Transparency... that's what would make all of this easier to understand and digest. We are grasping as straws trying to make sense out of the mechanics. I see approval as just that, not the logistics of it because I understand it the way Fen pointed out.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
If a planet has some sort of anomaly that improves Approval (i.e. Low Gravity), it may be worth it to colonize it ASAP. Even if you have only one opulation:, you get the full bonus from that Anomaly.



And, speaking of anomalies, pay attention to any you might find. It's much easier now that they's been color-coded, but see if any of them give you significant advantages - say, better , although the most important bonus is arguably more .



Also look to see what resources each planet has to offer. Hydromiel can be incredibly powerful, since it gives +3 per opulation: as well as a percentage-based Food bonus.



There are cases where, if an Arctic planet has, say, Coral Reefs, it may be more beneficial to colonize that planet even as opposed to a T1 planet. The point is, anomalies/resources are arguably more important when colonizing than the actual tier of the planet - you would almost never colonize a Terran planet with Acid Rain over an Arid with Metallic Waters, for example.

I should do a screen capture of my current game and post it up as an example.

Nasarog wrote:
I should do a screen capture of my current game and post it up as an example.

That may help.



One thing that vastly improved how well I did at the game was my strategy of building every Approval improvement in every system. Keep taxes low enough that most/all systems are Ecstatic, and as you research and build the improvements you can make that money back.



The important thing to remember is that the early game is slow. You're not trying to accomplish much, you're mostly building up for a solid mid-game. IDS are less important than Food, because a higher population is more valuable than a higher production.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
That may help.



One thing that vastly improved how well I did at the game was my strategy of building every Approval improvement in every system. Keep taxes low enough that most/all systems are Ecstatic, and as you research and build the improvements you can make that money back.



The important thing to remember is that the early game is slow. You're not trying to accomplish much, you're mostly building up for a solid mid-game. IDS are less important than Food, because a higher population is more valuable than a higher production.

That's my technique as well for the most part.I tend to play with random settings in planet/system quality and number. My games tend to be unbalanced and usually not in my favor.

Nasarog wrote:
That's my technique as well for the most part.I tend to play with random settings in planet/system quality and number. My games tend to be unbalanced and usually not in my favor.

I generally play with a high number of constellations. It's not good to split your empire up, so I try to colonize every system in my starting constellation (unless some of them are objectively awful, i.e. all has gas giants or red anomalies).

Yup, same here. I colonize at least one planet per system as the game permits to have solid control over my borders. I try to colonize the best planet in the system and take several things into account. Now if I discover a system with lots of tier 2 planets, it becomes a priority. A system with tier 1 planet/s is the gold standard.



I am currently playing 1.1.9



I'm waiting for the bugs in 1.1.14 to be worked out before patching it up.

Igncom1 wrote:
Just because you were born on Tatooine, that doesn't make it a good place to live.

I disagree. YOU dont like tatooine because have the image of a water-filled and green planet in your mind. Someone born and raised on Tatooine would take the endless dunes of sand as a given and a beatyfull landscape. Forest or lakes would put a righteous fear into you being total unknowns.



In addition...NATURAL-born species on Tatooine would be perfectly adapted to heat, dry air, lack of water and low food supplies. Natural-borns wouldnt "need" more water or food to survive and prosper.



That being said the OP has a point. Your home planet would suit you perfectly therefore it would be the "perfect" place in space for you. No other planet would ever come close having slight variations in chemical composure, pressure, mass aka gravity etc etc.

MTB-Fritz wrote:
I disagree. YOU dont like tatooine because have the image of a water-filled and green planet in your mind. Someone born and raised on Tatooine would take the endless dunes of sand as a given and a beatyfull landscape. Forest or lakes would put a righteous fear into you being total unknowns.

I dunno man, Anakin was really eager to leave.

MTB-Fritz wrote:
In addition...NATURAL-born species on Tatooine would be perfectly adapted to heat, dry air, lack of water and low food supplies. Natural-borns wouldnt "need" more water or food to survive and prosper.

The species that start on Tier 2 planets weren't "naturally" born there. Look back and read what was pointed out - Cravers and Sowers were abandoned on their respective home planets by the Endless. They didn't grow up there.

MTB-Fritz wrote:
That being said the OP has a point. Your home planet would suit you perfectly therefore it would be the "perfect" place in space for you. No other planet would ever come close having slight variations in chemical composure, pressure, mass aka gravity etc etc.

This explains why humans, Sophons, Amoeba, etc love their home planets, and why Cravers, Sowers etc hate their own. So you've only really proven the OP wrong

Actually the Sowers like their home planet. It's the product of MILLENIA of their terraformation (and now they're finally learning to do that faster). They consider their Tundra to be paradise, and it is given that they're a machine race built by disembodied electrical impulses.



That being said approval isn't "How happy are your people" it's "How difficult is it to maintain the logistics of your empire"

Autocthon wrote:
That being said approval isn't "How happy are your people" it's "How difficult is it to maintain the logistics of your empire"

Then it wouldn't be called Approval. I also don't see why you would have a harder time maintaining logistics on a Tundra as opposed to a Jungle.



And they're probably pretty upset with their tundra, considering it still isn't as full of life as a Terran or Jungle, even after millenia of labor.

They don't care about life. They're making a techno paradise not an eden. I mean, they're a sentient group-consciousness spread across billions of individual subunits with the express purpose of creating a perfect environment for the Virtual Endless that implicitly will also support them as a species. Of course the fact that they have true Sapience (admittedly on a cultural level rather than individual) kind of invalidates the comment about the endless not being able to create sentient AI in the Automaton description.



As far as logistics between tundra and jungle, Tundra is going to have fewer available support resources in terms of agriculture. Hence more difficult to maintain (more logistically intensive). Calling it approval really just makes it simple to understand to a new player. Sure it would be more technically "Logistic Intensity", but then you'd want to minimize the bar.



Actually that would be a fun change. Instead of trying to get lots of approval we should try to minimize logistic difficulty and gain a full spectrum bonus based on that bar rather than a stepwise set of bonuses or penalties.

Autocthon wrote:
They don't care about life. They're making a techno paradise not an eden. I mean, they're a sentient group-consciousness spread across billions of individual subunits with the express purpose of creating a perfect environment for the Virtual Endless that implicitly will also support them as a species. Of course the fact that they have true Sapience (admittedly on a cultural level rather than individual) kind of invalidates the comment about the endless not being able to create sentient AI in the Automaton description.

I'm pretty sure their job was to make an eden, not a techno paradise. I'm also pretty sure they're corrupted by Dust, which has more to do with their sapience than the Endless do.

Autocthon wrote:
As far as logistics between tundra and jungle, Tundra is going to have fewer available support resources in terms of agriculture. Hence more difficult to maintain (more logistically intensive). Calling it approval really just makes it simple to understand to a new player. Sure it would be more technically "Logistic Intensity", but then you'd want to minimize the bar.

Fewer agricultural options is represented by , making you pay for it twice seems a tad silly (pay once with a lower output, and again with an malus). It also doesn't explain how a Hero's ability to raise people's happiness affects the "Logistic Intensity."

Nasarog wrote:
How so, maybe that will explain where I am going wrong.

If a planet has some sort of anomaly that improves Approval (i.e. Low Gravity), it may be worth it to colonize it ASAP. Even if you have only one opulation:, you get the full bonus from that Anomaly.



And, speaking of anomalies, pay attention to any you might find. It's much easier now that they's been color-coded, but see if any of them give you significant advantages - say, better , although the most important bonus is arguably more .



Also look to see what resources each planet has to offer. Hydromiel can be incredibly powerful, since it gives +3 per opulation: as well as a percentage-based Food bonus.



There are cases where, if an Arctic planet has, say, Coral Reefs, it may be more beneficial to colonize that planet even as opposed to a T1 planet. The point is, anomalies/resources are arguably more important when colonizing than the actual tier of the planet - you would almost never colonize a Terran planet with Acid Rain over an Arid with Metallic Waters, for example.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
I'm pretty sure their job was to make an eden, not a techno paradise. I'm also pretty sure they're corrupted by Dust, which has more to do with their sapience than the Endless do.

They were tasked by the Virtual Endless, that implies that they were tasked with making the perfect environment for virtual beings. Their affinity further implies that they don't much consider agriculture to be required for perfection.

Fewer agricultural options is represented by , making you pay for it twice seems a tad silly (pay once with a lower output, and again with an malus). It also doesn't explain how a Hero's ability to raise people's happiness affects the "Logistic Intensity."

Well I suppose I may be a tad non-specific.



Maintaining a planet that is effectively locked in near-arctic conditions requires heavier infrastructure and efficient self-correcting equipment. The "cost" to maintain the planet will be higher than a more temperate or tropical climate, though I'd think that jungle planets are temperate jungles rather than tropical. Compound a higher infrastructure maintenance cost with fewer overall resources you get additional requirements on the planet you won't have on an equivalent planet.



Obviously these planets can't be *all* one biome. The problem here is that "Approval" is a weird hybrid of "Are your people happy?" and "How difficult is it to maintain your empire" (IE: Planet approval vs expansion disapproval vs certain anomaly approval penalties).



The hero +Approval bonus could just as easily be flavored as "Efficient Leader" rather than "Great PR Guy"

Autocthon wrote:
They were tasked by the Virtual Endless, that implies that they were tasked with making the perfect environment for virtual beings. Their affinity further implies that they don't much consider agriculture to be required for perfection.

So why do the concept arts show them planting trees and such? Wouldn't life be potentially harmful if they wanted a "techno paradise"? By your understanding, an Arctic would be the paradise of choice. Or, at that point, why not just live in giant space stations?

Autocthon wrote:
Maintaining a planet that is effectively locked in near-arctic conditions requires heavier infrastructure and efficient self-correcting equipment. The "cost" to maintain the planet will be higher than a more temperate or tropical climate, though I'd think that jungle planets are temperate jungles rather than tropical. Compound a higher infrastructure maintenance cost with fewer overall resources you get additional requirements on the planet you won't have on an equivalent planet.

What "cost" is there in maintaining a tundra planet? You fail to explain why the Sowers have an easier time maintaining a Jungle as opposed to a Tundra. By your explanation, a Tundra would be easier, because if the Sowers don't care for life then it's probably just getting in the way anyway.

Autocthon wrote:
Obviously these planets can't be *all* one biome.

They seem to be pretty clearly all one biome.

Autocthon wrote:
The hero +Approval bonus could just as easily be flavored as "Efficient Leader" rather than "Great PR Guy"

But it isn't. Instead we have a "Ministry of Propoganda," which is pretty definitely a happiness-related thing.







I think what you're trying to do is, replace game logic with your own logic, because you believe your logic makes more sense. And, to be fair, it does. It explains a lot of the gaps in information and the logic the game has. But the game is still telling a different story than you are, and so I think to answer the OP's original question we need to explain it within the game's terms.

I don't think the devs spent as much time thinking about the detail of how the lore fits in with the gameplay. I mean in many ways the lore appear almost like an afterthought. How many times do you even see the race you're playing, once at the beginning with the opening movie, once at the end when you win, and whenever you open diplo to look at that static holographic representation. Most of the time, these beings are just treated as numbers. I feel like the devs are more interested in the mechanics of game than in the lore they're supposed to represent. Why else would there be all these apparent discrepancies between description and actual gameplay. It's not necessarily good or bad. I'm willing to accept some unrealism if it means more balanced gameplay, but it does render certain discussions of lore moot.



As for approval, my interpretation is exactly what it says, approval. Just read the description of the Transvine plant. Now, you could make the argument that planetary approval bonus comes from logistical effect. But trying to use lore to back that up is not going to work because plenty of lore example that counters that argument. Ex, Amoeba has the least logistical issue in Ocean planets, they can swim to get to places, yet approval is the same for Terran, Jungle, and Ocean.

Antera wrote:
I don't think the devs spent as much time thinking about the detail of how the lore fits in with the gameplay. I mean in many ways the lore appear almost like an afterthought. How many times do you even see the race you're playing, once at the beginning with the opening movie, once at the end when you win, and whenever you open diplo to look at that static holographic representation. Most of the time, these beings are just treated as numbers. I feel like the devs are more interested in the mechanics of game than in the lore they're supposed to represent. Why else would there be all these apparent discrepancies between description and actual gameplay. It's not necessarily good or bad. I'm willing to accept some unrealism if it means more balanced gameplay, but it does render certain discussions of lore moot.

I wouldn't necessarily say it was an afterthought, but I do agree that they prioritized the mechanics over the lore. What is approval and how does it work? They give us a basic answer, and focus on explaining how to use it within the game rather than explaining how it works within the universe. It does cause certain issues (like the ones discussed in this thread) where people want to have more answers than the game can provide, but quite frankly I don't think it's okay to replace the limited amount of flavor text the game has with some of your own - specifically referring to the idea that approval is really just logistics. Does it make more sense? Probably. Is that what's actually happening? No.

I dunno man, Anakin was really eager to leave.

We could dabble about details here but Anakin was a human child, he got human bio-chemistry, he got human education, he "knew" he didnt evolve on Tatooine but that he and his family are frontier workers and he hated that life. Not the best analogy. I agree my wording could ve been a little more detailed but I ll stay with my opinion. Anakin doesnt apply for being a "true" Tatooine-bred being. The scorpions there would be better qualified.



Besides I dont like the spoiled lil brat, some spanking might ve changed a lot in his later life /grin





Cravers and sowers werent specifically mentioned in the OP so I went with the title and the 3-liner post. Under that light I dont feel I was posting anything wrong.



I might ve proven the OP wrong but only in the fact that even 2 "terran" planets will never be the same apart from their skin texture. Theres so much more to a planet then its appearance that simply changing the size or atmosphere by a tiny fraction can completely change evolution.



I take a match start as a beginning point for awakening species. The home planet then different sides start from is their "true" home planet but considering game lore its probably just a staging step and they all arrive simultaneously in the same galaxy from "somewhere else".



Under my view.....I agree with the OP. Taking the other view, yes, I would prove him wrong with what I said but then, by intention my post doesnt do that





In the end I do accept these things as facts of the game used to balance stuff out. I also sometimes make the mistake to apply "reality" filters but then I have to remind myself that we r dealing with "fiction" mostly. Most of in-game techs are theoretical only, some of em pure fiction while others offer "real" basic theories just the application again is fiction. When I enter Endless space I accept these things as long as the whole package "works"

MTB-Fritz wrote:
We could dabble about details here but Anakin was a human child, he got human bio-chemistry, he got human education, he "knew" he didnt evolve on Tatooine but that he and his family are frontier workers and he hated that life. Not the best analogy. I agree my wording could ve been a little more detailed but I ll stay with my opinion. Anakin doesnt apply for being a "true" Tatooine-bred being. The scorpions there would be better qualified.

This still proves my point, because the Cravers and Sowers didn't evolve on their respective homeworlds. The other races who are happy with their homeworlds did evolve there (or on similar planets, depending on how you choose to interpret the lore) - United Empire on Terran, Amoeba on Ocean, Sophons and so on and so forth.

Fenrakk101 wrote:
This still proves my point, because the Cravers and Sowers didn't evolve on their respective homeworlds. The other races who are happy with their homeworlds did evolve there (or on similar planets, depending on how you choose to interpret the lore) - United Empire on Terran, Amoeba on Ocean, Sophons and so on and so forth.

Killjoy!.. Just agree with me, and maybe we'll get the dev's to give this aspect of the game a once-over.