Given it seems pretty hard to go religious when you are not Vodyani, I am verry sceptical on the way Mass Hapiness applies to the empire.

You usually don't suffer major hapiness issues in the beginning (even in hard difficulty) when playing Vodyani since you don't have many systems in the early and can easily get "ecstasic" population if you build infinite supermarkets and train hapiness skills on governor heroes.

The only time you would be pleased to use it is in the mid game when you overexpand a bit or capture enemy systems where population is "in rebelion"

So the fact that Mass Hapiness applies to the whole empire and can turn all others systems from "ecstasic" or "happy" to only "content" is verry frustrating when you only wanted one system to go off "in rebellion"

Suggestion : Mass Hapiness should only convert "unhappy" or "in rebellion" systems to "content" without affecting the ones above "content"

What do you think about that ?

I disagree. I think the law is fine as it is. Being able to completely eliminate any chance of rebellion or even unhappiness in your empire for a one-time Influence expenditure would be far too powerful. Even if it cost 600 influence or even 1000, it would be just too good.

As it is, it can be reasonably priced, but you have to weigh the drawbacks against the advantages.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

I disagree. I think the law is fine as it is. Being able to completely eliminate any chance of rebellion or even unhappiness in your empire for a one-time Influence expenditure would be far too powerful. Even if it cost 600 influence or even 1000, it would be just too good.

As it is, it can be reasonably priced, but you have to weigh the drawbacks against the advantages.

For other races I can see why this is a powerful law, but for the Vodyani? These guys turn ecstatic for lolz of it.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

I disagree. I think the law is fine as it is. Being able to completely eliminate any chance of rebellion or even unhappiness in your empire for a one-time Influence expenditure would be far too powerful. Even if it cost 600 influence or even 1000, it would be just too good.

As it is, it can be reasonably priced, but you have to weigh the drawbacks against the advantages.

That's a reasonable opinion, but personally, I agree with the OP. As it stands, it's a worthless law. You will almost assuredly be better off not taking it, even ignoring the fact it occupies one of your slots and costs a considerable amount of influence. I have never once had the Vodyani fall below Content when playing (As they can't take over native populations). So at best it does nothing. At worst, it's dragging down my Ecstatic and Happy systems. There's absolutely no use for it. Even the Sophons wouldn't need it.

Romeo wrote:

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

I disagree. I think the law is fine as it is. Being able to completely eliminate any chance of rebellion or even unhappiness in your empire for a one-time Influence expenditure would be far too powerful. Even if it cost 600 influence or even 1000, it would be just too good.

As it is, it can be reasonably priced, but you have to weigh the drawbacks against the advantages.

That's a reasonable opinion, but personally, I agree with the OP. As it stands, it's a worthless law. You will almost assuredly be better off not taking it, even ignoring the fact it occupies one of your slots and costs a considerable amount of influence. I have never once had the Vodyani fall below Content when playing (As they can't take over native populations). So at best it does nothing. At worst, it's dragging down my Ecstatic and Happy systems. There's absolutely no use for it. Even the Sophons wouldn't need it.

I guess I should have added to my post:

I am of the opinion that Vodyani approval may not be working as designed. Nothing in their description or traits indicates immunity to expansion and overpopulation disapproval, yet they are. I suspect that somebody forgot to add relevant parameters to the Cathedral of All Worldly Affairs that replaces the Colony Base.

And even if it is working as intended, we should not measure a law only against the faction that starts the game with access to it.

it is useful if you unlock colonisation of planets that have a happiness penalty or if you get negative anomalies. Particularly, it's great with the ecologists law that allows colonisation of telluric planets without relevant techs. Depends on the playthrough choices I guess. 

The law is most useful for the Cravers, who can use their Dictatorship to switch to Religious with even a minor representation and then be immune to all the penalties of being Cravers. Specifically, both the dictatorship approval penalty and the massive over-colonizition penalties you will definitely have from conquering your neighbors. It works far better than the Militarist approval laws for any kind of unchecked militarism.