Approval rating vs morale

What is the difference between morale and approval rating? When you hover above approval rating, it shows something about morale, I could assume that it is the same thing, but very often morale has different value.
11,691 views 13 replies
Reply #1 Top
Bump... Anyone?
Reply #2 Top
Moral is what you get when you watch too much "Home Improvment", approval rateing is what you get when you don't!
Reply #3 Top
This is what I assumed they were: morale is the happiness of your citizens on each planet, and your approval rating is the average of them and used to determine votes. So I guess when you only have 1 planet they will be the same, but then change when you have 2 planets w/ different morales
Reply #4 Top
From what I can tell, that is the case. Basically, you can have one planet with 65% moral, and a second with 45% moral, and the civilization as a whole with 50%. If someone is trying to influence away one of your planets, then the contest is agains the moral of the specific planet, rather than the civilization approval rating.

At least, that's how I think it works.

Harry Voyager
Reply #5 Top
In the planet screen, you can see the approval rating, it belongs to this particular planet. Yet if you hover mouse over that rating (I repeat again in the planet screen) you get something about morale. I do not see anywhere in the game other mentioning of morale. From GC1 it may be related to the troop morale, i.e. when your planet is attacked it takes morale value to determine the troops level. I am not sure here...
Reply #6 Top
Morale = Approval. Just sometimes the term approval is grammatically awkward to use so morale is used in its place. (i.e. approval ability?)
Reply #7 Top
THEN WHY DO THEY HAVE DIFFERNT VALUES IN THE PLANET SCREEN??!!!
Reply #8 Top
Morale isn't the only thing that factors into approval, hence the difference in values. The biggest alternate factor is taxes, but improvements, racial abilities, starbases, planet quality, overcrowding, and much more all influence what your exact approval rating is on any given planet. Your overall approval rating is a weighted average, each planet carrying a weight equal to its population. So keep your big planets happy and your overall rating will be good.
Reply #9 Top
In the manual it talks about propaganda spending on your planets (like GC1) but I've yet to be able to find the slider to adjust this anywhere. Maybe it's just during the campaign because that's all I've been playing. Anyone know?
Reply #10 Top
Morale is how happy each citizen is about their daily lives.

Approval is how they rate your competency as a leader at the moment.
Reply #11 Top


The propaganda slider was taken out of the game before final. Perhaps it will be back in a later patch.

-Dewwar
Reply #13 Top
Morale is how happy each citizen is about their daily lives.

Approval is how they rate your competency as a leader at the moment.


With all my respect, I did not ask about definition of those words. I could look in the dictionary if I had to.

My question is about effect of these on game, and how are they both calculated. For example, I am more or less sure that the average approval rating is used for the elections. But I am not sure what is used to determine the planet growth and planetary troop force level (when it is being invaded) or how many people will join the attacking troops when propaganda is used...

Morale isn't the only thing that factors into approval, hence the difference in values. The biggest alternate factor is taxes...


I remember that in the morale popup there is influence of tax on morale as well...