Favored Political Party?

I prefer the Populists. The morale bonus combined with the one you can get in the abilities allows me to ask ridiculous taxes from the people; up to 70% if you also have all the trade goods that improve your morale >evil grin< KACHING!

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If I go for a warfighting game I'll always choose Universalists + spend 1pts on +25% luck. Alone this 50% increase in luck gives you a better condition in fights than choosing the WarParty. Plus, the other bonuses the Universalists have are nice, too. Defense means that the defense stuck on your ships is increased by that %. That is, a DEF of 10 becomes 11. In such a game I'll also attribute points to soldiering (and combine this with SuperBreeder), and the rest goes fully on Research + Moral. Makes your worlds virtually uninvadeable, esp. useful against the DLs.

The other 2 "good" parties are Federalists and Technologists. I prefer Technologists, because an increased early research gives you almost always an advantage over your enemies, as well as Techbrokering is much more lucrative as the 20% economic bonus during the colonial rush (where population is sparse). In my current game Ive chosen Federalists and by now regret it. Because of the lacking research-bonuses, everything dragged along at a slow pace, as well as the techs seemed so expensive to research.

I wouldn't choose any other political parties, their bonuses are just not strong/useful enough. If you, for example, have a strong production ability it's way better to play as SuperHive or put some racial points into Military Production & also built the ASC.

Hmm, are you sure the Senor-bonus is unique? You can attribute points to this, too, but why waste them when Eyes of the Universe is easy to built and much more efficient?

For a second I thought this was a thread for whether people liked the Republicans or Democrats.

I prefer the Industrialists, because you can build things faster.

The Technologist party seems the most 'versatile' in the end to me, even though I've never managed to click all the way through to a war win.

That research bonus provides an initial edge in researching basic infrastructure stuff before warships become very important (I only play larger maps), which has stood me in good stead whether I'm aiming for influence domination, the grand alliance, or ascension tech. It's also done well to prepare me for those occasions when a feisty AI has yet to learn that you don't kick a snapping turtle unless you're ready to crush said turtle within a few turns.

   Federalist Party with that 20% Economy Bonus which gives me that little edge in the begaining of the  Planet Rush. 

No Mercy! No Respite!

Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

Federalist for the economy

Federalist tends to be my fave, but I have reached out and tried others, and I like Industrialist and Technologist.  Both help with the colony rush. 

Oh! At last I've been able to fix my original thread! Anyway, you know? The only party that with which I don't feel confident, except the war party, is the Populist one: its diplomacy bonus look as a poor matter if compared to the other ones! I have tried to use it but I barely feel it.

Especially with Terrans, my planets will still need 3 virtual reality centers to be at an average happiness when nearby to 18.000 or 20.000 citizens, so it is like not having that bonus at all.

Is there any Party or attributes combination that you use for each specific tribe?

party really depends on what race you are playing and how you gonna spend your points. i always play iconian on incredible level, rare habitable planets. Federalists is useless for me, in begining i rush for economic capital and merchant complex quickly build two freighters, since you have those two buildings AIs start to send their freighter to your planet, so you don't need to bother with more freighters. first two years my 3000bc that i get in the begining melts fast, after that i go all-in millitary research and espionage and watch for agressive AI weapons. my tax is set  around 15% for pop growth, production set to 100%, i spend 100-200bc every week on agents and i still get 300bc income. that is all made before 2230 year. and that is all by one single home planet. and i didn't even have a single warship, cause AIs weapons are still too weak to attack.

i use Technologists and put my available points to master research, overall that gives 35% research bonus in begining. Industrialists also good, but research must be ultra like minimum with it.

I can't really say about other races because I am a big fan of Krynn or Torians, because of the Super Breeder or the morale bonuses.

In regard to the Technologists or the Industrialists, this can also be reproduced with the slider if your economy was that good. 

It really depends on how you play. I am a approval player. Keep approval high to increase population, tourism, and influence high. economy is secondary. This makes Populists the most preferable party ever, diplomacy is pretty far down on the list of priorities. If you have good tech research this looks pretty trivial. Federalists seems to work pretty good in a economic game. I like the Technologists. On population growth their are better ways to do that, like the Torians. I really don't think anything else is as efficient as the Populists, Federalists, or the Technologists. Maiden dont tax gouge your citizens right off the bat. Wait untill the later game. Keep your approval between 70-75%, and you will research faster.  

I almost forgot the best place to put points on is creativity, morale, economy, and research in the order stated. 

Qrtxian and sol to bad we can't swap strategies. I like your thinking.

resources economic, research and morale.

As far as difficulty I don't understand why its called normal your cheating with an unfair economic bonus. I don't like to cheat or I don't like the Ai to cheat. I like Tough

As already pointed out, the choice of party depends on what stats you're trying to achieve for your race. I always want a research bonus, production bonus and a population growth bonus as my strategy is based on outresearching everyone else while rapidly spreading to and building up new planets.

When I started playing I used the Industrialist party and used my points to get the research and pop growth bonus. I soon however noticed that the Technologist party is far superior. The cost of the +20% research is the same as the Industrialist production bonuses but it comes with the additional +1 sensor range which is useful during the exploration / colony rush phase. I also noticed that the military bonus of the Industrialist party is pretty useless as when a planet is not building social structures the social production is transfered into military production. Thus a pure social production bonus is better to me as it allows the planets to build the structures quickly and then when they're done with that the production bonus goes over to the ship production. In the beginning of the game I only have one or two planets building ships and often buy them instead of waiting and then the military bonus is completely wasted.

The morale, economy, diplomacy and influence bonuses aren't very attractive to me as they can all be easily raised mid-game by building structures and researching techs so I haven't even bothered with any of the other parties. The Universalist bonuses look decent however and I might give them a try sometimes.

Generally, I vote for independents.

*ahem* In my experience, the poster above put it best: like a lot of other things in this game, the "best" political party depends on your goals for your race. That said, Federalists and Technologists seem like the all-around best party with Universalists running third. The Mercantilists are probably worthless no matter what.

This may be true but the economy, in particular, is most challenging (for me) in the early game so a large bonus right from the start can be very useful. Morale may be even better as it gives you a better shot at the coveted 100% approval rating; I always run Populists as Torians.

Overall you get most out of the Federalists. The reason is that you can use the 20% economic bonus on your entire economy. This affects your production and research. If you pick, say, Technologists, you get a 20% bonus only on research. Plus, because it's a research bonus, you have to pay for half of the cost anyway! Technologists would have to have more than 40% bonus on research to look even barely competitive with the Federalists.

The same is true for the resources in the game. Always prioritise the economic and military resources. The way you decide between these two, though, would depend on your particular situation.

Difficulties higher than Tough have a hidden, non-shown bonus to research bonuses, whereby at Suicidal you get 2.64x as much bonus research as you normally would.  With the 20% from Technologists, this results in an actual bonus of 52(.8)%.

And although you state that you pay for half the bonus, the real treat is in the other half being free.  This is still true when factoring in the difficulty bonus modifier, so while you may get 52%, you'll only pay for 26% of it.

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Finally, new players to the game have this idea that their economy somehow directly correlates to research and production.   This simply isn't the case; without the infrastructure, there's no real difference between an economy of 100BCs a turn or 10000BCs a turn.  An economy allows you to build and run an infrastructure, but more experienced players will frequently run negative for up to, in some cases, the first game year.  Under such circumstances, it doesn't matter how much money you're making.

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With regards to Thorwik's response above, no, the bonus is not transferred, only the base.  For instance, if I have 100 MP and am running 50/50 social/military, with a 40% social and a 20% military bonus, I have 60 military and 70 social.  If I then set focus to military, my base 50 comes over and gets multiplied by my 20% military bonus, for a grand total of 120 and 0 military and social respectively.

So it is useful to have both bonuses.  In my own personal experience, military bonuses are more important than social bonuses, but it does depend on playstyle.  For what it's worth, though, military bonuses + Hive needs almost no social.

You have a point about higher difficulties. But on the lower difficulty levels, even if you run the economy in the negative for a while, if you have a propped up economy you can either run it in negative for a longer period of time or have a higher spending for the same amount of time. This will, in the long run, still prop up your research and manufacturing for more than the Technologists or Industrialists would have (on tough or less).

  Pacifists for the extra influence which helps nearby alien planets defect,  without constructing influence starbases;  especially useful against those extreme environment planets in your territory which some races colonize early.

  Universalists for the population growth (= tax income and soldiers growth).

Technologists.  Winning a war is easy if you consistently outclass your opponent's ships.  While they're still tootling about with Stingers or Pule Cannons on their fighters, you're already building capital ships fitted out with plasmas or phasors.

Of course this assumes that you build an economy to support lots of research and the production of capital ships.

As I play Suicidal (DA), I generally take either Technologist for the reasons laid out by Sole Soul, or Universalists and add a point for Luck, as described by Maiden666.

In race setup, I always max out the economy picks.  That and Luck are the only ones I always take.  The others I vary from game to game on whim or game direction intent.

Universalists. I like their bonuses. Plus it seems like their the best at "adapting".

I've always chosen federalists and always custom race... since galciv1^^

The populist diplomacy bonus is nice if you intend to get most of your tech via trading.  I will often go for the technologies that increase my diplomacy early on in order to obtain other techs cheaply.    I try to obtain the techs of other races that offer race bonuses.  This gives me an improvement without having to build anything on my worlds.   The high diplomacy rating also keeps other races friendly longer.   When I maxed out the terrans in Diplomacy using Populist and used my points on diplomacy, other races generally won't go beneath "neutral" unless they are provoked in some way.

I like those techs with the 5% research bonus.  

The espionnage bonus can be nice to steal techs but given the exponential cost of spies this makes this option less attractive.   When all other races are sending spies on your planets, it quickly gets expensive to neutralize them unless you quickrush counter espionnage.  It can be usefull if playing as Krynn since you can pump more of your economy into spying.

I like to be Universalist when I'm good with extra 20% defense, 20% extra pop growth, extra luck and economy.

But when I'm evil, I put my soldiers, defense, weapons on full and 1 on hitpoints and then select War Party.

It's been that way since GC1.