What to do with 24 billion robots...

from GalCiv2 Forums

So, I reinstalled Galactic Civilizations II the other day (it had stopped working last fall for an as yet unexplained reason) and to my delight it worked perfectly well!  Needless to say, I immediately immersed myself in the struggle for galactic domination.

It had been a while since I played (5 or 6 months I think) and I decided to put the computer on Beginner so that I could adequately reacquaint myself with the game mechanics and subtleties before the computers overwhelmed me.  I relearned all of my old habits and strategies much faster than I had anticipated, however, and began to culturally dominate - my preferred form of intimidating the other civilizations.

To make an already long story shorter, I wound up with a half dozen or so class 10-11 planets all at once, and began filling them with structures.  One such planet, which I call Sartorius, had two farming bonus panels, one 100% and one 300%.  Since I had plenty of other planets with which to fill my research, monetary, and military needs, I decided to experiment with Sartorius.  I built Intensive Farms on both panels, and built an Extreme Stadium in my 100% approval panel.  I went on to do other things, forgetting about Sartorius and my population experiment.

Despite playing an evil civilization (the Yor) I had tried to keep my approval rating extremely high, in the 90s, when possible.  However, despite low taxes and Extreme Stadiums on every planet, I found my approval dropping quickly.  I checked the civilization management screen and located the problem, one 20% approval planet:  Sartorius.

It turned out that the other structures I had put into the queue had not been completed yet, so the little green icon indicating a finished social project had not come up, which means, for me anyway, that I hadn't paid any attention to it.  In the intervening months, Sartorius (with the help of a Fertility Clinic and my newly reacquired Aphrodisiacs) had climbed to a population of 24.31 billion, all of whom hated me.  I quickly replaced the various nonessential structures with Extreme Stadiums, and built my Secret Police there.

However, the approval rating has never managed to get above 40% there, despite 6 or 7 newly researched Zero-G Arenas, a Secret Police center, and a cut in taxes.  I am now replacing the Zero-Gs with Virtual Reality Centers and my approval is still quite low, but only on Sartorius.  So I guess I have three questions:

1. Is there a way to get my approval rating on Sartorius back into a reasonable 60 or 70 percent, short of killing 6 billion hard-working robots?

2. I know planetary production is affected by population, but does approval have any effect on production, research, etc.  How much more useful could my robot-people be if they were 18 billion really happy robots instead of 24 billion unhappy ones?

3. Whether I can make them happy or not, what possible use could I have for 24 billion robots on a class 10 world?

EDIT: By the way, I'm playing Dark Avatar, not Twilight of the Arnor.

11,031 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1. unlikely, while technically possible (on a big world such as class 26) i've never been able to do it.
2.Population has no effect on production, only on tax income.
3.No use.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Darkxarth say hello to Mr. Killer Morale. There's been a LOT of research done over this by some very experienced players, and if you were so inclined, you could search through threads to find all of it. To save you that time and effort I will summarize, as best I can, the highlights.

1.) No, outside of killing enough citizens to drop below the 18 Billion point (the maximum level where the economic benefit outweighs the cost of supporting the morale of the people). And here's why:
-To get a decent morale on said planet, you need to build a VRC (Virtual Reality Center). Every VRC you build is the loss of a GSE (Galactic Stock Exchange). basically you are spending money to keep people happy instead of making money off of them. Not a good business deal at all. It has been determined that w/o a morale bonus tile on a planet, to maintain a 18 billion population, you need two VRCs to allow it to have a stable morale level and allow it to be economically viable. Its the economic viability thats the important part. Why have 26 billion people if all they do is cost you money?

2.) Population nor approval affect any part of production, research, or the such. Population DOES affect your planet's influence rating. A planet with 1B people with 10 factories produces just as much as a planet with 10B people and 10 factories. If however, your approval drops low enough, the planet may revolt, which make you affect your empire.

3.) Want a way to drop your population with committing genocide? Use transports to move them to less populated worlds. This will raise your morale on the over-populated world, and raise tax revenue on less populated worlds.

Finally, the most you will ever need on any planet is ONE farm. On a non-farm bonus tile you will reach a population maximum of 13B, and using the 100%Farm, a threshold of 18B. NEVER ever use the 300% tile unless you are looking for trouble.

Hope this helps!
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
...NEVER ever use the 300% tile unless you are looking for trouble.Hope this helps!
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I tend to agree with anything before that sentence and even within the other answers the OP received, from my experience POV it sounds about right.

Now, about that 300% precious tile. I find it to be EXTREMELY useful to have in a specific situation; steady flow of invading troops.

By varying the pop numbers between 18B and whatever figure such a planet can reach during a critical period of 5 to 25 turns minimum, one can do many things, fertility clinic helping;

-- Dispatch 'continual' transport ships each having maxed out capacity,
-- Park them in orbit of the guilty growing outa-hand planet above,
-- Load 'hem up,
-- Fleeted back out and heavily protected during travel,
-- Go on a hunt for the toughest enemy targets after that!

Without ever touching your steadily tax-paying, full-researching, attacking-ships pipeline, core group of planets... population at all! Not even a scratch.

Just because, you'd be using the 300% Tile advantage as a warfare edge instead of simply wasting it to anything else.
Consider, the alternative (same invasion power resources) pulled off your global figures IF you do not have THAT special tile somewhere; defeating an opponent becomes a different invasion plan that must be devised the hard way rather than exploiting one opportunity.

My 2cents.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yes, Zyxpsilon would be correct in this assessment. Unorthodox indeed, but this would be an exception to the rule as it were.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
Sartorius (with the help of a Fertility Clinic and my newly reacquired Aphrodisiacs) had climbed to a population of 24.31 billion, all of whom hated me.
End of quote

The penalities for high pop are above 20 B pop so harsh, it practically never pays off to grow pop higher. So you use 1 or 2 farms to get to 13 or 20 B, but NEVER above that. For more info on approval you may find useful the wiki article.

BR, Iztok
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yup, but there's a huge difference between;

1- 15B people --on-- a planet paying taxes.
2- A supplementary value of 5B (1500 times Four in transports LEAVING orbit in due-time) suddendly cuts down 500M only while population in transit do not impact morale since they aren't on the surface anymore.
3- Four brand spanking new enemy planets conquered OR still under their power for a number of extra turns, during which they may *just may*, be able to spice up a wrecking train of their own to hit yours truly.

What good is that tile now... that you didn't use it for what it's (was) worth?
Mine. All mine. And the full bonus along with it, gimme, gimme.

See -- travelers DO fight for your conquest victory right upon landing on hostile lands while they simply, sip luxurious cocktails on a beach on greasy biggy planet X (300% boost, helping!) sticking their tungs out to space when they could have been trained to become Troopers with a cause.

:)
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, I appreciate everyone's comments, they were all very helpful.

It was basically what I expected, not much doable with such a huge population short of making a colony ship/troop transport planet. Considering the approval rating on my other planets is 100% or close, Sartorius only drops it down a little, and not enough to incite rebellion. So, I think I'm going to create a fleet of Super Colonizer and Super Trooper ships and get several billion people off my planet and then raze a farm.

Thanks again for all your replies.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does anyone know the formula for how population determines tax revenue and influence?
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Finally, the most you will ever need on any planet is ONE farm. On a non-farm bonus tile you will reach a population maximum of 13B, and using the 100%Farm, a threshold of 18B. NEVER ever use the 300% tile unless you are looking for trouble.
End of quote


It's not like it does you any real harm. One low morale planet is very rarely a big deal. Given the choice between no bonus and 300%, I'm using the 300% every time for the extra income.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@Random50: well, thats not entirely true. it depends on how many worlds you have also. Sure one world out of 500 won't matter much, but if you only have three worlds, it may matter quite a bit.

Also, very low morale worlds have a pretty decent chance of rebelling or flipping, which is definitely not a good thing.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that if one decides to use the farm bonuses, make sure that you fully aware of what you are going into.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Does anyone know the formula for how population determines tax revenue and influence?
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I couldn't locate the formula for Influence, but here ya go for tax revenue:Tax at the GalCiv Wiki
End of quote


Cool, thanks!
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Robots don't have morale unless programmed in. I think the Yor should have been balanced around always having 100% approval but have other disadvantages like having half of your population freeze up because of some random electrical surge...
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
yes, Zyxpsilon would be correct in this assessment. Unorthodox indeed, but this would be an exception to the rule as it were.
End of quote


Unorthodox? Man, I thought that this was what those tiles were intended for and would be in the opening chapters of "How to Invade Opponents and Influence Planets." Essentially something like,

"Fertile planets with frisky inhabitants and empires at war serve in symbiosis - The citizens are kept happy by supplying a steady stream of cannon fodder."
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What to do with 24 billion robots...
End of quote


Go into the toaster business...

As an aside, the 300% food bonus tiles come into their own in TotA - especially if using the Yor tech tree with their charging stalks.

I wouldn't recommend using Thalan and building their Matrix super-project on one though :)
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do have an option #4 you could consider. You are the evil Yor. I think you should sell off everything but the farms and then gift that planet to a fellow neighbor and let them deal with all those angry robots...
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But how high are the changes of rebellion? On my current game, out of 120 planets (and 1 and a half trillion citizens :D ), 5 of my planets are at 20.0 billion citizens. If i keep my taxes at 49%, they're happy enough, but when i raise the taxes to 59% the aproval rate turns red on those planets (and 90-100% on every other planet i own). But they're on my core ring, outside any alien influence... if i keep them on the red forever, will they ever rebel? B/c that never happened to me, and those planets are a great source of income for me...
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
5 of my planets are at 20.0 billion citizens... If i keep my taxes at 49%, they're happy enough, but when i raise the taxes to 59% the aproval rate turns red on those planets (and 90-100% on every other planet i own
End of quote

Make those 5 planets 13B, increase overall taxes to 79% and check again the situation. IMO you'll be plesantly surprised.

BR, Iztok
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
in short, Iztok is saying, players will make more off a smaller, happier group of people paying higher taxes, then one big, unhappy group paying lower.


Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If I'm reading the population, influence, and tourism items correctly on the Wiki (And it doesn't have formulae on any of them, just the term 'proportional'), Population translates over directly into influence, which translates over directly into tourism income one to one basis.

Taxes on the other hand are run from the square root of your populace. More poor than rich? Bloody progressive tax systems - you'd think the Drengin at least would be properly regressive about it "Pay your taxes, or you can have lunch with the Mayor. Your call.".

Which indicates to *me*, that it *might* be money better spent keeping the population happy or translating the population pressure into influence than relying on the banking multipliers. I have a 300% farm base in play on my current game - I'm going to play with this and see, but I know that at the moment, I'm actually not normally having to institute *any* taxes - I can pay my basic budget on just my trade income and the tourism industry. Of course, I got lucky with three influence mines early on too.

Jonnan
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
well, you'll get more money from the economic centers; but...especially in TA, where the tourism was reworked, you can a sizable amount from having strong influence. Trade is still the "weakest" set of income, but for cost (one freighter) it is the best bang for your buck (not to mention the diplomatic benefits).

But if you want any kind of heavy production or research, you will need to counter it with at least some economic worlds.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I followed those advises, removed some farms and my 5 planets with 20 billion citizens were reduced to 14b each (30 billion people just disapeared...). But the morale increase was enough to up the taxes from 4% to 69%,... on a 200 planets empire, thats a lot. I went from red-yellow credits to 20.000bc in a couple turns.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
But it still affects production....................
I must go experiment :D I dont give a sh*t if they are unhappy, im the emperor god dammit!

24 billion hard working slaves vs 14 billion happy slaves ?
Could it be possible that a world with 3 farms, 3 happiness things and the rest factories, has better production than a low-pop world with only 1 happniess thing and the rest factories?