[jimbob]

I was planning to give most of the Imperial happiness penalties by making them use a special happiness type.

I agree, probably the easiest way to give the Imperials unhappyness problems would be to give their race a large unhappiness modifier (as part of the cost of choosing "Imperial" in the racial traits screen), and then let 'em try to climb the ladder of public opinion.

This then is how I'd see it play out: they would have to expend a lot of efforts to improve the happiness level of their citizens. It will constrain their tech research early on, as they'll need to get troops right away, and then build enough to pacify their populations. Later with some nifty facilities they can actually make them moderately happy, and much later in the game, they might even be able to have a few extatic planets.

This may be a bit of a hobble in the early game, but many of the races are weak in the early game only to come out on top in the late game... this will just force the player to be ultra-political in the beginning (just like Palpatine come to think of it!) just to survive, but then he can settle his scores in the late game as he ascends to power.

just some thoughts,

[ October 05, 2002, 03:35: Message edited by: jimbob ]