1.1 - changes in population effect on raw production have made Projects a bit OP IMO

from GalCiv3 Forums

Prior to 1.1 as I was told by Joeball123, the population effect on raw production was a non-linear function, but its peak efficiency was pop 10.  Hence, higher than pop 10, you had to really pay close attention to when pop was paying off.  Incredibly high pop worlds were not very efficient.  

 

Now in 1.1 its linear, 1 pop = 1 raw production.  Thats great, because its SIMPLE.  However, there are some considerations to take into acount:

 

Not withstanding adjacency bonuses and other tech bonuses, its now a reasonable ballpark to peak manufacturing/research/grossIncome worlds is to put half pop buildings and half improvement buildings.

 

It also seems to make projects MUCH more powerful with a high pop.  If you devote your manufacturing to research or grossIncome, you can obtain nearly the same amounts as just building a research or money only world (with half pop or course).  It makes culture fest and birthing subsidies even MORE powerful.  Frankly, to reduce micro-headache, it just seems more reasonable now than EVER, to just build a world full of manufacturing, and then turn each world serving one of the 5 needs (manf, research, money, pop, culture) in a single click.  Now yes, its still slightly better to customize, but not that much.  But having the ability to switch an entire world's focus and gain GREAT results with no rebuilding just seems to defeat the purpose of planet building.

 

thoughts??

37,662 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Oh, and a note on "approval".  I had Patriotic (first time I played with it, I wanted it to help me keep 100% approval), and I tried an experiment to remove all approval buildings.  i replaced with MORE farms and manufacturing buildings.  Results, I got easily 10-15% more production out of the planet, be damned with my 20% approval (it wasnt zero because of patriotic)

 

Now I'm sure the devs really dont want even peeps with Patriotic to be "immune" to approval, just be given an advantage.  I believe the changes in pop on raw production have now broken this paradigm, rendering the approval aspect in ALL cases (except resistance, because that 50% swing can make a HUGE difference in invasions) to be useless to the game.  I had 103 pop, and them all being depressed and batcrap-angry, made them work as a team and produce more....WAD???

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Prior to 1.1 as I was told by Joeball123, the population effect on raw production was a non-linear function, but its peak efficiency was pop 10.
End of quote

Population used to give Production in this manner, but well before 1.1. Patch 1.02 is where this change happened, so that change has been in the release version of the game for a couple of weeks already. It's just that people are now starting to understand just how good production, and thus population, is now that 1.1 properly gives the player about production.

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting dansiegel30, reply 1

I had 103 pop, and them all being depressed and batcrap-angry, made them work as a team and produce more....WAD???
End of dansiegel30's quote

Something to keep in mind, though I will have to look at the final math.

103 pop with 100% approval = 128.75 pop

103 pop with 0% approval = 77.25 pop

 

So by dropping your approval to the bottom, you lose 53.5 pop. It might not be worth the approval buildings, but its not insignificant either.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You go Patriotic and put the approval modules on the Starbases.

Logic: Planetary tiles are IMPORTANT (and very limited).  YOU DO NO WANT TO WASTE THEM ON MORALE BUILDINGS.

However, there is no opportunity cost for putting morale bonuses on starbases other than the constructor cost.  And you can easily put 4-5 starbases around each planet.  

If you can get Morale from Invasion Malevolence II or Benevolence Morale V, your morale problems are effectively over.  

Regardless, this game is going to need a lot of modding.  Developers tend to suck at balancing the game.  I don't blame them.  Personally I think it's their job to deliver it bug free and easily moddable (and make it easy to INSTALL the mods- as in an almost computer illiterate idiot can do it) and let the community do the work.  

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yes, I initially thought that -50% difference would be huge, but I already had +100% to raw manufacturing from the goverment techs.  So, my overall raw production was cut from 150% to 100%, so I still had good pop bonuses.  As well, because I chose Patriot (and I was altarian tech, and very morale focused), I had a base 25 approval on my planet.  So, I could get 100 pop and have a 23% approval, which was like a -11% or so, not a 0% approval and -25%.

 

I had 4 approval buildings giving me that 100% approval at 70ish pop.  When I destroyed them, I replaced with farms and a manufacturing building, and I gained +40 pop, and only a 23% approval.

 

I had no starbases at all in my example.  Either way, I think it shows that Patriotic is still a bit OP.  Perhaps cutting LEP by 75% might bring it a bit under control.  And again, these are my thoughts due to the new population impact on raw production.  

 

I simply think they have to design a system where its more efficient to have ATLEAST 1 approval building in every scenario.  Then approval has true meaning.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 4

Regardless, this game is going to need a lot of modding.  Developers tend to suck at balancing the game.  I don't blame them.  Personally I think it's their job to deliver it bug free and easily moddable (and make it easy to INSTALL the mods- as in an almost computer illiterate idiot can do it) and let the community do the work.  
End of marigoldran's quote

 

Personally I blame the devs, it should be possible for the devs to balance there own game.

Crunching the numbers. Making an excel sheet to reflect to whole economic system should be an early step in the development!?

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

While balancing is important, its not as important as defect corrections or critical features like workshop, which are the majority of the 1.1 work.  Balancing will come, and get easier for the devs as well, as critical defects are slowly resolved.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

tbh, I'm currently rebalancing the whole system to use 100 as the maximum population on a planet. Many things make more sense at that point. Growth can be manipulated much more effectively if you have more significant digits to work with; it's easier for the player to determine whether %-based or raw number based improvements are better; it nerfs the power of under-developed colonies (since they have much more limited population now); and it slows down natural growth to something a little more realistic than 100m a week per planet. 

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm not sure the effects of large pop need to be balanced.  Even with birthing subsidies through the roof it will take a long time to fill a planet with 60 plus billion people (unless you are synthetic....).  The game will already be virtually decided by that time.  Plus, the game has multiple mechanics that break down as they approach the extremes.  It's not new to the franchise...I mean look at the precursor ship components etc.

 

I still think the best bang for the buck rebalance would be maintenence costs and slowing colony spam.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Goatmeal, reply 9

I'm not sure the effects of large pop need to be balanced.  Even with birthing subsidies through the roof it will take a long time to fill a planet with 60 plus billion people (unless you are synthetic....).  The game will already be virtually decided by that time.  Plus, the game has multiple mechanics that break down as they approach the extremes.  It's not new to the franchise...I mean look at the precursor ship components etc.

 

I still think the best bang for the buck rebalance would be maintenence costs and slowing colony spam.
End of Goatmeal's quote

 

Well, I do have that too :P

 

But the population thing works fine; I've multiplied up most of the effects exactly so it doesn't really change the pace of the game - it's just moved the decimal place on pop, really. It's primarily just to give me more fine control over pop growth rates, so I can use %es effectively. 

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting kyrah, reply 6


Quoting marigoldran,
reply 4

Regardless, this game is going to need a lot of modding.  Developers tend to suck at balancing the game.  I don't blame them.  Personally I think it's their job to deliver it bug free and easily moddable (and make it easy to INSTALL the mods- as in an almost computer illiterate idiot can do it) and let the community do the work.  



 

Personally I blame the devs, it should be possible for the devs to balance there own game.

Crunching the numbers. Making an excel sheet to reflect to whole economic system should be an early step in the development!?

End of kyrah's quote

 

My aren't you the diplomat!

 

Currently the game is balanced for early and mid game. There is pretty much NO balance near end game and so what. If any of you here even bothered to read some of the Alpha posts early on you would all KNOW that the game is NOT designed to be BALANCED at all. There WILL be strategies and combinations that are OUT THE DOOR OP and broken. 

and....

 

So what. The game is immensely fun. I enjoy the game a great deal. Sure there are things that can improve. However to come here and declare that the game is broken and unbalanced is actually wrong when early on the developers told us that it will be unbalanced and some combinations will be the 'winning' route. 

 

I agree on squashing bugs. No game EVER is without bugs, even Blizzard which has always been A+++ on its releases has bugs in its software. 

 

Fill out a ticket, report the bug, enjoy life.