Draco18s wrote:
too much over-expansion disapproval grinding the War Machine to a halt

There you have your answer. It is a gameplay mechanic to achieve exactly this. Otherwise you would have a domino effect that would allow you to grow infinitely. At some size an empire is just to large to be efficiently governed (even stated in the UE description). In game this is portrayed by the disapproval mechanics.



If you want to become a steamrolling warmongering behemoth play Hissho.

Draco18s wrote:
But colonizing? People generally don't get so upset over that, and it generally dies down pretty quickly. Case and point: how upset are you, personally, over the Virgin Islands? How upset would you, personally, be if they became the 51st state? How about Peurto Rico? Guam? The half-dozen or so other islands we own?



I'd bet that you don't give a rat's ass about their inclusion. If anything you probably started thinking about how we'd get more stars into the flag.

You're correct, I don't pay much mind to specific American territories, but there are plenty of Americans who think we are over stretched. Ron Paul tried to run a campaign on it. These are the people who are represented by that disapproval.



Furthermore, there are citizens of each and every one of those territories that want independence from the US. They aren't a majority, but they are there. Hell, there are citizens of Texas which want independence. Those are the people represented by this disapproval.



How do we keep PR, Guam, etc. happy enough to stick with us? The same way you can in the game: Build them infrastructure, cut their taxes.



You're absolutely right, MOST people, in today's modern America, are fine with our "colonies." But the Expansion Disapproval, in part, is intended to capture that minority which disagrees with the empire's size.



And it's important to, once again, stress that Expansion Disapproval doesn't just encompass disapproval with the fact that the empire owns more territory. As an empire grows, it will lose some efficiency, this is also accounted for by this number. We see plenty of Americans today who are upset with the size and power of the government. That's Expansion Disapproval. Hoity-toity core system populations get all the best luxuries while we have to wait three weeks for a shipment of second-rate blue-mold? That's Expansion Disapproval. This stuff doesn't just go away over time.

GruulTapul wrote:
There has to be a mechanic that punishes going wide too fast.

Correct, that's why I suggested it decay after 100 turns, it'll still stop fast expansion.

Spero42 wrote:


Now, in the realm of compromise, I would definitely understand if the amount of disapproval scaled with the size of the map. IE you get more systems in larger maps, so make Disapproval smaller...

I could definitely agree to this, expansion disapproval is no problem in the smaller maps. I've edited the OP to reflect this.

Draco18s wrote:
Assume for a moment that expansion disapproval base is -10 per system. This means that in order to win by expansion in a medium galaxy (64 systems) you would need to own 48 of them.



That's -480 base happiness. At an 88% reduction, that leaves -57.6, which is hardly "not enough to matter." Possible to deal with? Sure, but not insignificant.

Adding this to the OP as well

Assume for a moment that expansion disapproval base is -10 per system. This means that in order to win by expansion in a medium galaxy (64 systems) you would need to own 48 of them.



That's -480 base happiness. At an 88% reduction, that leaves -57.6, which is hardly "not enough to matter." Possible to deal with? Sure, but not insignificant.l

You can migrate -57.6 disapproval with 2 approval buildings.... the first two give a total of 55 that leaves you with -2.6 disapproval...



http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Improvement#System_Approval_Improvements



the total amount of approval with all the improvements is +175 approval...



...and on top you can add some racial traits and things connected with the racial affinity...



...you can add to that certain luxury resources as well....



...If you include terraforming all the planets to T1 types.



...almost forgot about the last approval improvement you can build which reduces the expansion disapproval by 50% in the system...



[CODE]



Permanent Vacation



+50 Approval on Star System

-50% Expansion Disapproval on Star System

-12 Dust on Improvement



[/CODE]





There is absolutely no need to adjust the approval system we it was introduced for a good reason am sorry to sound maybe even arrogant but this game is about resource management be it food/production/ships/approval/population so you need to learn how to manage and not ask to make the game simpler...

I didn't realize that permanent vacation did that. In light of that revelation, I would agree: the disapproval needs no changes...

gamingalife wrote:
[CODE]



Permanent Vacation



+50 Approval on Star System

-50% Expansion Disapproval on Star System

-12 Dust on Improvement



[/CODE]

You got that wrong. It's:



[CODE]Permanent Vacation



+50 Approval on Star System

-40% Overpopulation Disapproval on Star System

-11 Dust on Improvement [/CODE]



Those are numbers pulled strait out of the tooltop in game. Note the second line. It is NOT a reduction on EXPANSION, it's a reduction on OVERPOPULATION. Which are vastly different modifiers.

I was talking about something similar to this thread on another one:

/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12122-relaunch-colony-spacecraft





"I suppose a compromise to enabling a [reductionofDisapproval] would be to implement an actual FIDS improvement to the planet that receives a colony ship, but then you would have to reduce the FIDS from the planet that produced the ship to indicate the FIDS transfer. That would also be effective as a complement to the current negative population happiness response of galaxy expansion from colonizing, due to an actual planetary FIDS drain on the planet. Then perhaps the happiness indicator could be more dependent on the FIDS for each system."





So, if the original post for this thread is suggesting that the Happiness Indicator is not as fun as it could be, then perhaps there is another way to implement expansion control. Having the production of colony ships, or more specifically the civilian support attachment, reduce the system FIDS by packing supplies and reducing the population by one point would provide an alternative or supplement to the current system of expansion control, i.e. the Happiness Indicator. Then, the total effect of Happiness would not be the only slow-down to expansion.



Additionally, the NPC-player would be less likely to drain the FIDS from healthy systems to support less healthy systems, unless it supplied the less healthy systems with more than one colony ship, i.e. more than one FIDS transfer. The end result would be a complement to the Happiness Indicator and an alternative to Terraforming.

Draco18s wrote:
You got that wrong. It's:



[CODE]Permanent Vacation



+50 Approval on Star System

-40% Overpopulation Disapproval on Star System

-11 Dust on Improvement [/CODE]



Those are numbers pulled strait out of the tooltop in game. Note the second line. It is NOT a reduction on EXPANSION, it's a reduction on OVERPOPULATION. Which are vastly different modifiers.

You are right my bad, I was at work when I was writing this and pulled the stat from the wiki seems it needs a update, still it is relevant and it is a reduction by % on larger systems it can result in an even bigger disapproval reduction than you would expect.



I also forgot the Perfect negotiations technology in the diplomacy tree, last one top that gives you approval for any alliances and war you are in.

Draco18s wrote:
You're a little late to the party and have merely only stated a tautology.







And this is blatantly false. Assume for a moment that expansion disapproval base is -10 per system. This means that in order to win by expansion in a medium galaxy (64 systems) you would need to own 48 of them.



That's -480 base happiness. At an 88% reduction, that leaves -57.6, which is hardly "not enough to matter." Possible to deal with? Sure, but not insignificant.

I don't understand what you're trying to tell me; the value I'm seeing seems completely reasonable. The downside of having 48 Systems is that you may need some approval resources and may lower taxes to 25% or something; it is easy to do. It should be a very significant modifier (and it is not) because at 75% you would no longer care since you've already won the game anyway. I find it rather easy to mitigate the disapproval in the late game. I'm playing mostly large maps so I don't know how steep the modifier is on huge maps if you're going for an expansion victory. Generally the price for colonizing seems to be to small, i.e. expansion disapproval is not high enough, since you can expand like crazy in the first portions of the game.

(My point being that your sentence is constructed wrong. You don't "colonize enough for it to not matter," it should be "in order to colonize enough FOR IT TO matter...")

Not every system needs to be happy, hence I still don't see how it should be hard to survive the disapproval ratings generated by moderate or even rapid expansion given the current values. I like the dynamic of having to at least think about expanding again instead of always doing it.

Both sides in this discussion have made fair points. I have played long games in huge galaxies and not really had any problems with disapproval in the late game. There are so many ways to reduce it that usually all my systems are quite happy to be part of my empire. However, some of the disapproval reduction buildings could reduce expansion disapproval instead of overpopulation disapproval which I don't really think is a big problem. That way it would be more logical, as people really should get used to living in a huge empire.

GruulTapul wrote:
Generally the price for colonizing seems to be to small, i.e. expansion disapproval is not high enough, since you can expand like crazy in the first portions of the game.

That's kind of the point, and also the problem.



Dealing with approval ratings isn't a linear progression of difficulty. Early game it should be low, but also the only point in the game where it matters. Except towards the end game going for conquest, where it's too high (too much over-expansion disapproval grinding the War Machine to a halt).

GruulTapul wrote:
There are a total of 4 Technologies that reduce the impact of expansion disapproval by 22% each.

You're a little late to the party and have merely only stated a tautology.

That means with time you can colonize enough systems for it not to matter, as expansion disapproval is reduced by 88% in the end.

And this is blatantly false. Assume for a moment that expansion disapproval base is -10 per system. This means that in order to win by expansion in a medium galaxy (64 systems) you would need to own 48 of them.



That's -480 base happiness. At an 88% reduction, that leaves -57.6, which is hardly "not enough to matter." Possible to deal with? Sure, but not insignificant.



(My point being that your sentence is constructed wrong. You don't "colonize enough for it to not matter," it should be "in order to colonize enough FOR IT TO matter...")

Spero42 wrote:
If this were true, then social change would never have taken place.

Actually, you're wrong about this. It's because of these factors that social change takes place. When you live around "black people" all your life, you think of them as people and not as property. Admittedly, some social progression has taken longer than a single generation, but that's generally because it took several generations for it to come up or it was sparked by an earlier movement. It happens in steps.



But colonizing? People generally don't get so upset over that, and it generally dies down pretty quickly. Case and point: how upset are you, personally, over the Virgin Islands? How upset would you, personally, be if they became the 51st state? How about Peurto Rico? Guam? The half-dozen or so other islands we own?



I'd bet that you don't give a rat's ass about their inclusion. If anything you probably started thinking about how we'd get more stars into the flag.

vyolin wrote:
There you have your answer. It is a gameplay mechanic to achieve exactly this.

I understand that it is an intentional mechanic, my problem is that you're still steam-rolling the opposing factions: they can't take your worlds back (your military is f*ing huge, and can be everywhere), you just can't annex new territory due to internal strife.



All it does is needlessly slow down the end game.



The person who owns 73% of the galaxy has clearly "won." He just can't secure his victory immediately. The time it gives his enemies a room to breath isn't enough to actually do anything, as that break period is relatively small (due to their small empire size), and frustrates the winning player.



There needs to be more contention over the midgame and let the endgame fall swiftly to a resolution.

Don't you have the option of going straight for the Capital Planets of your enemies as a victory condition? This way you don't have to colonize absurd numbers of systems. I always understood the expansion victory to be more of a peaceful colonization victory anyhow.

vyolin wrote:
Don't you have the option of going straight for the Capital Planets of your enemies as a victory condition?

Only works if you have exactly 0 allies.



I had an alliance with one faction (they owned a whopping 3 systems) and conquered every other home planet. I still only had 87% conquest.



Also, taking a home planet doesn't eliminate that faction. They can still mount a resistance and take it back (or not, and just gobble up other systems).

This way you don't have to colonize absurd numbers of systems. I always understood the expansion victory to be more of a peaceful colonization victory anyhow.

It never happens that way. Peaceful colonization will never net you more than half the galaxy.

It takes a while but I'm usually able to get all of my planets to "ecstatic" except for the systems I just recently conquered.

But really, if you're going to win via number of systems you own, your military is probably strong enough to steamroll everything to the point where you don't need to worry about unhappy systems too much.

Exactly. And if you don't have it in you to betray your closest allies... well, there is still Science Victory.

vyolin wrote:
There you have your answer. It is a gameplay mechanic to achieve exactly this. Otherwise you would have a domino effect that would allow you to grow infinitely. At some size an empire is just to large to be efficiently governed (even stated in the UE description). In game this is portrayed by the disapproval mechanics.



If you want to become a steamrolling warmongering behemoth play Hissho.

Which is fine for you lot playing the vanilla game on tiny maps, but for those of us using the much, much larger maps provided by the alternate map generator the mechanic isn't proportionately moddable. I'm okay with leaving the vanilla game the way it is since I don't and won't play it, but it'd be nice to be able to a) be able to mod the mechanic in proportion to the number of systems in the game, and b) allow the disapproval to degrade over time as a brake to fast expansion but not an indefinite "I'm a weak-knee'd liberal pussy and hate being part of large empire" penalty which, as the OP pointed out, makes any sort of conquest victory annoyingly frustrating - and impossible on those larger maps that are part of the mod.

I'd advocate for having outposts cause more disapproval, but reduce this disapproval once they are colonies...



Maybe 150% when they are outposts, but 75% once they become colonies?

I don't see too much of a problem since there are 5 approval boosting improvements and 88% worth of expansion-disapproval removing tech. That's not counting simply terraforming planets to T1's and soil revivification. However decaying expansion disapproval does make sense somewhat, I wouldn't mind having a tech that triggered expansion disapproval decay though, perhaps it could come along with the T3 approval tech, for every 50 turns a system has that improvement, it gets its expansion disapproval reduced by 10% (this would be a multiplier on top of the tech from the bottom tree that reduces expansion disapproval).

maxpublic wrote:
Which is fine for you lot playing the vanilla game on tiny maps, but for those of us using the much, much larger maps provided by the alternate map generator the mechanic isn't proportionately moddable. I'm okay with leaving the vanilla game the way it is since I don't and won't play it, but it'd be nice to be able to a) be able to mod the mechanic in proportion to the number of systems in the game, and b) allow the disapproval to degrade over time as a brake to fast expansion but not an indefinite "I'm a weak-knee'd liberal pussy and hate being part of large empire" penalty which, as the OP pointed out, makes any sort of conquest victory annoyingly frustrating - and impossible on those larger maps that are part of the mod.

Exactly.

StriderV wrote:
I'd advocate for having outposts cause more disapproval, but reduce this disapproval once they are colonies...



Maybe 150% when they are outposts, but 75% once they become colonies?

I wouldn't mind that, or something similar.

I think what you are missing here is that happiness structures and techs are representing exactly what you're suggesting. Expansion Disapproval does go down over time, as you build the various happiness buildings and research the various techs.



It's unreasonable to expect a person to become happier with his life if it is unchanging. He may remain just as happy/unhappy, or he may get angrier that nothing has changed for the better. Your job, as emperor, is to make those changes in your citizens' lives which will make them happy.

Sounds like a good idea.

They have the techs to research that reduce disapproval, until you get them the happiness buildings help a lot, and the first 2 are easy to get. I think the answer to this is already in the game you just have to decide that its worth researching.

To keep it short: +1.

In theory this suggestion makes sense, but in practice there's many factors that help you increase approval and counter the penalty. Besides the techs that directly reduce expansion disapproval, there's tax rate adjustments, approval improvements, approval hero traits, anomaly reductions, the occasional luxury resource and eventually terraformation options. With all those tools at your disposal, it's not long before your colonies are Ecstatic or at least Happy. Ultimately, the expansion disapproval mechanic is there merely to reduce the speed at which you expand across the galaxy, not to halt it permanently.

NewHorizon wrote:
They have the techs to research that reduce disapproval, until you get them the happiness buildings help a lot, and the first 2 are easy to get. I think the answer to this is already in the game you just have to decide that its worth researching.

Well put, agreed.

raydarken wrote:
Well put, agreed.

Why thank you sir, i did forget to include the part about taxes though. shameful.

Just FYI:



The actual complaint in this post has to do with outposts receiving expansion disapproval which is a bug. If the OP were to save and quit his game and reload it, he'd find that that planet is happy. Same thing if he ends his turn.



That said:

Expansion disapproval should go down over time. Having looked at it in my last game, the number will rise over time even if you are not colonizing anything (assuming that you do not get the -22% techs) or might as well rise, as when a system ceases being an outpost it gains the disapproval value, but it itself counts towards that value. That is, colonies are upset that they are colonies! They were so much happier when they were simply a backwater outpost.

I'm fairly sure it rises when you conquer systems and settle new planets within systems you've already colonized, too. I doubt it does on its own.



Personally, I don't see any problem with colonies being upset they're colonies. I'd expect them to be annoyed at always having to respond to a single central government. And the larger the empire, the larger the portion of the population that'd be against dependence. Which is what happens at present, if not explained in so many words.



But if a portion of this mechanic is bugged, then that should be reported in the appropriate section. I'd presume it already has been.

Colonizing within a system you have already colonized does not add additional expansion disapproval.

I'd just like to start off by saying that I love this game, however there is a minor annoyance, which is expansion disapproval. I've gotten far enough into several games where new colonies start off striking as seen in this screenshot:

I've had planets start off with even less approval, but I don't have a screenshot handy. Some of my well established colonies suffer from low approval, even with improvements.

In order to make this game enjoyable for larger maps with many planets, I am suggesting that expansion disapproval decays over time. For example, owning a colony for 100 turns, it becomes a 'core' system and no longer causes expansion disapproval.

The strategy game, Europa Universalis III, has a similar system implemented. After 50 in-game years, a province becomes a 'core' province, and is considered rightfully part of your empire.

Some Math:

Draco18s:

"Assume for a moment that expansion disapproval base is -10 per system. This means that in order to win by expansion in a medium galaxy (64 systems) you would need to own 48 of them.



That's -480 base happiness. At an 88% reduction, that leaves -57.6, which is hardly "not enough to matter." Possible to deal with? Sure, but not insignificant."

Ammendments

Spero42:

"Now, in the realm of compromise, I would definitely understand if the amount of disapproval scaled with the size of the map. IE you get more systems in larger maps, so make Disapproval smaller..."

So I am suggesting this system is only implemented if the galaxy has more than X systems, where X is a fairly large amount.

Spero42 wrote:
Expansion Disapproval does go down over time, as you build the various happiness buildings

No. The "Expansion Disapproval" modifier does not decrease when you build buildings.

It is merely mitigated.

Spero42 wrote:
It's unreasonable to expect a person to become happier with his life if it is unchanging. He may remain just as happy/unhappy, or he may get angrier that nothing has changed for the better. Your job, as emperor, is to make those changes in your citizens' lives which will make them happy.

Um. At what point does a galaxy-spanning empire become comfortable with the fact that it spans a galaxy? Probably 2 generations, all the people that grow up in this environment will consider this "normal" and while they may grow unhappy with more expansion, the existing expansion will not bother them.

See: any social issue ever. At one point in time public parks were poo-pooed because it was "socialism" and that was "bad for America." Same thing with public schools, public water, and public highways.

You're right, happiness buildings don't affect the actual number itself, but mitigating it is, pragmatically, the same thing.



The idea of "Expansion Disapproval" is to be a single number which accounts for a variety of factors which lead to unhappiness. As the empire grows, you'll have people that are upset with the size of government, the inefficiency of the bureaucracy, the fact that other systems have access to better teddy bear, etc. All of these innumerable factors are accounted for by a single number.



These factors aren't going to go away over time by themselves. Instead, it's up to the government to either distract their citizens (Hey, infinite supermarkets! Awesome!), grant them more freedoms in order to compensate for the government's shortcomings (eg Corporeal Freedom), or by instituting government policies which somehow lessen these factors (the research techs).



Hell, it's even written into the techs' flavor texts:



Quoth Applied Casimir Effect:

Colonization Program

"You can now populate stars far your starting constellation. However, to do this will require effort at all levels of society. By creating an official program and stressing the need to sacrifice small comforts in service of a larger cause, some of the discontent caused by colonization can be minimzed [SIC]."



Ultimately, you can research techs which reduce the discontentment by up to 88%. There will always be some sour grapes about the size of government, but they can be lessened.

the main problem, as i see it, is that currently it is impossible to end the game through annihilating your opponents, as you cannot destroy systems, only capture them, which will make your happieness become FUBAR even after having all the techs for it if you are playing on a huge map.



So from me a big +1 on this. I agree with the mechanics as they make a complete "rush conquer everything" tactic impossible. But i think it should be possible to slowly keep expanding your system through war and win the game through it.

See /#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14024-video-tutorial-approval-and-you-the-basics-of-the-approval-system-explained also check the links in my signature I did games on hard and on serous no issues with approval both games were played with the Optimistic trait as I was learning the release mechanics.



Right now I am playing on Impossible and Endless without the Optimistic trait and you can manage you approval as any other resource in the game. I am recording a Let''s play/Walk-through on Impossible difficulty explaining what I do and why in as much detail as I can. Due to this fact it take a long time to record as I have to play and record then watch what I did and write a script and record the audio to go with the video; but Episode 1 is almost done and it will cover the first 15 turns.

gamingalife wrote:
I did games on hard and on serous no issues with approval both games were played with the Optimistic trait as I was learning the release mechanics.

Gee. No issues with happiness while playing with a super-happy race. I wonder why that is....

Draco18s wrote:
Gee. No issues with happiness while playing with a super-happy race. I wonder why that is....

and you stopped reading there probably did not even bother to read on..



Well there you go a turn 44, no optimistic trait empire is on fervent save - https://www.dropbox.com/s/er8rwqd79gtlj0k/Tech_crash.zip - if you do not believe this is impossible check the overpopulation disapproval and expansion disapproval multi-players in the Empire Management screen and compare against the wiki values http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Game_settings



The save could be even better but I get a CTD when trying to trade technologies.



If the save does not convince you well guess I will end the discussion there.



I stand by my opinion that there is no need to implement the disapproval decay the game provides all the necessary elements to prevent it.

I'd like to preface this by thanking you all for adding to this discussion, it's been more popular than I would've thought.

NewHorizon wrote:
They have the techs to research that reduce disapproval, until you get them the happiness buildings help a lot, and the first 2 are easy to get. I think the answer to this is already in the game you just have to decide that its worth researching.

Even then, if you play on a large enough map, you'll still encounter this problem, because technically expansion disapproval is infinite, while buildings that mitigate it are finite, you can only build a certain amount per planet.

LordShadow wrote:
In theory this suggestion makes sense, but in practice there's many factors that help you increase approval and counter the penalty. Besides the techs that directly reduce expansion disapproval, there's tax rate adjustments, approval improvements, approval hero traits, anomaly reductions, the occasional luxury resource and eventually terraformation options. With all those tools at your disposal, it's not long before your colonies are Ecstatic or at least Happy. Ultimately, the expansion disapproval mechanic is there merely to reduce the speed at which you expand across the galaxy, not to halt it permanently.

The problem is that expansion disapproval can eventually halt expansion, considering how many planets there could be, in relation to the amount of upgrades.

Draco18s wrote:
Just FYI:



The actual complaint in this post has to do with outposts receiving expansion disapproval which is a bug. If the OP were to save and quit his game and reload it, he'd find that that planet is happy. Same thing if he ends his turn.



That said:

Expansion disapproval should go down over time. Having looked at it in my last game, the number will rise over time even if you are not colonizing anything (assuming that you do not get the -22% techs) or might as well rise, as when a system ceases being an outpost it gains the disapproval value, but it itself counts towards that value. That is, colonies are upset that they are colonies! They were so much happier when they were simply a backwater outpost.

Sorry, but I'm not talking about the bug. The expansion disapproval mechanic plagues my home systems as well:



However not all my planets are like that, some have a better approval rating, due to planetary conditions and heroes. (I have my heroes on my industrial planets making ships)

Spero42 wrote:
I think what you are missing here is that happiness structures and techs are representing exactly what you're suggesting. Expansion Disapproval does go down over time, as you build the various happiness buildings and research the various techs.



It's unreasonable to expect a person to become happier with his life if it is unchanging. He may remain just as happy/unhappy, or he may get angrier that nothing has changed for the better. Your job, as emperor, is to make those changes in your citizens' lives which will make them happy.

Right, but after a generation or two people would calm down about expansion; they would accept the new systems as part of the empire, much like it has occurred in history (with colonies in the Americas and Africa, not solar systems)

Draco18s wrote:


Um. At what point does a galaxy-spanning empire become comfortable with the fact that it spans a galaxy? Probably 2 generations, all the people that grow up in this environment will consider this "normal" and while they may grow unhappy with more expansion, the existing expansion will not bother them.

See: any social issue ever. At one point in time public parks were poo-pooed because it was "socialism" and that was "bad for America." Same thing with public schools, public water, and public highways.

Exactly, since each turn is representative of one year, a period of 100 turns seems acceptable for a 'cooldown' period, where expansion disapproval stops for that given system.

Spero42 wrote:


These factors aren't going to go away over time by themselves. Instead, it's up to the government to either distract their citizens (Hey, infinite supermarkets! Awesome!), grant them more freedoms in order to compensate for the government's shortcomings (eg Corporeal Freedom), or by instituting government policies which somehow lessen these factors (the research techs).

You have a good point, however, it makes sense if it does go away over time. If you, your parents, and your grandparents all lived in the same conditions, you would think it is the norm. At first the internet was revolutionary, there were quite a few opponents to it, but now we have all gotten used to it, it is commonplace in our lives.

asmodin88 wrote:
the main problem, as i see it, is that currently it is impossible to end the game through annihilating your opponents, as you cannot destroy systems, only capture them, which will make your happieness become FUBAR even after having all the techs for it if you are playing on a huge map.



So from me a big +1 on this. I agree with the mechanics as they make a complete "rush conquer everything" tactic impossible. But i think it should be possible to slowly keep expanding your system through war and win the game through it.

If the decay period is long enough, the rush conquer everything tactic will still be impossible, while still allowing for expansion.

There are a total of 4 Technologies that reduce the impact of expansion disapproval by 22% each. That means with time you can colonize enough systems for it not to matter, as expansion disapproval is reduced by 88% in the end.



The expansion disapproval mechanic is there to punish players who expand to fast while not researching the necessary techs. As expanding is already very easy in the game, I see no reason to turn it into an expansion rush game with no late game. It is good that you systems start unhappy, if they didn't you'd simply expand all the time and keep expanding. There has to be a mechanic that punishes going wide too fast.

stormhawx wrote:
You have a good point, however, it makes sense if it does go away over time. If you, your parents, and your grandparents all lived in the same conditions, you would think it is the norm. At first the internet was revolutionary, there were quite a few opponents to it, but now we have all gotten used to it, it is commonplace in our lives.

If this were true, then social change would never have taken place. Women wouldn't be able to vote, black people would still be slaves, and gays wouldn't be able to serve openly in the military. I know these are extreme examples, but they make my point.



Again, Expansion Disapproval represents a myriad of factors. It is perfectly reasonable that, at a certain size, the empire is unable to mitigate all of these factors.



Now, in the realm of compromise, I would definitely understand if the amount of disapproval scaled with the size of the map. IE you get more systems in larger maps, so make Disapproval smaller...