Currently cities and empires have specific breakpoints for their approval ratings when modifiers are applied. When an approval rating is increased or decreased, this ends up with some cities not being affected by approval changes and others moving to the different tier. Ultimately, this creates a space for min-maxing city management (approval ratings) that doesn't need to exist in the game.



Solution:

Make increasing approval always better, and losing approval always worse. This will make every choice which impacts approval in your empire important (even down to +5 bonuses) and will remove the benefit of min-maxing approval.





I would first address this by smoothing the reward tiers into scaling bonuses (leaving a small plateau in the middle for people that want to try to land there).



Current Empire:

Rebellion (0 - 19) -50%

Unhappy (20 - 39) -20%

Content (40 - 59) +0%

Happy (60 - 79) +15%

Fervent (80 - 100) +30%



Suggested Empire:

Rebellion (0 - 29) -31.5% at 29 with -1.5 point steps until -75% at 0

Unhappy (30 - 44) -1% at 44 with -1 point steps until -15% at 30

Content (45 - 55) 0%

Happy (55 - 79) 1% at 56 with 1 point steps until 24% at 79

Fervent (80 - 100) 25% at 80 with .5 point steps until 35% at 100



(cities have the same breakdowns, so this would apply equally to them)



I am suggesting these approval spreads as they should provide roughly the same overall benefits/drawbacks as before, they are just less severe at the start and more severe at the end. Of course feel free to rework to different values, this was mostly provided as an example.





Pros:

- Makes all changes in approval immediately affect every city

- Removes the ability to min-max approval changes on cities/empire

- Changes in approval should be more noticeable and predictable

- Will also help (new) players attempting to deal with approval as they should see immediate results based on their changes



Cons:

- Removes some of the "higher level" play which includes maximizing the benefits of approval tiers

- More math to code (unless you like algorithms, or just wanna make a table)



Other notes:

There are also certain bonuses which are tied directly to city or empire approvals. If I could think of a neat way to handle them, I would have suggested it, but they don't fit very well into this scaling. Unless someone has a great idea, I would just leave them alone and tie them to a certain approval %, or step up their bonus at a couple breakpoints.

It would also be interesting to make approval changes not hit all at once. Such that they roll out over multiple turns. In theory this should allow for interesting advanced play and planning, but will require good messaging of the current vs eventual values to avoid confusion for players.

- I don't agree with this suggestion because I think breakdown is better than granularie in some cases in a game. Breakdowns points stimulate the player to try to obtain a certain value, not more. Granularie is simple and boring : you always need to have the higher approval.



- In a game, it's better to stimulate the players to the choice it gave him more pleasure.



- Last argument : the game have now 5 phases of approval. It is enough. 3 phases would have been not enough and I would have agree with the creation with new steps. But not 5 phases.

"More maths to code" isn't really a con, it's what computers are for, you know

I'd say not using the powers of the CPU and creating simple systems like we have now is a bit sad, really.

What we have now is more like a board game, than what computers are capable of.



But I'd say one problem is that the existing systems in the game are coded with this lack of granularity in mind.

-10 per city, -10 per district (or whatever the maluses are, I can't recall and the wikis are still lacking).

+10 or +25 bonuses in the techs.



You'd have to rework all the systems, first. Then you can have a granular table of consequences.



Keep in mind that as it is right now, it works both ways : you can improve your approval without it doing any good, but then you can also lose some without it hurting you.

And that bit is mighty important, I find.

It's the difference between making the Sewers a must buy and making it optional (or an Era 2 pick, if you're expanding fast) as long as you're careful.

Stockpiles are cool but one dimensional now, add more meaning - Cannery built will add happiness and ----, Research adds influence and -----, Make it small for the first one +1%, second +3%, third +6%



I like the current system, but rebellion should mean something more - ? rebel armies? - Current rewards are great but the penalties are fewer (IMO)