Playing with numbers in GalCiv II in-depth

Danger..boring..boring..

Published on March 20, 2006 By Draginol In GalCiv Journals

So how exactly does/should production work? Here's how it will work in v1.1 which will seem pretty much the same to people who aren't really into the numbers but will be a major improvement to people who follow stats.

On your planets you build factories and research labs. These factories and labs produce industrial units and technology units.

Your spend rate determines what % of your factories and research are to be funded. In addition, the 3 sliders funnel that funding in to military, research, and social production.

What affects production?

You also have a number of bonuses that come into play:

1) Special tiles will add a bonus to the given factory or lab's production level.

2) Starbases can assist factories and labs by cranking up their production by a %.

3) Planetary bonuses (from events) can increase research or manufacturing.

4) Your civilization ability in research, social production, and military production can have an impact as well.

Half of your bonuses (2, 3, 4) you are not charged for. You simply get them for free. Yay.

The code: (for those interested)

CalcCommerce(). This function looks at your factories and multiplies that by any special buildings (like a manufacturing capital). It then takes into account things like whether there's a United Planets issue involved (like the galactic prison).

CalcTechnologyProduction(). This function looks at the total value of the labs and other research providing buildings, multiplies that by any buildings that increase research production by a % (like a technology capital) and puts it together.

CalcResearchProductionBonus(). This function looks at CalcTechnologyProduction() and then returns how much bonus research you get from your ability, whether the planet has rings (10% bonus), whether there's some other event in action, etc.

CalcProductionBonus(). Same as ResearchProductionBonus except it looks at industry related bonuses.

Sins of the past

Galactic Civilizations II's system was a carry over from the original game (2003) in which the various abilities, values, etc. were morphed based on play testing. And in the case of things like morale which generates your approval rating, your morale ability is literally added to your approval rating at a rate of Morale Ability to the .90 power. Why? Because from play testing that was the most fun in how the various buildings and abilities worked.

But sticking with production and research, which is the real nuts and bolts, the idea here is to streamline this so that the mechanics are straight forward and easy to understand. I also want to add tool tips that spell out this stuff if there's time. If you have the non-English version of Galactic Civilizations II you may want to switch to the English version for 1.1 until the new text is translated.

Real world examples

So for spread sheet gurus, what can we expect in the terms of numbers? In the game I'm in I have two planets: Haven and Vizzard II.

My spend rate is 100%. And all my money is going into research. Haven is my capital and has 3 labs. The planet has a 12% research bonus due to an event. I have a bunch of starbases around it that double my factories and lab production. What should it look like?

I'm only charged for half the bonus production (so half the starbases, half the planet, and half the ability). So even though I'm getting 134 research per week from Haven, I'm only being charged for 94 of it. Yay. The other 40 of it is "free". Where did that number come from? Well, the base production on Haven is 54 (24 + 30). My total research is 134. 134 - 54 is 80. So 40 of that extra research is free and the other 40 I'm charged for. The original 54 I'm charged for so 54 + 40 = 94.

To the average player, this is a bunch of either "who cares" or "This is so complicated". The system isn't really designed to be spread sheeted this way and in GalCiv 1, few people did. But enough people had a huge outcry that they couldn't just spreadsheet this stuff that we ended up in a situation where we needed to be able to put this stuff together in a way that people could understand.

Eventually I get something like this:

If this all looks confusing and such, don't worry about it. It should look confusing and complicated to most people. But to people who really get into the numbers, this is what I think many of them were looking for. Very clean, straight forward economics, albeit with a lot of modifiers involved but at least it's knowable.

Where things get really a pain in the rear is when you deal with the new social wastage elimination. Should unused social production get to get all those nice military bonuses? That is, if I've got say 50 social production going but I'm not building anything, should that 50ip's get all the bonus modifiers and become say 100 military production?

After a weekend of playing it both ways, I decided on no. That social production is transferred to your total military production on the planet but it doesn't get all the bonuses. There has to be something to benefit the player who runs their economy well, otherwise we might as well just get rid of the economic system entirely and just have it a be a mindless grind of cranking out ships.

The other tough question is whether your base social production should get bonuses and all that good stuff and then have that magnified amount be transferred over to your military. Again, after playing it for awhile, it just seemed incredibly cheesy that a player could see their ships get cranked out really fast because they had picked a high social production value. It also seemed counter intuitive.

Here's how I tried to game the system with a 2% Military and a 98% social:

So what Haven ended up getting in terms of military production was 1 from its base and 2 (rounds up on bonuses) on the bonus for a total of 3 natural military production from the 2% ratio. Then the 52 from the base output from social spending is transffered over for a total of 56 military spending.

You can imagine some of the cheesy scenarios I went through though. In one case, I had something like 300 military production because I got the bonuses from the social production and then that production got re-bonused when it was transferred over. And at that point the entire game mechanic starts to fall apart.

In extreme cases there will probably be some slight round off error. It's unavoidable when you're taking 50% of 3 (for instance). But you get the idea.

Damned if you do and...

What's ironic about all this work on streamlining this is that you will have more people who like the fuzzy stuff and argue the game has no "soul".

We could have just used flavor text on the abilities and saved ourselves a lot of trouble and had one group be happier with things like:

Military Production Ability:

( ) Basic
( ) Industrious
( ) Magnificient

And let the user "imagine" what those values meant other than "something really cool".

Master of Orion 2 had a bit of both. "Fantastic Traders" instead of Trade Bonuses. And "Charismatic" instead of a set Diplomatic Ability.

I think if there's a Galactic Civilizations III that you'll see the abilities evolve into something that has elements of this. It's important to note that Galactic Civilizations preceded Master of Orion in terms of a public release (original OS/2 version) so when someone thinks that GalCiv is really a "MOO clone" they don't realize how far back the game goes.

My view on this kind of thing is that games have to evolve over time and good games integrate features from proven successes. Otherwise, the game designer's just being obtuse IMO.

Comments (Page 4)

Aquiantus

on Mar 22, 2006

Maybe that's the intent? Death to micro I say

You already have that game and its called Moo3. We all know how well that went when they listened to that idea. There shouldn't even be this discussion anymore after what your side accomplished with Moo3.

You have to give the option to Manage your Economy, you can't simply take it away. You punish one player for the other. And if a Macro doesn't want to Manage their Economy, guess what he can make the choice personally not to Manage his Economy. Just because a slider is there, doesn't mean you ever have to touch it. Thus you punish anyone who wants to use skill to get the best efficiency from their Economy. But, since you will take away that skill in the next patch, it will be almost pointless to optimize your output. So I ask whats the point in having a sophisticated Economic system if it cant be optimized?

ubertaco

on Mar 22, 2006

My side? I'm not on the side of micro in MoO3, but if you want total indepth micro you can do it in MoO3. I'm not even on the side of MoO3 at all, I'm just pointing out that if you want a micro fest that's as good a place as any to do it.

You have to give the option to Manage your Economy, you can't simply take it away.

This is such a bollocks complaint. You have the tools and ability to manage your economy, you just don't like (or appreciate) the different mechanic involved. Granted you do not have individual planetary sliders, but I don't think that you ever will if I understand Brads desire in how to set up the game. The arguement over decoupleing reseach from tech is also completely bogus. You gain *nothing* from doing so, other than to change the pace at which you can produce (assuming no changes to base capacities). Indeed the quibble alot of people have seems to be entirely about the semantics of 'capacity'.

You punish one player for the other. And if a Macro doesn't want to Manage their Economy, guess what he can make the choice personally not to Manage his Economy.

Incorrect, you do not understand the motivation behind 'macro'. Its not the intent to be lazy or suboptimal, its the desire to not have to micro small details (or sometimes large) to be on the same footing with the AI. I want to run my empire as effeciently as I can, I don't want to have to spend time reviewing every planet everytime something is about to finish or I get a new tech to improve the buildings. The way the economy is set up now applies to all players (obviously) no one is at any kind of a disadvantage reletive to any other player in the game based on the mechanics of the economy. I can look at a game mechanism and determine the optimal (or close to optimal) method for using it, it doesn't matter if the mechanism requires alot or a little input to do this, other than that I don't want to spend 50% of my time in game moving planetary sliders around to be sure I've maximized my output. If you want to do that good for you, go play MoO3 or Civ3 or any other game that gave rewards for being an anal retentive napoleon.

But, since you will take away that skill in the next patch, it will be almost pointless to optimize your output. So I ask whats the point in having a sophisticated Economic system if it cant be optimized?

Stop refering to me as the dev, I'm not affiliated witih SD in any manner or shape and I would guess my input to them goes largely unheard. I don't think you understand the dynamics of the changes coming in the patch if you think that there still isn't room for optimazation. Though it is certainly true that the optimization isn't as slider dependant as it was in GC1 or 1.0X.

Aquiantus

on Mar 22, 2006

Moo3 was built around the concept of killing Micro. When you said you wanted the Death of Micro, I was pointing out, that game already exists, and your side never supported it. Its the perfect macro 4x but as you said you Are not on its side, even though it bent over backwards for the anti-manage my Economy crowd. Don't want to run your Economy in Moo3? Let the Governors do it, just hit the turn button, create some ships. You win!

Those who micro in a TBS manage their Economy, when one wants Macro on Economy, they want it so simple it takes care of itself where they spend small amounts of time actually Managing their Economy. Now If you said you wanted no Micro from a game like Warcraft 3, then you would probably be complaining about using Hero and Unit special abilities by having to press them many times. We aren't talking about that kind of Micro or Macro here. We are talking about those who want to Improve the Performance of their Economy and as you notice the game was set up so that some management of Economy should produce a better outcome.

What I was saying is that if you take away the accurate display of whats going on in your Economy, you will no longer be able to tell how to manage it as effectively. Punishing those willing to Optimize their Economy.

You have the tools and ability to manage your economy, you just don't like (or appreciate) the different mechanic involved.

No I appreciate the mechanics involved in the current version 1.0 game. I can tell what funds are going where. The only problem people complained about was the waste from Social. They didn't like the waste, they didn't want "death to micro" that was not what they were asking for. They liked how they Manage the Economy currently in the game. I'm just advocating that if we transfer Social to Military it reduces waste BUT at the same time reduces your ability to Manage their Economy because it will be displayed wrong. If it is displayed wrong, we wont be able to get accurate numbers and the end result will be guessing.

The arguement over decoupleing reseach from tech is also completely bogus. You gain *nothing* from doing so, other than to change the pace at which you can produce (assuming no changes to base capacities). Indeed the quibble alot of people have seems to be entirely about the semantics of 'capacity'.

This was never my arguement, and I'm not sure I agree with it either. I'm just advocating to reduce waste but not at the expense of the rest of the Gameplay on the Economy. I have said they could make Social like Military, no ships in the queue means no money taken from your treasury. If Social worked the exact same way, it wouldn't cost you nothing, wouldn't harm how someone could manage the economy, and it wouldn't fluctuate the Treasury since the money was never taken in the first place, nor make displaying where funds are going a nightmare.

No I understand the motivation behind macro very well. Its the 'death of micro' and not making Micro better, more enjoyable and funner. You said you wanted the "death of micro" you offered no improvements at all. Your motivation is that you are too lazy to deal with the Economy at all. So you say it shouldn't be in the game at all. But, to some people managing an Empire or City or Planet like SimCities, Civilizations and 4x games it is a critical part of the game that is enjoyable. So you suggest it should just be killed off completely is already been proven wrong. Not only do the anti-macroers hate 4x complexity, and find it unejoyable to manage an empire, they simply won't support a game that makes it easy for them like Moo3.

Honestly, how fun would a game be if you just built a few factories and pumped out units from planets/cities and thats all you did for your economy in a TBS? You offer no solutions on how to improve Micro, you only wanted to kill it out right or avoid it. Instead Civilization games actually deal with the problem and make the micro fun. Who doesn't want to use their workers to build neat little roads, or put some of their workers on mines for more output in the city display? Its your Empire, you should have some say in how its run. And remember the option never to mess with any Micro is always at the disposal of the Macroer. If you kill all "micro" in the game, then everyone is forced into the I am lazy and remedial position of not being able to Manage their Economy and thus all they do is create units and fight. Well there are plenty of other games out there that allow you to do just that without managing an Empire. TBS games are all about the management, if there wasn't any management there wouldn't be a need for Turns because you didn't need to do didly squat.

And complaining about how the computer gets some advantages by improving its Economy well is such a weak arguement. I prefer a smart computer AI then a lazy good for nothing one. Again you got a weak lazy good for nothing AI in Moo3, but again you don't support it. So I don't find your arguement here on solid ground.

The way the economy is set up now applies to all players (obviously) no one is at any kind of a disadvantage reletive to any other player in the game based on the mechanics of the economy.

No those willing to micro some of their planets will always have an advantage. They emphasized that the Computer AI does this, and thats why it is a stronger AI than most other games.

I can look at a game mechanism and determine the optimal (or close to optimal) method for using it,

Not for long, they will be placing the Social numbers underneath the Military numbers, so looking at the game mechanism won't be an option on how you optimize your Economy. You will simply slide the sliders around in a guessing game to find a number you are satisfied with.

it doesn't matter if the mechanism requires alot or a little input to do this, other than that I don't want to spend 50% of my time in game moving planetary sliders around to be sure I've maximized my output. If you want to do that good for you, go play MoO3 or Civ3 or any other game that gave rewards for being an anal retentive napoleon.

As I explained earlier, Moo3 bent over backwards for those who wanted Macro and no Managing their own Economies, and you got it in the form of Governors. But, none of the Macro side supported it, you can complain all you want but 4x Devs know you will never be satisfied unless there isn't any Economy at all, your ultimate goal is a unit pumping factory game, much like communists you want what you never deserved because you didn't put the effort in to create it. And like a communist you believe the computer AI and all other people who play it should have to play at a remedial and lazy level in which there is little to no incentive for competition in Economics let alone any other category.

That specific question was directed at the Developers. There isn't a point to having a good Economic system they have now and ruining it because you will be unable to tell where funds are going. That is what I was getting at.

Kalin

on Mar 22, 2006

Jeez, let's not turn this into a flame fest, shall we? It seems the two of you see Moo3 as two different games. One thinks Moo3 is an anal retentive micro game (which it can be, if you decide to micro). The other thinks it's a macro game of "press the turn button" (which it can be, if you ignore micro). Both views are right, and after a million attempt to mod Moo3 to make the micro side better, I'd have to say that the micro implementation of Moo3 is just so horrible that you are forced to macro that game on anything but the tiniest galaxies. Let's just say that Moo3 is a failure when it comes to micromanagement, I don't EVER want ANY game to become like that, especially not GC2.

That being said, Moo (the original) uses sliders for all it's planets, and it is a VERY enjoyable game that I still play sometimes. If someone remade that game with better graphics I would so waste half my life playing it, so having individual sliders on planets isn't necessarily a horrible thing, it's all in how you implement them. However, I don't think GC2 will go that path, simply because it's a completely different game.

I also think that the social to military isn't necessarily as horrible as you might think. Certainly, there is a lack of information from GC2 right now. However, I'm sure that this can be remedied, if not in the current patch, then perhaps in a later one. They are already saying that they are trying to improve the tooltips, however I'm not sure if that would be enough. What I would like to see is a "right-cick" for more info panel similar to that of Moo2 on all the important aspects of a planet, this should be able to satisfy most people's desires for information regarding the game, and at the same time leave the mysterious feel for those that don't want to know. However, what I would REALLY like to see is more info on the colony report screen, or perhaps options to toggled fields if there isn't enough room. Expand the military, social, and research columns to show base production, bonus, and whether social is transfered over. Add a little tag or star into each field to show where the planet is focused, or perhaps allow someone to set a planet's focus directly from this screen. This alone should be able to satisfy most 'display' problems that was mentioned, as well as being a great tool for running your empire at a glance (especially if you allow the colony screen and the slider screen to be up at the same time).

BTW: I'm the one that said I would like research and production decoupled, and the reason is simple, right now, when an AI declare war on you for having a weaker military, you simply switch to 100% military and pump out your ships, completely neglecting social and research. Then you go back to worlds that doesn't really need to do that, and focus into the other fields. So by the time the AI gets their ship to your planets, you have a fleet twice his size ready to smack him into smitherines. This is fine, but usually when *I* do this, I get a TON of excess cash, because I tend to focus on research a lot. Now, I have enough cash for both research and production, why shouldn't I be able to use it? Not to mention that it's a little annoying having to go through all your planet every time that this happens (a way to set focus on the colony screen like I mentioned above would seriously help). I don't see how this argument is completely 'bogus', it's a perfectly logical argument, especially when I pointed out that it doesn't even have to be in GC2, but rather if they are thinking of GC3 they should give it a thought (although personally I wouldn't mind that it gets into GC2, however, it might be too much work to rework how the AI handles it).

DaviddesJ

on Mar 23, 2006

The tradeoff on a planet between research and production makes sense, because you can view the production slider as being an allocation of people, which are a limited resource.

I can't agree, because the tradeoff is not 1:1. If my planet has 100 mp and only 10 tp, then why do I have to give up all 100 mp in order to use those 10 tp? If it were just a re-allocation of people, I should only have to give up an equal number to what I'm getting. And the limit should have something to do with population (which it doesn't now).

ubertaco

on Mar 23, 2006

That's not what I said at all. I said I was not on the side of micro in MoO3. The Macro actually worked pretty well, but other bugs and 'features' ruined the game for many. Of course the learning curve to get into the macro to make it work in a manner you wanted wasn't very friendly either, but my point was that if you wanted to micro every little detail about your planets individually you could do it in MoO3. You seem to have rejected that, whether its because you didn't like MoO3 for other reasons or because it was too tedious to do it on a planetary level I don't know. Further MoO3 in its current form is much different from even its 1.25 form, but thats an aside.

Those who micro in a TBS manage their Economy, when one wants Macro on Economy, they want it so simple it takes care of itself where they spend small amounts of time actually Managing their Economy.

Again you have no clue what *this* marcoer wants, I don't care if the economy is simple or complex, I merely want tools (or a system) in which I do not have to make redunant and boring tweeks every turn to every planet. Currently the system in GC2 is set up this way (no planetary sliders), this forces you to change your normal power strats, but I really don't see why that matters.

I'm just advocating that if we transfer Social to Military it reduces waste BUT at the same time reduces your ability to Manage their Economy because it will be displayed wrong. If it is displayed wrong, we wont be able to get accurate numbers and the end result will be guessing.

Displayed wrong? I'm not sure I agree that it will display incorrectly, but we'll have to see, I won't be able to get the beta so if you get it let me know how it is displayed incorrectly. I'm guessing that if it can be displyed correctly (and why wouldn't it be?) then SD will get it displayed correctly, even if its not on the first pass.

Err... I really don't follow you anymore. Are you for individual planetary sliders or not? The social to mil only helps the issue, regardless of whether you can figure out how much of it is actually moving over (since its only the raw amount without any bonuses applied). Where is the added difficulty here? The main issue before was that when you had a planet that no longer needed social production it hurt your ability to either build mil on that planet, or you had to slow down your social on other planets. You realize that in GC1 (and 2 to some extent) the optimal econ management was to run your sliders at 100% on whatever you were producing at that time right? This was a somewhat senseless chore and I don't think it was what Brad intendted anyway, but it turned out to be the most effective way to run your economy. With the new planet dynamics this is no longer necessarilly the case, but you have to adjust the way in which you build up your planets to find the new optimum method. Moving soc to mil just cleans up the system so that there is no longer the wasted production when there is no social for an individual planet.

Fair enough, I couldn't tell if you were pro or con the decoupleing movement, but you seem to agree that it doesn't matter. Social working the same way as mil isn't ideal though, as you still lose that extra production capacity when you don't have a social project. Seriously if your only complaint is that you won't be able to figure out exactly how much production you will get on your military then I really think you've got an incredibly poor arguement. I would hope though that excess production is either not charged or carried over.

Again, you don't understand at all, but your arguement is getting so weak that you are grasping for straws it would seem. Death of micro isn't what you think it is, its more Death of needless micro, which planetary sliders would bring. I understand fully well that you want to be able to spend hours a turn on your 20 planets making sure not a single BC is wasted. I'm telling you its a fools chase anyway, it adds nothing substantive to the game other than giving already anal people another outlet for being anal. I'm actually pretty anal about this stuff, which is why I hate games where you *have* to do it to remain competative with the AI (or other players). Its boring, its senseless, and it offers no advantage, *especially* in a SP game. I'm not offering improvements because I don't think the system needs improvments, at least not on the scale you are talking about. But you're not talking about mere improvements either, you're talking about a complete overhaul (assuming you still want those planetary sliders). An improvement is shuttleing soc to mil, an improvement is balanceing that so that you can't 'game' the system by abusing bonuses when you do so, an improvement is not wasting over production. I'm for all of those things, but since Brad is already doing them what more should I suggest?

But, to some people managing an Empire or City or Planet like SimCities, Civilizations and 4x games it is a critical part of the game that is enjoyable. So you suggest it should just be killed off completely is already been proven wrong. Not only do the anti-macroers hate 4x complexity, and find it unejoyable to manage an empire, they simply won't support a game that makes it easy for them like Moo3.

Well the short answer is 'go play then'. Killing micro hasn't been proven wrong either. Though it depends on what level you are talking about. It wasn't the macro crowd who hated MoO3, it was the micro crowd. Though MoO3 isn't a great example as there were other sever issues with it beyond the macro/micro debate. Look at Civ4 though, they revamped alot of the system to get rid of the tedious micro that was in Civ3, I think Civ4 is a great game, and so do alot of other people, but it moved away from micro in many ways.

Instead Civilization games actually deal with the problem and make the micro fun. Who doesn't want to use their workers to build neat little roads, or put some of their workers on mines for more output in the city display? Its your Empire, you should have some say in how its run. And remember the option never to mess with any Micro is always at the disposal of the Macroer. If you kill all "micro" in the game, then everyone is forced into the I am lazy and remedial position of not being able to Manage their Economy and thus all they do is create units and fight. Well there are plenty of other games out there that allow you to do just that without managing an Empire. TBS games are all about the management, if there wasn't any management there wouldn't be a need for Turns because you didn't need to do didly squat.

Now you're mixing two different elements. Units (which GC has with constructors and freighters) and economy. Civ has moved towards macro with trade since Civ3, I think most people liked that change. Economy wise the arguement boils down to managing your cities/planets. And here again, there isn't that much difference between your 'micro' games and GC. You still pick what to build where and when. Indeed the only difference in Civ is that production is seperate from research, but you don't 'fund' production in Civ anyway so its not a 100% comparision.

You know, you are really wandering from your initial point, which I think was having planetary sliders, though now I'm sure if that was what you were really after. You spend some time talking about how the production 'won't display correctly' but offer no reason for why you think that.

And complaining about how the computer gets some advantages by improving its Economy well is such a weak arguement. I prefer a smart computer AI then a lazy good for nothing one. Again you got a weak lazy good for nothing AI in Moo3, but again you don't support it. So I don't find your arguement here on solid ground.

You missed the point entirely. I don't mind if the AI gets some advantages through whatever system is in place. I only don't want to have to go though tedious and redundant steps to try and match that advantage. Tedium and redundancy are not sound game mechanics, unless you like RTS I suppose. And you still miss the point about MoO3. I still have it installed, and I still fire it up every now and then, *because* I don't have to do the tedious and redundant crap to manage my empire (which in MoO3 is usually 100+ planets anyway).

No those willing to micro some of their planets will always have an advantage. They emphasized that the Computer AI does this, and thats why it is a stronger AI than most other games.

Micro them? How? You mean through the focus buttons? Sure I got no problem with that, I use the tools that are provided, I hope the AI does it as well. And yes, if you can micro you should micro, I'm just saying that adding micro for micros sake (which is what you seem to espouse) isn't always the best design choice. Hell while we're at it why not add a custom building designer like you have for the ships so that you can design your own buildings with their own production/research/morale/... capabilities.

You keep on saying this, but you don't know that its true. I never slide my sliders around in a guessing game, but I also plan my planets properly so I don't have to do this. I mean the mechanism is so simple that it boggles me that you think it will be impossible to display correctly. You will have all the information you need to make your own calculations on how you want to set up your manufacturing planets, only that you won't have to worry (as much) about still running some social production on other planets.

ROFLMAO!!!!

Yeah... look I don't know how much time you spent (or spend) on the MoO3 boards, but it wasn't the marco crowd complaining the loudest about the economic system. The rest of your little rant there is just plain wrong, if I wanted a unit pumping game I'd just pick up some tactical title and not even worry about an economy. The fact is that you can't seem to wrap your head around this system, and until you do you will continue to fail to comprehend how it works and why its fine as it is.

Again, why do you assume you won't be able to tell where funds are going? Currently you can't tell either until you look at your planets to see which ones don't have social and thus are wasting funds. In the new system you won't have this waste, and you will be able to calculate how much social gets transfered pretty easilly on your own if its not spelled out directly in the game.

Jeez, let's not turn this into a flame fest, shall we?

Heh, this isn't a flame fest, I don't intend on turning it into one either.

I'm the one that said I would like research and production decoupled, and the reason is simple, right now, when an AI declare war on you for having a weaker military, you simply switch to 100% military and pump out your ships, completely neglecting social and research. Then you go back to worlds that doesn't really need to do that, and focus into the other fields. So by the time the AI gets their ship to your planets, you have a fleet twice his size ready to smack him into smitherines. This is fine, but usually when *I* do this, I get a TON of excess cash, because I tend to focus on research a lot. Now, I have enough cash for both research and production, why shouldn't I be able to use it?

Well the quick answer is that you focus too much on research right? The dynamics in this game make having more balance in your empire if not your planets a better choice than focusing too much on one side or the other. It could also be that you have too much econ, which sounds strange, but in that case you should start buying ships/building rather than wasting time building them. The reason it's a bogus arguement is that effectively it doesn't change anything about the game. If you decouple so that you can spend more all that you get is the ability to build faster (total research+production). So now its a question of pace, if you don't tweek down the building capacities then you speed up the game, if you tweek down the building capacities then you havn't actually changed anything. That said I don't really care if they do decouple them, but like you said I'd rather they do it in GC3 or an expansion so that they don't have to spend the time rebalancing the AIs to work under the new system.

DaviddesJ

on Mar 23, 2006

We could have just used flavor text on the abilities and saved ourselves a lot of trouble and had one group be happier with things like:

Military Production Ability:

( ) Basic
( ) Industrious
( ) Magnificient

And let the user "imagine" what those values meant other than "something really cool".

If the game is popular, this doesn't lead to imagining, but to people reverse-engineering the system and figuring out how it works. We saw that in Civ3 which had some fairly opaque mechanisms that people (including me) eventually figured out. And the result is that there were some major bugs buried in the hidden formulas, which meant the game was less playable once people figured out how it really worked.

You're better off publishing everything from the beginning so flaws are more likely to be found and fixed. IMHO.

Kalin

on Mar 24, 2006

It's not that I focus too much in research, it's that I specialize my planets well. Large worlds for econ, medium research worlds for research, and a few manufacturing centers (usually planets with shipyard bonus). Since I don't take advantage of the AI and buy everything they have (I have lots of money, but doing that makes the game way too easy) I end up putting up more research centers. I have a perfectly well oiled manufacturing machine completely capable of pumping out fleets to smash the AI down if I need to, it's just not anywhere near my researching side that basically has to compete with all the other AIs put together (since they still trade among themselves). I think I have a very well balanced system in place.

With that said, it annoys me when I have to switch my research worlds all to military and then go back and focus into research, since those worlds usually only have like 30 pp (production points), the research value that now comes out of that is near minimum when compared to the several hundreds rp (research points) that I use to get a turn. As you can see, that world itself doesn't actually ever produce any ships, what it does is give me several hundred BC of income by stopping its research, such is why I get massive amounts of income.

What I'm in disagreement with, is that decoupling these two would change the pace of the game. I don't think this is the case at all because in the end, it's all about how many BC you have. There's no way I could speed up the game unless I find some new source of income. It's not like I'm going to always be at 100% research and 100% manufacturing, there's no way that I can afford to, at least not with the current setup. However, I do expect to be able to say fund 10-20% more research if I'm getting extra income when I'm using 100% manufacturing. This is why there doesn't need to by any change in the actual capacity of the buildings. Basically, if you can afford it, spend more, if you can't spend less.

The way the system is set up now, the 'spending' slider is basically a limiter to be used in some sort of drastic emergency (economic bust events?). Any good player would plan out their empire so that they can spend 100% at all times, because building more than what you can spend would be the ultimate form of waste. But if you keep a factory spending and a lab spending, you have to adjust how much your labs gets and how much your factories gets. It makes the system more dynamic and flexible. There won't be a set "oh, I have to keep my spending on 100%" because if you do so, you hurt yourself by focusing in too much econ, and not enough in production.

The only problem, as I have pointed out, would be to rework the AI to handle this. And as much as I would love to see it happens, I believe a stable AI should come first.

Aquiantus

on Mar 24, 2006

Death to micro I say -ubertaco

When you said you wanted the Death of Micro, I was pointing out, that game already exists, and your side never supported it. -me

That's not what I said at all. -ubertaco

I think you are very confused. You see, if you wrote "Death to Micro" in a post and I quote you as saying that, then it is exactly what you said.

The Macro actually worked pretty well

Not according to those who hated how the Macro would constantly override the Micro they did. It was literally impossible for you to Micro, the point of Micro is to control that aspect by yourself. Your person changes being applied to every single planet. But, the Macro would override it on many things.

but my point was that if you wanted to micro every little detail about your planets individually you could do it in MoO3.

Thats shows how ignorant you are, you were never able to fully micro in Moo3, thats why the base Market hated it.

Further MoO3 in its current form is much different from even its 1.25 form, but thats an aside.

Moo3 has a 5.4 out of 10 Average Consumer Review. And it is mostly because people are upset it is more a Ship Pumping Empire, your Governors manage the rest, and if you try to manage things yourself it usually get altered anyways. Defeating the purpose of trying to Micro.

I'm guessing that if it can be displyed correctly (and why wouldn't it be?) then SD will get it displayed correctly, even if its not on the first pass.

Ignorance once again? I explained it about 20 times in multiple examples. If you haven't caught on, I suggest you go play some Micro games like Moo2 and exercise that muscle in your skull.

Err... I really don't follow you anymore.

And thats why your simply a Troll in my book. I gave about 20 examples of things that would cause problems. But, you dont understand them still. Its not my job to make you understand a complex issue.

Are you for individual planetary sliders or not?

This is why you need medication. I never said this ever. I never said I wanted Research split from the sliders either. If you think I have said I wanted individual planetary sliders, I hope you go in search for it and quote it. Perhaps that search will keep you busy forever because you wont find it.

Moving soc to mil just cleans up the system so that there is no longer the wasted production when there is no social for an individual planet.

So we should move all the Military into Social when there isn't a Ship being built now too? Your arguement here is again weak. No Buildings being built or Ships being built should have costs being taken out of the Treasury. Since they have Military like that already, why not Social?

Seriously if your only complaint is that you won't be able to figure out exactly how much production you will get on your military then I really think you've got an incredibly poor arguement.

Only a Troll would suggest that we go back to the Dark Ages of not knowing what goes where when we can only Manage an Empire with just blind faith.

But you're not talking about mere improvements either, you're talking about a complete overhaul (assuming you still want those planetary sliders).

You are once again embarrasing yourself with blatant ignorance. I never said anything about Planetary Sliders or the de-coupling.

Death of micro isn't what you think it is

I think you need mental health. Death is a strong word, and most certainly should not be used in a way that means to improve upon something else.

It wasn't the macro crowd who hated MoO3, it was the micro crowd.

Maybe your right, but then why does Moo3 have an overwhelming 5.4 Average Consumer Score? Are there too few in the Macro crowd who didn't hate Moo3 to give it a good Consumer Review score? Are you saying that the Macro crowd is so puny to the Micro crowd that Developers really shouldn't spend more than 10% of their budgets to cater to them? Thank you for proving my point on Micro.

Though MoO3 isn't a great example as there were other sever issues with it beyond the macro/micro debate. Look at Civ4 though, they revamped alot of the system to get rid of the tedious micro that was in Civ3, I think Civ4 is a great game, and so do alot of other people, but it moved away from micro in many ways.

Moo3 worst issue was the inability to Micro, and only the uninformed wouldn't know that. Civ4 has a ton of new Micro elements. More Buildings to build, more special units like the heroes, and double the amount of improvements for your workers to build. More resources to use, more trade resources to divy up in Diplomacy, and much more complex Research tech tree. Seems like double the amount of Micro from Civ3 to me. The great Macro things you probably are thinking about was creating stacks of units, automate workers, or emphasize in city view. These are good features, I admit that, but they are improvements not a complete destruction of Micromanagment. You can still micro the worker by unautomating, you can unemphasize your cities or emphasize them onto another resource, you can unstack or restack units.

Now you're mixing two different elements. Units (which GC has with constructors and freighters) and economy.

If you can't comprehend that Units that Improve your Economy are an important part of Micromanagement, then I welcome this ignorance and hope that those wanting to create the appearance of 'Micro' make it into visual representations in the form of Units. This seems to quell the anti-Micro outrage from the 10% who play 4x games.

Civ has moved towards macro with trade since Civ3, I think most people liked that change.

What do you mean by this? You need a city by any tradable goods, you have to research 3-4 times more things to get the thing to place on the resource, you then have to establish a road between the other nation, and then you can trade those resources with them. More Micro only you dont know it because its fun. hahaha

You think Micro means Tedius or maybe Boring. Thats not what Micro means. Micro-Economics doesn't mean Boring or Tedius Economics lmao. You think because its Fun and Micro it isn't any longer Micro? Get a clue. Micro means the ability to manage your own Economy in a TBS, rather its in the form of tax sliders, population unit production, production sliders, units, planets, cities, worker improvements, city improvements, land improvements. ect ect ect.

Again, why do you assume you won't be able to tell where funds are going?

I guess you never read any of my dozen or so examples. Pitty you are too lazy not only to manage your own Economy in a 4x, but also too lazy to actually read any of the dozens of examples I posted with my link about the problems that will happen if you hide the numbers under another.

Currently you can't tell either until you look at your planets to see which ones don't have social and thus are wasting funds. In the new system you won't have this waste, and you will be able to calculate how much social gets transfered pretty easilly on your own if its not spelled out directly in the game.

YES you will have this waste still, and It'll be worse because you wont be able to see it, ontop of which you would increase Micromanagement of the Sliders 20 fold. I explained this in several examples that you have failed and refuse to become familiar with. Not only will you continue to have waste at high levels, you wont be able to see it, AND you would increase Micromanagement because of the guessing game with the sliders.

Spadey01

on Mar 26, 2006

I have a question. In understand the mechanics mentioned above for the most part. What I'm confused is the ratings you get upon discovering techs. +10 military, +10 social. What do these values represent and where do they filter in to the equation? Do you spend credits on these values? Are they Galaxy wide?
For example.
Lets say I have a planet with 100 social production, (between capital and other buildings) and I have my spending set at 100% with 100% going into social (so military and research are set at 0).
Where does this +10 come in. Please assist!

On a side note, could someone also please explain the miniaturization value. What effect does that have on components?

Pleas assist, thank you.

Alfonse

on Mar 26, 2006

On a side note, could someone also please explain the miniaturization value. What effect does that have on components?

None. It makes your hulls X% bigger in size.

Spadey01

on Mar 26, 2006

Alfonse,

So you mean a miniaturization of +10, means you're hull can carry 10% more?

Also any ideas about the pluses to things like social and military production?

Thx

Kalin

on Mar 26, 2006

have a question. In understand the mechanics mentioned above for the most part. What I'm confused is the ratings you get upon discovering techs. +10 military, +10 social. What do these values represent and where do they filter in to the equation? Do you spend credits on these values? Are they Galaxy wide?
For example.
Lets say I have a planet with 100 social production, (between capital and other buildings) and I have my spending set at 100% with 100% going into social (so military and research are set at 0).
Where does this +10 come in. Please assist!

In v1.0X, the ratings you recieve is a direct percentage bonus for all except morale and research. For example, in your case, if you have 100 base pp (production point) from your factories, with 100% spending, and 100% into social, and you suddenly gain +10 social, asuming no outside factors (such as starbase, planet bonus, etc) you will instead produce 110 social, and will be charged for it fully, thus using 110BC, even if you weren't building a single building. This is the same for +10 for military (although you don't get charged when not building anything) and most others except research and morale. Research, however, you don't pay for, however you only get half of the bonus. A +10 research bonus on a similiar setup for research will yield 105 research, but will only cost you 100BC (you get research bonuses for free). Morale doesn't have a cost, but you only get 80% of its benefits. So a +10 morale bonus means a 8% bonus. This applies to the base morale of your planet, which is determined by how much people is on it.

In v1.1, Social, Military, and Research works exactly the same way. A +10 ratings would give a +10% bonus to your base production, but you are only charged half. So in your setup, you would produce 110 social, but will be charged 105BC, same for military and research. Further, if you are not producing any social project, than the base social will be transfered over to military to help construction. So in this case, Military has recieve an exrta 100 production that you will be charged for if you build ships. If, however, you are not building anything, then you won't be charged for any of it. Morale, has also changed a little for the better, and has become 90% of it's listed benefit. So a +10 morale means a 9% bonus instead of it's 8%. A little confusing, but I hope that helps.

On a side note, could someone also please explain the miniaturization value. What effect does that have on components?

Pleas assist, thank you.

A +10 miniturization affects the number of spaces that you have on a hull. So a tiny with 16 hull would only gain 1 space for a total of 17, but a huge with 80 spaces would gain 8 spaces for a total of 88. However, keep in mind that certain components (weapons, defenses, engines) scale up in size when your hull space increases. Although this scale up is never as much as the actually miniturization increase itself, the net effect is that you don't REALLY have 10% more space. Maybe 7-8% more.

BladeVenom

on Mar 26, 2006

Someone brings MOO3 into this. Well MOO3's macro sucked. My own governors were my worst enemy, and did more damage to my empire than all the incompetent A.I. oppponents combined could.

amaevis

on Mar 27, 2006

There's way too much discussion on this forum for something that is fundamentally simple. Let's take MOO3 out of this. Let's break down the discussion into the two essential questions:

1. Should we be able to use all capacity? In other words, should research and industry be decoupled?
2. Should planet-level management be allowed?

1. I advocate decoupling. Coupling holds back planet-level specialization. Let's say you have a research heavy, industry light planet. 300 RP vs. 30 IP. Why should I be forced to cut research to zero in order to use all 30 IP? Essentially, that's what I have to do to upgrade my planets in a reasonable amount of time when a new tech comes along. Coupling punishes me for trying to specialize my planets, which was the whole point of making tile-based improvements available.

Decouping does not speed up the game. You are still constrained by income and treasury.

2. Planet-level management should not be allowed! We don't need 2 hour turns, and we don't need to be punished for not taking 2 hour turns when the AI can run an algorithm to do it in seconds.

If there's any other essential questions, they should be identified and discussed separately. A "the system should change" vs. "the system should not change" gets us nowhere.

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