Capturing planets, a question of practicality.

[Slick]

Originally posted by couslee:
maybe I am wrong, but the setting for natural decrease do not stop working when you reach indifferent. Things that constantly effect the mood of the planet are building facilities, winning battles, or losing them. new treaties, ect... I have read nothing that the setting have a null effect at indifferent. The race =-20 is not combined with the alien race =20 to counter each other. either one or the other applies, not both. I have not fully investigated all the settings to find out what would make it balance at ANY given level. I tend to just put troops on every planet, and my current game is artisian. my planets stay at jubilant, even if i am getting my arse handed to me by an enemy.

I have to agree based on my experience, not on acutal testing however. I would cautiously say that I think there is the tendancy toward "Indifferent" is not quite right, and I can't find any reference to that in the txt files. Maybe it is hardcoded, however. It seems to me based on all the games I have played that all the modifiers add up on a per-planet basis and the sum is added or subtracted from the anger level to give each planet its happiness level. Since the words "anger" and "happiness" are used separately, it might be confusing, but all the numbers are for the single attribute called "anger". Happiness is just a way of displaying your relative anger state in the planet view and in happiness.txt. Then the sum over your whole empire is combined for your "mood" in the empires window.

Slick.