So far it seems...the game is now too easy. After starting a game on normal, I proceeded to colonize 17 systems within 40 turns...and managed to have fervent (100%) approval with only a half dozen approval increase improvements at a 15% tax rate as custom Sophon, without Optimistic. There is now no longer a downside to massive expansion. Approval was the only thing stopping me from COLONIZE THE ERRYTHANG before.



While the patch did apparently fix the desync problem, others in my games have complained about lag, which I will need to investigate. Also, custom races are now wiped, apparently. Bit ticked at that.

Have you considered that the approval change is less to do with the patch and more to do with the difficulty?



Normal has much lighter constraints in terms of OvP and ExP disapproval.

That's part of it. Might just be my imagination.