BinaryAlgorithm

Join Date 07/2006

When to Build a Farm for $$$

The TradeOff

Building farms to increase population (and therefore income) has diminishing returns. I normally show a bunch of math to prove my point, but the basic idea is that at higher tech levels, if you have less than 6-8 stock markets on a planet, it's not worth doubling the population (from 6 to 12/13). This supports the idea of using larger planets (with more tiles) to build economy worlds. I'm assuming a late-game tax rate of 69-80%, and that you want to sustain 80-100% morale on all planets. The tiles used for morale and food don't justify adding a farm on smaller planets (less than ~10 PQ). It's also not usually worth it to go beyond 15-16 population unless you have other reasons for doing it (invasions, etc). Generally, adding one high-tech farm to most worlds is profitable, especially if it has a morale bonus tile that will save an extra morale building. It will take 3-4 tiles normally to double a world's population from 6 and maintain high morale given the game's mechanics. Also, keeping high morale and using the +30 economy government is better than increasing populations to high levels and neglecting morale.

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Well, it might be in poor taste to simply quote myself, but if you DO want a lot of math to back up your theory - I posted on this topic a while ago in The Death of Morale Buildings.

I have never used a morale building since except in the very first few months of a game. Even then it is rare.

As for if farms are worth it, that depends on your empire wide morale bonus, as that will pretty much dictate the size of the population you can manage easily. The Krynn, for instance, can support much higher populations than any other race in the game. If you enjoy watching me put my foot in my mouth see NLC's and Industrial Sectors broke my economy. Here, I started off making one set of claims (that I believed to be true), and then Mumblefratz, Magnumaniac and myself worked through all of the numbers on how morale bonuses REALLY work.

If you haven't read it, I also strongly recommend you read the work done by Iztok Bitenc on the numbers behind taxes in DA - producing money - a testbed results.

Assuming you are playing DA, I cannot recommend that you ever build a morale building. Quite the contrary. The only other issue I see with your post is that you suggest only making your larger worlds economy worlds. Maybe. See, you only get a few large worlds, and sometimes you can get more per tile using other combinations - only one world in your empire can have both a tech capital and the omega research center, for instance. If you are trying to maximize output tiles (labs or factories) with bonus buildings or starbases, you are better off using large worlds for your industry and just packing your smaller worlds with stock markets and farms.

Hope that helps,
- Wyndstar

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Well I ran some in-game tests based on the formulas in the Wiki (which may be different now in DA, but the mechanics are similar). It has the following form:

Morale = -(100 * PopPenalty) - TaxPenalty + (MoraleAbility + BuildingMorale)(1 - PopPenalty)

This is not strictly correct because something gets raised to the 0.75 power; it is an approximation. I set morale to 100 for my solutions.

6B Population:
(N)(0.88) = 12 + TaxPenalty ; N = 153 (79% tax rate), 123 (69%), 103 (59%)

13B Population (1 Advanced Farm):
(N)(0.64) = 36 + TaxPenalty ; N = 247 (79%), 207 (69%), 179 (59%)

There are so many factors, but my basic logic is:

6B Pop generates SQRT(6) = (2.45)(PlanetEcoBonus)(RaceAbility)
13B Pop generates SQRT(13) = (3.60)(PlanetEcoBonus)(RaceAbility)

13B ~= (6B)(1.5)(EcoBonusFraction)

You will have to convert 3-4 tiles to make the farm and morale buildings to maintain the same morale rate. If you lost 1/3 of the eco bonus from stock markets, you would be breaking even (EcoBonusFraction >= 0.66). On a large economy world, you have more stock markets, so losing 3-4 of them represents a smaller EcoBonus loss to get the +50 tax multiplier from the population (which may justify using a farm). It seems to not be worth making a second farm because the marginal tax bonus is not +50%, but < +25%, and you've got less stock markets by that point to where you can't really justify it.

The math asside, I have additional concerns/questions:

(1) I am experimenting with super breeder, where the benefit is enormous but using it later is very difficult without lowering taxes or using morale buildings. To build a tax base with rapid growth, morale needs to be 100% up to maybe 5B (as the marginal increase in taxes is less at this point, and it will grow to 6B shortly). This needs to be through native ability to avoid building morale buildings on new colonies.

(2) I think using Star Federation is worth it for +30 Eco, but with my high tax rates I need a bunch of morale buildings on my home world. I need to find the optimal tax rate for all colonies, including those with Civ Capitals. I need to stay in the green morale zone to avoid problems. As suggested above, I need about +100% native ability to maintain even a modest 59% tax rate and achieve these goals.

(3) Is using Star Federation worth +30 Eco for having to maintain high morale rates? Or is being able to raise taxes higher and ignoring morale a better choice for the economy? Does building farms without morale buildings and letting morale fall to 40% with (so no further population growth) make more sense?

(4) Assuming super breeder, avoiding morale buildings, and Star Federation, my goal is to maintain 100% morale up to 6B with native ability, and 70%+ on Civ Capital worlds while maximizing revenue. The question really is, what tax rate do I need for a certain ability level, and what will my tax rate converge on as I max out the tech tree with the same goals? What tax rate is "too high" to meet these goals normally (or has decreasing returns that don't justify it)?

(5) Any other recommendations for building a strong economy? Do you tend to use mid or high tax rates to max it out?

(6) Should I ditch super breeder and Star Federation and just get the highest population that will grow with a farm and leave it at 40% morale, not building any morale buildings?

Sources of morale (that I can always rely on):
+10 native ability (I normally spend the 1 point on it)
+30 morale from tech
+15 morale if neutral (I guess people are Evil normally for the +100% Eco Bonus and free base upgrades? I use Neutral right now but at higher AI levels you're fighting/aggressive no matter what, so who cares if you're Evil?)
+5 raw morale on each colony, +40 on Civ Capitals

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Assuming you are playing DA, I cannot recommend that you ever build a morale building.

I do construct one morale building on each low PQ (less than 11) planet late-game, to let me raise the population of every planet to 18B. But beyond that point, the returns diminish too rapidly.

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Well, I think a lot of these answers can be found in the conversations of the threads I linked to. Still, I understand not wanting to take the time to sift through them for information. Here are some quick responses:

1) I see no actual question here, just a strategy statement. Am I missing something?

2) Yes, I think the advanced governments are worth it. You do not need morale buildings on your homeworld. Tax rate can be figured easily the same for all colonies if all your colonies are 12b or 13b (build no farms on capital worlds, 1 farm on others). You want a +100% native ability anyway. You are shooting for a +150% empire bonus (about). Once you are done breeding, there is no point in staying in the green in non-election turns, which is most of them.

3) Again, yes star federation is worth it. You can have very high tax rates for 46 out of every 48 turns. 2 turns per year is all you need to have a lower tax rate and spike approval. Is that so high a price to pay for +30% economy?? Building farms without morale buildings always makes more sense in DA. See my Death of moral buildings thread.

4) Tax rate still depends on other game variables, so you will have to adjust. How many pq11+ worlds do you have, how many morale resources do you have, what is your empire wide morale bonus, etc. You will need to adjust your tax rate to stay at 100% approval as the game state changes. Tax rates above 79% are "too high" in terms of moral hit before the endgame.

5) You want your tax rate to be 79%, and you want that as soon as possible. But be single minded in your objective. Pay whatever price it takes to keep morale at 100% while your seed planets "breed up". When they have maxed in population, switch to 79%. If you have done a proper job building empire, and so native, moral, you should never need a moral building. Do you really think a +5% or +10% moral per world will make a difference compared to the cost of the building and its upkeep?? You can build populations higher than 13billion with ease only if you have an empire bonus of over 150%. And then you are still sacrificing a tile for that population.

6) Another compound question. Don't dith super breeder. Don't ditch advanced governments. Do leave moral at 40% once your basic planets have decent populations, except for 2 turns a year. Do not build moral buildings.

There are more sources of morale. There is another +52% from galactic wonders that you should also always be getting. Some are really quite easy to attain. From everything in the tech tree it adds up to 97% bonus, 82% without neutral. Add to that +20% from ability points, +10% from political party, and +50% for Krynn, and you can get a +177% moral bonus before any morale resources. Yes, this means Krynn support the highest populations... they just don't breed the fastest in getting there.

The wiki formula is out of date for DA. Mumblefratz and I worked through that in the NLCs and Industial Sectors broke my economy thread. Nothing gets raised to any power in DA, they simplified the formula considerably.

Hope that helps,
- Wyndstar

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Well, I think a lot of these answers can be found in the conversations of the threads I linked to. Still, I understand not wanting to take the time to sift through them for information.

Come on, give me some credit here. I actually did read all of those links because I figure you and your friends have already debated some of these issues. I've also read one of your play journals and enjoyed it (Altarian AAR). I spent a couple of hours testing in-game and running through the equations to explore the concepts (actually tweaking values and testing tax and morale). I may write a program to assist me soon so it will be faster to do the calcs.

Knowing the equations is not enough when you've got other strategic considerations. As you know, learning all of the game mechanics (including the math) takes a long time. Some things are only known by the very experienced players through observation. For instance, I'm not sure which 2 turns the morale must be high to run an advanced government (right before election?). Given that, I'd rather just let the morale settle at 40% and not worry about it (since it basically doesn't matter). If I'm going to place a morale building, it's going to be one of the last two techs on a planet such as a troop breeder (I agree that the first few morale buildings are useless).

I did notice the Krynn morale ability, but I normally play custom races. If anything, I think the Altarians fit my play style. Morale really just translates into economy anyway, so playing +60 Eco with +30 morale should be sufficient (I believe you favor this race also?).

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Come on, give me some credit here.

Sorry, I was starting to get tired. Tone doesn't always come across appropriately in text. I meant no offense. At first glance, it looked like a lot of your questions were duplicative of issues already covered.

For instance, I'm not sure which 2 turns the morale must be high to run an advanced government (right before election?).

On your colony management screen, in the government and ethics tab, it should count down to your election. When it says the election will be held "this week", spike your approval. If you need practice and are worried about losing an election, spike your approval when the screen says "elections will be held next week", and just leave your approval high for two turns, till you get the timing down. Once set, nothing ever changes when elections happen. If you play for many years, you then just need to remember to start checking it two months. For instance, if your first election is in March, try to make a mental note to check how close you are to elections in March and September (or Feb. and Aug.)

If I'm going to place a morale building, it's going to be one of the last two techs on a planet such as a troop breeder

I'm a big fan of a "troop breeder world" as one of the basics in an empire, but still, I'm not sure what you really want here are morale buildings. Unless you can place enough morale buildings here that the population hits 100%, or even 75%, while everyone else is at 40%, the morale building is wasted. I have found consistantly that fertility clinics work better on a per tile basis than morale buildings for a troop transport world. Just my experience.
Remember, the effect of morale buildings decreases as populations rise. The +5% of an entertainment center isn't even that good, usually it is more like a +3% or +4%. In any case, by the time you have decent sized populations, a VR center is probably only providing what, a 13% bonus? a 12% bonus? VR centers bottom out at providing as little as 4% each. Is 4% morale to one world ever worth a tile?
Fertility clinics, on the other hand just give you a +25% fertility boost. Say you want a +50% fertility boost. If you try to go for 75% morale when everyone else is at 40%, you will need 3 VR centers (at about a 13% increase per) to get that 50% increase in breeding, vs. needing only two tiles for fertility clinics. Same goes if you try to punch up your morale to 100% for the breed boost. Still cheaper tile wise to just build 4 fertility clinics.

But, and here is the kicker, fertility clinics are also waaaay better than morale buildings when it comes to a troop breeder world? Why? Even if the tiles were equal, at some point, morale buildings stop having an effect on your breeding because you hit 100% morale on the world, and you have your full bonus. But with more tiles, you can keep building fertility clinics and exceed the 100% morale bonus to breeding. Instead of using 6 tiles on morale buildings to get a 16b pop world up to 100% morale for a 100% pop growth bonus, you could have built 6 fertility clinics and gotten a +150% pop growth bonus.

Magnumaniac spelled out the only good reason to use morale buildings IMO - micormanagement. It takes less micormanagement if dealing with elections to just always leave your approval at around 60%. You essentially introduce tile inefficiency by using morale buildings to facilitate easier game management. Up to you if that tradeoff is worthwhile.

I did notice the Krynn morale ability, but I normally play custom races. If anything, I think the Altarians fit my play style. Morale really just translates into economy anyway, so playing +60 Eco with +30 morale should be sufficient (I believe you favor this race also?).

While I don't have a favorite race, the Altarians are one of my "fav 4", the stock races I just enjoy playing and always feel fairly powerful (Krynn, Korath, Thalans, Altarians). I was crushed they did so poorly in my latest tournament. Morale does mostly translate into economy, but it does do more than that. Because a higher morale bonus raises the size of populations you can put on every planet, it will also effect your influence, and you will suffer less of a wartime hit because launching troop transports effects you less. Also, your worlds all have slightly more defense against invasions because you have higher populations. The Altarians are very very good... and a +30% morale is nothing to sneeze at, it will leave you with somewhere between a +120% and +130% when you are done with all the morale boosts in the tech tree. One or two morale resources (yellow ones) will have you easily fielding 16b-18b populations. With a 79% tax rate. I'm always assuming that you have a 79% tax rate once you are done breeding.

If there was a multiplayer, I would love to take on a Krynn player with the Altarians... they are deadly if you know what you are doing.

Again, sorry if my tone in my last post seemed abrupt or inconsiderate. That was not my intention. I'm trying to answer your questions. Hope this helps.

- Wyndstar

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No worries

I found it impractical to maintain 100% morale for the super breeder ability (also costs money indirectly); other abilities are always useful. Taking that out of the picture, morale management is a bit easier. As you suggested, I don't use morale buildings to boost growth because fertility clinics are far superior; you only need enough to maintain 41% morale at 25B so the population can grow. With a large planet and some specials, you can get 300M+ growth each turn (too bad the basic growth is capped at 75M). On normal planets, I might use one VR center to keep morale above 60% for elections (so I don't have to remember); though I realize it wastes a tile, I think it's good practice in case the designers eliminate the "exploit" of only keeping morale high for a turn for elections. Plus I don't have to remember it lol.

I played Thalan early on because of their larger homeworld and bonuses, although I've outgrown the need for it. Super Hive makes the all-factories quick, meaning that points that I would put into social production can go to other things. The Krynn I haven't experimented with. The Korath spore ships are just a pain in the ass for me because I don't have ships on all planets and they move fast; I had to blast them in a game because they were the only one of nine that was threatening me at my tech level (but I haven't played as them yet). The Altarians are looking to be my favorite stock race because I need a boost to all the areas they offer - economy, research, and to a lesser extent, morale. Works great to compensate all-factories.

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As you suggested, I don't use morale buildings to boost growth because fertility clinics are far superior; you only need enough to maintain 41% morale at 25B so the population can grow.

Wait, you are seriously trying to push planets to 25B and beyond in DA?!

If I were that insane

, I would not bother going up to 41% morale. 21% morale, so I don't lose population, would be good enough, then I'd keep shipping in population from other planets. The number of extra morale buildings needed to get from 21% to 41% morale doesn't seem like a good return on investment; I'd rather have more Stock Markets.

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Is it just me being dizzy watching the numbers when altering the taxrate, or hasn't morale an effect on production efficiency as well?

Also, why 79% instead of 80% when the hardcapped penalty begins at 81%?

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I suppose 21% is ok if you're sending in troops from full planets. I was refering to having the planet grow it's own population continuously, however, with FCs to increase the growth. It's a bit less micromanagement, but your approach will work fine also.

When I say 79% I mean 80%. I'm just used to the boundaries between each 10% where there is a morale penalty.

I'm starting to include my best farm in each colony with no morale buildings, and letting the growth settle whereever it does. Mid to late game, morale bonuses will support populations of 13B using an advanced farm and my abilities.

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Also, why 79% instead of 80% when the hardcapped penalty begins at 81%?

Because the tax rate is rounded in some really weird manner that causes 80% taxes to not actually get you any more money than 79%, while you do still lose that bit of approval. Pay attention to your actual revenue numbers when you're changing the tax rate around, and you'll notice that sometimes a 1% increase/decrease in taxes won't actually make any difference at all.

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Honestly, I build 1 farm and 1 rec building on each planet. Firstly. With a meager 6B people you are easily conquered by a SINGLE transport ship (assuming 1000 per transport). Secondly, you can launch a transport from almost any planet, and you get more money without TOO much micromanagement (since you just get used to plopping one of those on every planet...)

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I thought a civilzation wide morale bonuses only counted up to 100%. Does anything past 100% still help your morale?

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I thought a civilzation wide morale bonuses only counted up to 100%. Does anything past 100% still help your morale?

It's 100% after being multiplied by the base morale. So, ideally you synchronize your planet populations (higher population = lower base morale) with your civilization morale bonus so that you don't "waste" any of the bonus.

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