Testing Government and Influence

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Ophiuchus
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#61 Post by Ophiuchus »

One note on the #planet^2 scaling.

The good: you really really pick only the best locations for colonization (e.g. gas giant system with multiple planets), you explore more and hold off colonization until you find those spots.

The bad: you run really fast into the situation that adding a colony costs (much) more than it adds. And there is not enough meaningful gameplay up to that stage - there is nothing to do like e.g. planet surface micromanagement.

The ugly: outposts should NOT cost as much as colonies in influence upkeep. you should use outposts to build supply lines to get to the juicy targets.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#62 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Feb 06, 2021 11:39 pmThe ugly: outposts should NOT cost as much as colonies in influence upkeep.
They don't; outposts increase the cost of other colonies, but don't themselves directly cost influence. Or at least that was the plan; it could be buggy.
you should use outposts to build supply lines to get to the juicy targets.
If there is really no influence cost to outposting planets, then it somewhat defeats the goal of forcing players to leave more planets unoccupied later into the game.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#63 Post by Ophiuchus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Sun Feb 07, 2021 12:09 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Feb 06, 2021 11:39 pmThe ugly: outposts should NOT cost as much as colonies in influence upkeep.
They don't; outposts increase the cost of other colonies, but don't themselves directly cost influence. Or at least that was the plan; it could be buggy.
Maybe I am wrong, but the other colonies' cost is the driving one. I think the local output part is negligible for "normal" empire layouts (i.e. there are some colonies, not only outposts).
If we had some production output on outposts such a split might be interesting though.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Sun Feb 07, 2021 12:09 pm
you should use outposts to build supply lines to get to the juicy targets.
If there is really no influence cost to outposting planets, then it somewhat defeats the goal of forcing players to leave more planets unoccupied later into the game.
I did not mean no influence cost. Something more like five outposts increase the upkeep cost as much as one colony.
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drkosy
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#64 Post by drkosy »

How many planets should be fine and sustainable without a special policy? I mean at least zero influence output per turn and adding a planet causes you to either have to go negative or you have less resource production afterwards (because you had to switch two planets to influence focus). Something like ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred colonies?
I think the number of systems in galaxy should be taken into account. Else it'll become extremely hard to play large galaxies (actually 210 systems are to much to keep influence positive).
Something like 2^(#number of owned systems - # of systems in galaxy / 10) -> hmm would be fraction in power and not sqrt but I didn't manage to find a similar sqrt function. In principal the function doesn't matter, just the size of galaxy should be taken into account.

If stability is negative, maybe the workers could first go to strike (setting all meters to zero) and than revolt (offering the planet to another player for some cost).
I like the idea of having IP as maintenance cost for ships. The bigger the ship, the more it cost (like Commando Points at MOO2). With negative IP the ships could suffer penalities (as suggested early on) or be "deactivated" and impossible to do anything (like passive with no chance to command and not taking part in battle).
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#65 Post by Oberlus »

drkosy wrote: Fri Feb 12, 2021 5:10 pm I think the number of systems in galaxy should be taken into account. Else it'll become extremely hard to play large galaxies (actually 210 systems are to much to keep influence positive).
I absolutely agree, but current consensus among devs is that influence upkeep must not differ between different games to not confuse the player (so that the moment you should need an upgrade or whatnot should be always the same, say "at your 20th planet", regardless of galaxy size).
To cope with the ever-incresing influence upkeep there will be techs and others that reduce influence upkeep. That system should be able to allow for huge games. That's will be undoubtly possible for distance-based upkeep thanks to admin centers (new building that works as capital). For number-based upkeep there should be a late game tech that puts a limit on maximum upkeep per planet so that from some point onwards there is no more upkeep increase.

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drkosy
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#66 Post by drkosy »

For number-based upkeep there should be a late game tech that puts a limit on maximum upkeep per planet so that from some point onwards there is no more upkeep increase.
That's a great idea, because you don't need difficult calculations and each empire starts small. Later on you that can go to conquer the whole galaxy no mater if small or big.

By the way: As far as I remember right there was a conversation about counting systems instead of colonies. I did't found that threat any more, but as I read here colonies are counted. For me both is well, as long as outposts doesn't count. That's because gas giant generators and asteroid belts could get extremly expensive early on due to influence push of outposts. At the moment they don't "need" influence as colonies do but the increase the influence cost.
In my recent game I play with 210 systems and visited approx 60 systems, no one with several planets and one gas giant but some with one planet + gg. In principal I should't create an outpost on them because it pushes the influence cost extremly. Especially early on, as technology is hard to get (and therefore tech that gives IP als well), that will make gg-generators a hard decision. Even more badly it would very much depend on luck, if you have "juicy" places near by. That is what I think, but I'm pretty shure you have an eye on that already :)
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Grummel7
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#67 Post by Grummel7 »

Just switched to weekly test build recently. I think it is a good idea to stop players from spreading too quickly early on and the IP looks like a good way, though it is far from working right now. After two games I think generally the best strategy now is to set Centralization in turn 4, later switch to Industrialism and then spread as usual and ignore your IP for the rest of the game.

Centralization is an absolute nobrainer right now. It gives you a bonus to production and research at a point in time when it really matters a lot. Early on the penalty to colonies hardly hurts, you can set them all to influence focus while they are small, the home world bonus outweighs it easily. (Btw. the help text says, other colonies are penalized without saying that it is the influence meter that is reduced). The only question is how long to keep it. I think it should be a policy that helps slow spreading empires that cannot find planets to settle, but quickly expanding empires should not profit from it. Suggestion: As an additional penalty make it increase the cost of building outpost and colony ships. And call it "Homeworld first". :lol: It would still help you build the Automated History Analyser, but when you disable it after a only a few turns afterwards to build outposts, it may not be worth the lost IP.

I also support the idea that outposts should not have the same maintenance cost penalty as colonies. When you do care for IP, even Gas Giant Generators are hardly worth being build, unless you have multiple production colonies in the same system. Except that there is a bug right now: You can build a GGG, then abandon the colony and it keeps working for you.

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LienRag
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#68 Post by LienRag »

Anvil wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:59 am Just switched to weekly test build recently. I think it is a good idea to stop players from spreading too quickly early on
That's how it works now and it's actually very bad.

The good idea is to stop players from spreading too much later in the game, when the production is good enough to colonize everywhere (which becomes then a no-brainer, and no-brainers are bad).

Imho the initial Influence production is way too low, it doesn't bring anything to the game to restrict Colonization through Influence costs that early. One shouldn't have to worry about Influence costs (except maybe if he wants to rush to some Influence projects, but they are not implemented yet) before ten planets at least.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#69 Post by Oberlus »

The problem is not too low influence production, it is influence upkeep, that grows exponentially with number of planets (N^2). Discussion here.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#70 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:11 pm The problem is not too low influence production, it is influence upkeep, that grows exponentially with number of planets (N^2). Discussion here.
I disagree (and yes I read the discussion you're pointing to). Some sort of exponential cost is necessary to have a mid-game challenge and prevent "Colonize everywhere" pattern.
The exact formula needs a lot of tailoring so as to make further colonization challenging though not impossible, but what makes the game bad as of now is the too weak Influence production of the Capitol.
There's really no point in making the player concerns himself with Influence at the fourth or fifth planet he settles, there are already enough challenges at this part of the game. Adding Influence problems too soon is just boring.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#71 Post by Oberlus »

I don't know what you disagree with. I certainly want exponential growth, as commented in the linked discussion, just not N^2. I don't see your point, since it's already shared by others and explained elsewhere.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#72 Post by Grummel7 »

LienRag wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:38 pm The good idea is to stop players from spreading too much later in the game, when the production is good enough to colonize everywhere (which becomes then a no-brainer, and no-brainers are bad).

Imho the initial Influence production is way too low, it doesn't bring anything to the game to restrict Colonization through Influence costs that early. One shouldn't have to worry about Influence costs (except maybe if he wants to rush to some Influence projects, but they are not implemented yet) before ten planets at least.
Well, if you don't have to care fore Influence before reaching 10 planets, settling every planet you can early on is more or less a no-brainer. If one players settles 10 planets while another only finds hostile and poor planets, the second player is pretty much screwed. That's why I think giving Centralization as a boost to small empires while slowing down lucky ones would be good. At the moment even the lucky ones profit from Centralization for quite some time.

I think in the ideal game, settling / conquering more planets should always be a challenge, but with enough tech you should be able to conquer the galaxy without applying a scorch earth strategy.
Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:11 pm The problem is not too low influence production, it is influence upkeep, that grows exponentially with number of planets (N^2). Discussion here.
<nitpick mode>I thought that thanks to Covid-19 nowadays everybody understand exponential growth... N^2 is quadratic, 2^N is exponential </nitpick mode>

Btw. before I forget it again: The tech tree now shows which techs give new policies. I think there should also be an icon to show which ones grant new policy slots.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#73 Post by Oberlus »

Anvil wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:53 pm
Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 1:11 pm The problem is not too low influence production, it is influence upkeep, that grows exponentially with number of planets (N^2). Discussion here.
<nitpick mode>I thought that thanks to Covid-19 nowadays everybody understand exponential growth... N^2 is quadratic, 2^N is exponential </nitpick mode>
You are so right. I keep using the wrong names... And actually I meant polynomial, not quadratic. Current equation is N^2, but N^1.5 is what is decided as the fix.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#74 Post by Grummel7 »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:02 pm You are so right. I keep using the wrong names... And actually I meant polynomial, not quadratic. Current equation is N^2, but N^1.5 is what is decided as the fix.
Actually this is wrong, too. Polynomial functions have integer exponents. But please do not ask me what the correct term would be. :?

So the plan is to set the IP cost of each colony to some constant times sqrt(#colonies/outposts), right?
Sounds better than what it is now, but it cannot be the only fix. As long as Influence focus produces a fixed amount, once the costs get close to that amount you have a problem.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#75 Post by Oberlus »

Anvil wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:07 pm Actually this is wrong, too. Polynomial functions have integer exponents. But please do not ask me what the correct term would be. :?
Oh, really? :lol:
Now I have to look for it...
In one math place I saw they call it "general nonlinear equation".
Well, then, we are looking at a superlinear growth slower than quadratic :mrgreen:

Anvil wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:07 pm So the plan is to set the IP cost of each colony to some constant times sqrt(#colonies/outposts), right?
Sounds better than what it is now, but it cannot be the only fix. As long as Influence focus produces a fixed amount, once the costs get close to that amount you have a problem.
Yes.
Initially (no policy or tech) total colony IP cost is c*#colonies^2; actually, sum of C*#colonies over all colonies.
Certain policies will allow to make it c*#colonies^1.5, i.e. sum of c*sqrt(#colonies), and/or C*jumps_to_capital. All these "c" are independent constants (to be finetuned). For now the idea is to have one policy (Centralization could be it, not sure) that makes upkeep strongly depend on distance to capital and much less on number of colonies, and another one (Federation) that doesn't consider distance to capital. These two have a malus to IP when disconnected from the empire capital (stronger for Centralization). Maybe a third policy if we come up with another equation differentiated enough and that allows for interesting strategic choices, probably related to distributed-hidden empires. For this I think of Autarky (economic policy, big malus to supply, bonus to planetary stealth, no disconnected-from-capital IP malus), but the equation should be based on #colonies. So:
- Centralization: 0.5 *JumpsToCapital + 0.1 * sqrt(#colonies) + 2 if disconnected.
- Federation: 0.5 * sqrt(#colonies) + 0.1 *JumpsToCapital + 1 if disconnected.
- Autarky: 0.5 * sqrt(#colonies).
Something like this, number are wild guesses yet.

These policies allow for further expansion with possitive influence up to a point when superlinear growth catches up. Mid game techs would allow to reduce the value of the constants for the Federation/Autarky influence upkeeps or to build additional regional centers (extra capitols) to keep JumpsToCapital small enough, and in both cases, there should be some late game policy that puts a cap on maximum IP per colony. Other techs or policies would modify influence production, by increasing focused or unfocused IP output. I'm thinking of letting centralized empires to only set influence focus on the capital (or regional centers) but giving them a population boost and making influence output dependent on population (so X*population instead of just 3 IP per planet), as well as the bonuses that centralization already has. Federation, on the other hand, would allow to set any planet to influence but produce a flat amount, that can increase with refined techs or complementary policies. And Autarky would have few ways to produce much influence at the same time that it has few IP sinks: they are not very influential.

Hopefully this would allow to play in any reasonable galaxy size, if not for the late game cap on influence upkeep.


I'm trying to get a set of policies that play way together and that make sense regarding description/fluff/realism-expectancies. I'm wasting time trying to find something that I like what separates influence production stuff ("type of government" policies, for social slots) and influence upkeep stuff ("type of economy distribution" policies, for economic slots). The formers would be Galactic Republic/Federation, Galactic Empire/Dominion, and maybe Galatic Autarchism (government by the individuals, utterly direct democracy, with fluff on social networks and the such, that could serve the same for a pirate/mercenary civilization than for a hive mind species; but all that is for roleplaying, not for gameplay). The latters would be Centralization (upgraded version: Regionalism), Distributed Economy (upgraded: Catalaxy), and Autarky (can't think of any upgrade for this one).

Ideas and criticism very welcome.

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