Home Planet morale is low since patch 1.3 and 1.31

Morale was indeed changed. I haven't the particulars, but there were changes. You may note that your starting population is also different from what it used to be.

But at the start, don't be alarmed if your approval is kind of low (say, 50%). You'll hopefully be able to improve it by various means. If you don't build extra farming, a single entertainment center should keep it more or less on par with the other planets.

If you do build a farm, consider making your home planet also your political capital, since it adds to morale.

hmmm... good suggestions

Researching higher levels of government also increases morale. Galactic stock exchages used to increase morale, too, but I don't know if that still holds true. I think many of the societal or governmental improvements carry morale bonuses with them, and they should, as they would better the society.

The 8B starting population vs. 5B is a big difference. Plus your home planet being able to grow to 12B without a farm vs. 10B is also a difference. I've checked some of the population points and it seems that the base morale of a set population hasn't changed.

I suspect that the morale effect of taxes has been increased. I know the benefits of the economic buildings have been reduced, the income produced by a set amount of population may also have gone down. These things combine to get a lower morale level at the same income that you used to get. Also note that with the increase in the initial colony support, you need more income than you did before.

I too have that problem, but in the beginning I don't bother with it, as most of my morale galaxy-wide is usually low. My problem is that the morale on Earth usually weakens further on in the game when you increased the max pop, by building farms. Should really the Capital planet stand so weak, morally wise?
Problem is that since Earth has rather few tiles, about 13 - 14 at the most, right, it is rather difficult to begin building many morale spiking buildings.

TIP

I work the tax rates a lot harder in 1.3. In 1.2 it was easy to keep approval in the green on all planets all the time. In 1.3, I let approval run in the red at times on some planets, especially when they've hit their population cap.

Buy a MOral Building right off to offset the changes. Then buy either 1 factory or 2. Which ever suits your playstyle.

Use to be buy a Factory first, but since moral changes happened Buy Moral Building 1st turn. Also turn down Taxes to help out also.

The colony rush is now a Huge Managment issue, which it should be.

Also Reasearch faster engines as soon as possible, and Get Sensors I fast. That way you can build Anomalie ships to grab those Money Anomolies.

Buy a MOral Building right off to offset the changes

I refuse to buy any morale buildings on principle. The principle being that I never had to buy any in v1.2 and I'm pig headed enough to continue that strategy.   

Actually I'm sort of joking but I just keep my pop to the 12B level until later in the game when I can gain all the morale resources. I then put another farm on the planets that appear to be able to support the morale requirements (i.e. the ones with all the stock markets) and don't put any more farms on planets having some morale difficulty.

Morale buildings do little to increase in 1.3 and 1.31. I think the devs
moved in the right direction but went too far.

For 1.4 they are promising that morale buildings will have more punch but be
much more expensive. That doesn't help much.

I usually run in the negative income for a long time hoping to find anomalies with money until I can build stock exchanges--which give you a nice boost in morale and money.

I've modded the planetimprovements.xml file to change the morale factors to somewhere between 1.2 and 1.3.

For 1.4 they are promising that morale buildings will have more punch but be much more expensive. That doesn't help much.

That would have a Huge Impact on the Economy of the game again. Maybe Just tweak them a little, but don't make them Mega Moral Busters at the cost of Keeping your Civ Grinding away at trying to build them all.

Its already hard enough game wise to deal with the New cost of the Higer Research and Industrial Centers.

Personally, higher cost does not trouble me, I usually have between 500 to 2000 each turn depending on how well I do, as soon as I start making money after the initial Colony Grab.

TIP

Its already hard enough game wise to deal with the New cost of the Higer Research and Industrial Centers.

This is one reason I wish we could build multiple levels of building over the course of the game. Forcing new planets to start from the best possible building is just oppressive.

Especially when the worlds you capture are underdeveloped or are suffering massive loss of structures due to harsh conquests.

For 1.4 they are promising that morale buildings will have more punch but be much more expensive. That doesn't help much.

This isn't quite what they said, they said the morale effect would be increased but the techs to get them would be MUCH more expensive.

I see this as a beneficial change. I currently don't use the buildings because (1) they don't do much and (2) it's more effective to get all the techs and the increases in morale ability that come along with them.

Making the buildings more effective while making the techs more expensive means that (1) the buildings will do more (2) the increase in morale ability is harder to get. These combine to make the morale buildings more in play than they were. I think this is a good thing.

This is one reason I wish we could build multiple levels of building over the course of the game. Forcing new planets to start from the best possible building is just oppressive. Especially when the worlds you capture are underdeveloped or are suffering massive loss of structures due to harsh conquests.

This effected me in my current game so bad. Huge, challenging And I went evil for the first time ever. Using Custom race. Industrialist.

I got backed into a corner quick, and had 3 others real close. My first target was the Alterians. I took them quick (they havent built ships yet). My next target was Aceans. Took them quick too, with small fighers etc.. But the unthinkable ended up happening. Right in Middle of war I stole Idustrial Centers from them (taking a planet). I don't have to tell you how that just killed my war Effert. I went from building 2-5 Figters every 2-3 turns with about 30BC week in bank. To minus -400 BC a turn. Oh god did that hurt. And with all the new worlds I was taking over, it ended up being like -700 BC turn. Had to stop building and Cut Funding to Social to keep up.

I pulled thru though and took them out. But that really put a damper on me. I mean nice to get free Industial Centers, but the cost of all my planets building them wiped me out almost.