Approval

Approval is a number that represents how the population feels about your regime. The higher the number, the better the people like you.

Factors That Impact Approval Rating

Approval begins at 100%, but is impacted by several factors including:

• tax rate
• debt
• certain planetary improvements

Impacts of Approval Rating

Approval's main impact comes as your civilization develops more advanced forms of government. Some of the government types require a minimum approval in order to switch to them. Generally, the more beneficial the government, the higher the required approval rating. Even after you have managed to switch governments, if you have a Interstellar Republic, Star Democracy, or Star Federation you will also be subject to periodic Senate elections. Winning control of the Senate (by possessing a majority of the seats) means that you enjoy a political party bonus. Lose control of the Senate, however, and you stand to suffer a political party penalty. Some advanced governments also require a vote in order to go to war.

Approval rating also impacts planetary population growth as follows:

• Approval from 1% to 19%: population decreases 10% per turn
• Approval from 20% to 40 %: population is static
• Approval from 41% to 100 %: population increases according to formula given in the population page. (given sufficient food)

Actual Formula for Approval Rating

Approval (fMorale) uses the following components:

fMorale = fCivABilityFactor + fBaseMorale + fImprovementFactor + fPlanetMoraleBonusFactor - fNegativeTreasuryFactor + fPlanetQualityBonus - fTaxModifier

fBaseMorale: Base Morale starts at 100. Population then decreases that base morale. The higher the population, the lower your base morale.

fCivABilityFactor: The player's Morale Ability is multiplied by the base morale, then the result is taken to the 0.75 power. In other words, fCivABilityFactor = (fPlayerMorale * fBaseMorale) ^ 0.75

fImprovementFactor: Planetary improvements such as Entertainment Centers are added up and then multiplied against the base morale. For example, if your base morale is 100 and you build an entertainment center that adds 25% to morale, then you would get 25 points for this. However, since population is always > 0, your base morale is almost always less than 100.

Note: Right now fImprovementFactor is broken. Every improvement from Entertainment Networks to Virtual Reality Centers gives you 25% to morale.

fPlanetMoraleBonusFactor: MoraleBonusFactor is based on what things are unique about the planet such as from events.

fNegativeTreasuryFactor: NegativeTreasuryFactor comes into play. The longer you are in debt, the more of a negative impact it has.

fPlanetQualityBonus: If the planet class > 10, you receive 10 points for planet quality bonus.

fTaxModifier: The player's tax rate affects approval as well. It is a non-linear progression. At first, the tax modifier is simply the tax rate to the 1.02 power. Example, a tax rate of 20% would result in -21 points to your approval. But this modifier grows. At 70% it is to the 1.1 power meaning you lose 107 points. This number is then divided by 200.

Notes

• If this seems complicated it is. In the course of play balancing, the sausage factory is tweaked and tweaked to reach that hard to define "fun" factor.

• During the early beta of GalCiv, the approval rating was very straightforward. For every 100 million colonists, one unit of "desire" was created. If that desire wasn't filled by either the player's natural ability or planetary entertainment, that desire went unfulfilled and that 100 million colonists would be categorized as unhappy. Take the number of unhappy colonists divide it by total colonists and you have a nice, straight forward, easy to understand formula. It also would have meant dumbing down the game and taking out a lot of neat elements and so it eventually evolved into this.

• As complicated as this looks, it's actually fairly straightforward: As your population grows, they have needs. Their expectations are magnified by your tax rate. Fill their needs with entertainment and/or a high morale ability and you are fine.

• Population growth is currently capped at 200k per turn, so that higher levels of approval DO NOT have the population growth documented in the manual.

Rough Numbers

1. Base Morale ->fBaseMorale<- (is refered in-game as -??% From Population in the Approval's Tool Tip of each planet -see Colony Management-).

(Careful, in the Formula above its a +??, in the In-game Approval's Tool Tip its -??%, we will show the two sets of numbers)

Population in billion // fBaseMorale (In-game "-??% From Population" in Approval's Tool Tip)

• 1 b. // 99 (-1%)
• 5 b. // 91 (-9%)
• 10 b. // 77 (-23%)
• 15 b. // 60 (-40%)
• 20 b. // 40 (-60%)
• 25+ b. // 20 (-80%)

Population over 25 billion will always have a Base Morale of 20 (-80%)

2. The player's tax rate ->fTaxModifier<- (is refered in-game as -??% From Taxes in the In-game Approval's Tool Tip of each planet -see Colony Management-)

Tax Rate // fTaxModifier

• 1% // -1
• 10% // -10
• 20% // -21
• 30% // -33
• 40% // -48
• 50% // -68
• 60% // -90
• 70% // -163
• 80% // -192
• 90% // -347
• 100% // -398