Food Bonus Planet Tiles

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have to admit this game is pretty deep. I wish the wiki information had been included in the .pdf game manual though - I can understand the printing costs for the paper being cost ineffective, but it would have been nice to have the information about key game mechanics provided easily to the players (in a place that won't disappear from the internet in a few years).

Anyway, to the main point. Maintaining morale seems pretty critical in this game. From my research, it appears that the higher the planet's population, the exponentially more difficult it becomes to keep a decent morale rate. Since population is the key ingredient to generating tax income, this is a quandry. Once your population goes over 15 Billion, you're pushing a 50% morale hit, PLUS the 50% penalty on morale producing buildings and other morale bonuses. Ouch.

This tells me that on most planets, those that I don't want to have to dedicate tons of tiles to Morale buildings, I don't want my population to exceed 15B. One farm, and one farm only (and that, only on decent >10 PQ planets).

And such is the state of my current game (not much experience here, this is my first gigantic map after playing tiny to get my feet wet): Several of my planets have a food-boosting resource tile! What to do with these? If I build a farm there, once I research up to the highest food-producing technology (and DON'T tell me not to do that ever - if that's the case, why bother having the techs in the game?), I'm guaranteed to hit the 25 Billion population mark. ACK!!!

So, am I missing something here? Should I flat out ignore these tiles for farms, and just put some other building there, placing the farm in another tile? It almost seems as if the farming specials are useless, unless accompanied by an approval (morale) special on the same planet (and even then, it may not be worth it).

I'm looking for ANY reason to maintain a high population planet in this game. Tax is no good - tax is calculated on the square root of population, so economy-boosting buildings are better than morale-boosting buildings. Population generation for transports is no good - if growth is capped at 75 Million (not counting bonuses), then once you get to 2.5 Billion on a planet, your growth rate stagnates. So I'd rather take one transport each from 5-15 Billion planets, than try to maintain morale on a >25 Billion planet just so I can pump out transports there. Ugh.

What about influence? How is influence calculated in this game?

What do you guys do? How do you generally develop a PQ 4 planet? PQ 5? 6? and so on? And do you always, sometimes, or rarely place farms on farming specials?

Inquiring minds want to know.
12,559 views 20 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Aside paying taxes, your citizens are also soldiers. Having a farm at a manufacturing planet makes it a little easier to fill the transports immediately with fresh troops. Planets that are valuable or at risk of being invaded benefit a lot from a farm since your defensive capacity increases a lot. If you happen to have some decent soldier bonuses, the planet becomes a veritable fortress.

I have seldomly experienced trouble with morale. Stock Markets boost morale as well as revenue so a large amount of these go on economic planets with a few farms (1 or 2).
Researching morale-boosting technologies also bestow passive bonuses. I do have to say that I almost never go beyond the first food-boosting technology unless I can claim a morale mining resource.

Influence in an area is based on the presence of planets, the population on those planets as well as any boosting facilities such as stock markets and embassies. Starbases generate a small amount of influence as well.

Influence starbases amplify the influence present within their sphere. If you have no other influence sources in their range, it will just boost its own basic influence.

Small planets are ideally geared towards goals that don't have economies of scale. They can't hold a lot of people and you can't cram a lot of factories on it either. Research is unaffected by planet size and possibly a good focus.

I try to make use of all bonuses I find, including farming, but then again, since I hardly develop the tree in that area, the effect is somewhat limited.

Hope this helped.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There's no point building a farm on a PQ 3, 4, or 5 planet. The population won't even grow to 5 billion, no matter what the approval, and it will never need a morale building.

On planets with a PQ of 6 - 19, I build one farm (and NEVER, ever on a farm bonus tile) and upgrade it to Advanced (top-level) farms to get the 15 billion pop. I always take some ability points in morale, so building one morale building and upgrading it to VR Center is enough to keep these planets happy.

If a planet is PQ 20+ AND I don't need the planet for anything else (i.e., it has serious factory or research bonus tiles), I consider making it a paradise planet. For a PQ 20 - 22 planet, it has to have at least a couple of morale bonus or farm bonus tiles, or it won't have enough room for everything. I will plan to build 8-10 morale structures and 10 farms (trying for the max 100 billion population), which means that at the end I will probably replace the starport and factories with farms.

If I can find one of these planets with enough tiles, I will add to the morale buildings and farms my Economic Capital, Political Capital (which has a nice morale boost, btw), a cultural exchange center, and as many stock markets as the planet will hold. That's where the farm bonus tiles come in handy; they leave you room for more buildings on these planets. If I find one of these high PQ planets really early, I will also build the Restaurant of Eternity there, as it adds 20% to its planet's influence.

Population is the biggest factor in your influence rating. A very high population planet with influence and economic boosters is a good thing to have, whatever type of victory you are going for.
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One other thing to note (and as far as I can tell this hasn't changed, though I first heard of it a while ago) is that while it is hard to do, once you get over the 27-29 billion mark, it becomes successively easier to maintain morale. I tend to keep the high PQ planets as economic, but I will slowly phase out the stock markets for virtual reality centers until I'm at about 30 billion, at which point I start bringing back the stock markets. Generally I can keep my planets at 85-100% morale if I keep an eye on them. I do use the morale ability though.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It is generally a good idea not to research farming technology before morale technology. If you are an obsessive micro-manager, you can build farms on the tiles (which will then save you another 1-3 tiles from their bonus) and then just cancel the upgrade when you research the technology.

I generally build at least one advanced farm on all of my planets that have a PQ of 7 or higher. It means the planet can usually pay for itself, unless it is my research or industrial capital.

Building lots of farms is also good for a cultural victory - with a few +30 Billion Population planets, you can dominate the United Planets. Even building one farm on most worlds is enough to grant you serious voting power.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One those small 4-7 planets, they really aren't that good for productio i generally put a farm, 1 or 2 moral buildings, a stock market, and if there's any more room i do research buildings. that way, low maintanence costs, high moral and moneymaking or research. Money makes the galaxy go round.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Is Influence generation a linear or exponential function of population?

Taxes are exponential (square root). What about influence?

I am a micromanager, but hearing about cancelling upgrades is ludicrous to me. Why bother having the techs in the game, if they aren't useable? I'd just as soon plop the farm on a non-farm bonus tile, and let the upgrades go.

And what's this about morale getting easier to manage again after 30 Billion??? I thought the morale penalty stopped at 80%, when you hit 25 Billion on a planet, and never got better?
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I ignore the food tile bonuses. I put something other than a farm on them. It's not worth the tiles it takes to keep approval up. Of course, if you run taxes low enough, you can run up your populations without any morale buildings at all. I haven't experimented with it. I've been going for 15B populations at 80% taxes using morale builders. You could try higher populations with lower taxes and probably get positive results. Either way, I'm sure it's a subject for debate. In the end, it may be six of one, half dozen of the other.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
100 billion population, with 100% morale at 49% taxes is easily obtainable with 3-4 morale buildings on gigantic maps. Sometimes 59% tax, 100% morale or 69% with morale still above 90% is possible.

Now they generate a lot of cash!   
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I always use them its not hard to keep morale up with low taxes and with huge populations you dont need high taxes. Of course it dont hurt to have a morale starbase or two, harmony crystal etc.

On the ocasion morale does become an issue building a troop ship with 4 advance troop modules will bring the population down real quick. Of course this is the main reason why I will build a farm on every pq 10 and above is to have the population to stuff into troop ships in times of war without draining the popuation and therefore your taxbase.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Quote:

100 billion population, with 100% morale at 49% taxes is easily obtainable with 3-4 morale buildings on gigantic maps. Sometimes 59% tax, 100% morale or 69% with morale still above 90% is possible.


Magnanumaniac,

Um. That was NOT useful information. HOW? What techs do you need? Tell me HOW you get to this point.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Magnanumaniac,

Um. That was NOT useful information. HOW? What techs do you need? Tell me HOW you get to this point.

He plays as Neutral, so he would build the Harmony Crystals, research the entire moral tech branch for its bonuses and building Virtual Reality Centers, plus likely has multiple maxed out star bases mining morale resources.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok what i dont get is why not use a planets farm bonouses to full peotential just build twice the number of moral building. usaly what I do is have a 1 to 1 ratio for construction if the farm bonous is x2 then i build 2 moral bosters ect.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Am I the only one who manages to build two farms on a PQ 10 and get 100% approval from the planet? Or build a farm on a 300% food tile and get 100% approval?
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Quote:

Ok what i dont get is why not use a planets farm bonouses to full peotential just build twice the number of moral building. usaly what I do is have a 1 to 1 ratio for construction if the farm bonous is x2 then i build 2 moral bosters ect.

Me:

Ah, but there's the rub. The larger your population gets, the exponentially WORSE your morale problem becomes. I can understand this to an extent, but it's so bad in this game, that food bonus tiles are almost always poison. (Mind you, I don't have an issue with the general concepts being applied here, my problem lies in the playability aspect of the system).

Morale penalty is 9% at 5 Billion people. 40% at 15 Billion people. and a whopping 80% at 25 Billion people. It doesn't get any worse than this, as the 80% is the cap. Not that 80% isn't horrid enough as it is. That 80% penalty is also applied to your morale BONUSES. In other words, all morale buildings, and all other morale boosts (other than PQ > 10, I believe) is penalized the same amount as your population dictates. I.E., at 5 Billion people, your base morale is 91, and you get ~54 Morale (60 *.91) for each Virtual Reality Center. At 15 Billion people, your base morale is 60, and you now only get 36 Morale (60 * .60) for each Virtual Reality Center. At 25 Billion and up, your base morale is 20, and you get a paltry 12 Morale (60 * .20) for each Virtual Reality Center. OUCH. There IS no 1 to 1 correlation, because the target keeps moving on you. > 15 Billion planets are BAD, unless you have tons of planet tiles to plop down VR centers on.

Now, as to FEEDING these people: A colony base provides enough food for 5 Billion people. A SINGLE (that's 1, unmodified) farm produces 10 food once it's upgraded all the way. That takes you to 15 Billion right there. Build a farm on a 100% farm bonus OR 300%, and suddenly you've got a serious morale problem, as you'll have at LEAST 25 food being produced on the planet.

[And I repeat, do NOT tell me not to research that tech ever. In a certain order, maybe, like after all other morale boosts are in place, sure. But never? In that case, they should NEVER have put the farm boosting techs in the game to begin with, and farm boosting research is broken (I do not believe this to be the case).]

I find it quite silly, and frankly, am extremely frustrated that I had to bang my head against the wall just to get to this level of understanding - that being, DON'T USE FOOD BONUS TILES ON MOST PLANETS. THEY'RE A MORALE CALAMITY WAITING TO HAPPEN.

Ugh. I'm going to go bang my head against the wall some more now. There MUST be a great game in here somewhere.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Okay, here's what I do: One entertainment tile for the main colony, then four per farm. On small enough planets, I don't even build a farm. For every 100% of bonus, two more entertainment.

To add to that, I hunt down and build starbases around every morale-boosting resource I can find, and I keep upgrading those as fast as possible. Plus, the moral-boosting items are always on the top of my list to research or trade for.

Now, why don't I have problems?
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
ok, i have planets with 40 billion people and 100 % morale, and maybe 3 VR centers
ofc, i also have ultra spices, 4 morale resources tax at 70% w00t. vr modules harmony crystals, anything that might in some way be related to producing morale, and, a +20% morale as racial ability. all in all, i have +300% morale in the abilities screen, so, unless you plan in doing something like that, you are going to need alot of 15billion people planets.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Since taxes are based on the square root of the population, and morale becomes exponentialy harder to maintain as the population increases, I stick one farm and one morale building on every 10+ sized planet and only build on food bonus squares if there is also a morale bonus tile. Morale and money generaly are not a problem for me, just lower taxes until you are happy. Remember, once the planets have stopped growing you only need to maintain ~65% for the elections. Also, try and get harmony crystals and stuff like that, you can always use more income.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
To add to that, I hunt down and build starbases around every morale-boosting resource I can find, and I keep upgrading those as fast as possible. Plus, the moral-boosting items are always on the top of my list to research or trade for.

Now, why don't I have problems

How many galactic morale ressources have you? What is your galaxy size?
In short, the greater the galaxy, the better it will be to your morale since you will have more morale starbase.

That 80% penalty is also applied to your morale BONUSES. In other words, all morale buildings, and all other morale boosts (other than PQ > 10, I believe) is penalized the same amount as your population dictates.

True for buildings and to some extent to your empire wide morale bonus but the formula is different for empire wide morale bonus which is less penalized by the population penalty.



Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The problem most peope have with the farm tech is that they build a bunch of lower level farms at the beginning of the game, which is not a comepletetly bad idea considering the cost of getting the empire started,but they forget that those farms upgrade to farms that provide more food. the simplest thing to do is get a population goal for a planet and keep it at that. When your farm tech advances you now have the ability to feed more people with fewer farms thus freeing up the tiles. It is the same with the food bonuses. they are not meant to give a wild bonus to that category, they are there to decrease the amount of tiles needed to get the same result. Example: If you want to have a population of 25 billion instead of instead of building two farms(supposing you have advanced farms) you can use that nice 100% bonus tile to achieve the same effect and save that one tile for another improvement. there is nothing wrong with the farm tech, people just dont manage it correctly. they build a ton of lesser farms at the beginning and forget about the planet, then they advance all the way down the farming branch and discover that this planets pop has went through the roof and now they face a major crisis. Therefore in order to go a little easier on themselves they dont research the entire branch, but at the same time they are using thier tiles inefficeintly.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Galacticus

I think there are only 2 strategies which work... 15B or as much as you can.

The worst stopping point is 25B. You have all the pain and none of the gain.
If you can keep 25B people happy then you can keep 100B happy.

Having said that 15B is much easier to manage but the other route can be fun if you are a little warped.

Trade is based on planet population so if you are a trader (I'm not) then there is a reason to get at least one planet with ridiculous population.

However the techs are not well thought out. I've even got a strategy on large maps that makes the AI really suffer. The AI doesn't understand farms at all. If you GIVE them maxed out farms tech, wait a while and then go invading, all of their big, well developed planets have 20-40% morale. Great for Information warfare. (O/T I now regularly give away industrial sector during the colony rush too. The AI cannot understand that it needs to rush build one Industrial Sector on each planet before it does anything else.)