Playing with numbers in GalCiv II in-depth

Danger..boring..boring..

from JoeUser Forums

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.

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
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.


I think most of us here would agree with that. It's something that MOO3's designers unfortunately failed to grasp.

Thanks again for giving us all these peeks inside the game, Brad. I personally don't need to see how the math really works, but I appreciate you going to the effort so that the "number-crunchers" among us can.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Very appropriate title, I have trouble fathoming how anybody has the time (other than the game designer of course) to worry about this stuff. I guess I'm in the other camp. But suffice it to say, I like this a whole lot better than MOO2, I think it must be the focus on single player. So thanks for that one.

That screen shot of the MOO2 custom race screen takes me back though.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is real good stuff Brad!
Thanks for taking the time to spell it out for those of us that are bean counters/efficiency nuts.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ahhhhhhhh! So thats how the economy works!

Question: Why did you guys decide to do the economy that way and not be able to run everything at 100% capacity if you could afford it?
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Great info. Thanks for explaining how unused social will be added to military. I think you made the right choice on not including the bonuses, although I consider social wastage elimination to be a HUGE upgrade to the game.

I spend easily 40% of my game time managing my colonies just to counter social waste. The phrase "...there has to be something to benefit the player who runs their economy well.." somewhat annoys me because I thought the idea was to avoid micro-management and countering social waste to 'run my economy well' means micro-management.

Regardless, 1.1 sounds like a dream come true.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the in-depth rundown on the numbers.

I'm not sure how simple adjectives and taking away definition from the abilities add "soul" to a game other than forcing you to imagine things a little more. But then again, you did start out as one of those people who liked fuzzy math right?

Anyway good job on the balance, I do see the possibilities of abuse when you choose to keep 3 sliders and the compromise seems like it'd work. However, micromanagement should only be rewarded so much, especially in trading for money. That process is very tedious and yet I do it anyway, hating myself for needing to weasel every credit that I can.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not to be fastidious, but so 'extra' social production that is carried over to military production will not have its inherent bonuses added in? You commented on it but you never really said that is going to happen. Yes or no?
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Excellent explanation, Brad! Many thanks. I finally understand exactly how the bonuses apply, and when. As a spreadsheet geek and Corporate Finance weenie, you've satisfied the little whiney voice in the back of my head...

You guys continue to blow me away. As for the "soul" issue, I know that you guys are receptive to constructive criticism and don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That said, I'm reminded about that old saying, "You can please all of the people some of the time, and you can please some of the people all of the time..."
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Is there something wrong with editing my comments? I get a 'Server Error in '/' Application' when I tried. Fastidious -> Fascistic
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Not to be fastidious, but so 'extra' social production that is carried over to military production will not have its inherent bonuses added in? You commented on it but you never really said that is going to happen. Yes or no?

It will not have its bonuses added in.  You only get the base social production carried over.  But you're not charged for any social wastage anymore.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
Danger..boring..boring..

What? Nonsense! The best part of the game is seeing how it works (says the person with several hex-based wargames and a college textbook on AI ). I prefer the in-game math to be shown myself, although I will admit that it pushes me towards the realm of the obsessive-compulsive perfectionist.

Regardless, I'm pleased to see that production is a little more intuitive than before (social production not being wasted completely) while still remaining fair and making sense (no bonuses for non-social social production, etc). Now I wish I still had the save with my Ultimate Factory Planet - Two 300% manufacturing, two 200% (dubbed "Ironforge" - haven't found a better manufacturing planet since. Damn place nearly bankrupted me though ).
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
I prefer the in-game math to be shown myself, although I will admit that it pushes me towards the realm of the obsessive-compulsive perfectionist.


Ugh. God no. The last thing I want to see in a game is a string of presumably meaningful, but to me meaningless, numbers. Labels like good, better, best are enough for me as long as each new level is actually better than the last. The attack and defence rates on ships are about as in-depth as I want to go numbers-wise.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The proposed change sounds good and positive.

Would it possible be better to have it generate credits instead of military. If you recall moo2 let you build trade goods or housing to use up production on planets if you weren't building ships. Maybe a global setting that lets you pick where extra funding goes?

I have tangled mess of an economy. I can't get my head around it:

My problem with it is i had expanding worlds that needed social spending to build, and then i had my homeworld fully developed with a mix of industry and research. The planet had a 7x manufacturing square, so filled rest with research and put respective capitals on the planet. It is a very nice planet. Max research from buildings is 66. 136 MP. It also has an economy starbase outside it adding: +25 (percent i believe).

Spend 100%
Global sliders:
Military 100% Planet results: Mil 571 / 0 / 0 , Focus Social: 332 / 190 / 0 = 522, Focus Research: 456 / 0 / 139 = 595
Social 100% Planet results: Soc 0 / 466 / 0 , Focus Mil: 190 / 276 / 0 = 466, Focus Research: 0 / 371 / 139 = 510
Research 100% Planet results: Res 0 / 0 / 96 , Focus Mil: 16 / 0 / 72 = 88, Focus Soc: 0 / 16 / 72 = 88

Mil 33% Social 33% Res 34%
Base Result: 191 / 153 / 32 = 376
Focus results: Mil 258 / 90 / 24 = 372, Focus Social: 101 / 220 / 24 = 345, Focus Research: 150 / 122 / 123 = 395

So what the heck is optimal? I have been putting zero in social becuase almost any amount in it leads to huge waste from this planet and minor waste on my one other developed planet. I use 100% spend rate and then i have been using a mix of military and research to control spending (as you can see from the results above more research actually results in less overall spending). Then i go to each planet and set social focus so it can slowly get buildings done. What is counter intuitive is i can't max research independant of my spending on production and in order to max research i need to fully fund military and then focus on research. Why??

This planet is feeling like a curse these days. Since properly funding it can cost well over 500BC and the rest of my planets net maybe 500BC on their own. The change will take that waste and give me mil production, but it will still be a juggling match to fund the other planets as this one can spend so much i would guess I would need high research to keep the BC's low and high social to let the other planets develop. Set some military so they can produce some ships and let the social rollover on the homeworld build the bigger ships.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


Kinda about this, will the "prices" for military and social bonuses be altered? To me, a development freak, I'm gonna be really tempted to drop military production to 0 It would be even worse if the "bonus" carried over (duh you could put all ur points in social).

Also, just curious, but how does mixing alter efficiency? Like,do you get "more" total production if you split them versus if you focus(focus like tax rate AND in the planet-screen focus)? It'd make sense but doesn't seem to work with the system laid out.

Thanks a lot for taking time out to enlighten us and stuff
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
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.

True: social production bonus should help social production not military production . And production that wasn't planned to be military shouldn't get military production bonus .I think it is very easy to grasp and to defend
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It sounds good, a lot better than before at least. Having massive production worlds was just crazy, you have to set social spending to zero and focus into social to build anything or buy it (counter intuitive and wasteful, but much better than leaving a ton of waste from social upwards of several hundred BC per industrial world per week).


Though, in alll honesty, I still think research should be separate from social and military production since labs uses a different type of point than factories. Basically, have three sliders like this:

Production spending 0% ----------|--------------- 100% (35% of maximum - 700 BC)
Social/Military focus: Social ------|---------------- 100% (30% to social - 210 BC, 70% to Military - 490 BC)
Research spending 0 -------------------------|---- 100% (85% of maximum - 850 BC)

For a total spending of 1550 BC.

This is the only way that you will be able to use 100% of a planet's potential. Right now, if you put 100% in research, you waste all your production points and vice versa. With something like this, you can use both your factories and labs at the same time (if you can afford to, of course). In this sense, the defecit spending makes a lot more sense, and doesn't even need an explaination. The research and production sliders basically sets how much money you feed into your labs and factories which takes care of defecit spending nicely. While the social/military slider determines how much and where your factories should focus.

Obviously this is a huge change, so it probably wont happen, but if you guys are thinking GalCiv3, maybe it'll have some use...
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Have you considered unlinking cpacity and productivity for manufacturing and research?

Allow me to explain. Capacity reflects the maximum amount of units of production / resarch you can purchase, productivity is a reflection of how much each unit costs. A more advanced factory or lab has a higher capacity than a less advanced one, but the same productivity. Rateher than making 50% of all bonus units free, you could designate different types of bonus to be capacity increasing for example, better facilities, resources, starbases, tile bonuses maybe, while others new techs (as distinct from better facilities), moons / rings, civ bonuses perhaps would be productivity based and reduce the price of buying each unit of production or research. By labelling each type of bonus separately it would be easier to know where you stand. You could also give information on the capacity and productivity of each planet. You could also have different productivity for each of military and social production.

Just my 2 cents.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Nice one Brad.

I'll never do the maths in the game, but knowing that % bonuses are added up and applied to base production (with half free) means that I can easily judge what a building or bonus will actually do.

I can easily decide if 50% more apples is more useful than 20% more oranges. Deciding if you want 'many' apples or 'lots' of oranges is where things get awkward.

Good call on the social redirection. I was beginning to wonder what the implication would be if you just went 100% social, letting the redirect handle all your military production. It's good to see that you will get some benefit from direct military spending.
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with Kalins idea. I would love to be able to fund both my Labs and Factories when I have the cash.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This is the only way that you will be able to use 100% of a planet's potential. Right now, if you put 100% in research, you waste all your production points and vice versa. With something like this, you can use both your factories and labs at the same time (if you can afford to, of course)


Though you have to realize that what you suggest really doesn't change anything from how the game is set up now. Especially since Brad already commented in the other journal that they would (and are) tweeking the capacities of the factories (and labs I assume) to keep the same relative pace in the game.

If you unlink production and military sure you can now run both at 100%, but if they chop the capacities in half what difference does it make? Now if they don't chop capacities in half then it nearly amounts to the same thing as you'd have to devote more room on planets to income generation, again, lowering your available space for factories and labs. If you don't do that you won't be able to run at 100% spending anyway, so you'll still be 'wasting' (though it isn't really waste, but whatever) whatever % of your production and research.

Seriously, the system in place makes sense and works. Unlinking production from research might seem like a huge change, but realisticially it only means having to change the way the AI deals with the situation, it will not change anything substantive in how your economy functions.

The implemented method also serves as a bit of a check on the diplomacy tech traders from being able to constantly fund their deficeit spending through the (some call it cheesy) tech resale tactic.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
One thing that put me off Galciv 2 after playing Civ 4 is the micromanagement. The thing I would really like is for any excess research to be carried over to the next item and not just vanish rather than having to play with the sliders all the time to prevent major waste. I appreciate this reduces the computers advantage of being willing and able to manipulate this all the time to be more efficient but from a human perspective its pointless micromanagement for the sake of it.

If this has changed then sorry as been a while since last played but pretty sure I noticed it working with just losing the excess research last time I played.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It already does that. I have actually researched 2 technologies in one turn.
But it seems bugged, sometimes the research is carried over and sometimes it isn't.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the info. One thing I don't understand is the how the focus buttons work.

I have a planet that is my manufacturing capital. On the summary screen for it, my stats are:

Industry = 172, with 100% bonus due to capital
Research = 26
Starbase bonus = 50%

My global settings are Military 20%, Research 40% and social 40%.

When I click to focus on military, I kick out 339 shields. The odd thing (to me) is that when I focus on research, I get 198 beakers! With my base research of 26, how in the heck do I get that many beakers? It just seems odd that my highest production planets are also some of my higher research planets.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks Brad for removing some of the fog! Would you please explain how combat works with an attacker with multiple weapons types vs. a defender with multiple defenses? From what I understand weapons of the same type are combined in attacks but different weapons are separate attacks against the defenses. Defenses are combined against each attack with non-optimal having an effective defense of only sqrt(N). Thus it makes sense to have only one weapon type per ship but multiple defenses make sense if you have the room.

Please make all floating point calculations ROUND OFF TO THE NEAREST rather than always rounding down; many bonuses are lost as a result!

Currently excess research is carryed over to the next item but excess social / military is not carried over to the next planetary improvement / ship. Please eliminate this waste in v1.1!
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So now my question to Brad is, what if you aren't building any ships on that planet? Does the social spending that's converted to military spending then come back to your treasury as unused military production?

-Dewar