Hey i grabbed Galciv way back when it first came out so I'm running just flat out vanilla v1.0 at the moment.
Reason being is i'm giving it another run to see if I can get into it or not.
Now I like the game but I have one massive problem thats keeping me from enjoying it.
Every single time I play i find myself so completely absorbed with trying to ensure my economy doesn't tank that ultimately the gameplay never happens.
Now the reason this tanking occurs is simple. Damn Morale.
Now I read a fair amoutn about what was mentioned.
I've only been colonizing 16+PQ planets.
Built soilt and habitat improvements.
Builts every morale boosting improvement under the sun and ontop of that I picked the party with +20% boost to morale.
So long story short i've got morale improvements coming out my....and ontop of that I've got the tax rate at 30%.
Yet...constantly...constantly fighting to keep morale above 43-45%.
And yes I am at war with 2 civ's who MIGHT be de-stabilising, but its been an ongoing problem regardless.
It just strikes me that morale is such an usntable and RAMPANT factor in the game as to for me at least prove to be almost uncontrollable to the point where its leaching my fun.
I've got a PQ 21 planet with all the lovely improvements, 6500 population and its producing 4...FOUR military shields...
The morale is crippling my ability to enjoy this game and in summation I think so far I've literally done everything conceivable to keep morale up but its not having effect.
Oh i almost forgot. I remember a while back looking around for this answer and the best response was essentially "build colonists" and ship population off your planets to die on a regular basis.
If this really is the only sure-fire solution somebody put their hand up. Because that strikes me at least as a major major flaw in the game that you would have to do something ridiculous as that to maintain it as playable.