Question: Civil War and how should I have avoided it

[PHILLIPD]

Just looking for suggestions for what happened to me. I was playing a small game (trying to learn the nuts and bolts of the game)and getting close to squashing a neighbor that really didn't like me (they declared war on me), when my biggest fleet mutinied and went over to them! I have no idea what happened, they said something like I was oppressive and they couldn't stand my leadership anymore. By this time everyone didn't like me anymore (we were all friends, except for the AI that declared war on me) and was envious or wary of me. I then noticed that all of sudden, that a lot of my colonies started to show unhappy smiley faces [:(] and soon after, several colonies began rebelling one after another. Maybe after the 15th one, Civil War broke out and about 40% of my Republic broke off and became a Federation (none of my early colonies though). I don't know where I went wrong, but I assume it had something to do with unhappy citizens, because there were about 4 different leaders during this time. Thanks for ANY helpful suggestions or thoughts.

[Bingeling]

It is not easy to keep a galactic wide empire.

I would guess it is about colony happiness. Likely suspects are:

- Tax. If you do this manually, be aware that too high tax combined with other negatives may make them defect.

- Being oppressive. Some governments are probably better at keeping colonies than other.

- Being a bad boy. You reputation drops a lot if you attack without declaring war, or use a lot of bombardment. If you annihilate colonies it is probably even worse. Too low reputation will make people angry, and it can sound like this was a problem for you. Kill pirates to keep your reputation up.

- War exhaustion. It builds while at war, and is a negative happiness modifier. Your government type has influence on this.

- Alien populations can have negative modifiers.

There are also positive modifiers. A spaceport with recreation and medical modules will improve happiness.

In general, look at colony details from the colony page. The population page will give a list of all positive and negative happiness modifiers, including their sizes. It also give a quick view of the sad faces of colonies...

In a securan game of mine, I have a dhayut colony. Securans area peaceful humanoids. Dhayut are violent insects. Not a perfect match. Their unhappiness at being in the Securan empire (-4) pales among their complaint about taxes (-28). And they are a happy bunch, the empire is at peace. The AI will adjust taxes to try to keep colonies outside the red, sad faces.

[Plant]

I would garner a guess that you as at war for too long. If you open up your Empire summary screen (F6), you can check out your war weariness. Or you can open up the Colonies screen (F2) and click on population. Look near the centre and scroll down and take note of why they are unhappy. If rebelling is a problem, you can adjust the tax rate on each of those planets.

I would also guess that the planets which broke off would be the recently conquered planets, as the population will be unhappy that the species " are upset that we are at war with their species."

[PHILLIPD]

Thanks, forgot to check on the war weariness. I think my empire was extending so fast at that point, that I lost track of how the new colonies felt. Taxes were low for those colonies that seceded, so I think I just need to pause the game a little more often and check those colonies that have declining happiness. Thanks again. Still learning.

P.

[PHILLIPD]

Yeah,
I think that the sympatric species (bugs) might have contributed to my problem before I brought down my rolled up magazine that final time on that insectile empire. I thought I was showing some restraint, but maybe pushing them into a corner where their empire's survival was at stake was a bad idea. That fleet mutiny really shocked me though, at the time it had my only Capital ships that I discovered. This game can really surprise you if your not paying attention, not boring at all.
I didn't know about the rec centers on space ports though. Thought resorts might have fill that need, but didn't do it until after the fact.
Thanks, lessons learned.

P.

[Bingeling]

From what I have seen, some races care more about "at war with their species" than others. Putting extra garrison on colonies with the wrong main race (before a planned war) can help cure that.

The fleet defection makes me think about "badboy" stuff, though, not just war exhaustion.

[PHILLIPD]

Yeah...the more I think about it, I kind remember most of the empires saying something about my rep being pretty low even though I did take out a couple of pirate bases at that time. I can't think of what I did to get there. Colonization was automated and they were popping out a new one every few minutes for a while there. I know all of my neighbors said that they were envious and cautious of my power. On my advisors advise I canceled a couple of treaties (but not all of them), and that probably didn't help a lot. Yeah...I think that there several small things that add up to put my galaxy rep into the toilet and everybody started to hate me then. Can't win even if your winning. Thanks though.

P.

[Bingeling]

Things I can think of that bust reputations.

1: Attacking without war. It is very easy to swoop in and steal a colony, but the galaxy does not like it.

2: Being too aggressive. Declaring war, conquering.

3: Bombardment and its big brother.

It can be quite easy to attack by accident, and there is no warning about it. At the same time, one random attack should not be enough to ruin it, I have been known to wipe blockading fleets without major hits to reputation [:'(]

[hfl13]

All my invaded planets and new colonies get tax = 0 for population growth and happiness. Leader & governorss can help. I built troops on every colony/planet - do they help against civilian war?

[Bingeling]

Probably. Colonies still can defect, though. You don't prevent a fleet from defecting by making it larger, for instance.

[Fishers of Men]

Spies can also cause an individual planet to rebel or cause a revolution among several planets to occur.

[Plant]

ORIGINAL: PHILLIPD

On my advisors advise I canceled a couple of treaties (but not all of them), and that probably didn't help a lot.

Cancelling treaties shouldn't affect your reputation.