Okay, I have played four games with two victories and two crushing defeats.
It seems that a very large factor in my defeats has been growth. On planets with bonuses to agriculture, building one of the farming structures leads to veyr rapid growth.
So, more people means that you can produce more ground troops. Should be a big advantage right?
Well, the trouble is that morale drops very substantially as your population grows. So much so that it quickly becomes impossible to maintain any order, even with the tax rate down to less than 10 percent. With taxes that low, build times become staggeringly long and research efforts grind to a halt.
In my last game, I started off really well, jumping out to a lead and maintaining it quite a while. However, as my pop started to climb I had to keep reducing my tax rate further and further, which meant I quickly fell behind.
So, I thought, well, let's just remove those farms. Immediately my morale jumped back up to near 100% and I was able to crank my spending back up as well. Within fifteen turns I was back on top and proceeded to dominate.
The question then, is how can one manage growth effectively?
A) Reducing taxes: if you pop is stable, this can work. If you are growing though, this only buys you two to three turns of grace before morale begins to drop again.
B) Facilities: There are a few facilities that can increase morale, but I have found that they do not obviate the morale penalty from an ever increasing population.
C) Starbases: Perhaps I have not researched the proper techs, but I am not finding the kinds of morale bonus structures I recall from GC1. Do they exist? If so, are they powerful enough to offset a growing population?
Okay, talk amongst yourselves...
It seems that a very large factor in my defeats has been growth. On planets with bonuses to agriculture, building one of the farming structures leads to veyr rapid growth.
So, more people means that you can produce more ground troops. Should be a big advantage right?
Well, the trouble is that morale drops very substantially as your population grows. So much so that it quickly becomes impossible to maintain any order, even with the tax rate down to less than 10 percent. With taxes that low, build times become staggeringly long and research efforts grind to a halt.
In my last game, I started off really well, jumping out to a lead and maintaining it quite a while. However, as my pop started to climb I had to keep reducing my tax rate further and further, which meant I quickly fell behind.
So, I thought, well, let's just remove those farms. Immediately my morale jumped back up to near 100% and I was able to crank my spending back up as well. Within fifteen turns I was back on top and proceeded to dominate.
The question then, is how can one manage growth effectively?
A) Reducing taxes: if you pop is stable, this can work. If you are growing though, this only buys you two to three turns of grace before morale begins to drop again.
B) Facilities: There are a few facilities that can increase morale, but I have found that they do not obviate the morale penalty from an ever increasing population.
C) Starbases: Perhaps I have not researched the proper techs, but I am not finding the kinds of morale bonus structures I recall from GC1. Do they exist? If so, are they powerful enough to offset a growing population?
Okay, talk amongst yourselves...
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