Why should troops make a population jubilant...

[Q]

Yes more depth and more factors influencing the happiness would be great. Especially as already proposed by others that the use of certain weapons would have a negative impact on the happiness according to the basic happiness type of the empire. Or the climate should have an effect too. If I am not wrong, until now it only influences the reproduction but not the happiness.

[Suicide Junkie]

Having "too many troops" in SE3 was when you had more troops than cargo space on the planet.

The people got mad because the army would have to start using the civilian's houses to stay in or something.

It may work the same way in SE4, and I've just never dropped more troops than the planet can hold.
Typically, the planet is conquered before that can happen.

[Gandalph]

I think that mood and production should be seperate entities. Troops should be able to maintain certain levels of production, but not necessarily keep the population happy. If a large contingent of soldiers arrived in my sector, I would continue to work under threat of life or limb, but I certainly would not be very pleased with my government.

[Baron Munchausen]

Ayup...

The biggest problem is that there is no difference between your troops among your people, and your troops among a conquered people. In general, it does make people feel more secure to have their own military around. They called out the National Guard around the airports after Sept. 11 for a reason, and it had nothing to do with 'improving airport security'. Guys standing around with M16s can't do squat about bombs hidden in suitcases or shoes. I don't think it would have made people feel secure to see UN troops standing around the airports... They parked some US Navy ships in New York harbor for the same reason.

So, morale boosting troops or ships make sense with your own race. Just not with other races. Possibly MM could make some sort of 'special modifiers' for the happiness of non-native races in your empire. When 'happiness' is above a certain level, troops or ships have one effect ('calming' because they intimidate people from rioting) but when 'happiness' is below a certain level they ought to have an opposite effect! Occupied people should quite reasonably be angered by really obvious signs of occupation.

To do this properly would probably require some sort of 'troop to population ratio' controls.

Beyond that, there ought to be some more 'persistent' attitudes for populations, as I have said elsewhere. Every race should not be the same in captivity. Nor should all conquered races become like you own race.

[ July 17, 2002, 21:51: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Ed Kolis]

What if troops simply pulled happiness levels toward some median point such as Indifferent?

Of course, this whole thing would probably lead to way too much micromanagement to optimize your population's happiness...

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Nor should all conquered races become like you own race.

Actually, attitude is the one area conquered races differ from your own race. However all conquered races are treated the same by the happiness file, and this is not right. Some races should be more passive. An empire conquering a planet full of Klingons would expect more trouble than an empire conquering a planet full of Vulcans. But as far as SEIV is concerned, they are the same, and only slightly different than your own population. They have a different base anger change, but they are affected the same by troops and ships and other stuff.

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, that's essentially the same thing. Yes, I think each race should have a happiness setting, not each empire. Then they could retain it with their other different characteristics when conquered.