Make population important again

from GalCiv3 Forums

Since there is a lot of discussion about the now quite small contribution of population to the base production I have a suggestion: why not go back to and old, but nonetheless viable system? That is, require population to build improvements: 1 pop for basic buildings, more pop for advanced and special buildings. If there is not enough pop then the pop is distributed evenly between the existing buildings (e. g. if you have three buildings with pop requirement 1, 2, 1 and you have 3 pop then the buildings with requirment 1 get 0.75 pop and the one with requirement 2 gets 1.5 pop). Improvements working with reduced pop lose their efficiency linearly (meaning a building with 0.75 instead of the required 1 pop operates with only 75% output).

If there is more pop than improvements then you have unemployment and therefore morale loss.

Of course that would need a lot of rebalancing. I would suggest to get rid of the percentual bonuses of factories and the like and of base production (but the latter is not mandatory). Just let a basic factory produce 1 production point at full (1) pop. Adjacencies still work, a Space Elevator surrounded by 4 factories would get a bonus of 4 production, giving in turn +1 production to all factories. To make it different from a simple factory a building like a Space Elevator would have to have a higher benefit like 5 base production at 3 pop requirement. But since their function as hub is reduced in such a system it would be great to give them the ability to profit more from adjacencies, like they get 1.5 points from an improvement that normally gives only 1 point production adjacency bonus.

@Stardock: If that is an idea that appeals to you I would happily provide a thorough design document ;) (although my job would limit my time for that quite substiantially, but then I would have to refrain from reading and contributing to the forum so much and from playing ;))

12,960 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I like some of this except for the morale penalty for unemployment. Morale is already expensive to maintain and creating a penalty like this could make certain planets, like farm focused,  tough to use or balance. 

For the rest, I think the current secondary building % system is fine (too many integer buildings make for less interesting choices).

I like the linear building effectiveness reduction based on available pop. It makes dumping your home world population into colonies have a cost. It also provides a benefit/cost to the fertile/infertile picks. Right now pop is so useless my custom race has dumped growth for the points.

All that said, I think this whole bit could be solved using the current system and rebalancing the population production exponent & equation. Right now it's 1/2, so the sqrt(pop) = prod. Upping that exponent and maybe rebalancing the equation & building costs is preferable to a whole new system.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I really prefer the balance as it is... personally I think that limiting buildings or anything by population A) makes little sense to me, and B) will slow the game down and hurt the AI more than me.

I could see re-balancing income to be more population dependent. Industry and science/etc. in the distant future will likely rely a lot more on robotic work forces and AI assistants than sheer people power... but I could see money and commerce require markets of people to sell to.

I also can see population having a greater effect on enemy legions and their resistance... smaller populations being more susceptible to enemy propaganda and culture... etc.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

There is a super-simple, modder-friendly , one-line solution to this.

In code, change:

raw_production = population ^ 0.5;

to:

raw_production = population ^ population_modifier;

where population_modifier is a civ-specific number that may be affected by:

  • technology / government
  • civ creation options
  • game difficulty level
  • ... etc ...

voila

now you can make fun new technologies or starting options like "Helpful Population" which adds "0.1" to your base exponent

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting leiavoia, reply 3

There is a super-simple, modder-friendly , one-line solution to this.

Except it is not modder friendly.  Its in the main code not the xml's (at least not that i found)

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting a0152570, reply 4


Quoting leiavoia,
reply 3

There is a super-simple, modder-friendly , one-line solution to this.


Except it is not modder friendly.  Its in the main code not the xml's (at least not that i found)

I'm obviously over simplifying a little bit here. The modder-friendly part would be something new you haven't seen yet, e.g.:

<tech>
   <effect>POPULATION_MOD_EXPONENT</effect>
   <value>0.1</value>
   <operator>ADD</operator>
</tech>

... or whatever ...

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting leiavoia, reply 5

I'm obviously over simplifying a little bit here. The modder-friendly part would be something new you haven't seen yet, e.g.:

Thanks for clarifying.  I completely agree production as a function of population should be tweaked ad little

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

You guys taking into account these two lines:

    <PopulationToProductionExponent>0.5</PopulationToProductionExponent>
    <PopulationToProductionMultiplier>1.0</PopulationToProductionMultiplier>

in GalCiv3GlobalDefs.xml already? I doubt they can be modified through improvements/research etc. though... would have to look through xsd. files, but I kinda doubt it.

I think in between these settings and the stats of food, population and approval improvements/bonuses you can allready do quite a lot.

---------------------------------

That being said, I don't really like the 1.*sqrt(pop) formula either. Most useful think about pop now is winning UP votes/elections.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting zuPloed, reply 7

You guys taking into account these two lines:

OMG, i must be blind and daft 8O . I do not know how i missed this (really did look)

Formula is simple Raw Production = (population^PopulationToProductionExponent)*PopulationToProductionMultiplier

Just did a quick test and both parameters can be changed and it works. (don't forget modded file must be in a mod directory)

thanks

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I've won UP votes with far less planets (but higher pop) than other civs.  Population DOES make a difference, but it depends upon play-style, I suppose.  Tall empires now stand a chance.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

@GrimmAG

I have had majorities with my empire alone (about turn 150; 6 or so other opponents). It's kinda hillarious, when all other empires vote against 'declare war against anyone, who defies the UP', it still comes through and next on the list is everything YOU ever wanted and everone else didn't. Democracy, fuck yeah! Did I mention synthetics can simply manufacture voters? :D

 

@a0152570
 
You're welcome.
Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting a0152570, reply 8


Quoting zuPloed,
reply 7

You guys taking into account these two lines:



OMG, i must be blind and daft 8O . I do not know how i missed this (really did look)

Formula is simple Raw Production = (population^PopulationToProductionExponent)*PopulationToProductionMultiplier

Just did a quick test and both parameters can be changed and it works. (don't forget modded file must be in a mod directory)

thanks

Wonderful! Let the mods begin.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

@zuPloed : current game is with bio aquatic slavers, only putting farms on non-manufacturing colonies.  Still works out great.  The AI synthetics don't do a great job with pop, IMO

Not sure I like the mix of aquatics and slavers, though.  Better than synthetic slavers (which is kind of OP, but wastes building properties)

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Good to know you can mod production by population, but still I like my suggestion better than the current system ;)