Unrest Management 101 v1.01

[ExplodingBoy]

This a basic guide to explain how to deal with unrest, and all the various problems that come with it.

I'm aiming at giving new players a fighting chance at dealing with civil disorder in their growing stellar empires.

First point, Unrest is a property of a population that describes how unhappy they are, a high unrest will cause a planet to go into a higher Unrest State.
Unrest State refers to how unhappy they are acting.

Unrest State has 5 lvl's

Content (Good)
Unrest 1 ( irritating, 25% production penalty, but not serious YET)
Unrest 2 (Serious now - effecting production 50% production penalty)
Unrest 3 (You'll be getting the "close to revolt" SITREP Message 75% production penalty)
Revolt (Woo-Hoo lets all loot and pillage! production? what production?)

Revolts result in poor production and civilians destroying buildings - this is a Bad Thing and can lead to actually losing colonies.


Therefore, step one . . .

Assess the Problem . . . ("What the hell is going on?")

Normally you discovery you have unrest problems from the sitrep - in which case you can hit the link to go straight to the colony in question.

Another option is to use the Planets Screen. Tick the Unrest check box And sort the list by Unrest. Then start at the top and work your way down.

Ok, so your people are unhappy on this planet, first thing to check is what unrest state your planet is in, this can be found on the Planet Screen(planet screen, not planets screen).

In the top right hand corner of the planet screen is a summery of your colonies industry, directly underneath it the 'Unrest State:' is desplayed, this gives you an indication how serious the unrest is.


OK, we know how unhappy they are acting, the next question is . . . why?

Now open the Demographic Info Tab located at the bottom of the screen, just right of center.

Now select the Unrest Tab, (Hiding behind the Population Changes Tab at the bottom). This Tab tells you 2 things;
How much unrest you are dealing with e.g. 287.4 unrest over 6 regions.
Unrest Factors: e.g. High Taxes, Pirates, Leader Effect, Starvation

Importent to note not all factors show here - oppressometer and unrest from FLUs are among the 'invisible' unrest factors.

So, now we know why they are unhappy, what can you do about it?

Step 2

Take Action(What the hell am I going to do about it?)

My first step is to place troops on the planet.

Troops do not effect unrest on the planet

They effect unrest state

To do this, close the Demographic Info and open the Military Info Tab, on the bottom right hand side of this Tab is the Go To Ground Force Creation. Press the button and create some units - the number of units on the ground appears t be the only factor here. This is one case were Infantry seems to work just as well as battleoids - so building a few Infantryx10s occasionally may be a good idea.

Fleets in orbit also seem to effect this, i'm guessing it is hull size again as it is for piracy which makes the difference.

*** If anyone actually knows how this aspect works, could you let me know by posting? I'll update accordingly. ***

Having done that, we have now given the population a good reason to consider settling down.

FYI: Having unrest on the planets will drive up their Unrest State - removing the source of unrest will not automatically lower your Unrest State - Once you make someone angry they tend to stay angry.

By placing troops you have now placed a factor driving the Unrest State down. Even if the troops don't immeadiatly stop the revolt, they will at least reduce the damage done to your colony while in a state of revolt (you lose less buildings).

Ok, we've done about all we can here - i do not advocate manually placing DEA's - the viceroy is already on it and does a better job of it anyway.

Step 3

Minimise Unrest Factors(Well, get that the hell out of here)

There are several common factors I will cover here, and how to deal with them.

High Taxes:
Much thanks to all who've done research on this (DavidByron especially)

Your total tax is the sum of planet tax(seen in the planet screen) which pays money directly to the planet.
System tax(seen in the finance screen under Budgets Tab, Taxes heading) which is payed to the planet holding the system seat of government(and is not displayed in any report any where . . .).
Empire Tax (seen in the finance screen under Budgets Tab, Taxes heading) which is payed directly to the empirial treasury.

Each Government type has a tax tolerance ~ normally 35% total tax - Planet + System + Empire. Unrest penelties appear to be very heavy at high tax rates - and unrest reduction is huge for low tax rates.

So - to reduce unrest due to tax i would reccomend turning down the plantary tax(For unrest showing the High Tax factor, but effecting only a few systems) The viceroy will raise it again later.

I will add more detail here at a later date.


Oppressometer:
Causes global empire wide unrest - but makes it harder for enemy spies. Turning it down can be good for an Empire wide reduction in unrest in a hurry - but I wouldn't reccomend leaving it to low.

Forced Labour Units (FLUs):
FLUs are a family of viral infections . . .
Or in this case FLUs increase production of certain DEAs at the cost of unrest.

Your current FLU policy is found in the Empire Screen, FLU tab - you have a allowed/disallowed toggle and a slider - higher the sldier does, the more production you get from your FLUs, but the shorter their lives are and the more unrest you create.

For empire wide unrest problems i would reccomend turning forced labour off for at least 1 turn(this will free all current FLUs) and turn it back on next turn if you want to build them up again.

Leader Effect:
Fire the Leader, or do more to keep you population happy to make up for it.

Pirates:
Arrg!

Big common cause of frustration here . . .

To explain, each region on your planet attracts pirates - and if there is no fleet to stop them, they will prey on your new colony without mercy.

Ships will defend the same number of regions as thier hull size - a lancer will stop pirates in 1 region, a frigate will stop piracy in 4. If you have a Sytem Ship design availible the viceroy will produce them until piracy ceases all by himself. for a new colony this can take a while though.

You could try to force the planet to produce enough system ships to end piracy, i don't do it that way my self though.

Where possible i try to use my starship fleet to guard the system in the early stages until the local fleet is big enough to take care of itself, this has the advantage of defending the system from external threats as well - namely a blockade by one of your neighbors recon detachments . . .

Once the local defence fleet is up and running piracy will stop being an issue.


Ok, so now you've reduced the unrest factors as much as you can, and they're still revolting (or rebelling - we already knew they are revolting). . .


Managing Unrest (What the Hell do u mean, "put up with it"?)

There are several things you can do to reduce unrest at an Imperial level, you could lower the tax rate, but it's not recommended, lower the oppressometer (and get spies up to your eye balls) if your oppressometer is set over your governments reccomended range you will have revolts in no time, so be aware of where it is set if you decide to change government types.

The best way to manage unrest however is through the Finance Screen (F3). Open the Finance screen and select the ledger tab.

The left hand side of the screen has 4 Sliders, these are:

Additional Research Spending Money placed here will go to research.

Military Budget This money goes to items being built in the military build queue accessed through the Economics Tab on the Planet Screen

Unrest Money placed her goes to reducing Unrest . . .

Grants to Planets This money is divided into up to 10 grants which are then given to the 10 planets in most need, according to the AI.

If you are having significant unrest problems, empire wide this is one of your most powerful tools. The unrest slider has 3 arrows- red (revolt) yellow (unrest) and green (content) To guide how much money you need to spend to bring the empire to that state of unrest. I typically put at least 10%(each division in the sliders represents 10% of you availible funds) above the green arrow - helps to stop unrest sneaking up on you.

If your problem is piracy, place some money into Military spending as well to help speed up your police fleet production. And colony ships for that matter.

If you are having trouble with unrest in young colonies you will also want money in Grants to Planets, to speed the development of your smallest colonies.

I try to leave about 20% of my availible funds unallocated, to allow me to build a surplus for emergancies.

If you are having an empire wide revolt however, you need to get as much as possible done to reduce unrest NOW - in this case put all your funding into the unrest slider - revolts cripple your production and destroy buildings that you have already payed for. Basically in this situation your cheapest option is to spend everything on lowering unrest immeadiatly.


The final aspect of unrest management is to have an unrest DEV plan, these are found in the Empire Screen (F4), Development Plans Tab. My unrest plans normally look like,

Planet Classification - Prmary - Secondary - Tertiary

Unrest- Military - Military - Infrastructure
Unrest - Rec - Rec - Infrastructure

Both Planetary Defence and Morale scripts will build DEAs - but will not build improvements, this is a Bad Thing - so do not use these scripts for unrest managment.

I will note that more than morale effecting DEA on a planet appears to reduce the effect of other DEAs of the same type - so in this case quality is better than quantity - and a rec and a military DEA may indeed be better than 2 military, for instance.

This tends to get the viceroy building the right DEAs (dempending of my current government choice) for the best unrest reduction.

That about somes it up - any Questions, by all means ask, corrections and observations are also welcome.

Much tanks to all - including:

DavidByron
Dagba
The Lazarus Man
rodricofbrell
Da_Blade
Madbiologist
Beamup
R2-Opus2
Strifeguard
DoubleSkulls
Solaquin

[DavidByron]

Could we also dump some more advanced data on unrest levels here? Really what would be nice to know is exactly how much unrest is caused by each effect (but especially piracy, high taxes, high oppresometer and government change - at least while the HFOG thing lasts) and similarly how much each reduces it (but especially the placement of armies and how much planetary defences prevent piracy).

Just to add a word or two to the basic though: having other planets in unrest/revolt is a MAJOR factor in another planet going into unrest / revolt. So don't mess around putting out fires. I would suggest if in doubt manually reduce the tax on the planet in revolt by 2-3%. The AI will gradually put the tax rate back up afterwards.

[ExplodingBoy]

I'm happy with any accurate data - as complex as anyone can find.

But the initial post is to provide some guidlines for ppl who are having a lot of trouble with unrest, to get out of said unrest and get to playing the rest of the game.

So i am trying for comprehensive, but clear enough to be understood on the first pass by someone new to the game.

So what I'm trying to say is the thread can get as heavily into the game machanics as we can manage - but i will only edit the initial thread to make it clearer or more accurate for ppl who need help with unrest.

No one seems to know anything about what forces increase or lower the unrest state - and the local unrest is only a small part of it. I've had some very unhappy colonies stay rock solid content with enough troops, etc. . . .

[The Lazarus Man]

Great post, man. Here's a little of my input for the new guys..

The representative governments are the most unrest prone. Each of the 4 options in it have slightly different taxation tolerances, with democracy and republicanism at the bottom, and corporate and parlimentary at the top. If you've recently switched from top to bottom for whatever reason, tax levels that were once fine will start to cause unrest. Also, if you are playing a representative goverment and you are expereincing unrest to the point that you need to spend AUs at the empire level, switch your gorvenment type to corporate until the problems are addressed. This government gets you far more oppression for your buck than the other three. Democracy and Republicanism are very expensive to fix via the unrest funding. Also, your oppressometer causes "invisible" unrest. That is, if it's at a very high level you will see unrest, but have no reasons listed under demographics. Something to keep in mind when trying to determine the problem. Ratchet it back down or eat the cost, whatever you chose.. but do something or it can get ugly. You will cause temporary unrest by adjusting tax levels too quickly, as well. No more than 2 points per turn is best. Better, just one. The AI will start to build things to address the problems, so the key to unrest control is really buying time.

I also use "watchdog" starships for new colony systems. Usually a Light Cruiser or Destroyer on the cheap side that goes where ever I need it/them. It's best to address piracy before it happens, as a brand new colony cannot produce even the smallest hulls with any speed.

Also, on an obvious note.. Any planets you capture from other players automatically are in unrest for a few turns, but calm back down before long, as long as you don't push the race's buttons, like any other.

If you find yourself in constant unrest problems as a new player I would recommend playing a high loyalty race until you get the hang of it.

Cheers!
Lazarus

[Madbiologist]

Here is another tip, customise race.

This only works if you know your play style first.

I hate spying, I only use them for defense. And a few time for important stuff, which ussually goes like make 3 science spies and dump them into enemy territory. But I play humans...

There is no need for dangerous, so I drop it down to Sharp and now I have 40 picks right there.

The trait that effects unrest is Citizenship: Loyalty -15 on unrest factors (whatever that means), Duty -7, Association defualt, and Liberty +5. Humans have Liberty, which makes them really unhappy people. I always raise it to Association (or even Duty when I play my Imperial Humans).

Ofcourse in the late game things get hairy, let us say you play the loyal Evons, and have conquered a few races, suddenly the new races are revolting. That is because your unrest managment is balanced for your own race, these new liberals are unhappy.

[DavidByron]

One of the questions about the unrest/Loyalty pic is whether it is really just a question of money. I've played a few start-ups with lowest loyalty and oppresometer at max, and I haven't noticed the difference because the tax level just adjusts. I assume I am at a lower tax level -- but I seem to be able to pay for stuff still. Are their other draw backs to min loyalty and max oppresion?

[Da_Blade]

The VR will only adjust its tax so much to counter unrest, so if unrest problems really get nasty it wont help anymore, but loyalty picks only help a little too. As for opresso metre; this affects the HFoG rise, so playing max opressometer all the time will cause quite some unrest (which VR adjust with tax and extra DEAs, both of which are a waste), but above all will cause the HFoG to rise ridiculously.

Also, i think the security provided by the opressometer is in some exponantial/logarithmic in comparison the the "prefferred" opressometre range. So i think the opressometre 10 for a constitutional monarchy is lower then the opressometer on 10 for a unity government. But i don't have any data on this, so don't just take my word for it ;)

But in any case i think the opressometer on 10 is a waste, since the little damage that spies do is nothing compared to all drawbacks of high opressometer.

[Madbiologist]

But in any case i think the opressometer on 10 is a waste, since the little damage that spies do is nothing compared to all drawbacks of high opressometer.

The assasinations of leaders with +20% to a good bonus you want. Being the only empire with Cloaks and having it "stolen", having your X stolen, having a building that took 37 turns to build on a weak and new colony destroyed, having your system seat and your imperial seats blow up on a turn by turn basis.

Yup, I agree, spies do little damage....(sarcasism)

Anyways the code patch will have HFotG work differently, so that there is no more gradual increase per turn. The effects will be static and increase through the size of the Empire. And in pre-patch phase, we all know the trick to kill HFotG in a single turn or too.

[DavidByron]

Well I'll carry on with the max oppresometer and see what happens.... I was trying it out originally to see if it increased production of FLUs but it does not appear to do so.
------------------------------------------

Defining my terms: when I say "planetary unrest" I mean the regional average figure which you can see on the planets report. On the planet report you see the grand total of all the regions (correct to 1/10 of a point).

Ok with a little testing (13 planets at turn 75 test was a re-run from saved game with the only difference being the level of oppresometer set) it looks like the 10/oppress level suggested by the Unrest data table is accurate. It was exactly 10 points of unrest per level per region. Or since the planetary level is the average of the regions the planetary level increases by simply 10 x the number of extra oppression levels. Data was exact for all different levels of oppression for all planets to the tenth of a point of oppression. So I guess that's pretty solid as a hypothesis.

The formula for Pirates also seems fairly simple (17 planets had their defences zilched, compare unrest level). The Unrest data table suggested 3 points per pirate and that was also accurate.

Unrest from Piracy is equal to three times the number of regions in the system you control. This is applied to each region and therefore the planetary unrest (which is more or less the regional average) increase by that amount. For a system with a total of 40 regions Piracy would be 120 points per region (or +720 to the regional total unrest on a size 6 planet such as the homeworld). 10 frigates would be required to negate the effects but they would do this for all the planets in the system.

The presence of alien ships didn't effect the calculation and neither did planetary shield generators (readme file seems wrong here?)

System ships and orbitals with no armament did count as anti-pirate forces, but starships with the task force mission "colonise" didn't count, even if they were armed.

Usually the planetary unrest level is the total across all regions divided by the number of regions on the planet. However sometimes it is the total divided by one less than the number of regions -- I assume this indicates that one region hasn't yet been colonised. Since there's no other way to tell yet this is quite an interesting little fact.

Ocassionally I have also seen a smaller discrepency between planetary unrest and the total of all regional unrest. The planetary unrest seems about 1 or 2 points higher than expected (btw you round fractions to the nearest) or else the regional total is about 10-15 points lower than expected. This happened in 2 cases out of 13 and both were on planets with two races.

[Beamup]

Excellent testing, especially with respect to the pirates! Keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to hearing more.

[R2-Opus2]

I'm starting to see things stabalize as far as unrest "causes". However, I still do see messages like this one...

"287.4 unrest over 6 regions."

My question is, if I don't see a cause, but I still see unrest figures displayed, do I concentrate on system ships/oribitals to reduce this more, or will building armies do the same thing to erase this remainder?

Or does the AI know what to do here? If it knows to build system ships or orbitals to counter piracy, then I can go ahead and ignore some of the systems with moderate to low unrest.

On spies...

Like others here, I tend to play with my oppresometer jacked all the way up. As Madbiologist points out, spies are a pain in the butt for those colonies that are barely developed. What I would also like to know in relation to the above, is if system ships/orbitals/fleet/ or troops helps counter unrest, do they also help counter spies besides leaving yours at home all the time?

If not they ought to in my opinion. It would give me a good enough reason to lower my oppressometer since in one respect it is exchanging one form of cost for another as far as resources goes, so it makes sense to me that they should do this.

It doesn't make sense to me that a small group of individual spies could sneak in so well to a system that has beefed up defenses, and likewise, that a small group of individual spies could do all that work in countering espionage themselves.

[Chinese Tourist]

My philosopy is prevention :D

If *you* are serious about fighting unrest, then follow these w/o regret or reservation
#1 Don't pick Humans
#2 Don't pick Liberty
#3 Don't pick Humanoid
#4 Pick Citizenship : Duty if your race STILL has this flaw - namely refusing to submit to your supreme authority (ie unrest-ful eg low oppresometer tolerance etc)

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by R2-Opus2
"287.4 unrest over 6 regions."

My question is, if I don't see a cause, but I still see unrest figures displayed, do I concentrate on system ships/oribitals to reduce this more, or will building armies do the same thing to erase this remainder?

Unrest can also be caused by over-crowding, and is inherent on just-conquered worlds. If you just conquered the world, leave your troops on the planet, and see if it goes down in a few turns.

If the planet is over-crowded, your people will probably try to move away soon on their own. If they don't, give them a little help, colonize some new worlds, and set "migration" to your less-populated, lower-unrest worlds. This will encourage people to move out of your crowded colonies and into your less-crowded colonies.

Finally, if piracy isn't listed as a cause, building more ships will probably just cost your production and upkeep. On the other hand, lower taxation by a point or two on the planetary level will reduce local unrest. (High tax is sighted when its extreme, but any tax causes a small amount of unrest).

If none of this is working, and the problem exists on several planets, try dropping the oppressometer by a point of two, then cover the difference with defensive spies.

Finally, if all else fails, increase the unrest spending slider on the finance screen. This is my least favorite thing to do, because it takes away money that, IMHO could be put to better use speeding up military production or research.

[R2-Opus2]

Well CT, I pick Humans cause I find it challenging:D or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment ;)

But for the record, I do have the loyalty thing checked and I picked the meany-type government scheme (had the high oppressometer tolerance I wanted) in one game I played with them. In another I can't recall if I had the loyalty thing, but the gov type was constitutional monarchy (bah, I always forget my settings).

Anyway, I'm sure my production isn't what it could be either with the thing jacked all the way up so I'll guess I'll have to try keeping more spies at home and bringing the oppressomatic down and see if that helps.

[The Lazarus Man]

I guess I'm an odd-ball.. :eek:

I rarely have my oppressometer higher than 5, I never have a loyalty higher than association, almost always use the representative government (parlementary or corporate), frequentaly play humaniods, keep taxes at about 20%, and almost never have an unrest problem. Although I I do make sure to place either/or/and a military, recreation, government DEA on every planet barring severe space constraints. One DEA can go a long way and they all have extra beniefits. I also almost always have dangerous cunning, so my counter spies are very effective.. I have few problems in most of my game in this area as well.. (I always have at least 4 spies in the well and 4 more in production.. Before doing anything else offensive.. seems to work fine.) On a spy note, if you're willing to pay a price for it, you can lower your oppressometer to 1, when you get a spying note in the sitrep, jack it way up, and if you're net seriously outclassed by the race doing the spying, you should nab them in a turn or two. Then put it back down.. Not a bad strategy in some games. (Low number of races) FLUs can also cause unrest problems.. A few things from the README.. Each race is listed there with a Max Oppresometer value, has anyone done any experimenting in regards to these numbers? Also, the README suggests that overdriving you economy can cause unrest. Any thoughts here?

Lazarus

[DavidByron]

Well looks like I screwed up. Testing with another empire and another set of planets it does seem that piracy counts all the regions of the entire system after all. On the plus side all the orbitals do count against piracy.

So back to having to find about 40 points of ship hull per system. On this basis Piracy unchecked would be worth about 15 levels of oppressometer; certainly enough to shoot from content to revolt in one go.

The issue with colonist task forces seems to check out. I assume it is the colonist status of the task force not the colonists status of the ship because a colonist system ship will count against Piracy.

I'll see if I can edit that first post.

I tried landing a couple of military units but I didn't see any difference in Unrest. Perhaps I didn't land enough of them... the Unrest table has an entry for military forces.

I usually knock loyalty down when I design a race. I wonder if the points values it mentions are per region or per planet. If they are per planet then it's pathetically low, but even per region the difference between max and min is only 2 levels of oppressometer. Of course there may be other effects Loyalty has.

Also does Loyalty effect your entire empire or only your race?

The previously mentioned discrepencies between planetary unrest and regional total unrest happened on planets with two races. There's a much larger discrepency that happens when the planet goes into revolt. It's way off at that point.

[DoubleSkulls]

This is some interesting stuff but I've had quite a different experience in solving the problems.

#1 All my planets get a Gov & Military DEA. These help quell unrest and keep it down to managable levels. Rec DEAs do just as good a job.

#2 All new planets star off building 3 system frigates. Normally the 1st one comes online quickly enough to stop piracy becoming a problem unless I colonise several planets at the same time. In which case I'll temporarily station an old fleet there.


When I get an unrest message I immediately go and look at the cause of unrest and then take appropriate action to fix it. If there is no cause then just wait - the unrest will eventually clear itself up.

Piracy - more ships
High Taxes - knock them down a couple of points.

Racial Unrest - build some recreation DEAs or Military DEAs to calm things own.

Leader unrest - sack the leader! Or build Rec DEAs everywhere (All Planets Dev Plan).

Unrest does not clear up immediately! It normally takes a few turns for unrest drop down to content.


Armies are useful for dealing with unrest until you've fixed the cause. So if you go into Revolt dump a few troops (A Corps is normally enough) on the planet. In general I save this for exceptional cases (where they are in revolt) or newly conquered planets (only disband the army once they are content).

[mmontgomery]

In my experience, the viceroy does little to quell unrest. It does not building system ships that it could build. (I know that they could be built because I can manually add them to the build queue.) It does not reduce taxes. It does not allocate any DEAs to help, even if you have NO development plans that would "interfere".

So with regard to saying that the viceroy will handle it, this is just not my experience.

I find that most of my bigger unrest problems come from pirates. The solution unfortunately is micro-management. I must add the required number of system ships or orbitals to the build queue myself.

Same with DEAs. I find development plans a little too hard to tune correctly to avoid getting an excess of mil/gov/rec DEAs on large planets, yet getting one of each on almost all but the smallest planets. So I find it best to just allocate the DEAs myself. Again, more micromanagement.

For me, dealing with unrest is probably the single thing which slows down play the most.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by DavidByron
I tried landing a couple of military units but I didn't see any difference in Unrest. Perhaps I didn't land enough of them... the Unrest table has an entry for military forces.

Try this (if you can find it). Find two worlds that are the same size in your empire. Give 'em no anti-piracy patrol and jack the taxes up so that the total of all taxes applied is about 39%. But on one world, drop some land forces. On the other, don't.

What I've noticed is that while ground units don't reduce unrest, they increase the unrest amount required to have the unrest stat change. For example, it's not uncommon for me to sort by unrest and have a newly conquered world that's just come down from their "subjugation unrest period" that's around 30-40 unrest points, but are "Content." Scroll down a few pages, and I've got a world at 27 unrest points with no ground units that's off rioting.

So I believe that while military won't reduce unrest, it will cause your population to delay changing to that "Unrest Level 1" state.

I usually knock loyalty down when I design a race. I wonder if the points values it mentions are per region or per planet. If they are per planet then it's pathetically low, but even per region the difference between max and min is only 2 levels of oppressometer. Of course there may be other effects Loyalty has.

Per region or per planet doesn't make much of a difference. If you've got 286 unrest over 10 regions, your planet's going to get reported as having 29 unrest on the Planets screen in my experience. I suppose if you had one region at blazing unrest of 3K and all the others were at zero and that reduction wouldn't take them negative, then you'd have an issue "per region." :)

I do belive that it's applied per region, and probably weighted based on the population of the region. Got a -15 reduction for 80% of your population in region 1? That's now going to be -12.

Also does Loyalty effect your entire empire or only your race?

Your race and your race only. And it "sticks" so when you conquer those free-thinking Evon, be prepared for higher unrest issues with 'em.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by mmontgomery
In my experience, the viceroy does little to quell unrest. It does not building system ships that it could build. (I know that they could be built because I can manually add them to the build queue.) It does not reduce taxes. It does not allocate any DEAs to help, even if you have NO development plans that would "interfere".

So with regard to saying that the viceroy will handle it, this is just not my experience.

The key isn't to avoid dev plans that "interfere" but rather to include dev plans that specifically direct the Viceroy to build unrest reducing DEAs, if you find that the Viceroy isn't doing this on its own. (I've always seen mine try to put up at least a government or military DEA, especially on larger worlds). By including Recreation, Government, or Military in the secondary or tertiary slot for the dev plan of that particular planet, the viceroy will have no problem putting up whatever unrest reducing DEAs you want.

Furthermore, I don't know why your viceroys didn't build system ships. While I've never seen the viceroy build an orbital (already reported in the bugs forum), my viceroys repeatedly build system ships on their own. Just remember that developing worlds need piracy reduction more than developed worlds, so make your system ships significantly cheaper than your starships. This is helped by cheaper system ship hulls after the data patch. Just keep a couple of frigate-sized system ship designs available, preferably LR or SR, since they tend to be cheaper.

If your viceroy isn't doing any of this, try looking at your military spending, empire tax level, and turns to build your current ship designs in those systems. The Viceroy doesn't like to spend more than 3-5 turns building anything, so if your troop ship takes 3 turns, and your system ship takes 7, design a cheaper system ship. In my experience, the Viceroy has always taken care of piracy on its own once development was sufficient. With migration a larger empire can get an planet from size 1 to size 10 in about 5 turns, which isn't too long to keep a fleet of starships around, until systemships can begin to fight piracy on their own.

[DavidByron]

What I've noticed is that while ground units don't reduce unrest, they increase the unrest amount required to have the unrest stat change

Yeah that whole question is quite thorny. Preliminary observation suggests that there's a wide range in planetary unrest levels within each unrest state. Content can go up to 60-70 points, Unrest 1 from 30 to about 80-90, Unrest 2 starts from around 60 and Unrest 3 I have little data on and seems to overlap Revolt levels which start as low as 110-120. These results are all based on planets which have no military on them. The variation is already substantial so I don't know how you could detect what difference the presence of armies might make.

A planet at 60 planetary unrest could be content or in Unrest 1 or 2 and I'm even wondering if planetary unrest is even the determining factor for the unrest state.

Preliminary observation of tax increases suggests that a 1% tax hike would generally correspond to a fixed planetary unrest addition of something like 12 points per 1%. However one of the planets went up by 24 points, and one by 6. The difference might be based on different races figures and/or the level of taxation before the increase. The 12 point increase in unrest was fairly standard even though the planets tested had differing tax rates as determined by the AI to be whatever the system could stand without overal positive planetary unrest. My methodology was to take a save game of an empire whack the oppressometer to 10, hit "turn", record the unrest levels, re-load the game, oppressometer to ten AND adjust tax rate, then compare the results. Despite the natural variation in each planet's condition on a number of variables inccluding previous tax rate, the increase in unrest was surprisingly uniform. Surprising for this game anyway....

[R2-Opus2]

I can't be sure how accurate it is that the Viceroy won't build orbitals.

On a couple of occasions I can remember, I went to a planet through the sitrep when it finished something else, and saw one at the bottom of the cue. On one occasion a world picked my lowest scaled orbital hull (frigate), but on two others, I'd seen them use my battleship scale orbital.

I think perhaps the 'roy's decision to add orbitals has something to do as well with that world's standing economically because from what I remember, this activity happened on a world or two that was maxed pretty good with productive DEAs and its GDP was pretty high. Or maybe I'm seeing things and forgetting which worlds I've tweaked the military build cue on :D I'm in the mid game stage so that's entirely possible...I can't keep up with every single world after all so its possible either way.

But because of what people have said in the past about it, my paranoia about what 'roy would build or not build, I tend to go ahead and add them myself anyway. As soon as I can afford it, I build myself a few nice fat orbitals, and it seems to knock down piracy significantly. But to stay safe, I try to end up with 5-6 orbitals of different scales and missions, along with around 10-12 system frigate/destroyer types. I still see unrest numbers from time to time, but no causes other than High Tax when that applies. If I need to scrap any ships, I tend to check out the system ships first if I've got a good amount of orbitals present.

(With starships, I take my time in deciding to scrap, since as soon as a new world can erect a mob center, I can dispatch those old designs there likity split to biznitch slap pirates with).

[DavidByron]

Oh I just noticed in the original post -- Unrest 1 does reduce production. I think it's a pretty straight-forward formula: 25% reduction in production per level of unrest. That's what the Unrest table says and I *think* I've confirmed that for Unrest 1 and industry production values. I don't know what the formula is for building destruction.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by R2-Opus2
I can't be sure how accurate it is that the Viceroy won't build orbitals.

I don't like to micromanage build-ques too much, I really strive for macro-level control. I view it as training for MP, since you can't really mico build-ques if the turn limit is 3-4 mins.

Anyway, I've seen my viceroys push my battleships out the door on their own hundreds of times on my industrial worlds. Regardless of size, with a war-footing, and a kick to the military budget, I've never had a problem getting my warships out the door.

Similarly, as long as I provide an inexpensive system-ship design, I see them start to pop-up around the empire. That said, I have never seen my viceroys push orbitals out the door. I may be miss-designing them (making them too expensive), but it seems that, given the choice, the viceroys will always build system ships over orbitals, even at similar price-ranges.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get viceroys to build certain ship-types. IF, for example, was a bit of a problem, but by making my LR model more expensive, and lowering the hull size of my IFs by one, plus temporarily obsoleting CVs and some other models, I got viceroys to build some IFs. I suspect that something similar might be necessary for orbitals, I just haven't figured it out yet. I tried playing a game where I didn't design any system ships, just orbitals and starships. Around turn 140, I started dying a slow death from piracy, as I came to realise that no orbitals had been built, anywhere, and that the planets I expected to be building them, were instead turning out the least expensive LR model of starship I had designed. This was despite the LR starship and the orbital being of comparable price.

Viceroys will probably build orbitals, but you did say it yourself when you posted:
Originally posted by R2-Opus2
On a couple of occasions I can remember, I went to a planet through the sitrep when it finished something else, and saw one at the bottom of the cue. On one occasion a world picked my lowest scaled orbital hull (frigate), but on two others, I'd seen them use my battleship scale orbital.
The viceroys build orbitals on only "a couple of occasions", or in my case never. I'm sure there's some condition/balance/spending rate that will make them build orbitals, just no one has found it yet, and until they do, it's safer to play with the assumption that viceroys won't build them.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by R2-Opus2
I can't be sure how accurate it is that the Viceroy won't build orbitals.

It's got little to do with type and everything to do with cost. For a great set of posts on the subject, look here: http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=268703.

I've found it easy to get Roy to build what you want, if you keep the number of current hulls down to a minimum. And if you really want a particular flavor of ship and will only go nuts if it doesn't get built, try obsoleting every hull but that one ship.

Generally speaking, if you have system ships a system could build, Roy will like those best (they're cheapest). Orbitals would come next (generally - LR orbitals could come in more expensive than starships), then starships. Roy's a penny-pinching son-of-a-gun (and that's a good thing) so if you give him a lower cost alternative, he'll take it.

[thanakar]

Originally posted by Strifeguard
Furthermore, I don't know why your viceroys didn't build system ships. While I've never seen the viceroy build an orbital (already reported in the bugs forum), my viceroys repeatedly build system ships on their own. Just remember that developing worlds need piracy reduction more than developed worlds, so make your system ships significantly cheaper than your starships. This is helped by cheaper system ship hulls after the data patch. Just keep a couple of frigate-sized system ship designs available, preferably LR or SR, since they tend to be cheaper.

One thing I've never had, is a problem getting the Viceroy to build orbitals. Like system ships and starships, I just ensure that the Viceroy has a large selection of orbitals to choose from.

What I have noticed is, depending on where you colony is situated and what your current spending plan is, the first military thing the viceroy tries to build is a Mobilization Center and on new colonies this can take upwards to 30 or 40 turns to complete. In the meantime, unrest is slowly going up as Pirates start becomming a bigger problem. You can mitigate this by removing that mobilization center from the queue and adding the system ships manually, or if feasilbe, just deploy a fleet to the system.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Dagda
(generally - LR orbitals could come in more expensive than starships), then starships. Roy's a penny-pinching son-of-a-gun (and that's a good thing)

This has probably been my problem the whole time. I'd noticed that in the destroyer-cruiser range, IF starships tend to be more expensive than LR starships, so I assumed that LR orbitals would be less expensive, and therefore provided the viceroys with those.

I have to agree, I really like the way the viceroy acts. I know some people have the viceroy listed as their chief complaint, but I think controlling him is just as fun and rewarding as controlling the empire as a whole.:up:

[Dagda]

Originally posted by thanakar
One thing I've never had, is a problem getting the Viceroy to build orbitals. Like system ships and starships, I just ensure that the Viceroy has a large selection of orbitals to choose from.

What I have noticed is, depending on where you colony is situated and what your current spending plan is, the first military thing the viceroy tries to build is a Mobilization Center and on new colonies this can take upwards to 30 or 40 turns to complete. In the meantime, unrest is slowly going up as Pirates start becomming a bigger problem. You can mitigate this by removing that mobilization center from the queue and adding the system ships manually, or if feasilbe, just deploy a fleet to the system.

Unless you've got some dirt cheap system ships, they'll probably be about the same cost as the MOB. At game start, I don't want to tell you how many systems have "Hawk Defense - 122 turns" in the military queues.

There's no argument that piracy can be a pain. Build a colony ship, rip out the colony pod, name it "Go Away" and you've got a cheap anti-piracy vessel you can move as required. A light cruiser hull buys you 5 points of piracy relief and can be empty except for the absolute basics of a starship.

[sL|De]

heres your guide ooMoo style boy... youll have a mention as soon as the site is back up :) good work btw

http://lacota.net/moo3outpost/guides/unrest101.html

[CKHo]

normally I just design a frigate (forgot spelling) without any weapons and armors just the basic stuffs and use that as dummy for pirate defending for new colonies, casue frigate are the best new conlonies can build without shipyard thingy. most time I just let the colony build its first industry then it will only take about 5 turn to crank out a dummy frigate and that should settle pirate for a while.

[DavidByron]

Unrest caused by taxation seems more regular than I had thought. So far this is just testing across 5-13 planets but does include planets with different races and multiple races (the usual exceptional case for formulae in this game!). Although this is based on only one race/government (Cynoid/Parliament) setting, I'd guess others may be not much different.

Taking a 29% tax rate as the base tax rate the formula is:

6 unrest per 1% increase - for the 1st 5%
12 unrest per 1% for the next 5%
20 unrest per 1% for the next 5%
40 unrest per 1% for at least the next 8%

So to raise tax from 29% to 52% causes 510 unrest per region (which would cause a revolt most likely -- the planetary unrest value seems completely unrelated to the regional unrest total during a revolt).

Decreasing from 29%:
-24 unrest per 1% for at least the next 3%.

What I mean by the tax rate is the total of empire and planetary tax. I had system tax at zero, but I guess it would just be added in to the total the same.

I "managed" to get a planet into Unrest 1 with just 105 unrest over 6 regions (or 18 planetary unrest), at other times I've had Content with nearly 90 planetary unrest. Extremely variable. Predicting unrest level (points) is only half the story to predicting the unrest state (content to revolt).

[Dagda]

Originally posted by DavidByron
So to raise tax from 29% to 52% causes 510 unrest per region (which would cause a revolt most likely -- the planetary unrest value seems completely unrelated to the regional unrest total during a revolt).

You sure that's per region or for all regions on a given planet? At 510 planetary unrest, I'd expect it just to spontaneously explode into dust due to the pent up frustration of the citizens.

What I mean by the tax rate is the total of empire and planetary tax. I had system tax at zero, but I guess it would just be added in to the total the same.

You'd be right, too. :)

Sum all your tax rates, and you'll get the effective tax rate the people complain about. And your experimentation conforms to the 35% number I've heard as the target to keep unrest from getting out of control due to taxation.

I "managed" to get a planet into Unrest 1 with just 105 unrest over 6 regions (or 18 planetary unrest), at other times I've had Content with nearly 90 planetary unrest. Extremely variable. Predicting unrest level (points) is only half the story to predicting the unrest state (content to revolt).

Unrest levels will vary based on what you've got in system in my experience. Ramp a planet up to unrest level 1 with no military of any kind in the system. Then add a marine division. If the unrest points are low enough, the troops showing up make people think twice about rioting and you can carry a slightly higher unrest points before hitting level 1. Then do it again and drop a battleship for system defense. People look nervously overhead and (grumbling) go back to work.

Now you will hit a point where all the military in the world won't keep the cork in. And when that happens, the system can rapidly skip right past levels 1 & 2 and head straight to revolt (I once cranked a system with a battleoid army and 36 starships overhead to 70% tax just to see what would happen - insta-revolt). But it's really not hard to manage unrest if you catch it quickly and take decisive action.

Personally, I never lower system taxes, but then I've only had a major unrest problem once (switched gov'ts). And then I was very, very happy that Roy had built so many ground troops.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Dagda
Personally, I never lower system taxes, but then I've only had a major unrest problem once (switched gov'ts). And then I was very, very happy that Roy had built so many ground troops.

How much do you usually spend on Unrest reduction on the Finance screen?

I'm just asking because I try (at present anyway) not to put any money into that slider as its exact effects seem unclear.

For example, one turn I dump cash into it so that the slider is at the green hand icon, the following turn, unrest disappears entirely, and the green hand icon moves down slightly. I assume that some system ships were built, reducing piracy, so overall unrest spending can be reduced. I lower spending slightly, to the icon's new location, and the following turn, unrest is back, and the icon is at its former level. I go back-and-forth with this for 10 turns before throwing my hands up and just dealing with it at a planetary level.

Usually, I deal with planetary unrest by lowering taxes a few points, while I try and take care of any possible secondary unrest sources (no military/gov/recreation DEAs, piracy, recently invaded, etc.). However, I have a feeling that I wouldn't have to do this if I just committed a certain amount to unrest spending, so do you have any recommendations about this?

More importantly, does anyone have any numbers about exactly how the unrest slider on the finance screen works? What makes it move, and what determines how much you have to spend?

[Da_Blade]

No, that's because unrest is not a thing of one turn. If you notice carefully, you will see unrest building up, or settling down, over a number of turns. Spending money however, is a good way of getting it down quick. So the first turn you spend a lot to get it down mostly, the consecutive turn you pay less, just to bring it down a little further, and after that you simply pay a sort of "upkeep" to prevent a rise in unrest, untill you solved the unrest problems.

When you decide to spend money in the unrest slider, keep an eye on it and adjust it every turn, untill it's not needed anymore.

[Strifeguard]

But what does it actually mean? I understand the gist of it, but I don't fully understand how it works.

For example, one turn I had a particularly successful military campaign and captured 5 new, well-developed, planets. I didn't really have time to keep my TFs waiting around fighting piracy, and the planetary defenses had just been wiped out in my assault, so I decided to spend some money on reducing unrest until the planets could build some basic system ships. I figured this would only take 5-6 turns because the planets were well populated, and the infrastructure was mostly intact.

So, I go to the slider, and I spend up to the yellow hand icon (figuring I just don't want a revolt, and I also don't want to waste money). The following turn, I look back at the slider, and the green hand icon is now where the yellow hand used to be, and the yellow hand is much lower. So, I move my spending down to between the green and yellow hands. The following turn, the yellow hand is above where it was originally, and the green is MUCH higher than it was. I spend back to the yellow hand, and a turn later, both the green and the yellow hand shrink down to almost no spending. Thinking I've figured it out, I reduce spending to the green hand, and then I get a repeat of both the yellow and green hands flying past where I was spending and becoming more expensive than ever.

I understand the whole, spend a bunch, reduce slowly, I just feel like (at present) I'm making reductions in the dark. With the oppressometer, and with planetary tax rates I have clear indicators (the black triangles on the oppressometer, the "High Tax" complaint on the demographics report), but the indicators on the unrest slider always seem fickle at best, and non-sensical at worst. If I just had access to some clear formula for how the slider worked, I could make a more informed decision.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by Strifeguard
I'm just asking because I try (at present anyway) not to put any money into that slider as its exact effects seem unclear.

It varies. Early in the game, just about nothing. Late-early to early late (:)) it'll go up, usually to about 25% of the length of the bar. As you're expanding, it's easier to generate unrest (particularly with migration and growth creating unemployment on new colonies). Late game, it drops down to around zero.

The three "hands" on the slider are a great guide, btw. Put the slider at or above the yellow hand, and you'll reduce Unrest Level 1 & 2 to nothing over time. The red hand and you'll start digning away at revolts over time. All without sending a ship or building a DEA. As your overall unrest level in the empire changes, the hands move to reflect how much you need to spend to address each level (up if your unrest is growing, down if it's dropping).

It's actually quite efficient, but needs time to work. If you hand a person without a candy bar and say "It's on the government," they might be a bit more happy but still ticked off. Do that repeatedly and they might start changing attitudes.

[Solaquin]

Loyalty race pick giving essentially two 'free' levels of oppressometer seems to bear out with what I've seen, and that's well worth the picks for me. I tend to run with the oppressometer at 8 or 9, depending on the government.

I can't make myself build an empty ship to combat pirates, even in systems not likely to see action. However, I've found that at most points in the game you can find something modern to fill up a frigate with and keep the cost at 350 or less.

Note that the three unrest-reducing DEAs are not the same in terms of unrest reduction. Their effectiveness can vary greatly depending on your government type. Don't build military or recreation DEAs in a parliamentary government, build more government DEAs instead. In a Dictatorship, only system seats should have a government DEA, use military DEAs for unrest reduction. I don't have onhand the chart of which is most effective for which governments, but check the guides/tables about government types and it should be easy to find.

Unrest management is generally a lengthy process. Large changes don't fix it right away (and can even cause unrest themselves). If you crank things up slowly though (oppressometer/taxes/troops/etc.) you can really push it far. I've had planets as high as 263 unrest be content, and content planets in the 100-200 range are common in my empires. When they do blow though, it's straight to revolt.

When I play with the unrest spending bar, I generally only change it every few turns, regardless of what the hands do. And even then I make small changes, dropping it down by small increments every few turns until it bottoms out or stabilizies somewhere.

[DavidByron]

I've had planets as high as 263 unrest be content, and content planets in the 100-200 range are common in my empires.

Is that figure total regional unrest or the planetary unrest figure? For example 263 across 6 regions would be about 44 planetary unrest (the figure that appears on the planets report).

unrest is not a thing of one turn. If you notice carefully, you will see unrest building up, or settling down, over a number of turns

So far I am just investigating one turn changes. I should point out that typically in this game if you do the exact same thing (from a saved game) you get the exact same results. Certainly for unrest randomness seems to have little or no part. If that wasn't true you'd have a hell of a time testing a hypothesis.

[rodricofbrell]

I don't touch the imperial unrest spending slider until I start conquering everyone full-scale and have the AI colonizing for me. When I'm conquering 3 worlds per turn, and the AI is planting 3 colonies in 1 system on the same turn, any way of reducing unrest is worth it to me.

Also by this point in the game I don't care about developing new planets or additional research. I just want to finishing off the AI. so dumping half the budget into unrest makes good sense.

Rhodric

[DavidByron]

I'm still failing to see any Unrest reduction with military presence. For example a size 3 planet with 2.8 population has 30 marines (army and 2 divisions) dropped on it. No difference to unrest of 138.8/3 regional total (compared to a replay of the same turn without landing the forces). No difference to the 50 planet unrest figure (no idea why the large discrepency between the two figures) and no difference to the unrest state of "Unrest 1" despite a pretty low unrest points level.

Probably just as well because it would have been a pain in the neck to place a division on each planet or each region -- which is the tactic suggested by the idea that military presence would allow a tax hike.

[rodricofbrell]

That confirms my unscientific observations from placing military units. I gave up doing it when I saw no practical effect.

I've heard that it helps with revolts, but I can't confirm that either.

Rhodric

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by DavidByron
I'm still failing to see any Unrest reduction with military presence. For example a size 3 planet with 2.8 population has 30 marines (army and 2 divisions) dropped on it. No difference to unrest of 138.8/3 regional total (compared to a replay of the same turn without landing the forces). No difference to the 50 planet unrest figure (no idea why the large discrepency between the two figures) and no difference to the unrest state of "Unrest 1" despite a pretty low unrest points level.

Probably just as well because it would have been a pain in the neck to place a division on each planet or each region -- which is the tactic suggested by the idea that military presence would allow a tax hike.

140/3 is almost 50 planetary unrest.

And as for unrest state 1: did you think about the fact you have about 17 unrest points per population point? My guess would be the unrest levels are something like unrest divided by pop. It's probably a regional thing though, so regional unrest divided by regional pop. But planetary unrest divided by planetary pop should work ok. And if that doesn;t give anything conclusive. Try didviding the unrest by the working population. Just add the employment and unemployment percentages together and you know the size of the working population.

Good luck.
- Blade.

[DisneyDestroyer]

Regarding the unrest slider:

This slider essentially buys down unrest points FOR THAT TURN ONLY. If the conditions that caused the unrest weren't changed then moving the slider down would cause the values to creep back up. It's best used as a temporary means of quelling unrest until you can fix whatever is broken. For example, if you've just gone to war with your best allies (CB = 190) there will be quite a few people upset at the decision. You might want to crank that slider up for a turn or two until the CB drops or you can lower tax levels / opressometer to compensate. Slider works instantaneously but only for that turn. Taxes / opressometer take much longer to work, usually no more than 1 level per turn, sometimes one level in a few turns. So use the slider until things fix themselves in other ways.

PS, just like the other Empire sliders if the money isn't needed it won't be spent. So if you wanted to keep that slider at 70% the entire time you wouldn't go broke, it would just mean that you would spend any amount of money necessary to prevent unrest, making that the first financial priority of your empire.

[DavidByron]

Changing the government type causes the advertised (in the Governments table) 10 points unrest per region on the next turn. I assume it is truthful about the subsequent turns (8,6,4,2 then 0). Don't know if two changes of government on successive turns causes cumulative unrest.

Changing government types also causes unrest change due to the tolerance of the oppressometer. Eg changing from Corporate to Republic is 20 unrest per region.

Changing government types also may cause (huge) unrest because of the differing tax tolerances of different governments. You can find the tax tolerance in the government table as follows:

Const.Monarchy, Unification 40%
Monarchy 37%
Republicanism, Hive 30%
Everything else 35%

The numbers listed can be thought of as a bench mark "normal" tax. In effect moving from say Corporate to Republic gives you an unrest hike equivalent to a 5% tax increase. This could easily be 100 unrest per region.

If you alternate between Hive and Unification (eg. for HFoG purposes) this difference is what is going to kill you. 10% tax hike (equivalent) moving from Unification to Hive is easily enough to make every planet revolt. It dwarfs the additional cost of the move (the unrest for government change) and the reduction in unrest because Hive has a higher oppression tolerance than Unification.

Changing government type also has some effect on unrest because of the different efficiencies applied to DEAs as advertised in the government data table.

[ExplodingBoy]

Geez . . .

I go do RL stuff for a few days and see what happens, a serious debate.

First things first, thanks to all contributers - and DavidByron, thats a lot of work you've done, well done it's appreciated.

Also, Dagba as usual your information is thorough and well organized, and a big help.

And StrifeGuard also gets a mention while i'm thanking ppl.


I'm working on an edit now - and sL|De, i'll add a version number at the top so u can see if an update is required.

Current points requiring edit

- Unrest 1 clarified as being irritating AND lowering production ;)

- Need to add a bunch of stuff on tax rates and government effects

- Add more quality info regarding the actual figures on certain issues, pirates, tax, oppressometer, etc. (thx DavidByron for the info)

- various other points including a clearer explanation of the effect of placing troops on the planet.

thx all, now to do some work . . .

[rodricofbrell]

Interesting. I read these forums almost daily, but that's the 1st time I've seen tax rates matched up with governments.

If Unification allows taxation at 40% then I might have to reconsider using it. And using Hive at 30% seems pretty painful.

Are there race modifiers for these tax rates?

Rhodric

[Da_Blade]

My recent testing implies that unrest affects production no-matter the unrest state. I think the unrest states are only a way of telling the player how bad it's becoming, since in itself "Unrest: 34" doesn't tell you much.

I still have to test linearity/exponantiality of unrest reducing production, but the fact it reduces production nomatter what state it's in is fact.

[DavidByron]

I have tested the Unrest 1 25% reduction and it is pretty clear from the Unrest table that is what happens. I have NOT seen any variation for general variations in unrest points without a change of level and I did a great deal of testing of industry production amounts, although mostly with unrest=0.

What is your protocol for testing your hypothesis?

--------------

I don't know of any specific tax tolerance for a race but anything which effects unrest means your highest safe tax level changes.

[Da_Blade]

No, no protocol yet so far. Just a result from a proof for something else really. Look at http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=291022&perpage=30&pagenumber=4 the post with screen shots in it. It seems to me that unrest has a large factor, as the double industry cannot come only from the 7% larger DEA productivity...

[DavidByron]

If was testing it I'd take a homeworld planet and compare production both with and without the system ships present. Without them, pirates would increase unrest without effecting any values that had anything to do with production. Just make sure the tax rate is such that piracy will cause unrest short of an unrest level change.

I'll have to read the thread you linked to more carefully but off the top of my head if you are getting double production from your DEAs the answer is probably FLUs. If you are not investigating FLUs specifically always disable FLUs because they really screw with your results. You're not told which DEAs your FLUs are on but they increase the capacity by 10% x forced labor level.

[Da_Blade]

Yeah i know, but i checked for FLUs, as far as i could see there were none (you can detect them by inconsistencies in the industry output, i.e. industry DEAs produce different output on planet).

but if nuking system ship didn't affect production thats good enough for me. Guess i'll have to find different reasons then ;)

[DavidByron]

I have not performed that experiment yet!
I just suggested it.

The number of FLUs on a planet is listed; you don't have to guess. I wish we knew more about FLU production since it seems such a big aspect of the production.

[rodricofbrell]

I just tested unrest and tax rates using unmodified humans with several representative governments.

I did it using the home planet between turns 10 and 30.

On corporate government the tax rate and unrest ran like this:

tax 37 unrest 1
tax 38 unrest 13
tax 39 unrest 25
tax 40 unrest 45
tax 41 unrest 65


These numbers reflect the planet without a government DEA to remove any effect it might have.

Anyway this confirms what Davidbyron got I believe, though I need to think about it a bit more. It also makes me think that race doesn't matter much here.

Rhodric

[DavidByron]

Yes, that's an exact match (which means you didn't have anything else messing with your unrest over those turns). 39% tax is the 'border' between the +12 and the +20 penalty -- for Corporate.

[The Lazarus Man]

Originally posted by DavidByron
Yes, that's an exact match (which means you didn't have anything else messing with your unrest over those turns). 39% tax is the 'border' between the +12 and the +20 penalty -- for Corporate.

Seems like hard info, but..

What were the imperial rates of tax?
What races were used?
What was the citizenship rating of that race?
What military forces, if any, were present?
What unrest reducing DEAs, if any, were present, and were there any outreach effects?
What was the oppressometer set at?
What were the employment rates?
What kind of funding were the industry and science at?
Were any FLus in use, or even allowed by the empire?
What was the population density of the planet in question?
What kinds of conflicts were going on at the time. For examples wars against hated, liked races?



I have different figures, from my own experiences, in regards to taxes=unrest, and am curious as to the other factors involved.

Lazarus

[DavidByron]

I am assuming that unrest is a result of the sum of several independent factors of which tax is one. The figures don't predict unrest, they predict the change to unrest caused by changing tax. There are a lot of factors that we don't have figures for. If the terms are independent then it's easy to isolate them and work them out one at a time.

I varied the imperial tax rate to get the results. The planetary rate stayed the same and system was zero. The planetary rate of various planets varied between 13% and 22% and the imperial between 12% and 30%.

The main races were Tachidi and Cynoid in 2 different games but there were also various magnates on some planets. Presence of magnates usually causes problems for formulae in the game but not in this case.

Citizenship rating... not sure. Probably the lowest for both.

No military forces were present in general. I tried to measure the effect of military forces in specific tests but couldn't see any change in unrest.

There was a variety of unrest DEAs across the planets tested. Imperial center, government DEAs, military... I'm not sure if there was a recreation DEA. Probably not.

Oppressometer was typically at 10 to ensure there was a positive reading on unrest. Lower values were also specifically tested, sometimes in combination with government and tax changes, to test the 10 unrest / oppressometer level cost.

I guess the unemployment rates were varied in the normal range for planets at around turn 75. FLUs were in use and were present on some planets. I think all planets were in the "green" area of the population density... not sure about ongoing wars...


"What kind of funding were the industry and science at?"

If you mean the imperial expenditure I think it was about 30% grants and 5% research in both games. Not sure.

[rodricofbrell]

I'm going to look at oppresometer effects later on tonight using just a homeworld at the start of the game. The test I posted above I did with oppresometer at the "starting" value, but since I was focusing more on confirming the tax increase numbers, I neglected to record what it was.

On some of my tests with human representative government I seemed to see higher unrest rates around turn 15-20. It's possible that was due to a population density increase, but it was difficult to be sure. Since the way population grows per region of a planet is still open to debate, and because you can't see individual region populations, it's tough to confirm this kind of thing.

Citizenship had no effect on the actual unrest levels in my tests. They just changed the threshold of revolt by an appropriate amount. I'm going to look at this more as well.

Rhodric

[rodricofbrell]

I think we're also getting close to being able to make some conclusions about the usefulness of the Citizenship pick. I'm beginning to suspect that it's most efficient to drop your Citizenship to Liberty, but I need to look at the numbers a bit more.

Rhodric

[DavidByron]

I've always played with minimal citizenship since I figured it was basically a money making pic, but then I play with minimal cash.

[rodricofbrell]

Yeah, I think you're right. If it was enough money that you made maybe you could justify it, but 1-2 percent higher taxes probably isn't enough in my opinion, and I think it's something like that.

Rhodric

[DavidByron]

I have not tested to see if the loyalty pic does what the loyalty pic claims it does. It would be better if it behaved as a global unrest multiplier instead of an unrest bonus. It's also possible that it effects more than unrest points total -- for example we don't know what determines when you change unrest state.

[Da_Blade]

Unless it reduces unrest per region. Then the pick would be very powerfull actually.... But i don't know the exact effect :)

[DisneyDestroyer]

I believe it affects the final number. So if you have 200 unrest points over ten regions, the final number is 20 (200/20). Loyalty subtracts 15 from this. So it's a bigger benefit for larger worlds. In the instant case it will be the equivalent of subtracting 150 unrest points from the various regions (assuming they're distributed evenly).

[Da_Blade]

Duh, thanx, i had a case of sudden dumbness there ;)

[rodricofbrell]

Okay, here's the unrest at different tax rates for stock humans. Test was conducted between turns 10 and 25 on the home planet. There were no leader factors or events. 3 different oppressometer settings were used.

Humans, unmodified
Corporate Government
Government DEA removed
3 systems ships, no splinter colonies
Full DEA employment

Oppressometer 2

Tax Rate / Unrest on planet (taken from the planets tab)
37 / 1
38 / 13
39 / 25
40 / 45
41 / 65


Oppressometer 6

Tax Rate / Unrest
34 / 5
35 / 17
36 / 29
37 / 41

Oppres 10

Tax Rate / Unrest
28 / 0
29 / 15
30 / 21 (sometimes 27)
21 / 33 (sometimes 27)

As you can see something strange was happening at oppressometer 10. Some other factor must have come into play here, but I have no idea what it is. I was surprised to see the unrest jump from 0 to 15 at tax rate 29 as well. After that it started to go back to the 6 and 12 multiples we are used to seeing.

The planet would go to unrest level 1 after a few turns at oppressometer 27 or above. The chance to go into unrest must be some percentage.

By the way, where is the A.U. cost of the oppressometer shown?

Rhodric

[rodricofbrell]

Ok, I repeated my corporate human test using humans modified with max citizenship. The unrest levels were EXACTLY the SAME.
Loyalty pick didn't lower unrest at all.

However the planet wouldn't go to Unrest Level 1 at level 25 or even at 35. At unrest 41 the planet immediately went into Unrest Level 1.

Again this leads me to believe that you will only see a benefit from the loyalty pick if you like to leave your planets running at unrest levels 25 to 40. Since the AI tends to reduce taxes to keep unrest levels low, you might not get any benefit at all from the loyalty pick early in the game unless you really micro your taxes.

Rhodric

[DavidByron]

I was surprised to see the unrest jump from 0 to 15 at tax rate 29

That's what the formula I posted predicts. It's odd but before the series of "6" is a series of "24". If you decrease tax below 29% you decrease unrest 24 points per 1% tax cut.

28 / -9(0)
29 / 15
30 / 21 (sometimes 27)
31 / 27 (sometimes 33)

Were you changing the empire or planet tax? Possibly if you were changing the empire tax the AI might have changes the planet tax when you weren't looking? The result do suggest 6 point increments per the formula, but unrest 27 should have been 31% tax and unrest 33 should have been 32% tax.

Yeah - maybe a random element to the unrest state.

[Da_Blade]

Just some of my test results in between:

First, you were right about unrest only affected production in degrees, not gradually like i postulated before. However, the numbers are wrong. Here's the numbers i have:

Unrest level 0: 100%
Unrest level 1: 80%
Unrest level 2: 60%
Unrest level 3: 50%

Have been unable to get the number for Unrest level 4 so far.
There is one more interesting thing to know actually:

Unrest doesn't affect planetary production levels, rather regional. in Sirian "planetary fix" thread i have before mentioned the possibilty of FLUs being the factor that lets one DEA produce differently from another on the same planet. Though this is partly true, unrest is the other factor. I have done my tests on my homeworld (sold off all system ships :D) in a trilliarian empire, at around turn 70 or so. While unrest slowly rose, i have been watching production output of the 2 manufacturing DEAs on this planet. The reason i have been unable to establish unrest level 4 is because at a certain time mining output of the planet dropped so far i was unable to read the industry output correctly, because it was affected by loss of output due to mineral shortage.
Anyways, there were three outputs detected:

Interesting to know is that one manufacturing DEA is situated in region with a research dea, the other with the gov DEA housing my system and empire seat of gov. So manu DEA 2 (the on in region with gov) runs in a high-pop region!

Before selling off the ship both run at 70 industry output.
Sold off ships: that turn nothing happens, except for small increase in unrest after abolishing forced labor (can someone test this?).
Next turn manu DEA 2 only puts out 57 industry, manu dea 1 runs at 70
Next turn manu DEA 2 runs at 41, manu DEA 1 runs at 57
Next turn manu DEA 2 runs at 33, manu DEA 1 still runs 57.

interesting here is that the second manu DEA runs down in production much faster then the first DEA. This DEA is in a region with the empire government DEA, so this is quite a populated region, let's count (employees only):

Region 2
Gov dea: employee=1.0
Ind DEA: employee=1.0
Automated factories: employee=0.75
System seat of gov: employee=0.5
Imperial seat: employee=0.25
--------------------------------------------------------- +
employee = 3,5

Region 1
Res dea: employee=0.66
Ind DEA: employee=1.0
Automated factories: employee=0.75
--------------------------------------------------------- +
employee = 2,41

This strongly suggests that production modifiers are regional, not planetary. Furthermore it suggests strongly something we more or less always suspected to be true: overpopulation causes unrest.

So far the proofs, the rest that follows are hypothesis: (sp??)

I'm going to take it a bit further: I don't think there is something like planetary unrest. I think planetary unrest is nothing more then the average unrest in each region of the planet. I think that when a planet is in unrest level 1, it means nothing more then that 50% of that planet's regions is in unrest level 1 or higher. Untill revolt. I think that a sitrep is given that a plent is in revolt as soon as one region is in revolt. The buildings reported destroyed in the sitrep are destroyed in that very same region. The planet rebells and splits off the empire if there's a certain number of populated regions in revolt (something like 100% or maybe 50% even).

I think all unrest modifiers are done regionally. So if a tax rise gives a nice 6 rise in planetary unrest, that means that every region has risen 6 in unrest. That can also explain the 15 unrise rodric got once. Due to modifiers some regions might have risen 3x6, some 2x6, some 6 at a time. If it was a size 6 planet, two regions going up 18, 4 going up 12, will give an average of 90/6 = 15 unrest.

The "regional unrest theory" also solves another problem i have once seen before. An improvement build at the government DEA of a planet which gave in planetary infrastructure an extra unrest reduction of 5, gave only 2 planetary unrest reduction. I once breached my head on why it would say 5 there while it only reduced a fraction of it. Well, with only regional unrest in place it makes sense. If it reduces the one region responsible for unrest at all by 5, but the others are already at 0 unrest (so they don't get reduced), the eventual planetary unrest, being the average of regional unrest, only reduces by 2.

However, this part is all hypothesis. The things stated at top of post are actually fact ;)

Edit: for rodric's 15 unrest result i find DavidByron's hypothesis much more satisfying then mine. However, i still think there is no such thing as planetary unrest. Also i am (again) strongly oppossed tot he idea that there's randomization in the unrest code. I think the inability to find a pattern is because of lack of info (GUI info) before randomization, same goes with VR decisions).

[DavidByron]

Regional vs Planetary results is like the Quantum dynamics vs Relativity of MOO3 science. I know they are both right and there is a way to get both perspectives to mesh, but it is getting there....

I have seen the 25% reduction in manufacturing productivity before -- rarely -- in tests of productivity. However there was no unrest in those tests. It is possible that I only thought I had eliminated unrest from the picture but there was regional unrest which was beneath the radar because it goes unreported until several regions are in unrest.

Similarly we know from observation that the DEA productivity % is a multiplier on ALL production regardless of region... except it goes haywire when there are two races on the planet. It's easy to invoke "regional differences" as a solution to anything so I am reluctant... perhaps regions with the same race share employee pools? Does DEA productivity represent only the dominant race's bonus?

Hmmm. We need to get a one region planet for testing....

Incidentally I think regions would have been much nicer if they had been split by terrain type. Maybe they do have a terrain type and we just don't see it. What I mean by the terrain type is the number in the races table that indicates which species like to live underground, on the ground, in the sea, or in the air respectively. It seems to me that "mountain" for example has little application to an underground or air terrain.

One planet from my test suite had odd behaviour: the unrest of the regional total would increase by 10x whatever the increment was -- it was a size ten planet -- but the planetary unrest was closer to the total regional unrest divided by 9, not ten.

[rodricofbrell]

DavidByron wrote:

"Were you changing the empire or planet tax? Possibly if you were changing the empire tax the AI might have changes the planet tax when you weren't looking?"


I was changing the empire tax, and what you're suggesting could have happened once or twice, but I found that specific fluctuation happened several times. I check for planet tax change any time there's something I don't expect, but I didn't see that in those cases.



And thanks for explaining that jump from 0 to 15. I had scanned your formula but had missed the fact that the jumps were so large at that level.

This game's kind of funny. I'm actually not that motivated to play against the lame AI at the moment. But I'm getting my money's worth just trying to figure out how the game works...

Rhodric

[The Lazarus Man]

A few thoughts..

You guys seem up to the hard testing, and I'm still burnt from other MoO3 experiments so... :)

I've observed that the Imperial tax and system tax have a higher unrest factor than the planetary tax. Can anyone confirm this?

The best use I know of for the Loyalty pick is in relation to social spying. My high loyalty races seem to shrug it off totally, while my Liberty guys pass the occasional bovine because of it. I keep mine at level 2 and have almost no problems.

I *THINK* that loyalty *MIGHT* also affect the success of spying by or against you. I've noticed greater success rates against loyalty 1 races (Humans, Nommo) than any other, but that could just be me. Any thoughts there? I have also noticed that despite equal settings in almost every other regard, my Liberty races (particularly Humans) have more trouble stopping spies than if the pick is at level 2 or 3 (Never bother w/ 4.. really *seems* a waste..)

Lazarus

[DavidByron]

Planetary unrest state is a predictor of the highest regional unrest state on the next turn.

You can see this very easily. I created a Human / Corporate game and after the DEAs were built put tax up to 35% which is just enough to get unrest 1 (planetary).

Examining the production of the DEAs they all seemed to be at 100%. I am assuming that unrest produces 25%, 50% and 75% reductions in production, as advertised, but at the regional level. It's pretty easy to see an unrest production hit. Just note the level of production you are more-or-less expecting (Bio=14, Mine=9, Ind=26, Research=17) and watch for a 25% drop.

On my first turn after the tax hike planetary unrest state was unrest 1, but no DEAs had any shortfall.

Second turn the planetary unrest moved to level 2. Region 2 was in unrest level 1 -- I could see the mines were producing 7 instead of 9. The other regions were at 100%.

Next turn region 2 was down to 50% production -- unrest 2 just as predicted by the planetary unrest state the turn before.

This contrinued for a while. I noticed the unrest point cost of having a region in unrest seemed to be about 9 points per level per region in unrest. One region would be in unrest, or maybe two. Usually it was region 2 (the mining one) . The planetary unrest the turn previous would faithfully predict what the unrest level of the worst hit region would be.

The government DEA was not effected by unrest but its region was hit once and the industry DEA with it was knocked down 25%.

Eventually the AI decided to put the planetary tax down 1% and when that didn't work, another 2%.

Of course now the question becomes, what causes a specific region to decide it will go into unrest on the next turn.

[DavidByron]

One implication: being at Unrest 1 isn't that bad. It just means that on the next turn at least one of your regions will have a 25% hit on production (I don't think unrest effects "population production", just DEA production --- which is pretty ironic).

If one of the regions is a little more prone to unrest for some reason, this could easily mean no more than a 25% loss in one region -- perhaps something like a 3-4% drop in overall planetary production (including population production).

This would account for the initial post's optimism over Unrest level 1.

[rodricofbrell]

That's useful to know. I tend to blow off unrest level 1 in the later parts of my games. I can't be bothered to deal with each individual planet when I'm conquering 2 planets per turn. It's nice to know it isn't really costing me much.

I may check the different taxes a bit tomorrow Lazarus. Or I may take a break and play Morrowind all weekend, we'll see. :D

Rhodric

[DavidByron]

Update: ok unrest effects the testubes per pop figure (usually 1.5/population) but not the cement per pop figure (usually 3/population). Thie advertised figure (in the data tables) is the usual 25% loss per unrest level.

Interesting corrollary: by increasing the TT/pop to 100 I could read off the populations of the regions I had in unrest. Seemed to correspond to (planet population / regions) aproximately. Maybe they were a little below the average.

The aditional unrest modifier appears to be +20% to unrest for the region in unrest (this is going by the advertised figure in the data table -- which says its +30% for unrest 2 and +40% for unrest 3, double for a revolt).

Assuming this is correct you can estimate the unrest level of the region in unrest (by multiplying the unexpected increase in unrest by 5).

For example my first region to go into unrest had 1.96 population out of 11.96 total population, and the estimated unrest for that region the turn before was 84 out of 242.3 unrest over 6 regions.

So.. nothing unexpected there.

[R2-Opus2]

True Strife, I did say that on page one (that it could have been me missing someting in my observations), but having gone back this time, I did in fact see orbitals get placed in my military que.

However, I still do not know exactly the criteria 'roy uses to decide to put one in the que. It could be economics of the world (or worlds empirewide), number of industry, population or some other modifyer I'm missing or combinations of all those.

I do notice 'roy building system ships though so thats nice to know he knows to build them from time to time. I did see them show up too if piracy was an issue. Sometimes as well, as soon as you colonize, I've seen a random choice it makes in regards to what it builds first.

For example, sometimes after colonization or conqering a planet, in the military que I might either see a Mob center as one of the first structures, beam base, super fighter base, or a system ship. I likewise see a similar thing with the planetary que. Somtimes it'll put in atmospheric processors as the first building, or it may go with decon, or pollution processors or some other one like orbital lithoscanners.

I'm still drawing a blank though as far as how it prioritizes in those early stages like that.

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by DavidByron
Of course now the question becomes, what causes a specific region to decide it will go into unrest on the next turn.

I think this is an easy one. Overpopulation. Each region has a maximum pop deendant on terrain, moon mods, imrpovements and maybe also fertility. Once the region gets near it's maximum pop unrest is created, besides the wilingness to migrate.

This is why you will generally see hostile mountain ranges packed with 2 factories+improvements go into unrest first.

Unrest might also be created from regional fertilty, but since that one is, i think, already calculated in maximum pop it is unneccessary to include it here again i think.

This is the main reason. now, overpopulation on itself will seldomly create unrest itself. People will migrate away long before any problem really arise (just try and get a world to maximum pop, it's impossible it seems). But if outside factors like tax, casus belli or piracy increase unrest it will mean the heavily populated areas will go into unrest first (Who ever heard of riots on the countryside?).

[DavidByron]

Who ever heard of riots on the countryside?

"Hostile Mountain Ranges" is not the countryside? ;)

There's a curious inter-relationship between the three different sources in the game for maximum population. First you have maximum that is stated in the system view. This is accurate to the 1/1000 pop point. When the planet is owned the number indicates the same as the "Dominant species" calculated maximum population. You can get that figure from the planets report as the default. However if you go to the individual planet page you'll get yet another estimate of maximum population. This seems to correspond to what you would get under the planets report if you specified "humanoid" or whatever your race is.

And all these numbers change constantly even when there have been no technology changes and before terraforming is possible.

The system max population indicator for magnate races after planting an outpost but before colonisation is especially interesting to have a look at. For example:

Elerian magnate (pop/max pop) [planets report pop/max pop]

5600/7500 [6/26] (pre-outpost)
6121/12000 [6/26] (added outpost)
6141/12000 [6/26]
6161/12000 [6/26]
6180/12000 [6/26]
6199/12000 [6/26]
6218/12000 [6/26]
6236/12000 [6/26]
6121/12000 [6/26]
6286/16500 [6/26] (first migrants arrive)
6338/16500 [6/21]
6393/16500 [6/17]
6450/12000 [6/12]
settled at max pop of 12000

This is for a Rhea magnate where the human colonists had an easier time growing naturally.

5077/37399 [6/63] (before outpost)
5774/37399 [6/63] (outpost arrives)
5872/41644 [6/63] (first migrants)
6089/37399 [6/59]
6200/37399 [6/59]
6312/37399 [6/59]
6426/58999 [6/59] (colony est. says max pop is 37).

[DavidByron]

Even after it was colonised the Rhea world's max pop danced around quite a bit -- possibly because it had 9 regions while the Elerians had only 5....

[Da_Blade]

Maximum pop is dependant of the maximum pop of all regions.

Now, the pop mentioned pre-colony (maybe outpost too) is the maximum pop of your race inhabiting each region. Now, if a region (in your empire) gets occupied by another race (magnates for example upon colonisation) the maximum pop changes since that race is now inhabiting that region, the max pop of that region changes. Now if another region of that colony gets ocupied by your race the maximum pop of planet changes again, since it usually lists the maximum population for unpopulated regions as the maximum for the dominant race.

So when your race outgrows the magnates', you will see the maximum pop displayed more "stabilized".

[DavidByron]

Yes, well it's all very well to say it is something to do with regions... but the specifics here are problematic. Note how the listed max population increased after migrants arrived. Now if that represents a re-assessment of the max population now that a new race is in occupation, shouldn't the max population have gone DOWN? After all surely the Magnate can work the land better than the migrants? One planet was red to the migrants, the other was yellow.

And another problem: in both examples, one turn after the max population increased because of the arrival of migrants, it went back down to where it had been. So what does that mean? Did the migrants decide to immidiately leave that region? Going where? Perhaps the region initially colonised/outposted? But then why wouldn't this pattern of migrants entering the planet repeat itself? Why only on the first turn of migration?

Since the max population listed on the system view ended up being equal to that listed on the planets report (view by "dominant") I wondered if prior to colonisation, only inhabited regions were used to calculate the max population. It does seem inconsistent, because entirely empty planets don't have a zero max population.

Would this be a good place to mention that I edited the homeworld set-up table to move the initial population around (it is listed as 1 population per region). The location of the population didn't have any effect on production, even when there was no population in the DEA's region at all.

[Da_Blade]

A planet's max pop is shown based on your empire's original race only when not under control of anyone. So when you find a magnate colony, it calculates the max pop as if there are no magnates. Now when your migrants arrive, it suddenly realizes that one region is occupied by the magnates, and that they are the main race. That means it recalculates every region (except the region migration is going too) as the magnates' habitibility and thus the max pop is calculated much higher. As you pop expands into different regions, those regions get recalculated to your race's max pop, lowering the max pop again.

That's all i can make of it.

[DavidByron]

But that's more or less the opposite of what I see happening.

I'm not totally certain because I didn't do it until towards the end, but I think if you look at the max pop on the magnate world before you colonise it, then it is the same you'd get on the planets report if you have "by dominant race" selected (the default). This number is greater than what you get by selecting "humanoid", or whatever your race is, on that report. I think the initial number represents the magnate's perspective, and generally stays that way.

Also when I say "first migrant" remember when the outpost/colony ship landed was the first time the second race arrived on the scene. Quite possibly the migrants arrive on a different region. In the Elerian example the first migrants arrived 8 turns after the colony ship created an outpost.

[ExplodingBoy]

Have done a quick edit - will do a more thorough one down the track.

Sorry about the delay but my 3 kids don't seem to think it's very important . . .

[dkass]

Interesting thread, but I haven't seen any mention of enemy spies as a source of unrest. One occasionally gets messages about it, but I've never tracked down to see how much or where (I rarely have unrest problems). I can't tell if this is just social spies on their mission or also enemy spying in general (some of the announcements are sufficiently vague to make one wonder).

The obvious solution in this case is more defensive spies. While raising the O-meter would get rid of the spies, the resulting oppression based unrest is likely to be worse...

[DavidByron]

I am not seeing any change in unrest due to these messages about spies. I also not seeing any change due to the passage of Senate bills.

I followed the unrest level of a standard Klaakon homeworld (on "impossible" - as is all my testing) for about 50 turns. The behaviour was pretty regular. Generally unrest declined by a tiny amount per turn. Over 50 turns it declined about 0.4 per region. this was steady and predictable.

During those 50 turns I had,

15 you-killed an enemy-spy reports
15 squeeze captured spies reports
3 trade reduced due to enemy spies
5 terrorising your empire's
2 cower in fears

None of which had any effect whatsoever that I could tell. 3 randome events had a noticable if rather small effect on unrest (entertainers). There was a sequence of 17 turns where the unrest leapt from atound 28, which was my base, to 76.7 then it went back down again... I could tell what happened, or why it ceased. Nothing on the sitrep gave a hint of it.....

[dkass]

I'm assuming the capital was your only planet (if not it could be that the effects were elsewhere).

I wonder if this is yet another broken part of spying. I would have seriously expected an increase in unrest with 5 terrorizing and maybe the 2 cower in fear.

Were the 17 odd turns with a turn (before/after) the last few sitrep messages (my thought here is that there is a synchronization issue with either the sitrep reports or the unrest reports). It would be disappointing if the effects of spies only lasted one turn. It makes social spies much weaker (detonated buildings at least take time and cost to replace).

On a different topic,
I keep meaning to test, but haven't had the time. Is piracy a binary effect or is it gradual (ie if I have enough ships to resolve half the piracy do I only suffer half the effects?).

[miniender]

/sigh I have almost 50pct of my money going to unrest on the buget tab.

My oppress-o-thingy is 1 notch over max for gov type. If I drop to max value enemy spy are killing leader, stealing my tech, and destroy building, and fleet ships. So I need to keep it over max just to stop the enemy spies.

What to do? What to do?

I started doing the planet tax and sending recon ships out. Hope this helps some.

I haven't done anything with forced labor though. Maybe I should try that one?

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by miniender
My oppress-o-thingy is 1 notch over max for gov type. If I drop to max value enemy spy are killing leader, stealing my tech, and destroy building, and fleet ships. So I need to keep it over max just to stop the enemy spies.

Build up a series of defensive spies. Defensive spies are any agents that you choose not to insert into enemy empires. Since the specialty of the spy doesn't matter, you don't have to go for the expensive scientific and military spies, but can instead deploy the cheaper Social and Economic spies on defense.

Once you've put together a reasonable defensive spy base (5-6 defensive spies), start lowering the oppressometer, but keep training new spies. In the end you should be able to keep your leaders safe, while at the same time lowering unrest due to opression.

[DavidByron]

f I have enough ships to resolve half the piracy do I only suffer half the effects?

Correct.

I haven't done anything with forced labor though. Maybe I should try that one?

I don't know how forced labor effects unrest. Something to put on the list :)

[Hachiman Taro]

Ithkul start with the Loyalty level of Citizenship. This gives a -15 Unrest to each region in the empire.

Floyd Grubb, MOO3 designer in another thread. It was about harvester migration. If you want to find it search for Fgrubb.

This should give some idea what Citizenship does specifically...

[rodricofbrell]

"Ithkul start with the Loyalty level of Citizenship. This gives a -15 Unrest to each region in the empire. "

It would be nice if the -15 actually showed up in the unrest numbers. From everything I can see it is applied to the maximum unrest allowable per region (before the regions actually go into unrest) rather than the actual number per region.

I think it works out to be the same thing in some ways, hopefully in all ways, but it's difficult to be certain.

Rhodric

[Chinese Tourist]

different races have extremely different unrest tolerances.

Meklar have extremely high hardcoded oppresometer tolerance; at least they barely respond when I abuse them regularly as opposed to Klackon where a third of the empire aims for the throne as soon as a government change soothes the winds

[rodricofbrell]

If you change Klackon government from Unification to Hive without lowering tax rates you will get revolts because the 2 governments have 10% different tax rates.

Testing on this thread hasn't demonstrated any difference in races, but if you're welcome to post some numbers if you got em.

Harvesters have plus 1 oppressometer tolerance. Other than that there is no demonstrated difference between races.

Rhodric

[Dagda]

*bump*

This one might be worth a sticky for the new players, btw.

[Actuarian]

I have an oppressometer question.

I have wondered about the tolerance levels (the black triangle range on the oppresometer screen). I'll use this example to explain my confusion.

On the oppresometer screen the black triangles are at 2 and 6.
The message on the oppressometer screen says something to the effect that oppresometer levels at or below 2 are low for the empire and oppressometer levels at 6 or above are high for the empire.

I've always assumed that the message is not correct and that I can set my oppressometer even with the upper triangle (in this case, 6) with no additional unrest created. Has anyone tested this, and if so, am I correct?

I moved this question here at DavidByron's request. In that thread he said, talking about the effect of the oppressometer on unrest:

It's 10 points of unrest per region per point of oppression -- quite regardless of the position of the triangles.

I have always been under the impression (and it says in this thread) that the more unrest is created per oppressometer level increase if you set the oppressometer above the government type's tolerance levels.

So I have three questions:

1) Is there really an effective tolerance level for a government, or are those triangles on the oppressometer just for show?

2) Assuming that those triangles aren't just for show, if you set the oppressometer level with the upper triangle, have you exceeded the goverment type's tolerance?

3) When you exceed the tolerance level, what is extra increase in unrest that you get, if any, for increasing the oppressometer?

[rodricofbrell]

There may not be a difference, which is of course, quite silly. Davidbyron reported that he often uses representative government with opprossometer set on 10.


There is supposed to be a cost associated with the oppressometer. This cost is different depending on what government you are using. I asked earlier in this thread if anyone had information about how this cost was calculated, but no one responded. It's possible the cost was never implemented.

On the other hand I haven't been following this board much for 2 week, so I might have missed something.


Rhodric

[DavidByron]

These days I set oppressometer to 0, or about 7 occording to whether I have a spy to kill or not..... until I have spies attacking me constantly...

What I mean when I say the black triangles don't mean anything is that every empire has athe same unrest production for a given oppressometer level -- namely 10 points of unrest per region per level of oppressometer.

That is, if you move your oppresometer up one notch, you will get 10 points of extra unrest, no mater what settings you have, what government you have, or whether you were in the middle of the two triangles, or below them or above them. Similarly if you move down a notch you decrease unrest by 10.

The triangles represent a guess at would ought to be workable oppressometer levels for your empire if you have normal taxes and other normal conditions. You might not have normal conditions. Maybe you have high taxes. Or low taxes. Or piracy. Or a leader that costs you unrest. But mostly unrest comes down to MONEY.

Fundamentally in MOO3, unrest is money. Same concept (close enough).

You can solve almost any unrest problem by lowering taxes. Conversely if you have low unrest because you have oppresometer at zero and piracy dealt with, well the only reason you'd want to do that is so you can hike taxes. Again, the Citizenship pic means higher taxes. Dealing with enemy spies costs you money through lost taxes because your oppresometer is higher. Taxes, along with population and production capacity are the three main concepts of production.

Incidentally, although there are no "black arrows" for tax rates, the game actually behaves as if there is because your normal tax range, where you start, of about 35% taxes (total of all three kinds) is in the middle of an area where changing tax causes relatively little unrest change. If you hike taxes up or down by quite a bit the change in unrest (positive or negative) per 1% ioncreases dramatically.

That does NOT happen with Oppression. Oppression causes the same loss or gain uniformly, and it is approximately equal to a 1% tax change if your tax is close to normal.

When you get good at judging it you can leap from 0 oppresion one turn to 7 and a government change and know how much to lower taxes without either causing unrest or being inefficient by not taxing as much as you might have. If you lack that experience just leave a margin of error and the AI will gradually increase planetary taxes all by itself

There is supposed to be a cost associated with the oppressometer. This cost is different depending on what government you are using. I asked earlier in this thread if anyone had information about how this cost was calculated, but no one responded

I beleive this cost (which appears in the government modifiers data table) is something to do with how effective the imperial grants for reducing unrest is. I guess that under some governments it is cheaper to reduce unrest via a grant but I have not researched it. But modifying your imperial and system taxes is the easiest control. The unrest grant just smooths out the rough edges. If a change would put one planet into unrest and the rest of the empire not, then the imperial unrest grant would allow you to ignore that one planet while the AI sorts out the tax rate. Or of course if you are micromanaging you could simply go to that one planet (looking for it via the planets report sorted by unrest) and turn its planet tax rate down a couple of points yourself.

That is my *opinion* of how that oppression cost works.

[Actuarian]

Thanks for the answer David. When do you make the switch from 0 to 7 on the oppressometer? Do you have the problem of having your leaders tending to become ex-leaders when you set the oppressometer to zero, or are you able to jack the meter back up before any leaders are offed?

Why do you think that there is a minimum recommended oppressometer level? What do you think the 'penalty' is for having the oppressometer set below the minimum recommended range? Could it be that, at the bottom of the recommended oppressometer range, the government type would produce negative unrest that would exactly offset the positive unrest caused by the oppresometer setting?

[Actuarian]

Any chance getting this thread stickied?

[DavidByron]

Thanks for the answer David. When do you make the switch from 0 to 7 on the oppressometer? Do you have the problem of having your leaders tending to become ex-leaders?

Yup.
"Living with it" is a perfectly reasonable anti-spy tactic. Post 1.2 patch the gov DEAs are a lot more of a hit but the spies are fewer. I often put up with (ignore) certain spy types but try to stamp out others.



Why do you think that there is a minimum recommended oppressometer level?

As a guide for beginners? It has no game effect.

What do you think the 'penalty' is for having the oppressometer set below the minimum recommended range? Could it be that, at the bottom of the recommended oppressometer range, the government type would produce negative unrest that would exactly offset the positive unrest caused by the oppresometer setting?

That's exactly correct as far as I've seen.

Any chance getting this thread stickied?

It's the thread I refer to vaguely more than any other. :)

Maybe I could precis the results somewhere. Unrest 201?

[Ryker]

I manually place 1 Recreation DEA (cheap, cost=50). Since I normally expand with outposts, this gives me a free military DEA (100 cost) for unrest reduction. When I use a colony ship, conquer a planet, or splinter colony, I then manually place a military DEA.

I have also found that deploying an Army from my reserves (19 infantry, cost is 380) on every new world does wonders for reducing unrest and unrest damage.

I then build Space Super Fighter (Planetary Defenses Level 7), Beam Base (Planetary Defenses Level 5), Missile Base (Planetary Defenses Level 3), and then Planetary Shield (Planetary Defenses Level 3). Not sure exactly how the formula works (compared to System Ships), but unrest due to piracy is definetly reduced as the planetary defense level goes up. Plus a Planet with all of these defenses (at a bargain cost of about 1150 for the PD) is a tough nut to crack for enemy forces in the early game, and the Infantry Army seems to do better on defense than on offence, you may actually drive off some attackers who invade (as opposed to the pathetic militia forces standard showing).

Finish with only a modest number of system defense boats, and the colony never has unrest problems.

[DavidByron]

"Hup"
to bring this in line with the stickied threads as far as last-updated date goes.

[Awsric Armitage]

Stickey this so I don't have to bump every 60 days.

Oh.

Bump to the front page.

[Tarhalindur]

Hey! A five-star thread in danger of deletion! This cannot be allowed!

You know that road sign I saw a ways back? Remember - it said "BUMP"!

Sticky!

[Colt374]

Probably the only way to get a thread stickied these days is to directly PM a moderator. It doesn't seem they check the forums much any more.

Colt.

[Specialist290]

Bumped as a candidate for inclusion into the new Encyclopedia Mod.

Or, as Archangel Brian would have said in the same situation, YOINK! *runs away*

(I always wanted to do that :D )

[krpeters]

I beleive this cost (which appears in the government modifiers data table) is something to do with how effective the imperial grants for reducing unrest is. I guess that under some governments it is cheaper to reduce unrest via a grant but I have not researched it.

<snip>

That is my *opinion* of how that oppression cost works.

So, 3 years later, has anyone determined how "oppressometer cost" actually works? I regularly play with Despostism government precisely so I can push the oppressometer up to 7 and leave it there and not get irritated by spies. The result is that I only have to spend 1/4 to 1/3 of my empire revenue on the unrest slider. (By comparison, under democracy, at level 7 I'd have 80% of empire revenue for unrest -- but that's because I tend to forget things like leaving armies or anti-pirate ships on my planets)

[Longspur]

I never, ever, spend a single AU on the unrest slider.

I believe that even with the Liberty citizenship pick, there are other, better ways to control unrest, and better things to do with the AUs.

DOYPS, I guess.

[Da_Blade]

Same here, never ever spend a dime there.

[JosEPh]

I use the Unrest Slider when I have a planet hit Level 2. Bump some low amount of cash for 2 -5 turns. Unrest goes away and slider is brought back down to 0. This allows me to Keep the Oppressometer at the Upper Black Diamond. This coupled with a full stable of spies and My leaders live to a ripe old age and my tech doesn't slip out the front door under the Welcome mat.

JosEPh

[Longspur]

As prepared by a complete idiot, or a reasonable facsimile thereof

What are some of the common causes of unrest ?

Well, to start with, you may see:

HUMAN
NOMMO

These races have the "Liberty" citizenship pick, and are very sensitive to the least little thing. Perhaps you have just, ah, assimilated people of this persuasion into your empire.

Also:

STARVE
PIRACY
HIGH TAXES
LEADER EFFECT
DISCOMBOBULATED

Now, the perfect emperor in the perfect galaxy (I ain't never been one and I ain't never seen one) will never have unrest hit Level 2. But it can happen. People ain't goin' to work, they're millin' around in the streets, and they're talkin' about tearing buildings down. Things could get ugly.

Giving the populous bread and circuses is an ancient recipie for dealing with unrest, but there is something even better.

I use the Unrest Slider when I have a planet hit Level 2. Bump some low amount of cash for 2 -5 turns. Unrest goes away and slider is brought back down to 0. This allows me to Keep the Oppressometer at the Upper Black Diamond. This coupled with a full stable of spies and My leaders live to a ripe old age and my tech doesn't slip out the front door under the Welcome mat.

JosEPh

JosEPh, next time that happens, instead of moving that Unrest Slider, try this: Go to the specific planet in trouble -- and lower their taxes. A whole bunch'a lot.

The Unrest Slider is an empire-wide solution to what is only a local problem. Lowering taxes for the planet in question will work, no matter what the problem is. People will even starve quietly -- if their taxes are low.

(Don't worry. People on the edge of revolt aren't paying a lot of taxes anyway, and your viceroy, while silently thinking you are an idiot, will immediately start jacking 'em back up.)

Also note that even if the problem is immediately taken care of -- say the problem was PIRACY and you immediately popped a squardon or a flotilla of ancient ships from your National Guard into the system -- the reports of Unrest are slow to follow. You can open the Unrest window and it will read "O.O over x.x regions," but for a turn or two it will still report unrest.

Same with lowering taxes -- a bunch -- but it will work.

Say you have fifty children, and one of them swipes your wife's electric razor and shaves "Kick Me" on the side of the cat. Do you spank all 50 ? An emperor could wear his arm out that way.

Trust me, no matter how dire the situation, make it a rule to never touch that unrest slider.

A man was once asked how he had managed to blow an entire fortune. He confessed, "Well, most of it I spent on whiskey and women. The rest I wasted."

AU's spent on the Unrest Slider is money wasted.

As a postscript, I whole-heartedly endorse your other suggestions.

[krpeters]

Regarding lowering taxes...

...you are, of course, right that going to the planet that's being whiney and lowering its taxes to 10% (from the usual Roy 20% or 25%) will definitely shut that planet up.

But that takes work. I try to get through my turns as quickly as possible -- 1 minute each if I can, 5 mins if I must. Going to each whiney planet of my 200 and cutting its taxes... blah!

Slider is admittedly a poor way to get the job done, but it cuts down on the micro. And I hate micro.

(Did I mention that I don't manage my build queues either? different thread, but I let Roy build cars in any color he likes, as long as the color he likes is black. The obsolete button is your friend!)

So, any word on how the oppressometer slider works?

[SMELLJAB]

I figured out what was causing unrest - It was the Yellow triange for the unrest slider on the budget panel was moving. Why was the yellow unrest triangle moving?

Ok, :mad: I looked at my empire again... Really the unrest comes from a variety of factors, one being my government DEAs are useless, two, I'm a bad player.

Of course I can drop taxes. I love dropping taxes....It solves unrest problems instantly. :weird: Actually it doesn't.

Tell someone talking **** on the street that he will pay 4% less taxes April 15th. Now give him $200. See my point yet?

I always thought that the Budget Unrest slider was a recipe to waste money, but it's actually a terrific way to fix every small unrest problem across the empire in a single turn

The viceroy is good at raising taxes back to normal, but I can't really control anything if my unrest is spread over several planets. The budget Unrest slider solves both problems. By both problems I mean, the slowness of lowering/raising taxes and letting unrest build up/ simmer down ++++ the problem of dealing with several planets, which each have tax sliders and unrest reduction capacities.

BTW, the square of a planetary unrest reduction capacity equals one half of a trip to China buffet or double that if it's catfish night.

[SMELLJAB]

So, any word on how the oppressometer slider works?

When your race picks say +5 Unrest.... what does that mean? Is it per planet per turn? How does the unrest get added to the planet?

[SMELLJAB]

What I mean when I say the black triangles don't mean anything is that every empire has athe same unrest production for a given oppressometer level -- namely 10 points of unrest per region per level of oppressometer.



OH, duh, the answer is in this thread. It's even on the same page as my dumbass post.
:rolleyes:

[JosEPh]

SMELLJAB you talkin' to yo self again?!!

That can become a bad habit, but sometimes it's all good.

JosEPh :specialdriver:

[SMELLJAB]

LOL :haha: :haha: :haha: