| farm bonus hit for morale? really how so? guess i will start a new game then |
I hope your kidding about starting a new game. As long as your not trying the higher difficulty levels -- it is definitely possible to win while using "poor" strategies and tactics -- actually you might create some of your most enjoyable situations because of them. Play out your games and get some experience. Practicing your opening moves ( 10-20 moves ) can be helpful but I wouldn't just give up on a game because things get difficult. Most of us run into real economic problems in our first couple of games and just play thru it.
As population grows, morale goes down ( till about 26B where more population stops affecting morale ).
Personally I just load up a transport with 3B troops whenever a planets morale starts dropping a bit too low ( for me that is below 100% ).
Getting morale bonus's will affect how large a population a player can have on their planets. I definitely go for morale bonus's from morale resources, morale techs, trade goods, anomalies ( those 2%'s add up ), and stock markets. However, I don't overdue it -- for instance: I'll grab a military resource ahead of a morale resource and the costly morale techs are not a high priority for me. I don't build any of the pure morale buildings -- the only time I'ld probably consider building them would be if I did not get any morale resources ( which hasn't happened yet ).
There could be some negative effects if a planets max population limit is too high from having too much food from farms. But I just don't see where it is as dire as some seem to make it out. At 40% planetary morale a planets population growth is zero -- so unless the tax rate is being adjusted up, that is as low as a planets morale should drop. If all of a civs planets dropped down to 40% morale, the player would probably lose any election and forfeit his political party bonus and pick up a negative bonus from the winning political party. But if so, I believe you can always change your government type back to a dictaorship and get your political party bonus back -- and the most you'ld be giving up would be a 30% econ bonus from a star federation type of government ( there are no elections with a dictaorship ).
Is this a good situation? -- No
Do I every let it happen? -- No -- I like the econ bonus's from advanced government types.
Would it cause me to lose a game? -- I don't think so
Actually, I think for an influence victory, A strategy of getting high population limits on planets and then letting the populations grow till they stop when their morales drop to 40% -- would work just fine if the government type was kept at dictaorship.
I definitely appear to be in the minority, but I use and like food bonus tiles ( including the 300% bonus tiles ). It even irks me when I conquer a planet and the AI has misused food bonus tiles. But like I said -- I send my colonists off on transports whenever morale drops below 100% and I like military conquest.
