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).