Happiness

Anything over 51% morale per planet that's at or near it's population cap is usually fine with me, but if you're having problems, or even if it just bothers you:


Don't build farms that populate planets over 12B early on, or over 20B later.

Research morale techs.  Almost all of them give a bonus even if you don't build the structure they unlock.

Trade for other race morale techs, even things you know you won't build, for the same reason as above.

There's at least one trade resource, harmony crystals, that will give a system wide morale bonus.  You can build yourself or trade for it from another race.

Look for morale resources.  If you find one, grab it and send constructors to it until you max out the mining modules.

If you have resource starbases, research mining more.  It'll open up more mining modules, meaning a higher yield/bonus for you.  That's with any resource starbase.

** When you begin a new game, you can add a point or three into morale at the racial abilities section. I usually put a point into this so I don't have to be bothered building recreation later on in the game.

IF your economy can handle it, you could lower taxes to increase morale (I pretty much never do this myself).

When you get the next level of sensors, the survey module will be available in the shipyard, and you can build more survey ships to get at the anomalies which sometimes have a morale bonus, among many other goodies.  In a large galaxy, I usually have at least 5 fast survey ships gathering them up.  The standby messages get annoying, but it's worth it.

EDIT: Corrected the tech needed to get the survey module.

If you mean "Cultural Exchange Centers," that's part of your problem because they affect influence, not morale.

Extreme Entertainment enables you to build the trade good Ultraspices, +15 morale ability, and Virtual Reality Centers enables you to build Virtual Reality Modules, +12 morale ability.

I try hard to build those trade goods because I want the bonus and because I don't think it gives that much help to other civs when I include one of them in a trade. (Other trade goods, like Aphrodisiacs and Diplomatic Translators I tend to keep to myself unless I'm seriously obssessed with getting something in a trade.)

Re taxes from transports, I'm pretty sure I've seen that question answered before by one of the serious numbers folks but I can't find it quickly via searches so I can't confirm my fuzzy recollection that the answer is "No, you get no tax revenue from troops on a transport." I'm pretty sure this is so, but the game does have a few mechanics that seem 'counterintuitive' to me, and I don't like to make fact claims unless I know for sure or can dump responsibility on someone like Loupdinour, Neilo, or Mumblefratz.

Thanks for catching that mistake.  I edited my other post to put in the right information so I don't confuse others.

I usually don't build the morale trade goods unless I'm going below 51% overall, or get too low before reaching max populations.  Mainly because I'm very stingy about what I build on a very limited amount of tiles.  At least limited when compared to all the other things I really need or really want, including; Tir Quan Training, Xinthium Hull Plating, Micro Repair Bots, etc etc, in addition to the factories, labs, money centers, research coordination centers, the capitals (research, economy, manufacturing, political), plus Diplomatic Translators and, situationally, Aphrodisiacs, which you mentioned.  And that's not counting any of the planetary defense structures (which I usually feel forced to pass up too).

The problem with any trade good is that once you build it, it's there forever, no matter whether you need it anymore or not.  In sandbox games I'll trade for things like Temples and Arena of Agony for the baseline bonuses.  I think every race has at least one tech line that both unlocks a morale structure and gives a base bonus even if you don't build the structure, and they add up rather nicely.