Yet Another Economy Post

Actually, I read this whole post and I can't find where the logical flaw is. If spending is indeed "activation" then you're right - research should be decoupled and the slider between military / social should determine how the factories split their production.

Wait for 1.1 to come out, they're making quite a few econ/research etc changes

there have been several posts about this issue
imho you are right, sliders should be seperated
lets see if it gets changed in 1.1

You said it Mr. Lucky! Can't for the life of me figure out why they made the three sliders linked in this way. I spent like an hour trying to rationalize this myself. Oh well, in the few games I have played, it hasn't bothered me too much.

I believe the in game explanation is that you're tasking your population pool to do the work; the problem with that is that population doesn't directly influence production, they just provide the income which is spent in the factories and labs.


I agree with the OP, it makes sense to have two sets of sliders. One set for social and military and then research on its own slider, with each set able to go up to 100%. One set for your factories and one for your labs.

I think it may have something to do with the population as well. Like, 30% of the people work in the labs, 30% build ships and 40% build buildings. That would explain it, but it doesn't seem like that is the case...

I think it's one of the things they were going to change in 1.1.

The only question I have relates to decoupling the sliders.

What if 100% is my total workforce... and that this total workforce can only be distributed evenly between the different places I have available.

Thus instead of it talking about "capacity", it is talking about where I divide my focus. In that respect all 3 sliders are indeed linked as I can only split my total focus (ie 100%) between the 3 of them somehow.

Having said that though... surely the production of factories and labs would increase as your population increases. So while you may be talking about directing your workers to one of 3 tasks, surely the more population you get the more output you can generate... this would be another good reason to go for more population at the cost of morale.

The "works" idea sort of works for explaining it; it may not make sense in the normal context of 4x games as to why a tiny population can work as hard as a huge one but think about it:

You have a population, and they have jobs. many of them work at Space Border's or Space McDonald's, or maybe even Space Gamespot, what ever. Some of the population works for the government, either as direct employees or contractors.

Now remember, the cash in this game isn't exactly a pile of crisp twenties and hundreds your pan-galactic dictator is keeping in a back room of his fortress to roll around in naked in between defeating his extra worldy rivals, it represents capital, trade goods, production capacity and all that boring stuff they told you abolut back in social studies when you were to busy drawing giant robots blowing each other up. It is just a simple way to quantify how much "power" an empire has to make things happen, like potential energy for you physics people.

"Spending" is nothing more than how you are mobilizing the work force, this isn't to say all 5 billion people pick up hammers and start building the battle ships, multimedia centers and test tubes, it just means that your government is mobilizing as much of its available workforce as possible.

The US population is what, like 300 million? But when the army needs new tanks, toilet seats and weapons developed we dont all do these things directly, its the contractors, and various businesses doing this indirectly. whether the population is 300 million or 30,000 there would be enough people to work the jobs that need to get done. You work at the factory that makes the cogs for the tanks, I work at the lab designing new toilet seats that take up less space and provide more warp speed, and maybe she is building that X-tream sports arena for the new season of Blurnsball. Meanwhile hoardes of other people go on working at Space Mcdonalds or skipping work to play video games.

What you would need a larger population to provide is the revenue and resources (potential energy) to sustain production and I think that the way things work in GalCivII right now represent this perfectly; a barebones planet with a tiny population building tanks and researching toiletseats can be subsidized by a giant over populated ghetto planet 500 light years away.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything else but there it is.

I think we end up with three sliders because of one simple reason: the designers decided to combine social contruction buildings with military building structures. In other words, this anomoly exists because the game was simplified by not requiring you to build different structures for two very different resources.

My own opinion of this system is that while it doesn't make direct sense, I recognize it as a way of making me work harder at staying organized because it means that super focusing on one of the 3 aspects delivers many diminishing returns. MOO2 had "waste" and GalCiv2 has this. It doesn't bother me, I am not married to the idea that a lab worth 10tp must always yield 10tp, I am perfectly happy with "a lab worth 10 tp is worth different amounts depending on how you are spending"

Thanks for the comments.

Just for the record, the problem isn't 'waste', or spending vs. capacity. Waste is OK and spending vs. capacity is the whole advantage of this system.

Workforce/population also has nothing with the problem or how to rationalize it. A factory with .5 billion population has the same capacity as a factory with 99 bilion population.

For what it's worth, I believe the issue stems back to GCI. One of the other old-timers can correct me, but I think that game simply had industrial points. Social/military/research all drew fom one pool. Three sliders, one pool, 100% limit. Straightforward and correct.

If it's true that the GCI three slider system involved only one capacity pool. And if it's true that GC2 uses two pools but the same three linked sliders, well then frankly the system is wrong and broken. It's not a matter of one preference over another or how can it explained 'in-game', it's just not right. With a seperate research point capacity pool the research slider has to de-linked in order to make any sense, reality-wise, in game, or even abstractly.

Now any of my assumptions could be wrong about the underlying facts, but I don't see any other conclusion if they are true. Any help?

Mr. Lucky

If it's true that the GCI three slider system involved only one capacity pool. And if it's true that GC2 uses two pools but the same three linked sliders, well then frankly the system is wrong and broken. It's not a matter of one preference over another or how can it explained 'in-game', it's just not right. With a seperate research point capacity pool the research slider has to de-linked in order to make any sense, reality-wise, in game, or even abstractly.

Actually I think you are still missing the point.

You are focusing primarily on the "2 pools, 1 slider", but forgetting that while there are 2 pools (2 different sources which determine your input).... there really is only 1 slider (a SINGLE source which determines how those inputs are best utilized).

Essentially the slider talks about focus, it doesn't have to relate to a single pool as you only have so many resources and those resources can utlize the 2 incoming pools only to a SINGLE 100% capacity no matter which way you cut it.

Think of it this way:

Lets say I have 2 buckets (production and research). And things are being put into those 2 buckets at a chosen rate. Now lets say I have 10 people who can take things from those buckets. I basically have to assign those 10 people, and I can tell them to do 1 of 3 things:

1. Take something from the production bucket and put it into military
2. Take something form the production bucket and put it into social
3. Take something form the research bucket and put it into research

Anything left over goes to the treasury.

So that clearly shows 2 pools... and 1 slider (ie 10 people who have to be split between those 2 pools and who each represent 10% of the slider)

Enigmatical , thanks for reply.

However it's basically a population rationalization. It has no support in the game documentation or mechanisms. Population has nothing to do with prodution or research. If I can only run half my labs and half my factories with 5 billion people, what about when I get to 10billion?

Mr. Lucky

Kalin,

Thanks for the confirmation about GCI. I agree there's no 'waste' but it is non-sensical. I also agree I don't think it's addressed in 1.1.

If I'm looking at this right, it's such a fundamental design miss though. Doubling the resources available to the player by going from only industrial points to manufacturing points + research points, without addressing the way the resources can be allocated by the player. How could that happen ?!?

Mr. Lucky

It's interesting that you brought up the idea of capital and production capacity, because I see that as the exact reason why it should be the opposite. In my understanding, a lab produces a certain amount of rp (research points) like a factory produces a certain amount of pp (production points), and this is their limit. If you spend the necessary capital, the lab will find the people that is needed, staff it correctly, and pump out the amount of rp that it is advertising. It's a just another business, it doesn't care if it's making doom ray blueprints or templates for toilet seats. Similarly, the factory does the same for construction work both social and military. Obviously you are not makeing 10 billion people switch out their lab coats and pull out their contruction hammers when an AI declare war on you... those people just pay tax. The 'people' that work these labs and factories might not even be people at all, it is probably all robotics at this point (or perhaps alien slaves, like the tech descriptions aluded). So as long as you can afford to fund it, both the lab and the factory should be able to run at full capacity, they should indeed be independent. Afterall, they are two separate entities that probably has very little to do with one another. The only common factor is they are both greedy bastards that won't work for free even if you are a saint, and couldn't care less about your evil torture...

The reason the three sliders are coupled this way is because this is a system that was carried over from GC1. There, there were no factories or labs, so the sliders simply represent the empire's focus. Now, however... the disparity rears its ugly head. Now you have people wondering, if I have the capital, why can't I pay BOTH the factories and the labs at the same time? IMO, the current system doesn't have any 'waste' persay, it just doesn't quite make sense in the context anymore. I would be for decoupling the research slider, and turn it into a lab spending slider, but I'm not sure how complicated it will be to get the AI to respond to such changes, and the stability of the AI is the most important part. If this every happens, I'm sure there will be a very lengthy test run, and no I don't think it is being adressed in 1.1. Perhaps in a much later version or expansion, who knows... right now, it's just a little quirk that annoys you every now and again when it comes up.

However it's basically a population rationalization. It has no support in the game documentation or mechanisms. Population has nothing to do with prodution or research. If I can only run half my labs and half my factories with 5 billion people, what about when I get to 10billion?

Factories and labs aren't worked by people but by robots! Population has no bearing on production.... it probably makes more sense to rationalise it by thinking in terms of net energy on that planet.... or net cpu power of the central computer that keeps all these robots running round. It still doesnt work but if it allows you to skip over worrying about something you cant do anything about.... then it's a good thing.....

I made a similar (but not as well worded) post on this topic a while back. I agree with your observation and would like to see this changed. From what I've read regarding V1.1 there will be some changes to the spending controls but I think that there won't be the change I'd like to see.

Who knows, maybe the AI doesn't work well with military and social linked and research seperate. Anyway, I rarely have enough to keep everything fully funded as it is

If the system is run by robots, then why are people taxed? You can only tax production; if people aren't making anything, you can't take anything from them. It's a pretty fundamental disconnect in the economic system of GC2, but the game is still fun regardless.

Ultimately, it is the production of higher order goods (like factories) and the exctraction of natural resources that makes the production of lower order goods possible. Having a huge population sitting next to a farm doesn't enable you to make more goods in real life.*

*Unless you're talking about making Soylent Green.

If the system is run by robots, then why are people taxed? You can only tax production; if people aren't making anything, you can't take anything from them. It's a pretty fundamental disconnect in the economic system of GC2, but the game is still fun regardless.

If production is run by robots, then you sell the products to your population you can apply sales tax. Further to that you can charge them housing tax, living tax, air tax. There's lots of examples of various futuristic taxes in sci-fi where people no longer have to do the grunt work but where there is still an economic process on-going. Just because they aren't doing the manual labour doesn't mean they aren't earning from trading, art etc.

Empyrean - if it helps you with the population/production/taxes disconnect, just imagine that all the little people have a full and flourishing economy behind the scenes, it's just all hidden from you, because production and research of toilet seats and furbys adds nothing to the game.

Those factories you see aren't the total production on the planet, they're the MILITARY production that leeches money from the population to build giant spaceships for your evil empire. Just think of it as being like the current state of things, but with state control of some major parts of the civilisation. Food, military production, military research, and keeping the tax payers happy. The local economies are run silently behind the scenes by your underlings, but you can give things a boost with stock markets, etc.


.....Back to the topic at hand, I have to agree. I have a major factory world with 5000 production points. I add a tiny research centre capable of 5 research points, and want to run it full tilt. Result? I have to lose 5000 production to do so.

Production isn't affected by population (1 million peons can keep a fully loaded planet going just as well as 10 billion. conclusion - production is run by either an insignificant amount of people, slaves, or robots), so money should be the only thing between you and full production, with no other solid link between "making stuff" and "thinking about stuff". Linking social & military production makes sense - be it a starship or a stock market, you only have so many hammers and cranes to do it with.

Quite how that affects the eggheads in deep thought about lasers I don't know. "Sorry guys, we've just started making a colony ship, you're going to have to stop thinking".

Well, it sounds like its settled. The "three sliders totalling 100%" solution is a holdover from GCI, which had only industrial points. When they broke out research points out from manufacturing points, for whatever reason they didn't break out the slider. It doesn't make any sense, there's no way to rationalize it, it just is.

For me it's not a gamebreaker, but rather, a huge wart on an otherwise excellent system. I guess my last thought is a 'Hail Mary' question to Mr. Wardell:

Frogboy

Could you please explain the reasoning behind splitting out research from manufacturing at the facility level; that is, allowing us to build labs and factories that generate separate points; but keeping them linked at the slider level; that is, using 50% of my manufacturing points means I can only use 50% of my research points? Why were they separated at all, if they can only be used in this zero-sum fashion?

If there's no answer, that's cool. Mr. Wardell is a busy man and it's his game, he doesn't owe me any answers. But I'm disappointed in this aspect of his game, and he's been so accessible so far, maybe I'll get lucky.

Mr. Lucky

Hi I'm Mr Lucky and I want my cake and I want to eat it too!

The system links all 3 aspects because anything else would be totally overpowered to the research side of the game. If you could research and produce at the same time to maximum capacity, the game would just be a tech race. You can't ahve your cake and eat it too in this game. You have to think and make choices. There is no easy-mode. Just like in the glorious Moo2 where you had a way to choose between industry or research, this is a game of strategy. Strategy involves choice. There is no choice if you can run both industry and research at 100%, it's just simply nonexistant. I would run resaerch at 100% all frikin game long, as would everyone else. And mind you the game would suck!

Astax,

I find your lack of civility disturbing. This post has had nothing but positive contributions until your response.

Do you understand how the game mechanisms work? Did you follow any of the positions offered in the OP or in any of the comments?

Capacity must be paid for under the existing system or under a system with a de-linked research slider. None of your frankly absurd conclusions follows from the fact of de-linking the research slider. A choice must still be made between funding research and funding military/social manufacturing. The base resource is money and your strategy will help determine where to allocate it.

As for your implication that I want an easy mode in which I don’t have to think or make choices; that’s just rude, and I look forward to your apology.

Mr. Lucky

As for your implication that I want an easy mode in which I don’t have to think or make choices; that’s just rude, and I look forward to your apology.

You'll be lucky Mr Lucky..... oh.... erm.... maybe it will happen then!!

Yeah Astax, calm down a bit eh?

Actually, I think Mr Lucky's observations were on the money. If you wait and see what happens in the next patch, you will at least get somewhere towards what you want.

At present, funding 100% research and 100% production would be overpowered.... but they could of course ultimately fiddle with the values to balance for this. I would like to see it, I've read countless others who would like to see it. Brad even said in response to people mentioning this that he would take it on board but he was worried about various factors. It's not the end of the world though - the game works well as is and will be even better with the next patch.

Hi I'm Mr Lucky and I want my cake and I want to eat it too! The system links all 3 aspects because anything else would be totally overpowered to the research side of the game. If you could research and produce at the same time to maximum capacity, the game would just be a tech race. You can't ahve your cake and eat it too in this game. You have to think and make choices. There is no easy-mode. Just like in the glorious Moo2 where you had a way to choose between industry or research, this is a game of strategy. Strategy involves choice. There is no choice if you can run both industry and research at 100%, it's just simply nonexistant. I would run resaerch at 100% all frikin game long, as would everyone else. And mind you the game would suck!

You will apologize to the original poster immediately. This is a constructive thread, not a flame-war. The original poster's points are well-reasoned and deserve a rational response.

At present, funding 100% research and 100% production would be overpowered

I haven't had that many opportunities to fully fund the production as it is, and I think that funding would be the limiting factor were Stardock to make the changes suggested. I often run at 100% at the beginning of the game, and when the economy random event kicks in, but most other times its a challenge to fully fund as it is. Once you go through your initial cash and the effects of colony maintenance kick in it gets hard to balance the budget. Later in the game I'll have a good bit of cash coming in from trade routes, taxing my peeps at 50%, but the costs of new colonies/conquests and maintaining a standing navy is a serious drain on the empire's treasury.

I'd love to see the change and don't think it would be a game killer. I could be wrong though. To compensate for this "feature" I've chosen to speed up the tech tree, which kind of balances out the existing design choice with how I figure it should work.

I haven't had that many opportunities to fully fund the production as it is, and I think that funding would be the limiting factor were Stardock to make the changes suggested. I often run at 100% at the beginning of the game, and when the economy random event kicks in, but most other times its a challenge to fully fund as it is. Once you go through your initial cash and the effects of colony maintenance kick in it gets hard to balance the budget. Later in the game I'll have a good bit of cash coming in from trade routes, taxing my peeps at 50%, but the costs of new colonies/conquests and maintaining a standing navy is a serious drain on the empire's treasury.

Obviously the way people play differs.... and the abilities, and things in game, and the set up of the map varies greatly.... but I rarely run at anything less than 100% even if I am deficit spending. I go through the same post colonisation depression but the next stage of the game after that is massive economic boom in my games. On any map larger than medium, I tend to be able to run 100% spending and still rake in hundreds per turn. Best ever was nearly 9000 per turn on a gigantic map with maximised trade routes and a population greater than all the AI put together..... I'd also stolen around 4 or 5 economic capitals from AI's and minor races.

I think I could probably exploit 100% potential research and 100% manufacturing to such a degree that the game would become trivial - as it stands at the moment.

If they refitted the costs for research or upped the maintenance of labs.... or a variety of minor tweaks, this system would be great. But that would take an incredible amount of work as it would basically mean taking a lot of things back to the drawing board, rewriting a lot of areas of the game, rebalancing it, retesting it... on and on and on. So, while I hope something like this happens one day, i aint holding my breath!