Quick Question

There is happiness per planet, and then there is the average for the civilization (Approval). You can have a high civ average for happiness while having a few planets with really bad morale.

There are several factors that help determine the happiness of a planet:

-Morale structures improve happiness (as do many other things like morale galactic resources).
-Larger populations create a larger morale penalty than smaller populations.
-Farms increases the maximum population of a planet, thereby allowing for the possibility of having worse morale for a given planet than what it normally would have.

Since you didn't mention anything about farms or population, I'm assuming that large populations is what is causing your problem. Morale is at its worst with a population of 25 bil or higher. Its bad enough that you should never want to go beyond 18 bil.

By the way, influence has little to do with happiness. Influence does a lot to determine your territory, helps with income, and allows you to culture flip planets. A planet with large influence rating (IP) allows you to own more territory than a planet with a lesser score. Your terrority provides you with tourism income, and may affect different things (see the Yor's Super Isolationist super ability for example). As for culture flipping, if a planet is being overwhelmed by another civs culture (by a factor of 4 or more), then it is at risk of revolting to the civ that is overwhelming the planet with influence.

I hope this helps.

Yes. Approval/happiness will drop as your population increases. Research the techs that raise your morale and upgrade your morale buildings to keep pace. The galactic achievements that raise approval are also quite useful.

Sentient species taste better...

I'd like to add that there are a few morale boosing trade goods. Get them.

Since no one else mentioned this I want to just mention that a high tax rate will cause a morale drop. Adjust your taxes so that each planet idividually has the morale rating you desire. The one at the bottome left of the screen is your over all approval / morale rating. This really only give you a clue on where you stand for the next election, otherwise it doesnt really tell you anything.

As Divine Wrath stated, morale and influence are not related. A planet with 100% approval can flip just as easily as one with 50%. Where the 2 seem to come together is in population. Population gives you a greater influence for that planet. With a good size population you may never need and influece structures. Population also gives greater tax revenue and of course lower morale.

Yea this helps a lot. Thank You all. I only bought it yesterday and have played "New Games" Small with default settings. I've not even come close to a pop near 18, let alone 20+ lol. Atleast on a single planet anyway. I'm surprised the book isn't a little more clear on how, or what really affects "Approval". As for getting planets to that high of a pop, I notice that there are only so many sections, even with terraforming that you have to build on. I haven't noticed if placing farms in these limited locations open up more building zones as your pop grows. I really appreciate the specifics to influence and approval, as I wasn't sure the ramifications to lower ratings in those areas. I tend to have a high Influeance and low approval ratings for the first half of a game. I did notice with certain research trees, although I don't remember which, it seems to stabalize my approval. Seems that way depending on the form of governmet I'm using at the time also. I played a few games as mentioned above and really had no problem defeating the game, quite fun. I guess my next move is to go with a larger playing field with some more intelligent AI's to conform to differant perspectives such as dealing with agression and how this balance unfolds in the research choices I follow. Then I'd like to start a metaverse thing. Wish this was multi player, I could see this being really fun against players. Thanks Again.