Population and Morale

DraconisUmbra

Join Date 04/2006

Population and Morale

Whenever I play I usually make most of my planets economic planets. For every farm I have two entertainment tiles. I also research VR's quickly, exploit Morale resources and build empire wide Morale improvements as I can. I never had a problem with higher class planets and large populations using this method until Dark Avatar. Now my morale on those planets is in the crapper and keeps getting worse. I get that higher population means a higher penalty to moral, thats fine. Entertainment is supposed to counterbalance that. But in addition to a higher penalty, my people's "Native Ability" keeps decreasing! What gives! It should go up as I develop Morale resources and empire wide improvements but it keeps backsliding so that I get punished twice for a higher population. Is this supposed to happen? If so, why?

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I like to think positive. It's a different game every time they make a new release. Some things good, some things bad, but always different. Very replayable just because of that

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On higher taxes, consider: in a futuristic society money goes a lot farther. Look at current economic theory. In the dark ages, the idea was that in order for one person to gain something someone else had to lose something. Now we have this crazy (but so far successful) idea that it is possible for EVERYONE to make a profit. No one has to lose in modern economic theory -- the only question is how much you are winning by. In GalCiv 2 we appear to be considering a futuristic society that presumably has developed better methods for using the resources available to it, and renewable energy to boot.

I think that its questionable whether or not money appreciates as a result of technological gains. The concept that everyone can make a profit is purely illusion - some one must always produce the goods and services. Taxation is really a backdoor ownership of production. In modern economics people always lose their investments - its a necessary outcome that happens when supply and demand (which dynamically follow each other) experience a "correction" i.e achieve equilibrium. Equating consumption of goods and services with the production of them is only conflating terms - ambigious equivocating ... so the question still remains, is the GalCiv2 gaming experienced going to be improved by implementing more realistic modeling of socio-economic factors, or is it just unnessessary? Do we want tougher more challenging AI or is Old McDonalds farm good enough?

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It's game mechanics. Plain and simple, and it works, in that it's meant to ensure that players can't just make huge high-pop worlds and harvest money.

They chose to make the econ system work that way, they should have thought about it a little better. No clairvoyance needed, just some basic common sense, and knowing how the game really works. Now, if you go the "doesn't have to make sense" way, then 100B pop worlds aren't really an issue - a realism issue I mean. Just adjust taxes to those numbers.

But contray to your earlier statement, excusing such illogical things as game mechanics is not just valid, it's absolutly essental to gameplay.

A couple of mechanics, sure. But a *whole* game?! Is there anything in the game that doesn't have this kind of excuse? It makes learning the game morer difficult, and you just have to read the forums to know this is an issue. And it forces you to memorize caps and thresholds and a bunch of stuff, that you shouldn't have to.

Each update fixes 1 thing and screwes up 6 other things.

This is unfortunate, yes. Each new feature also adds a few bugs or unwanted behavior. Lack of a dedicated beta team I guess.

It's a different game every time they make a new release. Some things good, some things bad, but always different. Very replayable just because of that

Not using a feature because it's broken until it's fixed, that's a strange concept of replayability.

is the GalCiv2 gaming experienced going to be improved by implementing more realistic modeling of socio-economic factors, or is it just unnessessary?

Understanding the basics of the game might improve yes. Not really realistic, but logical. Casual play also improves, if you don't have to memorize caps. Reduces forum traffic too, with questions about stuff that apparently doesn't make sense. And yes, a game is a game, but that doesn't preclude it making sense. Heck, even card games have a sense to its mechanics.

Do we want tougher more challenging AI or is Old McDonalds farm good enough?

One thing doesn't exclude the other. But if they don't fix things, and improve the base mechanics, and instead add more stuff that will inevitably create more issues, they will compound and evenually become unsustainable.

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(Citizen)ToS IcemanApril 17, 2007 10:43:06

One thing doesn't exclude the other. But if they don't fix things, and improve the base mechanics, and instead add more stuff that will inevitably create more issues, they will compound and evenually become unsustainable.

An interesting point ... are you then implying that the morale cap that produces 11B pop worlds with 70% tax rates is not a base mechanic issue? Or are you suggesting that any attempt to correct base mechanic issues will necessarily create more issues that could compound and become unsustainable? Thereby inferring that nothing should be done? I am no dev, no game designer, but even I know the complexity of the issue far exceeds such simplisticism. No offense, but nice pat answers do not suffice in this case. The AI must act, as closely as possible, to the behavior of a human player - undermining the soundness of the AI for the sake of its validity is a recipe for failure - or the issue will be moot. Lets face it, the AI is the main attraction in this event. If it follows a clear, concise, intuitive plan, rather than just a jumbled mess of logical validities nested within game rubrics, the playability and presentation becomes much more immersive and enjoyable. People tend to be more appreciative of losing when they understand why the AI is winning. However, I will concede that there is a trade off - a break even point where the effort to correct minor errors is simply not cost effective. That's where CEO/Frogboy/Draginol must make an executive decision and approve/disapprove the required action. Realistically, no game is perfect, and some corrections/changes will not be implemented until a new game is developed and marketed. Such is the stuff advertising bullets are made of ...

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Well, first of all 11B pop worlds have something to do with morale buildings and how they were made all but obsolete. The morale caps, well, it's the base mechanics that should be improved so that no morale caps are needed. They're not really mechanics, they're artificial crutches to make the system not cave in on itself. The fact that you have to read the forums, or an outdated wiki, to understand the system is absurd. Not everyone does that. Players don't have to know the math behind the system, but they can't guess the thresholds either, correct? The system is not transparent, nor readily understandable.
The base mechanics that need to be addressed are pop growth and the related econ issues. Since all these factors, including morale, are related in the game, everytime you make a change that affects one of them, the whole system is affected - and the consequences aren't easy to spot. Changing caps every version for balance purposes is not really user-friendly. I wasn't saying that nothing should be done, on the contrary. The AI needs to be improved too, no argument there, but we're not talking about *one* dev, are we? Don't tell me there hasn't been time in the last few years to come up with a sustainable, logic, simple econ system. Immersion and fun don't come from the AI alone. You can't really enjoy a game if you don't understand how it works.
As for correcting minor errors, and cost effectiveness, it doesn't get better. The sooner the better. Some that are not so minor, I can't really understand why they don't get fixed, especially by a team that is said to be very responsive. I've worked with a very very small dev team, with jobs, that didn't publish their own content, and during beta I'd get more than one beta a day if needed. I don't really want to compare, just an example.
As for corrections being for another episode, was that what happened with DA? There are no pending issues with DL?

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Think about one small but important example of the "mess" that develops when things aren't thought through and let be dragged on. Planets are represented by a PQ number, which is supposed to measure their quality at an indeterminate number of characteristics. It's an easy way to grade planets, simple and clean. Does it tell you anything though? Nope. It should, but it doesn't really. It determines the pop limit in terms of natural growth for that planet, but is that really an issue? Nope. Oh yeah, there's a formula and everything, it even looks like an inteligent formula, but it doesn't do squat! Why? Because now not even PQ1s are limited by it, since they can outgrow PQ10s. In fact it now is *misleading*. Has this been solved? Nope. A higher PQ doesn't also mean a higher max pop, which goes against the very definition of PQ. It's the number of farms (and those are another issue, they don't really *feel* like a factor in the game) that does that. If the objective is to have lower max pops, around 11B, would it be so difficult to come up with such a simple concept as to have a planet's PQ be the max pop for that planet in billions, for example? And have crappy planets really be crappy? And have farms add to that limit instead? Doesn't take a rocket scientist to come up with simple solutions, all the complicated formulas are just show off and completely ridiculous. Look at the off-type defense problem, same deal.

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I agree, terraforming has become greatly unbalanced. Planets should only be allowed to inrease in increments of 1 like in the game "Iron Legion", with a requirement to research each planet quality increase prior to terraforming. Figure that a PQ1 would only support an initial colony with a maximum population limit of 1b. The tech should require 1000tps to research "terraforming 2" and require 1000 economy points to perform. Terraforming to a PQ2 should take 2k tp and 2k ep, with a pop limit of 3b. PQ3 4k tp and 4k ep with a normal pop lim. PQ4 would then be 8k tp, 8k ep; PQ5 16k tp and ep, etc., all way up to PQ32. Everybody would be required to develope/research the terraforming improvement sequentially(i.e. not a tradable tech, or aquired through capture - essentially making it a civ achievement like a tech capital. Just an example, though, for discussion purposes.

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I always thought PQ related to the size and available development area on the planet rather than the actual quality of the planet.
I don't see the problem with terraforming myself. A PQ1 planet could end up being a PQ 32 planet, or it could wind up being a PQ1 planet. You don't know until you have colonised it (or taken it over). As a result, everytime you colonise a PQ1 planet you're taking a gamble that it can be used for further development in the future.

As for the morale problem, I agree the limits should be removed. It would make more sense to switch it around - diminishing returns for cash and influence at high population thresholds would make more sense (from a gameplay perspective anyway).

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I always thought PQ related to the size and available development area on the planet rather than the actual quality of the planet.

Well, size in the starmap isn't really related to PQ, is it? As for development area, that's habitable area too. So max pop should be linked to PQ.
As for mineral quality, unfortunately the game doesn't take that into account, nor mining - except for asteroids, but that's a generic production bonus.

A PQ1 planet could end up being a PQ 32 planet, or it could wind up being a PQ1 planet. You don't know until you have colonised it (or taken it over). As a result, everytime you colonise a PQ1 planet you're taking a gamble that it can be used for further development in the future.

Not really. The only question is if you're going to get 4 OR 5 new tiles per terraforming tech on that PQ1~3. There is no surprise in it. It's absurd. You land on a planet which only has a smallish spot where to build stuff, pump a few chemicals to the ground, and all of a sudden it's way better than Earth. WTF?!
One other aspect is you can determine a planet's PQ through sensors alone. Another absurd concept. Here you have a chance to make survey modules (or even just plain sensors) more useful, and give some depth to the game by requiring physical presence, and... bleh.
Same old "it could be...".

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The Yor should have a fixed morale at 50 % and neither get sad or happy, not being able to build entertainment centers and such.

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I'm not sure if this has been answered, but is the morale hit for larger poplulations affected by the planet quality?

I could understand it if putting 11 billion people on a Class-1 planet means that 10 billion of them are unhappy cos they live in the mile-high sky-rises, while putting 11 billion on a Class-19 planet means they are all happy since they all have large estates with lots of greenary.

I've only played a few games so far, and am absoltely hooked BTW, but even I noticed that when I built 2 farms on a planet, I had to build at least 3 banks and 3 entertainments to keep my tax at 33% and my approval at 70%. With only 1 farm and 2 banks / 1 entertainment, I could have my morale at 80% but be taxing at 60%.

Only downside to having a lower overall population is that you don't get to own the UP (my last game I had 2 million votes, whereas the total of all the other races didn't even come to a million).

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