Hello All

I'm new to this forum. I came from a Vodyani background, they are the first faction I played in Endless Space 2, and I had a lot of fun the Vodyani, because of their unique colonization method, "fast and furious", instatnly colonize all the planets as long as the player has access to the specific tech. Now I started playing the Rift Born, which is another unique faction in Endless Space 2, won three games with this faction already, but each game was much longer than my Vodyani gameplay, simply because there had been lots of population management, which I am not that fimiliar with since I used to play the Vodyani. 

The challenge I face with the Rift Born is that similar to other faction, your empire becomes wide naturally by settling new planets (very important to the Rift Born, more larva planets the better) and conquring systems from other empires. The Rift Born has some of the best ship designs second only to the Horaitios, and their ships can become ridiculous glass cannons in the late game, which gives them an advantage even when fighting Endless AIs, which leads to successful land invasions. 

However, the problem is, with a expanding empire, your approval rating starts to drop because of the system limit, and once the player goes above the system limit, mutiny starts to occur, which is very troublesome. So far, the only method I had found to counter this problem is to have the Religious Party hold a significant protion in the Senate which provide me with the Sinner Bill, and forces all systems to have a 70% happiness. However, the cost is that the player needs to spend a lot of time and production to construct approve buildings which are valuable time that can be used to construct more population, and make new ships for the fleet. In addition, because the Rift Born vote for Industrialist naturally, and once the empire is at war, the Military Party rise to power extremely fast, therefore, before every single elections, I have to spend a huge amount of money for bribery to make sure the Religious Party is relavent in an election. 

My question is, is there any other way to overcome the approval problem which associates with having a wide empire? Is the Religious Party the only solution? 

Thanks for reading

Upgrade systems to level 4. Build the new building that unlocks. Do so in every system. You can then go as wide as you want.

Transvine. Lots and lots of transvine.

hera35 wrote:

Militarist party is actually also good for wide, especially if you're already expanding through warfare. Sticky law Jingoist Joy Bill gives free approval for every ongoing war and Us or Them Decree gives all your systems bonus approval depending on how many major faction home systems you control, and I think it counts your own as well. On the opposite side Pacifist's Make Love Not War is also ridiculously powerful if you got the influence to spend on creating peace treaties and alliances first. For neutral laws that you unlock regardless of most popular party there's Toys For Boys and later Senator Bob Act. Both of them are worth it especially due to lack of influence upkeep, regardless of the associated Industry and Dust maluses.

Democracy is currently also a wide favored government type because of the inherent +1 happiness per pop bonus and more law slots for approval laws, though I'm not sure how Democracy's extra law slots compare to Republic's better law effects.

Like others said if you manage to a get system to Lvl4 and research the appropriate tech, you can build Autonomous Administration improvement that increases your expansion limit by one (you can build one in every Lvl4 system), though Lvl4 is rather hard to achieve unless you're Lumeris and get the quest reward that increases the output of every luxury resource deposit.

I will give those a try tonight, since my newest gameplay with the Rift Born is still ongoing. So far, I already have a lot of systems within my empire, and some of those systems are printing money permanently, so i can always bribe the religious party back into the senate if somehow the methods above did not work out. 

currently, i mianly just use the laws from the military party and the religious party to keep my citizens happy. the sinner bill is a great tool, forces all systems on 70% happiness. but if i can afford US or Them bill, it also gives great boost to system happiness, and since i like murdering people, my empire is always at war for the entire game. :P

Riftborn is the best race to go wide because you get approval bonus on sterile planets. Just research terraforming techs and make steriles. You get like +2 - +5 for every population unit depending on sterile type. Build lots and lots of Riftborn pop so your minor factions won't cause penalties and you'll be golden.

Starbound wrote:

Riftborn is the best race to go wide because you get approval bonus on sterile planets. Just research terraforming techs and make steriles. You get like +2 - +5 for every population unit depending on sterile type. Build lots and lots of Riftborn pop so your minor factions won't cause penalties and you'll be golden.

It's quite some work to get there with RB. The pop micro is intense and I always end up with a couple of camps for unwanted pop. I find UE to be a bit easier. But that's just personal preference.

Annex wrote:

Upgrade systems to level 4. Build the new building that unlocks. Do so in every system. You can then go as wide as you want.

Quoted for Truth.

This is what I do when I am playing Endless length campaigns with certain win conditions turned off so that the game will go into 400-600 turns.

Dragar wrote:

Transvine. Lots and lots of transvine.

Yes.

There is some laws giving approval too.

And heros ability.

gents, thank you so much for the awesome replies. my latest gameplay with the Rift Bron on Impossible difficulty, i was able to maintain high happiness level within my empire by passing the Jingoist Bill and Us or Them Bill, they work brilliantly with my warmongering play style.