What I've noticed is that you either have too much or too little approval and very few ways to influence it.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

MezzoMax wrote:

I wouldn't say a bug, because it works as intended. It is only not documented/specified. Other governments also lack some description. For example the Sophons government give you an extra law slot. But it is not stated. Or the dictatorship reduces one, but this is also not stated.

Any idea what Federations (Vodyani base government) do that's special? I didn't notice anything. I thought it might have to do with governors since the fluff description mentions them, but I really don't know.

Federations provide a bonus to  as well as give you more power when influencing election results.

THe penalties are too extreme too. I colonized a system after 20 turns of waiting, and then immdiatly that hard earned pop got unhappy and vanished, leaving me with a system with 0 population. 

MezzoMax wrote:

I wouldn't say a bug, because it works as intended. It is only not documented/specified. Other governments also lack some description. For example the Sophons government give you an extra law slot. But it is not stated. Or the dictatorship reduces one, but this is also not stated.

Any idea what Federations (Vodyani base government) do that's special? I didn't notice anything. I thought it might have to do with governors since the fluff description mentions them, but I really don't know.

SpaceTroll wrote:

we are not entirely satisfied with how happiness is working right now, we'll need to give you more ways to influence it, through politics among other things, and with more interesting consequences as well.

ST

Something dynamic like the tax slider is desperately needed!

Getting a major election or over-expansion approval malus on your empire is basically a game-killer right now. It seems to last at least 9-10 turns and in that time you will probably run through all your dust stocks and lose quite a few population units as well. It's quite excessive.

I wouldn't say a bug, because it works as intended. It is only not documented/specified. Other governments also lack some description. For example the Sophons government give you an extra law slot. But it is not stated. Or the dictatorship reduces one, but this is also not stated.

MezzoMax wrote:

vahouth wrote:

I wonder if it a viable strategy for the Lumeris to mass produce outposts and sell them to an enemy empire in order to tank their economy due to unhappiness from overextension...

EDIT: BTW I just noticed that Cravers are the only ones that get free policies! 

Really, all of their starting policies cost no influence at all! Is this a bug?

I don't think so. it is not in the tooltip for Dictatorship. But in one video I saw a tooltip saying it gives 100% laws cost reduction. So I think this is intended.

So it is a bug after all. It's a bug of the Dictatorship description.

vahouth wrote:

I wonder if it a viable strategy for the Lumeris to mass produce outposts and sell them to an enemy empire in order to tank their economy due to unhappiness from overextension...

EDIT: BTW I just noticed that Cravers are the only ones that get free policies! 

Really, all of their starting policies cost no influence at all! Is this a bug?

I don't think so. it is not in the tooltip for Dictatorship. But in one video I saw a tooltip saying it gives 100% laws cost reduction. So I think this is intended.

Non-militarist parties give you plenty of options for increasing your  or  even when not at war. However it doesn't change the fact that you need to be very careful with expansion if you don't have a stable enough empire.

Don't get any ideas from the AI btw - the AI makes similar mistakes in this version and goes bankrupt behind the scenes: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/65-general/thread/20737-strange-elimination-of-ai

That said it would be nice if you could somehow predict the approval hit if you conquer another system, assimilate another minor species.

Good point, it would be nice if you could check the potential disapproval hit for expanding on the fly

vahouth wrote:

MezzoMax wrote:

Jingoist Paradise +15 Approval on system per war

Safe Skie Bills +25 Approval with an orbiting fleet

And what if you don't want to be on the warpath?

Well hopefully other political idiologies give similiar boni. But I agree it can be difficult if you can't adapt on the fly. In ES1 you could just adjust the tax mechanic. I like it that you have to use more planning. That said it would be nice if you could somehow predict the approval hit if you conquer another system, assimilate another minor species.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

Well yeah it´s Early Access - it will be fine tuned. I also believe that the happiness modifiers are really strong, pobably way too strong. I´ll have a more conrete reply on this once I get to play myself ;-)

Or too sudden, at least. I had to reset my game to a previous autosave because assimilating a minor species for my 4th system immediately dropped my Dust/Turn from +40 to -300. I had to wait 10 turns and research/build the Infinite Supermarket to keep my happiness above economy-tanking Unhappy.

MezzoMax wrote:

Well OK after just some time into the game, absorbing the atmosphere, reading all the tool tips and stuff. Getting lost in the menues. Heck I didn't klick end turn till now....

Anyway I started with the Cravers and the military politics have some really nice approval buffs:

Jingoist Paradise +15 Approval on system per war

Safe Skie Bills +25 Approval with an orbiting fleet

So this was my assumption and I am glad they went that way. That said I am nowhere capable to guess if this is balanced or not. But from the sound of it it feels strong. Panczasu did you experiement with the Cravers and could you give an idea if these boni are helpfull?

Release version has less severe approval mechanics than the ones I've been dealing with in the past week and I'm still adjusting. That said, extra approval is nice, especially once you start conquering and the overexpansion penalty kicks in.

MezzoMax wrote:

Jingoist Paradise +15 Approval on system per war

Safe Skie Bills +25 Approval with an orbiting fleet

And what if you don't want to be on the warpath?

Well yeah it´s Early Access - it will be fine tuned. I also believe that the happiness modifiers are really strong, pobably way too strong. I´ll have a more conrete reply on this once I get to play myself ;-)

I wouldn't be surprised if this is tied to one or more Laws spread around the different political parties. That way it would hamper the snowball effect a little bit. Sure you can have a big empire but some of your laws will be dedicated to happines improvement rather than military/science/industry.

In EL a flat happiness bonus was given bye the empire plan. Seeing that the Political system of ES2 is a vast improvement over the EL Empire Plan I am certain something will be implemented in the laws. What I hope is that all or most of the political idiologies have some sort of happiness boost. For example a military one could give a bonus per declared war. An economical one could give trade routes a bonus depending on their income. A science one could give a boost for X turns after a new tech was researched. Plenty of possibilities.

PANCZASU wrote:

Did you watch my videos by any chance? xD

Of course I did. ;)

Watching your LP made me start this thread in the first place.

Do you think it is possible we'll see something like tax policies implemented in the future?

It seems to me as a waste of resources if there won't be.

we are not entirely satisfied with how happiness is working right now, we'll need to give you more ways to influence it, through politics among other things, and with more interesting consequences as well.

ST

Did you watch my videos by any chance? xD

I agree with the overall notion of this topic though, it's weird that starving my population to make the rest of my population happy is... weird. I mean, it's amusing and I like the idea of being able to play as an evil, mad dictator but starvation shouldn't be the best option you have haha.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

The technologies in the top-left Corner - the improvement of your systems, there are two era1 techs that increase your happiness. It´s not wise to colonize every system, it certainly was not in ES1.

Oh certainly, but ES1 gave you a bit more freedom in that regard. In the public version of ES2 (the one that we're allowed to post footage of) you can make one colony without approval tech - any more and you're likely to run into problems.

I'm pretty sure that this harsh disapproval penalty will be fine tuned and less sudden but I can't really elaborate on that  NDA is an NDA after all.

The technologies in the top-left Corner - the improvement of your systems, there are two era1 techs that increase your happiness. It´s not wise to colonize every system, it certainly was not in ES1.

In addition to that your systems level up - so you want to carefully balance wide and tall expansion of your empire for the maximum efficiency.