely powerful for both peaceful players and conquest players.

I find it almost impossible to be at 100%

Then you're not trying hard enough. I've maintained an 80% tax rate on 17B population worlds at 100% morale. With just one morale building.

Granted, I had an intrisic 200% morale ability. But even without it, that would only require 3 more morale buildings (though, given the number of Stock Markets on the planet of interest, probably only 2).

The only time I have a problem maintaining morale is if I go past 17B population. I find it gets pretty unmanageable at around 21B.