I do want to emphasize that I really appreciate the 1.1 changes overall though. I can't wait to experience the better AI in terms of faster ships (and I've already noticed the changes in how it evaluates tech value). Of course, I would of gotten further along with this sort of thing if I hadn't spent a couple hours messing around with vastly and impressively improved ship designer. Kudos on all that.

This thread is just meant as constructive criticism. Hopefully it is interpreted as such.

Can I suggest you post this in the 1.1 Beta Glitch Report stickied at the top of the page.... or we'll be drowning in glitches!

On population, I just beat the new Beta AI (max AI w/o cheating) ONLY because I had high populations. Recheck ur numbers plz, or post ur equation, cuz high population is ABSOLUTELY necessary, I had money to buy 2-3 discovery spheres a turn and get a tech win , despite getting totally beat down by the new AI

On population, I just beat the new Beta AI (max AI w/o cheating) ONLY because I had high populations.

That proves nothing. Do you know what your revenue would have been if you had been building stock markets instead of farms and entertainment? If not, then you're not really in a position to say that your higher population was better than the pure economy approach.

Is three entertainment centers enough to overcome the morale penalty of having 29 billion people? And if so, by how much could you increase your tax rate if you just had the entertainment centers without the additional population?

Having more than 25 billion people gives an 80% morale penalty, instead of 9% from having 5 billion people. According to the Wiki, you could raise your tax rate from 33% to 60% and still have a 15% morale advantage based on the population difference. The morale penalty increases sharply if your tax rates are already high, but even if you can only get a 10% tax rate increase from that morale you still end up with a significant income advantage once the stock markets have been added into the equation using the space that you saved on farms.

More realistically, it looks like the question is to have one farm or none, unless you've got a people-farming world for invasions or supporting colonies.

Economically, it's much better to have the stock exchange versus a farm. Before it was a question of percentages, basically it was a question of whether or not the added population of a farm compared to the existing population would be more than however many percent that your econ building gives. Basically you end up with planets with 3-4 farms, and as many econ buildings as you can fit on the planet after the necessary morale buildings.

Now though, the income is a square root of the population. For those who fear math, here's an example you don't need a calculator for: Square root of 25 is 5, square root of 36 is 6. Basically, if you manage to get 9 more people you would only get 1 more credit. To get one more credit, you need to get 13 more people for a total of 49. This is probably one of the worse forms of diminishing returns in existance. Because of this, realistically you would NEVER want to use a farm, it's just not efficient to do so. The ONLY case where it would be beneficial to do so, would be if you had one of those +300% farm tiles on a large world.

Now, having said that, it's still better to have at least 1 farm on most of your worlds 7 size and above purely for the population and it's benefits to influence and defense. It also gives you a reserve to draw from for troops to invade people. So, now that we have established that most worlds will have 13 billion people (5 from initial colony, 8 from intensive farm), there is absolutely no reason to put one more farm on there. More farms = more morale buildings because of lower base morale, and the returns would be much less than before. Instead, you could fill all those slots with econ buildings for a much more benefit.

The result? The current taxation system have basically turned the large econ world formula from 3-4 farms, 6-8 morale buildings, the rest econ buildings, into 1 farm, 2 morale building, the rest econ building. This is the most beneficial in terms of the amount of money this world will make. As a side effect of this, it is so much easier to keep people happy, you can tax 69% without much worry. So grabbing a morale resource or two and you're completely set to conquer the galaxy.


In conclusion:

Does it make sense? no, certainly not to me. My first thought was that the people are evading taxes and are hard to catch on high population worlds. Of course, I'm immediately reminded by the game summary that SAYS the people listed on a world is the people who pay taxes. The only thing that I can think of to explain this is that the planetary government is taking basically all of the money from you (so they can build roads and homes or w/e for all those people, I guess).

Do I like it? no, before, making econ world was a skill in balancing farms, morale, and economic buildings. Even though I definitely knew a formula, there was still always adjustments that needs to be done everytime population reaches a new level. Now, I just put them all down, in order, like a planetary queue at the moment I colonize the planet. I NEVER have to look at it again, unless I have a ton of extra cash (that it probably made for me) to go in and buy it a ton of upgrades. Some might argue that this is a good thing, and I won't disagree, but it does make the whole "design and build your planet" part of the game way too simple for my taste.

Can I deal with it? Oh yeah, hell, I even told you guys how to make a ton of cash really fast in this post alone. The point is not that making money is harder, it just changes how you go about making money. It's a switch away from farms and morale buildings to more economic buildings. I don't really mind less influence, I'm getting annoyed that I keep conquering everyone culturally without an influence starbase anyways (which might actually be a good thing).


What else? This is just a beta, Brad already mentioned that he's already planning alternative methods to handle this because he doesn't really like it very much either in one of the journal replies. Having said this, I don't think we need to complain much more. Right now, it's a beta, I already told you how to make a ton of money if you still choose to play it as it is. IMO, it's not THAT big of a problem. However, if it seems so to you, then simply revert your game to pre-beta and wait for the full version. You did make a back-up right?

I've found that one entertainment center and 1 or 2 stock markets will support a 17 population with a 59% tax setting quite easily and not drop below the 45% popularity rating. Works for me and I get great income and a lot less chance of losing my planet because my population is only 5. In multiplayer I would roll over your planets so fast you wouldn't know what hit yah with low poplations like you have.

Is three entertainment centers enough to overcome the morale penalty of having 29 billion people?

yes it can be enough.

You have 3 stock markets who each produce 10% morale = 30% morale
You have 3 entertainment buildings who each produce 30% morale = 90% morale
This already gives you +120% morale and you also get additional morale bonuses from: the morale related techs, resources, certain trade goods/wonders, maybe racial and party bonuses and certain events can also influence morale. In the pre stock markets era can it be harder but once you have them do you get a huge amount of extra morale. Economy buildings are high on my priority list so I get them fast anyway.

And if so, by how much could you increase your tax rate if you just had the entertainment centers without the additional population? Having more than 25 billion people gives an 80% morale penalty, instead of 9% from having 5 billion people. According to the Wiki, you could raise your tax rate from 33% to 60% and still have a 15% morale advantage based on the population difference. The morale penalty increases sharply if your tax rates are already high, but even if you can only get a 10% tax rate increase from that morale you still end up with a significant income advantage once the stock markets have been added into the equation using the space that you saved on farms. More realistically, it looks like the question is to have one farm or none, unless you've got a people-farming world for invasions or supporting colonies.

They reduced the effect taxes has on morale in the patch until we know how it works can't we aswer those questions, we shall have to wait and see Thought I do agree that the diminishing effect of population seems to go very fast(having more then 2 farms seems to be unwise on pre planet class 15 worlds) . But even a small increase in planetary base economic output(can only be generated by population) gives a gigantic amount of extra money if the planet has a lot of economy bonuses. Stock exchanges, economic capital, techs, racial abilities and resources can all give economic bonuses resulting in very high total bonuses.

Going over things again it seems I was a bit off in my original calculation. It seems one farm is good on a planet with 10 or more squares free for its economy, and you should only have two farms if you are devoting 15 squares to your economy. 3 farms aren't wise unless you have upwards of 20 or so devoted to your economy (meaning 20 squares that only have entertainment centers, farms, or economic buildings). I plan on going over my calculations a few more times (but the above takes into account the happiness bonus from econ centers).

This would probably indicate that you should never put a farm on your homeworld; it simply isn't worth the extra effort to keep the people happy along with the needs for factories, etc. Indeed, you probably shouldn't have a farm unless your planet has 15 free squares and two farms are out unless you have 20. So farms should be very rare for economic purposes.

I work out some figures that take into account the rapidly diminishing returns from happiness buildings. Certainly at 20 billion people you need a bonus of 102% to have the same morale as a 5 billion people planet, and slightly more than two entertainment centers on the 20 billion people planet for each entertainment center on the smaller one. So that can rapidly eat up land area (faster than the above perhaps on bigger planets, making more than one farm less desirable). Of course a morale resource can help to offset this. I should also work out some numbers to calculate the tax difference between different planetary setups. The point is the higher your tax rate, the more entertainment buildings you need on bigger worlds grows faster than on smaller---bigger in the sense of population.

Even given my apparent mistake (I blame it on weariness last night), farms do seem to be far less desirable than they should be. With diminished growth rates you aren't going to see much benefit from a farm in the early game either.

Something maybe out of whack in the beta. I just had a game where I had around 6000 bc a turn over-run. I couldn't spend it qucik enough... i'd go to 5-6 planets per turn and buy stuff....

I think taxes / prices / rates of expendature need more tweeking.... With anomolies in the early game you can really build your infrastructure up way too fast.

In multiplayer I would roll over your planets so fast you wouldn't know what hit yah with low poplations like you have.

Sure, just let me know how to play mulitplayer and we'll just see! Oh yeah, there's isn't any... darn... well, until then, you'll just have to put your E-penis away.