Approval Rating Problem

[Marshall Thomas]

Considering that a 75% approval rating gives a 25% bonus to population growth and that a 100% approval rating doubles population growth, should a player always have his most populated planet at either a 75% or 100% approval rate? For example, would it always be foolish to have a 74% or 99% approval rate? Is just one percent higher always sound strategy as that 1% results in either a 25% or doubled population increase? Would setting the approval rate at 76% always be 1% too high?

I'm brand new to Galactic Civilizations 2. Would someone please tell me if what I have written above makes any sense or not? Thanks

 

[Pentium]

It makes sense, of course it does. The problem is that you can hardly micromanage approval on every planet. There are two reasons for this:
1. Your populations grows, so your approval changes with that (it gets lower )
2. You can only adjust the taxes for the entire civ, not for a particular planet. Social buildings that produce happiness give a larger bonus (like 20%), while you can adjust the tax slider with a 1% accuracy. So if you want exactly 75% approval, you'll always have somewhere between 75 and 80 %.

So I think a 74% approval is a waste of both money and population, while an approval of 76% is usually a good thing as it's hard to get it closer to exactly 75%.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Thanks for your reply. If your approval rating is below 75%, is there any reason to have it above 31%(anything less results in population decrease)? In other words, is 74% approval in anyway better than 31% approval? I hope there is a difference- just for gameplay puposes and realism. Please offer me an opinion on this. Thanks

 

[JJMax7]

When you switch government styles you need to have a decent approval to win the election, and keep your party bonuses.