Capturing planets, a question of practicality.

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Slick:
The relevant properties are from happiness.txt as follows:

Our Troops on Planet := -2
Natural Decrease := -50
Natural Decrease for Other Races := 20

This governs anger/happiness. Negative values make your empire/planet happier, positive values make them angrier.

There are lots of other things that affect happiness/anger which can totally overwhelm these effects, but relative to your question with "all other things being equal":

- planets with your native population get happier over time by 50 points/turn.
- planets with alien population (any amount) get angrier by 20 points/turn.
- EACH troop regardless of size and components makes the planet it is on 2 points/turn happier.

Doing the math, 10 troops of any kind will offset the negative effects of alien population exactly to zero. Add another 25 and they will act like your native population.

I find that "one turn's worth" of small troops with only a cockpit are usually enough to offset alien population. Also, I usually build an Urban Pacification Center in every system anyway just to get all planets to jubiliant. This is normally enough to prevent anger/rioting even if there are enemy ships in the system and/or battles in the system, both of which make planets angrier.

Hope this helps.

Slick.

Thanks Slick.

It does help. But, I think there may be an error when you say,
"Natural Decrease := -50

I believe this only applies to a Neutral race which few people play.

For a peaceful or bloodthirsty race, the Natural Decrease in Happiness.txt is -20

It would appear that if our race is a peaceful race which is happy, exuberant, angry, unhappy or rioting, then our race will move in the direction of indifference and eventually eventually centre on indifference (in the absence of factors such as battles, ships in sector etc.).

This was extensively discussed in:

Happiness...driving me to despair

I am uncertain how the "happiness.txt" affects an alien planet in our empire. But my impression is that there doesn't seem to be a self-centering mechanism to "indifference" as there is with our race. So, in the absence of factors which will affect happiness (such as troops, ships in the sector), the alien planet will just continue getting angrier and angrier and move through the stages of "indifference" to "unhappy" to "angry" to "riot".

Do you guys have the same impression?

Slick, 10 troops per planet does answer my question. Also, from what you say, it would appear that the size of the troop doesn't matter. This is good to know.

And, I hadn't thought of using the planet itself to create the troops to garrison it.

[ February 09, 2003, 14:44: Message edited by: tbontob ]

[tbontob]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I think alien races just go to indifferent more quickly, not start being angry and riotous.

Fyron, I think I know now what your were trying to say.

An alien planet which is happy or jubilant, not only has its own natural increase in in anger of 20, it also has our races natural increase in anger of 20. Combining both, will cause the alien planet to move towards indifference much quicker as you suggest.

Once reachin indifference, our races increase in anger of 20 no longer applies. But the alien race's 20 still does, so it continues on to unhappy, angry and then rioting (in the absence of troops, ships, etc.)

It this what you were trying to say?

[tbontob]

Originally posted by couslee:
Another simple strategy you can apply to help conquered planets not start out rioting, is get the planets first. If you capture a planet that is angry or rioting, there is a reason for that. you inherit the mood of the people. for example
you enter a system, and mop up all the enemy ships, then move on to planet capture. The population has suffered a lot of anger increases because of enemy ships in sector, battles lost, ships lost, ect.. If you take the planets first, then mop up the enemy ships, you get two benefits. One, being they have not had all the battles lost anger increases, AND they get the anger decreases by your battle victories in that same sector. take the planets first, it makes a huge difference in alien happiness levels. And don't forget to leave enough troops behind to offset the "20". If you capture a planet and the first build order on emergency build is 6 troops. leave four of your invaders behind to act as police. I rarely have have to build UPCs doing this. So get the high pop ones first, then the smaller pop planets, then the Ai ships. Use intel to enemy ship supply drain and engine damage to stop them from attacking you while you grab the planets. then go mop-up the derelicts.

Try it, you will be glad you did.

Sounds like good advice. Making the planets angry means we will have to deal with the effects of an angry planet.

Much better, as you suggest, to conduct ourselves so as to avoid making the planets angry and if done right, our actions will contribute to their happiness.

[Slick]

Like I said, there are lots of other things that affect happiness. I believe that the happiness.txt applies to all empires, but is overridden by any race specific AI_XXX.txt files. I should have mentioned that. Yes, some AI's have different defaults depending on their demenor.

One other thing I do is put 5% into happiness when setting up a race. Not sure how effective it is, but I also had one of my first games go rioting all over the place and I didn't know what to do. Been adding 5% ever since and that's pretty cheap. Initially you just want to prevent planets from rioting, but if you develop a system that gets your own planets to jubiliant and keeps your planets with alien population from rioting (or also gets them to jubiliant), you will see tremendous benefits to production and construction rates. The percentages can be seen in settings.txt.

Another thing is that when you ferry population around in transports to the right-breathing planets, the population in the transport has a happiness level. I am not sure if it stays locked in from the point they are loaded into the transport or if they can change happiness when on the transport. I haven't tested this, but I have heard that if you take some rioting population onto a transport for a few turns, they stop rioting. Maybe that's an urban myth. Anyone know the truth about this?

Slick.

[Phoenix-D]

"Like I said, there are lots of other things that affect happiness. I believe that the happiness.txt applies to all empires, but is overridden by any race specific AI_XXX.txt files. I should have mentioned that. Yes, some AI's have different defaults depending on their demenor."

Two different things. One controls the happyness of the population, the other the opinion the AI has toward other players.

Phoenix-D

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by Slick:
[QB] I haven't tested this, but I have heard that if you take some rioting population onto a transport for a few turns, they stop rioting. Maybe that's an urban myth. Anyone know the truth about this? [QB]

This does work. If you remove the population from the planet completely, by abandoning the planet (but don't scrap the facilities), and then load them back on (you don't have to wait a turn) it resets the planets happiness. Just remember that there has to be a point where the planet is left with a population of zero.

This is usually a pain for high pop worlds though and so is easier to just drop some troops and wait. However, this is a must use tactic if you are playing with an emotionless race.

Whenever an emotionless race conquers a world it freezes the happiness at its current state permanently. I've wanted that bug fixed for a while now but it can be worked around (though it does put a crimp in the playstyle of races like the Borg).

[ February 09, 2003, 20:24: Message edited by: QuarianRex ]

[Grandpa Kim]

I was checking out the facilities.txt and found something surprising. Most facilities that affect happiness do pretty much what you expect. IE UPC 1 gives 1% increase in happiness, UPC 2 gives 2%, UPC 3 gives 3%. The Medical Lab (organic) gives only 1% no matter which level you are at! Unless you are worried about plagues, don't bother with this one, use ANY of the others.